Merry Christmas And All That

Weensie: Listen, this is a serious situation. I mean, I'm kicked out of school. I don't know what I'm gonna do, man. My mom's gonna kill me.
Mitch: C'mon, she's not gonna kill you.
Weensie: Yes she is. See, I'm the first one to go to college in my family and when I left she said, "Weensie, if you screw this up, I'll kill you." She showed me the knife.

”Old School”

Coneheads – seriously Duggle, why?

I’m really looking forward to another live game tomorrow night, my triumphant return to the “Turkish Game”, and it looks like a packed house already.

My last visit to this infrequent game was a real eye opener. About 7 players, and they were all there to gamble. I was blown away and by night’s end I was down 2 buy-ins. To be honest, I was lucky it was only two.

Maybe I was cold decked slightly, maybe I was just too weak, or maybe I was just too light on the bankroll side of things to begin with in the first place that lead me to play with scared money. Whatever it was, tomorrow night it will be game on and back into the fray.

I too host home games, all to infrequently. I was considering making a home game a regular monthly thing, and this may still happen pending approval from the Distraction. I just think now that the home game circle has grown to over 40 people (un-be-lieveable!) that a regular thing say the first Friday of the month would be an easy groove to move to. I mean, obviously everyone isn’t going to make it every week, but that would provide a nice little mix of players for me to muck around with. Actually, the more I think about it the more I like about it.

I would love to be able to charge a rake or something at these home games, but I just can’t bring myself to do it. Even though all the guys are strangers to me outside of poker, I still consider them friends and charging them to play at my place is just wrong.

I think now that I have cashed out all my online winnings, I will have to develop a B&M poker bank roll. Usually what happens is I take money to the games to last me the night. If I loose, I write it off as entertainment expenses. If I win, I usually buy the distraction lunch/movie/dinner/drinks the next day (one or all of them, depending on the size of the win) and then it’s gone. I don’t think there is necessarily anything wrong with that, if that’s your thing, because live poker is relatively rare for me and I always had the online bankroll that I was building up. Now that is gone, I think I will take the bankroll side of online poker a little more seriously.

I have also come into a bit of a conundrum. Semi-poker related.

You know how sometimes, a friend or somebody you respect/have mutual respect for etc… does something you don’t agree with, what do you do? Do you point out the error of their ways, the wrongs in their preachings and proclamations? I think you should, but how do you do this without offending them, or coming off as a bit of a dick. Not to mention you might just alienate yourself from others who are always mutual friends and/or admirers.

And I’m not talking about Duggle Boggey’s taste in movies, although that is a very important topic for another time.

I feel almost like I am the one guy in the crowd that can see through the emperor’s new clothes – although that might be a bit of a lop sided statement from my point of view.

So, the downsides of taking saying something are possible loss of their friendship/respect, possible retaliation, same from mutual friends leading to a life lived in exile and shame.

And the up side? Well…um…I really can’t see any good coming from it. Do you think Shakespeare would have held the peasant that said “This Hamlet, it’s pretty much the same shit over again isn’t it?” in higher regard and standing? Ok, so there are better ways to give constructive criticism I guess.

Maybe I’m just too much of a pussy to challenge someone of higher stature than me? Bah, I’m not looking for advice here, just feeling the need to say something about it.

Moving on to better subjects, am I the only one that has noticed Christmas is just a few sleeps away? How awesome is that? I love this time of year – the public holidays, everyone is in a good mood, getting drunk with family, the boxing day cricket match – and oh yeah, the fucking presents baby! I think Santa has a shit load of DVD’s for me this year, which is still ok by me. The distraction and I are heading up to my Uncles place just north of Sydney, which will be great because they are cool people and unfortunately they could not make it to the wedding. We are sure to have some fun and laughs and a few drinks to celebrate the season, something to look forward to.

Since this will be my last post for a few days due to the holidays, I hope the Xmas season treats you well, and thanks for reading.