The Bad, the Good and the Ugly

[Tuco is in a bubble bath. The One Armed Man enters the room]
One Armed Man : I've been looking for you for 8 months. Whenever I should have had a gun in my right hand, I thought of you. Now I find you in exactly the position that suits me. I had lots of time to learn to shoot with my left.
[Tuco kills him with the gun he has hidden in the foam]
Tuco :When you have to shoot, shoot, don't talk

"The Good, the Bad and the Ugly"

See, I didn't get the order wrong in the title, I know what I'm talking about (but then again, you knowing that I am the the "World's Greatest Poker Blogger Ever" wouldn't make a rookie mistake like that, wuold I?). This was how my weekend went - The Bad, The Good and the Ugly.

THE BAD

After a solid week playing, and some fine result especially in the SNG, I was pumped to get back into it on Friday night, and when I learned that the distractions would all be getting home late from work...well, everything was falling into place. I stepped into a few of the larger limit SNG and even took my money back to the $5 maximum $0.05/$0.10 tables. The SNG were over before the began, and I think I was out in 9th or something equally disgusting. At the Aloha tables, I bought in for the maximum $5, because I have already learnt that lesson, and tried my luck. I think my stack was it's largest before the first card was dealt, and I was going down in a hurry. It wasn't really due to bad play on my part, but it certainly wasn't good play. It was TPTK loosing to two small pair, or two pair loosing to a set, straights getting beaten by a bigger straight. I was disgusted when a smaller stack went all in and I followed with JJ and was beaten by 46s when three spades flopped. I am noticing that JJ seems to be one of the hands I loose a lot on - maybe because I put too much value in them. Any pre-flop raise I made with strength was folded around to me for the big win of 7 cents. Any pre-flop raise made by me in late position with no action before it was met with 6 callers. It was that kind of night for me. I had lost the $5 in very quick time. But at least I was aware now that title could be an issue - "Know Thyself" - and I can improve from here. I went to the fridge, grabbed a beer and came back to the computer ready to start again and I topped up with another $5. I mean, if you are going to have a bank roll, you may as well use it.

I have been reading the "Tao of Poker", as you know, and I am finding it very easy to read and interesting as a beginner's book. One of the rules (which I will try to recall as well as I can) was about how selective the human memory is. When we win a big pot with some hand, we remember that for a long time. We forget about the other 20 times we lost little amounts on this hand, and it becomes our "Lucky Hand!" I have seen people go all in with 69 because "it's just a thing with me and my buddies." There is no poker sense tied to this what-so-ever. You may as well bet blindly while clutching your lucky socks. I know this. I am not a superstitious person, I don't even believe in horoscopes (but then again, that's typical of a Leo. Boom-tish. Try the veal.). However, here's a little history lesson. In my home town of Broken Hill, football is very important. There are four teams in the town and my family has always been tied with the North Broken Hill Bulldogs. Dad, my two brothers, my two uncles, and my Grandfather all wore the number 3 for North, as did I at one stage or another. But when I was playing basketball for some time you were not allowed numbers below 4, so I wore number 6 and this became my favorite number. Fast forward to recent times, when I was first getting into online poker, on one hand I was dealt 63o in the BB and got to see the flop - a beautiful 633. It's back in the archives somewhere, but I couldn't be arsed to look for it. I won again later on with the same hand when it became a full house again. On this day in questions however, I am dealt the "lucky" 63o in middle position. I think to myself, this is my lucky hand, I should limp with this. The bet is raised, but only by the minimum. Come on, I can still call that. I'm only down to $3.25, what's another ten cents? Then finally the voice of reason comes over me and says "Hey champ, you may be the 'World's Greatest Poker Blogger Ever', but 63 off is a piece of shit. Throw it down and it will cost you nothing.". Damn that voice of reason, he always spoils my fun. So I did, I folded it and lost nothing. Of course, the flop comes 33T, and I chuckle to myself. Lots of action too, the pot is over $1 now. Then the killer...the turn is 3. I had quads. The final card was a Queen I think, but I couldn't see it properly through the tears in my eyes. The pot was getting bigger too, like $4 or so as both the remaining two people had a full house. I guess this is what they mean by making the right decisions and loosing. What can you do? It wasn't long before I lost when AQ lost to JJ and I had blown $10, 1/3 of my entire bankroll. I decided I had lost enough for the night and would be better served turning it off.

