Thursday, August 31, 2006

Trial Prep=No Poker

Have not played since my cash game because I have been preparing for trial. Hope to play live or online this weekend, but not sure because I am awfully busy.

Monday, August 28, 2006

Bachelor Weekend Repost

My wife drove up to see her mom this weekend and to help here with a yard sale.

As an introvert, I enjoy some me time now and then to recharge, and as a poker player I enjoy a couple days to play without sacrificing time with my wife, but still it's no fun having my best friend absent.

Especially since the last couple of days I've been feeling pretty down. Not sure why.

HORSE is still crazy good. I can play in a tournament or two and still finish up 15 BB or more playing 1 or 2 tables for a couple of hours. I am sure it will end soon, but while it lasts it feels good to have some positive poker cash flow again. Also it was absolutely fabulous for clearing the last of my bonus.

MINI TRIP REPORT

Friday at Bob's was fun. Watched the game, broke even in the tourneys (played 2 for $5, finished second for $10 in one). Bob's a good guy, and i enjoyed seeing his new place. Hope we can get a home game rolling soon.

Saturday I broke about even in the single tables (chopped a couple), bounced out of the tourney in record time (should not have joined the survivor pool), and booked a win in the NL game.

To be frank I was not playing particularly well (I allowed a bit of "scared money" tighten me up a bit more than the table warranted), but managed to survive a very aggressive table with some well-timed semi-bluffs and hitting some hands.

Also, however, I never had AK or a pair higher than Jacks all night and still booked a win. It was funny -- no one respected a raise or a continuation bet -- we had one guy who would call any PF raise, flop, and turn bets with paint boards with his eights, then finally believe on the river and fold to a quarter-pot bet.

If only I had had a premium hand all night -- I would have been sitting on much more instead. Crazy game. I look forward to playing it again, because I think there's money to be made there. It used to be a capped game, but now that they have increased the buy-in it plays a little better.


Thursday, August 24, 2006

Bachelor Weekend

My wife is driving up to see her mom this weekend and to help here with a yard sale. Bachelor weekend ahoy.

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Broken Record

I'm lacking tournament patience again. I have a good dose of aggression, but I can't seem to wait for cards in between my spurts of aggression.

Fortunately my HORSE play keeps me freerolling when I do play tournaments. SOFT

Monday, August 21, 2006

All Right!

Well, looks like I may get back into the arena after all. I have been assigned to a trial in Philly starting with jury pick on September 7. Nice.

The binders to prep arrive tomorrow, and I could not be more excited.

Saturday, August 19, 2006

I Know I Say Stuff Like This A Lot

But holy crap get your ass to the HORSE tables at PS NOWWWWWWW

Or HOSE, they're sick soft too. Doubled my PS bankroll in two days at low stakes. Really.

Friday, August 18, 2006

I wonder....

what kind of father I am going to make.

Some of you may know that my wife and I are trying to have a child. We've had a few hiccups on that front, but as I move towards fatherhood, I start to get nervous, even though no sticks have turned pink yet or anything.

I collect movie trailers on my IPod, and recently Pursuit of Happyness [sic] appeared. In it, Will Smith play a dad, whose kid says "you're a good papa." For whatever reason, that choked me up.

Poker is fun, law is rewarding, but I still wonder what fatherhood will do to my life, and how I will do.

I hope I will be someone my kids will look up to.

I hope I am someone they will be happy to continue in their lives after they grow up.

I hope I will be able to guide them into a good path for their life.

I hope that my flaws as a person won't reflect too poorly on them.


It's going to be cool. And scary. I can't wait.

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Never Mind, Still in a Rut

I still suck, and playing limit did not help.

Hope this will end soon!

WSOP Thoughts

I wonder if it's true that Jamie Gold tipped a million dollars or more.

If true, I also wonder why on earth he would do that.

I am a pretty generous person. I used ot wait tables, and as a result you're getting 20% post-tax, unless you peed in my food or something. I feel the same way about dealers, and make sure they get at least a buck a pot, more with bigger pots, and I often tip them on the way off the table, too. When I cash in a tourney I tip even if I made the bottom cash. It's just what I do.

