Coolers, suckouts, run bad with a health dose of bad play

How've ya been? I've running terribly. Like the title of the post, I've been running into nasty coolers, followed by sick suckouts which can only lead to one thing, bad tilty play. Yes folks, the bankroll's been taking a beating.

On the bright side, I did get to go play some live poker at Treasure Island last weekend. For the most part, that actually sucked. For starters, I didn't bring enough cash with me to play $3/$6 or one of the spread limit games. I'm also far too cheap to use their ATM's. Better to just blow cash at the table then pay a fee, right? (yeah, I don't get that one either)

They tell me it was packed Saturday night because Johnny Rivers was playing and he's a big draw.Who knew? Never the less, the wait in the card room was annoyingly long.I kept asking about starting a new table. There were easily enough people on the board to do it. Staffing was a problem. Sigh. Eventually, they did start one. I had been waiting for a friend from work...he too was running late. Omens should be heeded.

My table seemed fun to start. There's a guy that reminded me a lot of Eddie Jemison, 'Livingston Dell' in Ocean's Eleven. He told stories of his dad gambling it up. There was a lady next to him. She claimed to be from Las Vegas. She lived there, you know. She also explained to me that there just weren't live card rooms any where any more. Really? Did they all close up since December? Well, she said, "...there might be one or two. All the rooms on the Strip are just automated machines." I must have drank far more Sam Adams then I thought. I could have sworn Teddy "KGB" and I were playing with real cards at the Flamingo.

It was fairly obvious, I was the only sober guy at the table, but this didn't stop it from being the most loose passive limit hold 'em game I've ever played in. I tried tight aggressive for a while. That was both boring and totally ineffectual. I started talking about wild games I'd played and started open raising with hands like 10 8s. Of course it won. Duh! Well, that was the last hand I won. I had done a great job of establishing myself as a loose maniac. Now all I needed to do was hit a hand.

I tried to really stir the pot by asking to do a live straddle. Let's see what the table was made of! The guy on my left seemed like the gambling kind to. When I asked the dealer about straddling, he told me he had thought of doing the same thing on the previous orbit. I suggested he double straddle. Maybe we should even cap it blind. This made several people at the table openly skiddish. He didn't straddle, but it didn't stop 6 other people, including him, to just call my opening $4 straddle.

Wouldn't you know, I had AKo in the hole.I made it $6, no one folds and I watched a lovely selection of medium cards come...2 crubs. Since I'm not CK, I know crubs never get there for me. I had one of them, but runner/runner is not my favorite drawing pattern. I raised, everyone calls. I check he turn and the river cuz it's pretty obvious that of couple of these people have a piece...yep, the dude on my left paired his 8. He wasn't folding. He wasn't raising, but he told me he was surprised I didn't raise. He had hoped to call me all the way down.

So that night pretty much sucked. Tight/aggressive doesn't work against 8 loose/passives unless you hit your hand and loose/crazy as your table image only helps when a card or two fall your way. Bummer.

At home here, Rush poker has dominated my online time. I had a really great first part of the month. I ran it up. Then in the middle, followed this pattern most nights. Fold, fold, fold, little pot, little pot, fold, fold, AA vs 10 2s - he hits trips on the turn...we were all in pre flop...sigh...stacked. Reload, fold, fold, fold, KK vs A3o - all-in preflop. A on the turn. Stacked. Reload. Start splashing chips around, Flop the nuts. River makes me the second nuts, still get it all in...stacked. Sigh. Chase some more. Swear a little. Rinse, lather repeat.

Poker can be a bitch some times.

I'm about to make Iron Man for the second straight month. Kinda cool, but I doubt I'll do it again. I really just don't like playing that hard, every day. I need to play some sit-n-go's once and a while and not make many points. That's much more my thing.

I'm gonna share with you one hand from tonight how ever. Really kinda wish this was for more money. I was playing the super micro $.05/.02 Rush to kill a little time and lose a small amount.dough. The way the hand played out, I was pretty sure this guy had either hit the boat or the ace high flush on the river. I'm guessing those teasing raises were met with, "you idiot, I've got a boat. Ha! Look at this sucker betting his flush...oh CRAP!"

Being on the delivering end of a cooler is way more fun then getting them. I just wish I'd get to do it a little more often. I was beginning to think I could never win a hand. Tomorrow night is Bourbonators, aka Whiskey Club. Looking forward to it! Hopefully, I'll remember to post something about this month's booze. Hopefully.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I'm feeling the green of my ancestors today. Hopefully the snakes are still gone where you are. And...be careful out there. It's amature night at the bars. These kids have no idea how to drink large quantities of green beer and Irish whiskey!

-- Posted from my cell phone that starts with the i.

The Mammoth Rebuy concludes - Blogger mobneys are da best

Now, how fun was that? Thanks Katitude for hosting the Mammoth Rebuy for those of us unable to attend Mastodon Weekend in G-Vegas. The Mammoth felt like old times at the Blogger Friday Night Donkament. $1 + $1 rebuy with mandatory shoving of hammers is just what the doctor ordered. It was almost better then G...no it wasn't, but hell. Showing Buddy the 5 high bluff could come close.

