Still Bad

Billy Mack: Hiya kids. Here is an important message from your Uncle Bill. Don't buy drugs. Become a pop star, and they give you them for free.

"Love Actually"

My frustrating run with poker continues, as I seem to have lost confidence in any hand. While I continue to make great laydowns, the bad laydowns are now starting to become more frequent. Even when other people make bad plays, then they are getting lucky as well which further adds to the frustration. I did get very lucky on one hand on Friday night, but that was again against a short stack so the pay off was minimal. To make matters even worse, I've become so down with this run that I can't help but whinge about it.

The final straw was when I finally hit something decent, with KJs and the third spade coming on the river. I was able to draw for cheap to it and was glad that the board had not paired (did have a 4-straight but I didn't concern myself with that). The pot was small and heads up, so the other player comes out betting $6. I raise it $10 and then he instantly goes all-in for $107. What can you do? There is only one hand he could do that with, and I folded the nuts-1 without much thought. He then says "Oh, I didn't see the flush" and he thought his straight was good. Ouch.

I am now back to just above even for the year after getting myself out of a major hole, and have really lost my nerve. I made a terrible play later on but since I have such a tight image it paid off small – was actually probably the biggest pot of the night for me. Board was AQJ3, and I had Q3. First to act bets $6, second calls and I pushed all in for $90. I thought they both might have a good ace or a straight draw and fold, or maybe even get a call from AK. First to act things long and hard, and I am totally playing my act as "Well, you fold for 8 hours you think you get a reputation". Thankfully my poorly timed play is offset by my well played act and the second player believes I have the straight. I'm glad I didn't convince the first player, because he had JJ and even if he knew I had the straight, he would have called thinking he had so many outs. I'm not saying that's a good play, it's just how he would have played it. Instead, he had JJ and thought I had QQ. That's the only reason he folded, which would make more sense since he would only have one out in that case and more in the other.

But that is where we stand. I have been on fire online in the SNG's, though after Friday night I believe my damaged goods led into a few losses there as well. I managed to get all the loses back in the cash game thanks to one player who was for some reason all too willing to give his chips away. KJ4 flop, I have J4 and put myself all-in, he called with 33. Thanks…I guess.

Poker On Film is on a break next week, as I am heading home for some gambling fun of a different kind. My home town has a yearly horse racing event that still stands strong no matter how bad things are in the city (and things are pretty good in the city at the moment). This will be the first time I have been there in more than 10 years I think, so looking forward to that.

Weak-Tight

Nicholas Angel: All right, what about this guy? Ask yourself, why has he got his hat pulled down like that?
Danny Butterman: He's fuck-ugly.
Nicholas Angel: Or, he doesn't want you to see his face.
Danny Butterman: 'Cause he's fuck-ugly.

"Hot Fuzz"

The Distraction and I managed to get ourselves into an advanced screening of "Hot Fuzz" over the weekend, and I have to say it was one of the funniest movies I have seen in a very long time. I can't remember the last time I came out of the cinema and been so impressed with a movie. I was quoting some of the better lines 5 seconds after they were uttered.

I'm glad some better movies are coming out now as we head into the US peak season. It was pretty dry for us last year and we seemed to leave the cinema disappointed more often than not. As I have said a few times, even "The Departed" left us disappointed, and nothing else was a real stand out from that, only perhaps "The Prestige". Now we have 300 out soon as well as all the good sequels coming, hopefully a few more good trips are ahead.

Poker has been more frustrating of late, as Friday night's game left me down nearly $30. I was down $130, so that wasn't too bad of a come back. Early on one player was hitting everything no matter what he had. When he limped, he would flop the straight and when he tried to draw, the river gave it to him. Nothing you could blame him or yourself for, the cards were just falling his way.

I was having a rough time of it when Aces got beaten by 83s (8 on the flop, 3 on the turn). When I finally got to winning some decent sized pots, I took them all of one player, who just happened to be the other short stack so I didn't really get paid for those hands. I let a lot of pots get away from me though when I knew the bluff move one of the players would make, but I was too scared that the one time I would call him on it would be the one time he was not bluffing. I never did call him, and I think he bluffed for a decent pot maybe four or five times.

