Another night of mirth and mayhem at Dino's

Got up to Dino's earlier than normal since traffic was smooth both from downtown and then from Birmingham - so I killed an hour-plus of time by playing some Megatouch games. Damn, Dino's, it might not hurt you fukkers to reset the high scores more than once a year so some of us cheap fukkers can get some free games, either!

Sat down at our table with Sharon, Fred, Harry, Wine-Drinking Ron, and Nick at my table. Was up and down for a little, then took 2 sizable pots off of Nick. First one was after raising to 40 (5/10) level with Q-Q, board of 9-8-3 with 2 clubs hit - 2/3 pot size bet didn't chase him away, nor did a half-pot bet on the turn when a 7 came out. When a second 7 came out on the river, Nick tried to buy the pot, but folded after I raised him 150. Didn't see his hand, but his 8 probably wasn't any good :-)

A few hands later, I limp in with the ever-popular souxxie-nouf ("69" in French), and flop trip 6's. Make a boat on the turn, but slow-play 6's over 9's since there are 3 hearts on the board. After the river Nick throws out a decent-sized bet, then makes a quick call after I raised him, then showed him the bad news.

Donked/bluffed away a few hundred chips to Sharon in a couple of pots when she was holding legitimate hands, then took a sizable pot off of WD Ron when my 8-9 hit 2 pair on the river - this is why min-bets when holding top pair don't work, WD!

2 hands derailed me last night. First hand was a 3-way hand with Nick all-in, and me and WD Ron in the hand. My K-Q hits on a board of K-J-J, and my 250 bet into a dry side pot should have told a player with a clue that I have a hand - but this is WD Ron we're talking about, so he calls. A seemingly bland hits the turn, and here I think I'm trapping here, but Ron smooth-calls on the turn. 3rd club on river hits, and after I bet out a value bet of 300, Ron min-raises me to 600 (since he thinks this is a limit game, apparantly), I make a crying call here, and Ron flips over A-10 of club for a flush...I muck my cards, make some comment about some "Donkey poker being played", and am glad to fold the next few hands after being put on semi-tilt.

Few hands later, Fred jams and I'm trying to figure out if my pocket 5's are good enough. I go in the tank for a couple of minutes, put him on 6-6 through 10-10, fold my 5-5 face-up, but then find out that Fred had pocket 4's...dammit! Oh well, gotta trust my reads and my gut, since they're right more often than not.

A few hands later, being the shortstack at 990, I open jam A-J from EP, only to have Stevo call me with A-K - I believe the words "Yo, gimme my dollar bitch!" (I could be wrong, though) came out of my mouth, since I won my last-shorter bet this week. Mediocre middle of the pack finish, bleh!

Quick night at the cash game - suited connectors and killer flops were not panning out, and my $10 was gone pretty quick...chalk it up to being one of them nights, I guess. At least Stevo took out WD Ron - I think this was Stevo's personal mission after seeing him knock Harry out earlier with A-2 against Harry's Q-Q when WD flops trips, then hits quad 2's on river...I think WD could be nicknamed "Any Ace Ron Jr.", and it'll fit well.

Life throws curveballs at you every once in a while...

So I come home Tuesday night, and Kelley hits me with a curveball regarding her health that I totally wasn't prepared for. I won't drive myself crazy over the next 3 weeks until tests are run and come back in, but nevertheless I will still be quite nervous about everything until we get some certainty from the doctors. Then again, I think Kelley will be even more scared with what is going on.

And yes, I'm intentionally being semi-vague (ok, very vague) about this right now, since I need to get more information and facts before I disclose any more facts. I'm really hoping, however, for some positive results from the doctors regarding all of this.

And for my gambling note of the day, I'm taking Tulane and USC to cover tonight

Monday fun at Dino's

Determined not to bust out 1st or 2nd this week (although apparantly I was 3rd out last week, not 2nd), I hopped in the minivan and headed to Dino's. Stevo and I had our "last shorter" bet once again, and off we go.

I had Fred, some older lady who played every hand, Andy, and PJ at my table to start (28 or so players). Didn't get too many hands for a while, but I was chipping up nicely with some medium-sized pots. Busted out PJ with a BB Special when jammed A-rag into a A-8-5 flop...too bad I was holding 8-5. No help for PJ, and he's gone.

