It wasn't until this morning when I turned around and realized I haven't posted a blog entry in a while. For shame, for shame. Fact is, there's been very little blog-worthy in my world, these days. The new lounge/exotica project continues as a six piece, and as soon as we can find a cool combo organ player, we'll be ready to start doing Dean Martin covers, busking in the parking lot of the Barbary Coast. Or not.
I've hardly touched my FTP account in the last 10 days or so. Partly a function of spending more time with the Good Doctor Mondo this week, what with valentines, and roses, and sushi, and such, and partly because I'm down to $50 in ye olde online roll. Weird, in a way. I'm finishing in the money in around 25% of all my tourneys this year, which is my highest ITM rate ever. But at the same time, I'm not making it deep enough in my one cash to cover the three times I'm buying in and crashing.
But no big deal, as I'm doing nicely in live poker thus far. As defending champion, I managed to take down 2nd in the 2nd semi-annual Fogelberg Invitational, a $20 rebuy home game...and yesterday, in our end of season bar league finale, I managed to outlast 74 other runners to bring home the prize. A medal (nothing worth smelting down...) and $300 samolians. SHIP IT!. LOL
Not a lot of dosh, but then, it is a free bar league. Anyway, the proudest part of the day was probably the fact that I both a) played my best poker ever in a live field of that size, b) was only all in once the entire tournament, and perhaps most importantly, c) got lucky never to get sucked out on. How does one define their best poker? In this case, I played the best TAG style I could, and only played pots I was willing to raise. Except for the first pot I played early (one of only three pots I played in the first two hours), every time I played a hand, I was ahead
when I bet, induced calls or folds when I wanted to, and always felt in command of the situation. All of this while the normal chaos of free poker...stacks doubling, tripling, and wilting away like it was the last game on Earth...was swirling around me. It felt good. Yes, even though it was a bar league, and even though the prize was small potatoes. Just having that feeling of complete control of my game was awesome.
Anyway, there was one hand of note that will burn me for a bit. Down to about 16-17 players (11 player final table), and The Good Doctor Mondo sits down at my table. A couple of hands later, she's in the big blind with her last 4000 in chips. Blinds are 1000/2000. Action folds around to me on the button, where I find myself with 33. I can't fold here. And the SB has a few chips, and is a pretty TAG player whom I respect more than about 85% of the players in this league. Not a great hand, but I'm very likely in front at this point. So I raise it to 4k. I don't really want a call. I had around 25k in chips (2nd or 3rd in chips at this point), and if I lost the 4k to The Good Doctor Mondo, I could certainly live with it. I don't like doubling anyone up, but if I'm going to, it may as well be my lovely wife. But still, I'd like her to fold.
Well, after two hours of relative card death, she wakes up in the BB with AQo, and has to call. And doesn't improve. And goes home. Not happy. I dont' see how I could have played different. I was hoping the raise would be an incentive for her to fold, and be able to survive another orbit, where she might have made final table. But if I call, she's shoving there, anyway, and I have to call 2k at that point. Oh well. We did find a lovely new pan-Asian restaurant last night, and SNL had Justin's re-run, complete with Dick in a Box. So it was a good night...
Today is the FTOPS Main Event. Of course, I'm not taking part, but some of your favorite bloggers are. Personally, I'm pulling for Hoy, but I will you all good luck and deep cashes today.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
All Your Bass Are Belong To Us?
Not much going on in Mondo-land these days, but just because bandwidth is cheap, ya'll get an update. Very little online poker the last few days, other than truly donking out of a couple bigger tourneys just short of the bubble, on truly horrid plays. And not by my opponents, if you know what I mean.
Like this one. 38 players left in a $5k guarantee tourney, paying 36 spots. I'm somewhere between 34th-37th in chips at this point, and have been card dead/tight for a couple orbits. On the button with T9o. SB is a big stack, top 4-5 of the remaining players. What do I do? Shove my ass off, thinking that this pot will ensure I break the bubble, where I can then focus on actually trying to win...yeah, duh. SB calls. yeah, dun. Two overs. Dumb play by the button, if you ask me. My M may have been small, but it wasn't 1.
Of course, even when I push with good cards, like on button with AQo at final table of a $5 90-player SNG (I'm 4th of 4 at this point), and get called by 88. Race on? Yeah, duh, until the flop comes 88T. IGHN.
Okay, enough poker. Actually, I'm cashing about 23-25% of my recent tourneys, but since I'm not making it deep enough in the higher buy-in tourneys, the bankroll is still dropping. Down to about $50 or so, so, aside from Hammer Day tomorrow night, I'm going to focus on $5 SNGs until I busto or robusto. Still haven't decided about trying to reload, given the current environment. I've got the budget for it, but not the aggravation tolerance level. Besides, I just can't rant nearly as well as these guys, so why take action bound to lead one to want to try? As I mentioned before, there's no way to withdraw easily now anyway. And as I learned last night, I can still have fun playing with my half million or so free chips on FTP, even if the play isn't nearly as good.
