Workin' for the Weekend

We went to a new BBQ place, Jim'n'Nicks, last night after work with some friends. We all really enjoyed it and had a good time. Great pork and awesome mashed potatoes w/gravy!

I didn't expect to play in the WWDN, but we got home at 8:25 so I decided to register. I knew I shouldn't have played, because I wasn't in "poker mode" yet. I was a little rushed, consequently, I was very unsuccessful and I am feeling like such a dumbass about my play. I wasn't involved in very many hands before I was quickly knocked out among the first 5. My actions were very transparent. I didn't make much money on my good hand (dealt AA in the BB on the 1st hand / really overplayed that), lost a good chunk on a stupid bluff, then Hoy put the finishing touch on me with his perfect read. He was willing to take on the race with his sizeable stack. That's the advantage of his style of play, he steals so much that when he does have a hand and you challenge him, he's gonna get paid. Nice job Hoy, you deserved my chips the way you and I were playing. I looked like I had pretty much never played before last night. Quite embarassing really.

I am going to take a break from the real money games and start playing ESPN again. When I make some bonehead plays there, I can jump in to a new game and see if I learned my lesson. Of course I'll still play in Matt's blogger freeroll tonight. I really need to work on my game before I am completely out of moolah in my online accounts. I try to maintain a positive attitude and do enjoy playing against the other bloggers, but I haven't been feeling so chipper lately. For various reasons, I am feeling overwhelmed and need to do more relaxing activities. Playing like a fish and losing money like I did last night is not relaxing! I am in desperate need of this upcoming weekend as Stacie and I are taking Monday off to make it 4 days long.

Stacie has given me her hour at the spa so I am getting a massage Saturday morning. Hopefully this will start the weekend off right and get me in the swing of things again. Stacie is very giving and lately I am not as much fun to be around as I usually am so maybe she is giving herself a gift. LOL. If the weather is nice, I think I will ride up to the mountains in north Georgia at least one day. We are also planning on going out for lunch and dinner at a couple of different places. Throw in a some yard work, grilling out, and a few movies and I am now really looking forward to it. See, I'm better already.

The Most Gracious Host

I just wanted to send a shout out to Mookie for hosting the weekly tournament and taking the time to post, link, and individually thank those that attend. That's a class act! This is not a knock on other tourneys, just showing my appreciation to him.

Like Butta'

Surf is on a roll. Nice job taking another Mookie.

I was at the top of the heap for a while right behind Surf. I was feeling pretty good about my play and was psyched to make it past the first break still in the top 5 for chips. Baby steps you know. This didn't last long. The crippling blow to me was when Bone-Daddy lived up to his name while we were the battling blinds. We kind of dance and check to the turn / river (I don't remember which) when the Q gave me the straight. I led out, he raised and I figured he might have a face pair since there were a lot of eyes looking back at us on the board, so I had him covered and went all-in. Unfortunately, the Q also gave him a straight to fill out his Big Slick in the small blind. Who knew?! Oh well, that crushed me and when the blinds were about to hit me I decided to take on the only better with my K 10 soooooted but his A J was enough. I went out in 29th. Still having a blast though.

One Finger -- Are You Kidding Me?