I proceed to bluff off 1/3 of my chips on the next couple of hands, then douched a straight on the river against Pat when I had no business doing so to get up to 4000 chips again. I almost got into it with Annoying Clapping Fukktard (ACF - dude give a golf clap after every hand) after he lectured me on not having proper poker etiquette because I like to splash the pot with chips with every bet. I do call out my bet either before or as I'm splashing the pot, at least...I love these self-appointed "table captains" (alternatively known as, "Dicks"), just too bad I couldn't bust this dude out.

We finally get to 10 players for final table, and 2 hands in Dennis and Andy get into it when Dennis over-reacted to Andy calling him a "lucky bastard" for winning a big pot. Dennis was well within his right to say something about being offended by the comment, but he didn't have to be quite the asshole about it, either. Andy was shaken for the whole game by that, and don't blame him. Any Ace Ron blows a nut a couple of hands later, and I'll go through the action on this hand now....

Stevo opens up in EP with an all-in bet, and I'm sitting in MP with 9-9...I know Stevo doesn't play junk, but I have to figure out if he's holding a pair or if I am racing, because this is for all of my chips. Not to brag or anything here, but I'm the only person at this game who would even think of laying this hand down pre-flop...much less take 2 or 3 minutes to make a decision and actually make the proper laydown. Stevo makes a comment that "I guess our bet will be settled on this hand", and that was the overriding factor in me laying my hand down...I say, "Nice hand", and lay down my 9s. Harry calls with A-K, but Any Ace Ron takes offense to Harry holding his cards up so Scott can see them (even though he's out of the hand)...Stevo has A-A, and doubles up when it holds, and the arguing continues. For a fukkin' free tournament, some people take this game way too seriously.

Couple of hands later I get K-K in MP, and W-D Ron calls with 6-6 - I bust him out, and just kinda survive until we get to 5-handed. In the SB now, and Harry open-shoves for 3500. Meghan calls, and I'm up to a decision again as I have 9-9 - I know I have Meghan beat, but I don't know about Harry, but after another couple of minutes I make the crying call, then Andy also calls. I am delighted to see a 9 on the flop for the set, and after all the cards are flipped, my set holds up...Harry had 10-10, Meghan had A-rag, but she took the side pot.

I bust Jim out a few hands later with the ever-dangerous 2-2 (made a flush on river), then trade blinds and make some small bluffs for a while with Andy and Meghan until we bust Andy out. HU took a while, and I fought my way back from 4-1 to 3-1 down, then open-jammed with 8-3 soooooooooted, and flopped a flush to take the chip lead. Donked a lot of my chips away with K-9 after a K-7-5 flop when I put Meghan all-in, 'cept she hit K-5...doh! 2 hands later and down to 2 BBs (we actually went to 2000/4000 blinds), I shoved 8-2 against her J-something...flop of A-A-J was enough to end it (barring running aces), so I take 2nd this week. One misplayed hand, but what can you do...I'll take my $25 gift cert and not look back.

A great Saturday

So I get this e-mail from Superbook.com, informing me that they put $10 in my account, and that I can bet the fukk out of it, and if I had any money left after Monday night, they'd take their $10 out. Being the responsible gambler (Ahem!) that I am, I decided to roll the dice with a 4-way college football parlay - hell yeah!!!!

Parlay (4 Teams) 09/20/08 08:39 ET
bet 10.00 to win 120.08 (paid 130.08) Result: Wager Won

EMichigan 24
Maryland 51 09/20/08(13:00 ET)
Maryland -21 Way to stick by my alma mater!

NotreDame 7
MichiganSt 23 09/20/08(15:40 ET)
MichiganSt -8.5

Temple 3
PennSt 45 09/20/08(12:00 ET)
PennSt -29 (-115)

Wyoming 0
BYU 44 09/20/08(15:00 ET)
BYU -28

A positive thing to say about Absolute Poker

So a couple of posts ago I slammed Absolute Poker for being "fukksticks", which was disappointing for me due to their being guilty of having "superusers" in their high-stake cash games and in various tournaments. Being a super-user meant that they had the ability to see hole cards of all the players...and obviously giving such users a grossly unfair advantage.

And while they still are fukksticks, in my eyes, I have to give them props for getting me my $100 in check in less than a week...well done, Absolute Poker!

Ugh..

I played at Dino's last night, and busted out 2nd (Scott was first out this week) when I reraised PJ all-in with QQ, only to get called by Jay's A-K. King on flop, Ace on turn, no queen on river, and I'm done. I won a buck from Stevo in our "last shorter" bet, then went home because I wasn't feeling too well...turns out I have bronchitis, so I can look forward to a week of antibiotics and meds, yay!