THE GOOD

Saturday morning, and we have a few hours before we have to go shopping again. I think right, I am going to get one of my $5 chunks back damn it. I log back into Aloha and put another $5 on the table, and go into a smaller SNG at Poker Pages to boot. That was a great SNG, as I think I knocked out the first five players to eventually finish in second when a coin flip put me in the small stack, then lost with a kicker. It was good though, still a profit on the game and I was happy with my play. At Aloha, I had some early wins with absolute crap, but nobody would push me off the pot. I would have, say second pair, and I was able to limp all the way to the end - then somebody would try a see through bluff for like $0.20. I was folding a lot of hand though, which is fine by me. At these micro limits, you can't expect the standard to be too high, that's a given. I hate it when people come into a micro limit table (no doubt with money they won on the free rolls anyway) and bitch about the other people making bone headed plays. Guess what, that's standard down here. I don't care how much of a big time card shark you think you are, you have to adapt to the game. Anyway, this clown in mouthing off in the chat (the fact that his $7 was the biggest at the table didn't help matters), and I'm sick of it. One of my weakest points is that I feel the need to be policeman at the table - and the bouncer too. On one hand, me with $6 plus change and in middle position, I pre-flop raise $0.40. 1 caller then to the mouth in late position, and he re-raises me another $0.50. I think for about one minute about this mouth going off, and decide this is it, lets see how pissed off he really is. I re-re-raise all-in. He posts something in the chat box about beating up noobs or something similar, and calls me. He has AJs. I have the bullets, and the board helps neither of us. I take down the pot and start laughing at how I lost twice yesterday then made it all back plus some small profit in one hand. Life was good, and it was kind sad how much my mood really picked up after that. I won again on the next hand, but only about $0.40 and then got folded the hand after that post-flop. I took this chance to stand up and leave as my job was over. Hey, that reminds me, go and read the post titled "Pimplicious...so to speak" over at Project $10,000.00 No Limit Style about taking on the bullets. Live and learn people, live and learn.

THE UGLY

After a few hours of shopping, we were back home with a few hours to kill before going out for the night. I decided my good fortune may continue and I fired up both poker sites again. I put another $5 down on the table at Aloha and got the bigger limit SNG going on Poker Pages. I was not getting any cards at Aloha but hadn't lost much money, only really playing a few hands and they were not good enough to see the river. I was down to just below $4. At the SNG, I was ready to play my first hand as I too had folded a lot but was just dealt pocket fives - enough to limp in my language - when something happened.

For no reason, my windows settings changed to the classic setting, and then back again. Somebody was on my computer. I am not an expert as I have stated before, but I know when something is wrong. In a matter of seconds I had turned the modem off and disconnected. Some hours later after getting advice from a friend who knows a little more about computers than I, I ran AdAware that can pick up any Spyware or key logger programs. Well, this thing picked up about 200 odd files that were suspicious, but before the scan could end a window popped up saying that "Windows will be shutting down in 59 seconds" because some process was interrupted. I believe that the rouge programs that were put onto the computer did this as a trap to stop the shit from getting erased. This means I could be in big shit. It also means the end for poker for now, and I can not risk going online at home until I get somebody out to have a look at the system and fix it, hopefully without formatting the whole thing. If anybody can give me a word of advice, that would be much appreciated.

So if my posts for the next week or so seem to be short, off topic or invisible, please forgive me as I have no choice. The good news is I am nearly 100% confirmed for live game action this Saturday night - with each closing day I feel I am closer to being there with the cards in the air.

On the movie front, we had a little get together yesterday to talk about one of the other projects I have in mind, and it looks like it is coming along just fine. No details yet, but if this one goes ahead it will be great because it is easy to shoot (kind of documentary format) but will take an entire year to do. It would make a great TV series when finished though, such is the format. See how we go.

Got to watch "The Girl Next Door" on the weekend, as well as finally getting around to "Office Space". First off "The Girl Next Door" stars Elisha Cuthbert, who my roommate Mitch is in love with. This movie is a lot funnier that I thought it would be, and I really liked it. He hasn't had a chance to see it yet, and we have him coninved that she does a topless scene near the end. It's not just your average teenage sex comedy, there is a little more to it which I liked. Sure, it's no "American Pie", but it is different is a good way if you catch my drift. "Office Space" is what it is, lots of people love this movie and for good reason. It's sure to pop up in my quotes before long.

Love this post from Dr. Pauly" titled "Dr. Pauly, $11, and the the Australian Poker Championships". Man, that would be awesome if everything works out. This could help the Australian Poker Scene to no end, as I believe this is the first time the prize for the winner is over $1 million Australian Dollars, or about $690,000 US.The Crown casino is an awesome sight for somebody who has never been to Vegas. It is probably as big as all the other casinos in Australia put together. It is also the only casino in Australia that plays poker. Best of luck Dr. Pauly, hope I see you "down under".