As a side effect of playing a little too cautious, I did make some decent lay downs when it came to putting all my chips in. The first one was with KJ on a rainbow KJ98 board. It was the player whose bluff I wanted to call, but this time it wasn't the same move, it was a re-raise over the top of me for all my chips. I decided to let it go and he showed 99. The next one was against a different player who had tried to tighten up his game (for the better) and had me in real trouble. I was playing some garbage like 58s I think, and on a board of QJ967 I had hit my straight on the river. He was first to act so he put in a modest $3.50, and I said raise. Before I could move any chips, he had gone all-in. I'm glad he did, because I was going to raise more than the minimum but now I was being forced to raise just $3.50 and then have a think about the rest of my chips yet again.

While he was so eager to get everything into the middle says "nuts" to anyone, he had raised pre-flop and I had called him before when he had misread the hand and was strong but not a lock on the hand. Also, 3 times tonight he had hit a set with JJ and got paid off each time, I thought there was a chance he had hit a set again (perhaps even JJ) and got a bit over excited about it. I just didn't think he would raise pre-flop with KT, maybe if it was suited? It was that type of game where people would call with anything suited pre-flop. In the end I decided the bet was too big and too eager to be anything besides the nuts, so I had to let go of my little straight. He was kind enough to show me I was correct, not that I really had a big choice in hindsight. I was lucky to get off that cheaply.

After this I managed to get in front for the first time in the night, by $7 at the most before I lost a few more bets, mostly when I couldn't call the bluffs. It has been a frustrating year so far with few good sessions and mostly just hovering above even or maybe a buy-in up. What makes it more frustrating is watching other players having great sessions, $200 and $300 in the positive at the same time against the same players without making the hard lay downs that I am being forced to do. I guess it just goes that way some times.

I have also left one online room for the time being for another, as I think I am just being out matched by some of the players there. I can not get a hand and when I am weak it must be far too easy to read because everyone is able to bet over the top of me and I am left with too often 0 hands won from 40-50, which is no way to look after a buy-in. Maybe a change of scenery and a few new faces will help some. Who knows? But so far 2007 is no where near as good as 2006.

Bad Hands

Tina Fey: I threw my panties at Britney Spears once. It looked like she needed some.

"Man Of The Year"

Caught up with two movies over the weekend, Man of the Year which was only released in Australia this week and Miami Vice which I never caught when it was released. Man Of The Year was just ok, but most of the jokes told were so old that I think I heard them when I was sill in High School. There were a few funny moments, but on the most part it seemed to try to take a more serious tone than I expected, but that didn't spoil it. It was just ok.

As for Miami Vice…I could not believe a movie with such a large budget could look so bad. There was very little to like about it at all, I can't even understand how someone could put their name to this movie. When the Distraction starts to notice how bad the editing and direction is, you've got problems. I know it got reviews worse than this when it was released, but something in me expected it to be better for some reason.

I have been getting killed still in online cash games, need some readjustment but I am not sure what it is yet. Maybe a change of card room will spark something.

Friday night poker took an unexpected turn last week, with what one player dubbed the single worst hand ever played took place. I was in the BB for this particular hand, and there was maybe 4 or 5 limpers around to the button who made a weak raise for whatever reason to $3. SB and I both call, and then UTG bumps it up $20. That's a massive raise for this game, and effectively tells everyone he has a pair of aces. After a long think, only the button calls. For a bit of background, the player on the button chases nearly everything to the river, and usually ends up down a few buy ins and borrows money regularly when he is dry (always settles his debt quickly though, don't get that part wrong).

Anyway, the flop comes small and UTG bets out another $20, which the button calls. Turn is another small and the board shows two spades and two clubs. UTG bets another $20, button goes all in for the remaining $50 and UTG calls. UTG has AA of course and button has 45s for the straight and UTG is drawing dead.