Awesome!

Went out drinking (but not too much!) with Kelley Friday night, and after driving the sitter home at 3am, Kelley and the dog were crashed out in the bed. Since I was in no mood to sleep, I decided to go fukk around and play some blackjack on Absolute Poker.

Now, a couple of days prior I transferred $50 from Absolute BJ winnings to someone from another forum for $50 over at Sportsbook.com (pissed that all away this weekend on football betting, HA!), which left me with a whopping $21 there. Since that was not enough to play in a $20+2 SnG, I decided to play 3-handed at $1 a pop. Ran that up to $78 within 15 minutes, then railed a friend of mine in some Stars freeroll for 10 minutes.

Saturday morning, repeated the above process as far as Blackjack play goes, and ran it up to $101 - and since I know AP doesn't give out checks for under $100, I stopped while I was on a nice 3-3-3 setup from a hot run of cards. Alas, I get to the cashier and AP charges $8 (WTF???) for a manual check. Went back to blackjack, and the minute I won $7 (which was about 4 or 5 hands), exited and cashed out my $100 - time to delete them fukksticks from my computer now!

Well, that was quite the nice surprise

So I log onto Stars last night to play a couple of SnGs, along with some cash games (I have a $40 bonus that I don't want to be waiting until January to try to rush and clear) in Stud H/L, and something appears odd on my screen when I go to signup for a SnG - the balance is quite a bit higher than I remember it.

A little investigation finds that I had a $75 affiliate payment made to me - sweeeeeet! Too bad I have no idea who the heck signed up, but I'm not going to complain, that's for sure.

1st and a 4th in SnGs - the one I took first in, I got in bad almost every hand (and if you're never getting in bad, you're not using good SnG strategy), yet was the suckout monster. A-9 vs A-J, 9-9 vs 10-10, A-J vs A-K...then Q-7 vs A-A on the last hand (course, I did have a 12.2K to 1.3K lead HU with blinds at 200/400 against a total rock) - felt good to get that done all in one day.

Maybe the $15+1 are calling....

Dino's mirth and mayhem

After taking a month off from the Dino's game, I finally returned last night. Played for about an hour, lost out a couple big pots to Andy and Ron when they chased their 4-outers and hit, then lost to Ronnie with A-K when Ronnie's A-J flopped a flush...at least I wasn't out first this time, since Stevo took that honor.

Got in the cash game, and was treading water...had to rebuy after Scott cracked my pocket aces with a set of deuces, took a few pots to get back up to only $4 down, then this hand happened:

Triple B (Big Bald Brad) in the SB, Scott in the BB, and Nick with the straddle to 4...Old Dude (he of the "working deuce" theory) limped in, I called with 7-4 of diamonds only because I figured my low cards were the only low ones in the hand, then Jay popped it to 8. Nick called, and since I called 4 before, might as well do it again.

Flop comes A-4-7 with 2 clubs, and this one I bet out and got 2 quick calls. Another club (I think it was a K) hit the board, and Nick bet out 10. Jay and I both called - I'm pretty I'm behind to at least one guy here, but pot is too good to fold now. 4 hits the river, and Nick fires out a bet of 20 ($5, to the uninitiated, since each chip is worth 25 cents). After playing with my chips for a minute, I raise another 40 chips, Jay folds, then Nick semi-reluctantly calls with the nut flush...and sees his bad news, ouch!

Donked off about $11 of chips after that, with about $7 going to Andy when he limped in and then check-called all 3 rounds with pocket aces to beat my 2 pair. Still walked away up $17, so after taking into account my meal and everything, I still made a couple of bucks.

Screw the tourneys, the cash game is more fun :-)

A successful night

Played in 5 SnGs last night during the course of an hour and half:

- 2 $6.50 1-table turbos
- 1 $6.50 2-table turbo
- 1 10 cent 360-man donkfest
- 1 $2.20 180-man donkfest

The last 2 SnGs on here were non-cashes, so let's ignore them. Took first and 3rd in my single-table SnGs, and 2nd in my 2-table SnG (fought my way to there, big time) meant my profit for the night was:

$70.20 winnings less $21.80 buy-in fees = a tidy profit of $48.40 for an hourly rate of $32/hour, not bad!

Thought about seeing if I could keep my good night going, but got a little tired, so decided to let the talking heads on TV put me to sleep for the night.