JJ was good to me more then once tonight, ok, it was exactly twice, but I was able to finally match stacks and for a few minutes be the chipleader to card rack, and spectacular luckbox by the name of the PokerWolf. Geebus dude, how many times did you get aces? I got them once. got paid for 'em too, but that's another story. For a while tonight, he had an M of 240. Friggin' 240!

Congrats to on_thg for finishing 3rd. Way to fight with the short stack and take total advantage of my over playing Rush poker lately. (Look, two cards, I raise. Fawk!) BuddyDank finished 4th. His Ako was no match for my JJo. JJ was the nuts for me tonight. Bubbling tonight was Longshot1999 (sorry no link love, you got a blog, shoot me the link!).

PokerWolf and I were sitting at 60 some big blinds at midnight. My math co-processor had long since gone to bed and I was merely playing position and situations. Simple math was out of the question. I get the feeling PokerWolf was starting to feel the same way. He offered up a 50/50 chop. It was late, it sounded zzzz.....where was I?

We'll need to do this more. By 12:30 CST, people were disappearing from chat like crazy. Either we are getting old, or AlCantHang is gonna be embarrassed the next time he's hanging out with us. That's it for me. I'm about ready to fall over. And to the angels out there, it shoved nicely :) Thanks! Good game everyone! Good night!

(I tried proofing this. Didn't work. Too tired. Read it best you can. Must sleep now. Night night.)

Am I bitter about not going to Mastodon Weekend, maybe a little

It's Mastodon Weekend in G-Vegas. As Kat reminds us suffering from Responsible Adult Syndrome (RAS), we have to avoid our urges to spend the weekend running rickshaws around the block and drinking far more booze then we should.

The Friday night rebuy is back! Even if you are in G-Vegas, fire up that laptop, hook up to the intertubes and shove baby shove. So fire up Full Tilt and look for me, or Kat or tournament #14366796. If you are like me and have been playing nothing but rush poker for the last month, this won't be much different.

And don't forget, we say 'Hello' at this game by shoving absolutely any two cards for "a while". Maybe TwoBlackAce will stop by and break his record of, not sure if this is accurate, but something like 78 rebuys? So pull out the bankroll, grab some one and come join us as we set them on fire.

Friday. 9 pm CST - Full Tilt. You know you want to...

WBPT Trip Report: Part 8 - Football at Lagasse Stadium #WPBT

I usually schedule my flight out of Vegas for Monday morning. I hate saying good bye, especially on this weekend. You know, you probably won't get to see some of these people again, others it will be far too long before you get to hang out. Leaving in the wee hours of Monday morning kinda feels like sneaking out in the middle of the night only with a few hours of sleep.

In 2008, I had traveled with OhCountess. Sunday was our day to go explore Las Vegas just the two of us. Nice dinner, romantic walks, quality time without the kids and distractions. This year, no mrs. She's just not a big fan of me having a romantic dinner without her. TheLuckBox put up a few tweets telling everyone that a private room was arranged at the Palazzo's Lagasse Stadium. All we needed to do was drink and eat to some amount of cash. This group should be able to drink to any set bar tab amount. We be that good.

This post will kinda be a pic dump. As you'll see from the pictures, this place was amazing. But to be honest, the best part of the whole experience was that this room provided a way for everyone to just mingle and chat. No hookers. No Dealertainers. No slot machines. Just great conversations. It was awesome. Well, maybe the fact the Vikes won didn't hurt either...

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This first picture gives you a little bit of an idea just how big this place was. You can even see the faint glow of the Galaxians machine in the back. Drizz, Waffles and Maigrey can give you lessons if you need them. I didn't get my 10,000 hours in when I was a kid. I sucked.

Yeah, there's a pool table in here too. Those PDA looking things in some of the guys hands, those are wireless units for doing all kinds of betting. Such as, will the next play be a run or a pass. Degenerates.

This is the pit we watched the Vikes win. That's the biggest LCD I've ever seen. Holy crap. Hey, honey, me want one. Tanks.

Mediocre teams like the Patriots were show on smaller inferior TV's in back corners. Hi Dawn!!

Drizz and the Wife have a bet every year. The Wife's only real character flaw is she's from Wisconsin and has never been able to shake her love of the Cheeseheads. The Packers sucked this year...so Drizz provided here with a shirt she could wear and truly look as classy as she really is. The #4 and the word "Favre" on the back really brought out the color of her eyes.

LOOK! Purple shoes! How cool!

She's just thinking about how awesome she'll look in purple. You can see it in her expression.

Damn! She's looking mighty fine! Hubba hubba!

This was in the hallway outside of the private suite. She kept tearing up. I didn't get it.

Everyone smiling. Harmony and peace filled the land.

Mmmm...salty.

By the end of the day, it was really filling up in here. I'd like to introduce you. Hello, blog reader, this is almost everyone. Everyone, it's the blog readers. Say hi and shake hands...

I failed to get this last two post out by March. Sorry CK. I did get this one out before Mastodon Weekend, which I wish was heading to. I really hope we get this same room next year. It was a great way for everyone to just hang out. I wish I had taken better advantage of it, there were many people I just never got to chat with that I had hoped to. Regrets I hope to rectify next year. Is it too early to book my room? I'm ready to go back. Just say the word.