While Brian was losing money in poker tournaments, I was blowing money all over Savannah. Overall it was well worth it. For those of you who don't know, Savannah is a beautiful, lovely, friendly city on the Savannah river in coastal Georgia. If you've never been, I highly recommend it. River Street is a fun place to hang out, people watch, shop, eat and drink and drink. Lots of drinking going on there. For a change of pace Savannah is full of wonderful, shaded (very important) squares. There are probably 20 or so throughout the city, usually a block or so apart, and each one is different. Very nice places to relax. And when you're hungry there are many great restaurants. If you've ever watched Food Network, you may be familiar with Paula Deen, who has become a big celebrity chef on the network. Well, she lives in Savannah and owns a restaurant that has been around much longer than her popularity on TV. The restaurant is The Lady and Sons and features southern home cooking. I don't know how busy it used to be before she became famous, but now you can't go there without waiting an hour or more for lunch or dinner. We opted not to wait, so I have no idea how good it is or isn't. We did, however, visit Paula's new restaurant that she co-owns with her brother -- Uncle Bubba's. Only in the South. We had heard that Uncle Bubba's is good. It's mainly seafood (with some southern flair), and we were wanting some good seafood. We went for lunch one day, and the first things I noticed were that the menu was pretty limited for lunch and that just about everything was fried, and I'm not a fan of fried food. Well, I wanted some fish, so I sucked it up and ordered the Grouper Basket -- $12.99 for Grouper, french fries, pickles, and a cornbread muffin. A little pricey for lunch, but it sounded like a good bit of food. NOT! When I got my basket, it contained one, yes one (1), grouper finger (like a chicken finger) and about 10-15 fries, all of which was very greasy. After I used my napkin to soak up the excess grease, I ate my one grouper finger very slowly, trying to fool myself into thinking there was more there (not that I really would have wanted more because it wasn't that good). For the rest of the weekend, my $12.99 grouper finger was the big joke, especially after seeing a menu in another restaurant where you could get 4 fingers for $16. What a bargain! So if you're ever in Savannah and wanting only one grouper finger and want to spend $13 on it, go to Uncle Bubba's!

ATL Blogger Home Game

My biggest poker weekend ever, timewise and losses that is.

Since Stacie went to Savannah with her Mother for a few days, I decided to make it a poker weekend. I broke even Friday night on Full Tilt after busting out of a bracelet tourney then getting my money back in a SNG.

Saturday night was a fun live game. Surflexus, Rags, 23Skidoo, and Mowenumdown came to my crib for a little action. Like he wasn't winning enough lately, Rags ended up the big winner for the night. I think Ski and Surf broke even with Mow and I being the contributors. That was by far the most I have every lost in one night, of course you gotta realize I am a low buyin, 1 tourney a night kind of guy. I knew I was in trouble when someone asked where to plug in their laptop to do some multitabling. LOL. It was a good start to possibly a quarterly series. We have a few other ATL bloggers that are in the rotation and hopefully they can make it next time. Surf has a good recap here. I had a great time and look forward to future games.

That brings us to the Sunday blogger tourney at Pokerstars. It took me longer to type that sentence than I lasted in it. Just kidding, it wasn't that bad. I busted out within the first 30-40 minutes. The side chat was definately the best part of the night. This was my first ever tournament with more than 150 people so it was a new experience. I guess the biggest thing I learned is bob, weave, uppercut, uppercut, body blow.

On Saturday, I also got brave and tackled my bike. I am now the proud owner of a new, metal free rear tire. W00t! After borrowing the right tools, I took it up to CycleGear and they got me hooked up for a little less money than the dealer. It is not as sporty as the other one, but by doing it myself and getting a little less expensive tire, I saved $50 and got the road hazard which isn't available through the BMW dealership. I will be back to riding tomorrow since we are expecting an afternoon storm. Brand new tire + rain = bad news.

That's all for now. I hopefully will be seeing everybody this Wednesday evening at the Mookie.

Last Longer Pool

To add even more excitement to the Sunday freeroll, does anybody want to set up a last longer pool with the winner getting $X from the group of "registered" bloggers? If figured that if you wanted to be in the running for the prize, you put your name on the list, and then contribute the 5 or 10 (whatever is decided in advance) to the highest place finisher left from the list. Sorry if this is too last minute.

Maybe next time

I'm back to having a good time in the WWDN. I tried not to get too tricky early on and pay more attention to the table. Of course that didn't mean I wasn't going to try and have some fun and splash around a bit.

My scariest play was trying to take the hammer for a deep bluff and was able to successfully get him to fold on the turn or river. This didn't work very well last week against Surflexus, but it sure was exciting.