Now that's enough about poker. At least until Hammer Day.
Of much more interest now is this new potential band...having answered ye olde Craigslist ad from a woman I know from another band. Lounge/exotica? Check. Martin Denny? Check. Tiki music? Check. Surf guitars in luchador masks? Check. Hahah...we're just two years of rehearsals away from being the perfect Vega$ cocktail band. Get that job, and we can shuck it in and move further west, where I can join some of the coolest bloggers around at donking it up all the time. Actually, I'm excited about this. Surf music isn't exotica, per se, but they're really sorta on the same family tree, and a lot of surf instro tunes have either been reverbed-out covers of exotica, or inspired by the compositional style. And for years, I've wanted a surf combo, but could only put together indiepop and rock bands. This could be way cool. Vibraphone, theremin (oooo-weee-oooo), etc...
Anyway, after being bandless and gigless for a few months, I'm really itching to get a new project together, before I get too curmudgeonly to haul my amp and speaker cabinets around to Denver's best dive bars any longer, maybe even make another record. Besides, won't we all need something to do with our time when FTP and PS go tits up in the post-UIGEA apocalypse?
Like this one. 38 players left in a $5k guarantee tourney, paying 36 spots. I'm somewhere between 34th-37th in chips at this point, and have been card dead/tight for a couple orbits. On the button with T9o. SB is a big stack, top 4-5 of the remaining players. What do I do? Shove my ass off, thinking that this pot will ensure I break the bubble, where I can then focus on actually trying to win...yeah, duh. SB calls. yeah, dun. Two overs. Dumb play by the button, if you ask me. My M may have been small, but it wasn't 1.
Of course, even when I push with good cards, like on button with AQo at final table of a $5 90-player SNG (I'm 4th of 4 at this point), and get called by 88. Race on? Yeah, duh, until the flop comes 88T. IGHN.
Okay, enough poker. Actually, I'm cashing about 23-25% of my recent tourneys, but since I'm not making it deep enough in the higher buy-in tourneys, the bankroll is still dropping. Down to about $50 or so, so, aside from Hammer Day tomorrow night, I'm going to focus on $5 SNGs until I busto or robusto. Still haven't decided about trying to reload, given the current environment. I've got the budget for it, but not the aggravation tolerance level. Besides, I just can't rant nearly as well as these guys, so why take action bound to lead one to want to try? As I mentioned before, there's no way to withdraw easily now anyway. And as I learned last night, I can still have fun playing with my half million or so free chips on FTP, even if the play isn't nearly as good.
Now that's enough about poker. At least until Hammer Day.
Of much more interest now is this new potential band...having answered ye olde Craigslist ad from a woman I know from another band. Lounge/exotica? Check. Martin Denny? Check. Tiki music? Check. Surf guitars in luchador masks? Check. Hahah...we're just two years of rehearsals away from being the perfect Vega$ cocktail band. Get that job, and we can shuck it in and move further west, where I can join some of the coolest bloggers around at donking it up all the time. Actually, I'm excited about this. Surf music isn't exotica, per se, but they're really sorta on the same family tree, and a lot of surf instro tunes have either been reverbed-out covers of exotica, or inspired by the compositional style. And for years, I've wanted a surf combo, but could only put together indiepop and rock bands. This could be way cool. Vibraphone, theremin (oooo-weee-oooo), etc...
Anyway, after being bandless and gigless for a few months, I'm really itching to get a new project together, before I get too curmudgeonly to haul my amp and speaker cabinets around to Denver's best dive bars any longer, maybe even make another record. Besides, won't we all need something to do with our time when FTP and PS go tits up in the post-UIGEA apocalypse?
Thursday, February 01, 2007
"Dude, don't play today. You might eat poop and stab a dude."
Ever get hit up on by those asshats panhandling your tourney rooms?
It was hard work not having left over chicken w/garlic sauce not coming out my nostrils after reading this. And the best part? "You have my permission to recreate the story."
You bet I will. And to think, all Brandi would have had to do is give up some buttsecks.
The Mookie was a lot of fun last night...was actually running real good early, until QQ ran into KK, crippling me.
And the 2nd chance? More like "no chance". First hand of PL O8, either flopped or turned the nut flush with a good low. Lost it all to straight flush with a wheel -- gg me, I suppose. Anyway, good crowd, and it was great to see Poker Peaker took it down. One for the Rockies.
It was hard work not having left over chicken w/garlic sauce not coming out my nostrils after reading this. And the best part? "You have my permission to recreate the story."
You bet I will. And to think, all Brandi would have had to do is give up some buttsecks.
The Mookie was a lot of fun last night...was actually running real good early, until QQ ran into KK, crippling me.
And the 2nd chance? More like "no chance". First hand of PL O8, either flopped or turned the nut flush with a good low. Lost it all to straight flush with a wheel -- gg me, I suppose. Anyway, good crowd, and it was great to see Poker Peaker took it down. One for the Rockies.
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