Tuesday, November 15, 2005

Being The Donkey

Myra Fleener: You know, a basketball hero around here is treated like a god, er, uh, how can he ever find out what he can really do? I don't want this to be the high point of his life. I've seen them, the real sad ones. They sit around the rest of their lives talking about the glory days when they were seventeen years old.
Coach Norman Dale: You know, most people would kill... to be treated like a god, just for a few moments.
”Hoosiers”

It feels good to get back to talking about poker again.

I have completed the Caribbean Sun promo through Poker Source Online, good for another $60 worth of amazon vouchers. In the end I was up about $10 – but it would have been well over $100 if I didn’t play any SNG or multi’s – I was having a horrific run on both! If I played 15 SNG’s, my best finish was a third place one time! I finished in the money only once also at all the multi’s, and it was a 7th out of 100 or something for a profit of about $4. Usually the SNG’s are a cash cow for me, but I guess I must be out of practice from a nearly month long lay off.

The table games were weird too – I tried both limit and NL. If I have one piece of advice for anyone at these tables, it would be “continuation bets”. It’s amazing how many pots were won with this simple strategy – is it even a strategy? It’s more like a sub-conscious reaction to bet on the flop after I raised before it. If I don’t do it, then I’m either trying to do something too tricky for me to do (or for them to understand) or I’ve been beaten to it.

In one session, I lost a monster pot early on when I turned the nut flush and my opponent rivered a boat – pretty standard stuff. I then set myself the task that I would not leave the table until I had either doubled up or gone bust. I was down from my starting stack of $100 to $27, so it should have been a quick affair. 3 and a half hours later, I’m still waiting. I managed to creep back up to $75 without hardly getting to a showdown – I guess if you put in that amount of time at a table playing fairly tight, some people will notice. Anyways, the reason for this little rant was I eventually did double up to put myself back in the black for the site – and it was on an ugly suck out.

Holding AJs, which seems to be a trouble hand for a lot of people I notice, I got to see an ace high rainbow flop. The BB makes a small bet, and I just didn’t think he had it. Long story short, we get it all in on the turn rag when he bets, I re-raise and he pushes. I believe he doesn’t have the ace and pay the price to see – Big Slick. I curse the poker Gods, but not before the deliver one of my three jacks on the river.

I felt guilty, but that subsided and I left the table once the big blind came around. I guess it is only fair that I post about when I’m that idiot hitting their three outer – but like I said, I had my fair share of beats at the table also.

I really like Caribbean Sun – their tournament schedules are fantastic. Even at non-peak times there would be a tournament of my buy in level at least every half hour. Sure, the buy in might be in Euros or pounds, but that didn’t bother me too much.

Through a moment of weakness, I promised the next Amazon voucher to the wifey. She has seen all this poker paraphernalia coming through the post and thought it was about time some of it was spent on her. Accordingly, I am very disappointed to announce that seasons 5, 6 and 7 of “Friends” are on order. At least they were on special I guess.

This past week I also received WPT season 1, which I have never seen. I have seen all of season 2 (thanks again to PSO) and have season 3 on order. I just love watching a tournament or two while lying in bed at night – it’s the simple pleasures that I pursue.

The guys at the regular home game have organized a slightly bigger tournament for the coming weeks, of perhaps 30 participants. All the particulars are being hammered out to keep things running smoothly, but first place should be over $200 so it should be a good score for somebody. Afterwards the cash games will pop up and I’m hoping to put up a good show there also. I have only ever played in two live cash games, one down about $40 to other up about $40, but I can see where I can improve on these games and really look forward to them immensely.

And finally, I have sold the home made poker table that has served me well for nearly 12 months. Even though it had all the mistakes that come with a first try effort, it had a certain charm and functionally was almost perfect. I sold it to one of the regulars at our home games for two cases of beer – which may seem a pretty cheap price but I think it was only fair. Originally I said $200, but after some thought even I wouldn’t pay that much for this particular table. I didn’t want to rip off a mate either, and I figured any time he has the table out to play on there is a fair chance I’ll be moving chips around it at the time anyway. So two cases of beer did the trick.

Why did I sell my table? Because we wanted to build a new one. The wife and I have the process down to under 5 hours now, and all the tools are on hand. The price of the materials is still high, because there is so much waste in making the rail in one piece, but the end result is worth it. The new table has a blue velveteen top with black vinyl rail, and is easily the best of the three we have made so far. Hopefully I don’t make a forth for a long time, or until somebody is silly enough to pay me to do it.

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