Warning, half ass hand history ahead...........I thought I was gonna make it to at least the first break this time. At the last hand before the break, I was about to make that comment in the chat when I got pocket jacks on the button. With blinds at 50/100, UTG opens for 400. It folded around to me and I decided to push my 1700(?) and see if I can maybe take it right there or possibly double up with what I thought was the best hand. He went in the tank and decided to call with A 10 offsuit. This made me feel good about my read / guess. If I remember correctly, the flop came in his favor by pairing the A and 10 but giving me 1 away from the flush. My flush was made on the turn and I went Yippee, but that quickly turned to filth, flarn, filth when the second 10 came on the board to give him the boat on the river. That one really hurt and I was in a foul mood for a few minutes. I was over it pretty quickly because I had stuck to my game plan and remembered how I made it that far. This was certainly not a case of questioning his call since I realized that my previous actions (picking up 3 blinds in a row uncontested) would make someone suspicious of my raises. The other reason I didn't question his call is because it's ultimately his perogative. If someone wants to call my all-in with 2,3 off and they hit something, good for them, bad for me. It sucks, but you gotta remember that this can happen at any time. Sometimes somebody "just wants to gamble" or they are ready to be done for the night and sometimes they just read / misread you. Hey, at least I wasn't holding KK, right? This is also a case that maybe I should have just raised a little and seeing the A on the flop would have saved me some dough to fight another time. Maybe I was the one willing to gamble or cut out and go to bed. I don't think this was the case, but I'm sure someone thinks there was a better way to play this. That's the beauty of poker, everybody has their own methods and styles. We can all read the same books and still look different on the felt. Otherwise, just program a bot to bet high hands, fold low hands and see if it makes you any money. Pretty boring huh?

As everyone knows, I don't play very often and my inexperience shows, but I really enjoy playing. I want to thank everyone that stops by and maybe you see a little of your past self in my play or retelling of hand histories. I don't know that I will ever dedicate enough time or money to get anywhere near the quality of the high profile bloggers, but if I can catch enough crumbs to keep playing with this community, I consider it time well spent. Even if I never blogged about my limited poker encounters again, I would still read my bloglines every day possible. In fact after reading the posts of others, mine feel very insignificant, but hey, maybe I say enough to interest others. If nothing else, I enjoy saying it and it helps me track my progress.

Maybe I'll do a little better in the Mookie tonight, if I play. I might be in bed and since I haven't won any money in a while, but bankroll is drying up pretty quick. Then again, I could definately use some practice before the ATL blogger game this Saturday.

Football is Stronger than Wine

Wine South is an annual event in Atlanta, and for wine lovers like myself it is huge. There are hundreds of wineries represented, pouring samples of their best wines, and there are probably a couple dozen local restaurants handing out delicious gourment food samples. There's also live music, celebrity chefs, wine and food related seminars, etc. It's a little pricey to attend, but for someone like me who loves food and wine, it's well worth the price of admission. It used to be at a location that's relatively nearby our house, so it wasn't a big deal to get Brian to drop off a friend and me and pick us up. After sampling that much wine, I wouldn't think of driving myself! Well, a few years ago it moved to the Gwinnett Civic Center, which is on the other side of the world in Atlanta geography. Seriously, it's about an hour away. I haven't gone since it has been there just because it is so far, and I wouldn't impose that drive on my dear hubby. This year my sister-in-law and her sister are coming from Alabama to go to Wine South and staying at a nearby hotel. They invited me to go with them and stay with them. Sounds like a great plan... until I discover this year's football schedules. Clemson is playing Florida State and Auburn is playing LSU that day. That changes things. You see, as much as I love wine, I live for college football. Seriously, I get depressed in January and can't wait until September. I LOVE it! And unlike wine, it's not around that long each year. I can drink wine anytime, right? It's not every day that I can watch a great game. Now, you may be thinking, "just Tivo the games." We've done that in the past, and it's just not the same. Until you can see the game, you have to work really hard to avoid any scores or information about the game in order to view it with the "element of surprise." It's not nearly exciting to watch a game when you already know the outcome. And even if you do manage to not find out anything, it still loses a bit of lustre knowing that it's already happened. That's just me. I still haven't ruled out that option because afterall, I could really have my cake and eat it too. I could go to Wine South, avoid newspapers, radio and TV until I get home on Sunday and watch both games. That's a weekend dreams are made of! Still, what I have taken away from this whole thing is my initial reaction. When I saw that two games I really want to see are on the same day as Wine South, I thought, "shit, I can't go to Wine South." Gut reaction. Instinct. Football is stronger than wine. Amen!