However, considering 1) the amount of abuse Harrah's heaped upon the players as a result of taking enormous juice for the stated purpose of toking the players and 2) the likelihood that this tip might not see its way in full to those dealers, I don't think I would be quite so generous.

Would I tip? Probably, although some of the pros say they never will anymore. But look at it this way: typical casino tournament directors will tell you 3 to 5% is fair. 5% is 600K. So that's my ceiling on a $12M purse.

I know some would state that the dealers got screwed this year, and therefore they need the tip money. Hey, from all reports Harrah's was greedy as hell and dishonest with their dealer staff, and they were screwed. But although a few grand per dealer might take some of that sting way, I GUARANTEE that Harrah's will use this generosity as an excuse not to treat the dealers any better next year.

The best way for the dealers to improve their position, if such improvement is warranted, is to walk out en masse. Pulling even more money out of the prize pool really isn't going to solve much.



In an attempt to facilitate discussion here, I have enabled anyone to comment now, with a word verification feature to avoid spam. I hope this will go smoothly. I will be moderating comments, so if you have a personal issue of any sort with me, send me an e-mail first.

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Bad Rut, Bad Attitude

I am not playing well the past couple of weeks when I get time to play. The best examples of this are the WPTFSOP events I have been speaking about the last few weeks.

In the PLHE tourney last night, I chipped up a bit early, but then decided to call off half my stack with one pair against a solid player. Not a good idea.

I then got short and pushed with K 2, only to have the other shorty (who knows it's chip up or fold there so I am not faulting his play) call with 10 8 and hit an 8.

I wish I could say I am running bad, but in fact I am not focused and I am not playing well. I hope the tailspin will end soon.

The result is me being very down on myself, even though I am ahead of the game in this series with my cashes. The fact that I surrendered the WPTFSOP lead to the S/8 specialist with only a few tourneys left to play has me bummed. I may have closed myself out of the prize pool unless I do REALLY well in the other remaining events, as the players right behind me are pretty good, too. I'll have to hope to taunt Tony into tilt since he has no chat ;), play much better than I have been, and get insanely lucky. OK, maybe not.

Friday, August 11, 2006

WSOP PPV Tilt

So I pay $25 for the DirecTV PPV of the WSOP Final Table. Unfortunately I had to be in court this morning, so I TIVO'd it and went to bed. What I did see was loads of fun though. Gordon is made for this kind of work. Chad and Gordon next year?

Anyway, I get up this morning and verify everything taped, and in fact I get to hear the winner's acceptance speech as I am getting ready. After I cook breakfast and say bye to my girl, I go to turn the TV off and notice the TIVO is at 69% instead of 50%. The stupid thing erased my $25 show.

Now I verified that DirecTV allows recording of its PPV events, so that's not the issue. It just ate it (this has been happening on occasion, but I deliberately hit "Keep").

Fortunately DirecTV does a "in case you missed some" thing with its purchases, so my buy bought me the replay, too, but how annying would it be to pay $25 to watch an hour of the WSOP?

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

Insert Clever Title Here

Did not play good stud last night and also caught second-best hands twice. Straight versus boat and straight versus flush. Other than that, rarely even had a good pair. It was ugly. And I kept calling too much.

I'm just not that good at stud games. I can survive in Razz and Stud 8 because I have some basic rules down, but I have no edge in them and I am a dog to the field in stud. Odd that I have improved my game in the Omaha-based games so that I do have an edge but can't get a handle on these games.

Oh well, we'll continue to work on it. It's a process of course.

Saturday, August 05, 2006

DOH

Got deep in the $8500 today, but could not get anything going after hitting an early chip lead. Made a bad call with tens versus jacks, and then had to push short with A9 and ran into tens and fives. Bubbles are fun.

My mid-game in big tournaments needs work. Maybe I get bored, but I just play badly after about an hour and a half in. Almost every time. I need to process how to do better in that stage. It's easily my biggest tournament weakness.

Thursday, August 03, 2006

Meh

Nothing much going on, still enjoying my break. My wife hadn't even noticed, but that's another story for another time.

Sad to discover most of my friends (and Mr. Raymer) are out of the Main Event. Happily Nordberg still has a good deal of chips. Good luck to him.

Looking forward to getting back into the swing of things this evening. Yee haw.