The Mook and home games

I had fun in the Mook last night. I tried to pull a slick one on Surflexus right off the bat, but I think I misplayed my bluff near the end. I was in the mood to be a first pitch batter and see if it would pay off for me. Surf correctly knew I was full of it and wisely called. This put a big hurt on me, but I was able to hang around until right before the first break when a fellow Georgian, shea / bthecloser69, sent me to join the railbirds. Before that, Drewspop and I kept ending up side by side as we got moved around so he was fun to chat with. I followed along until the break at the final table, but by then I was way past my bedtime. The lovely Change100 even did a drop by probably since Pauly and Waffles were playing. I think I will try to start playing this one more even with the late start for someone who needs their 8 hours of beauty sleep. Stacie still doesn't understand how I can come to bed after midnight when I got knocked out before 11.

Speaking of the Mookie, maybe MiamiDon can start doing an ATL vs Austin line. How's that for subtle?

We've got a neighborhood game tonight so maybe I can make enough to buy a new tire for the bike. I will definitely need to buy it before the ATL blogger game I am hosting next Saturday. I don't think I will swimming in the money that night. It will be more like a shark tank with Surflexus, Mowenumdown, 23Skidoo, chipperdh, and some of their guests. I can't wait, wish me luck.

UPDATE: This post is a little old since Blogger was not working for me. I didn't make any money in our home game last night, but it was fun and I liked my play. I got back half my buy-in, so the night only cost me $10. I have noticed that I am better at home games since playing in the blogger tourneys. I guess I gotta buy my tire with my own money. Bummer!

Maybe I should be "Opposite Brian"

I was in the mood to try a little poker last night. Since I got lucky at a 18 person SNG a while back, I had a few dollars over at Full Tilt. I tried one of the 6 dollar token games and was promptly spanked. Since I was first out and that left me time to try a small SNG, I said "hey, it's only money." I was doing a little better during the second game. I was up to about T2200, did a nice preflop raise, and bet out big on a A,K,X board while holding Q,J. Unfortunately, the big blind found AA and my straight never completed. Yes, I am just the fish you are looking for. This hurt my stack, but the big hurt was when I lost focus and tried to bluff a really big stack on a flush board. I really wasn't thinking here and didn't put all of the pieces together. I have definitely swung to the the loose / idiotic side of aggressive and it is costing me. My next approach is to either hire a monkey to push the buttons or be "opposite Brian" and do just the opposite of my final decision. It's not like I don't see my mistakes, I just am not doing a good job of avoiding them. I am trying to get to higher level thinking, but it seems to be making my brain and bankroll hurt.

For unrelated reasons, I won't be in Wil's Tuesday game. My buddy and I are going to watch the Underworld sequel. I loved the first one and have been waiting for the second to come on DVD. It's time to start my summer action rentals. Stacie and I watched an old movie of Wil's last night. Toy Soldiers was on the Universal HD channel. I hadn't seen it in years. Other than too many shots of teenage boys in their briefs, I enjoyed it. It was very interesting to see a work of fiction from 15 years ago have foreshadowing to our current environment / concerns. (1)The terrorists came by truck across the border and (2) wired the school for explosives like in Russia a few years ago. Unfortunately, that one didn't have the Hollywood ending.