Like I have never seen before, UTG was furious. He said that is why he is forced to borrow money so often, for calls like that. To make note, the pre-flop bet was a total of $23, which is half a buy-in for this game. The only defence the button could come up with was he was titling and decided to gamble and it paid off.

I said UTG shouldn't slow play aces like that. Anyway, it did put a little bit of a tarnish on the game for the night. UTG finished the night down about $40 and the button player ended the night down a minimum of $200 – which included that $190+ pot. But I have seen worse calls pre-flop before, and even lost a bigger pot because of it.

For me, I could not help but hit sets with my pocket pairs. I hit maybe 7 out of 10 on the flop, and only had to throw away one of them (when the board had 4 spades). I was up $140 at one stage, and then down as much as $70 before ending the night at $60 on the good side.

My most interesting hand of the night was with 84s on the big blind. A good player raised it to $3.50, call behind him and I call also. Flop comes 994 and I checked, looking to check-raise. The pre-flop raiser bets $6, then a call and then I bumped it up to $18. Both players called. The turn was a 6 and I bet out another $20. I had put the pre-flop raiser on AK-AJ or maybe JJ/TT. The other player was a bit of a mystery, but I figured for a flush draw. But again in my mind I was ahead vs a big ace and a draw. The first raise was to hopefully get at least heads up, and it didn't work so now that was my goal, to at least get rid of one of the draws. After agonising over the decision, the pre-flop raiser eventually called. This just reaffirmed my read, as I had a fairly good read and didn't place his actions as acting. Then the second player also called, and I got worried. This now looks like someone has a monster and is laughing all the way.

The river brought a 10, and I lost my confidence in my hand and decided to check. Both players behind me did the same. Pre-flop raiser had pocket Kings and took down the hand, and the player behind him did have the flush draw (jack high).

Even though I lost nearly a whole buy-in on the hand, I was kind of proud at myself for playing it that way. I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but that was how I felt. I made a read on the situation and stuck with it, right up until the last card. I could beat a lot of hands that he had, I just didn't put him on the right one. If there was only one caller and not two on the turn, it could have been a very different hand. The pre-flop raiser though I had Aces and I think a final bet on the river would have had him making (what he thought would be) a great lay down. He is a good enough player to lay down the over pair as well. But I lost my nerve and pulled out at the last moment, so that is the way it goes some times. In hindsight, I made a wrong read and lost a lot of chips, but at least I made a read and stuck with it. It was wrong this time but hopefully I can improve on that.

Wow, is that scary or what? I try to justify betting big when I had 2 outs and think it's good play…

Pakistan Poker

The Caller: You'd shoot me if you had the chance, wouldn't you?
Stu: With a big fucking smile on my face.
The Caller: There's the spirit.

"Phone Booth"

For the first time in quite a while, I had no poker over the weekend as we instead made a trip to see a friend out of town. Not much excitement there really but it was nice none the less. She has just moved in with her new boyfriend, and as the Distraction, another female friend and I were driving down, they wondered if he would be into poker? I said he's Texan, it's a given that he loves poker. Sure enough I was right, but it still wasn't good enough to get a game going, mores the pity.

I have had a bit of a chance to rekindle my interest in online poker, but I have been getting my ass handed to me on that one. Maybe I am being too timid or I am just getting caught in bad situations, but I just can't seem to win a hand and every time I have a vulnerable hand, there is a big bet in front of me, or over the top of me. More often over the top it seemed. Bad play, bad cards or a combination of both, results have been disappointing as of late.

Results in SNG's have been slightly better, although a bit of a cold run as far as the cards are concerned as well but not much you can do about that. Maybe playing so many live SNG's as of late, and not as much cash games, has changed my play so that my preferred game (cash) is not as strong as it once was. Should sort this out soon lets hope.

Been spending some time of late playing Oblivian on the Xbox 360. Not a bad game, certainly looks good and has a heaps of choices, but I wouldn't call it the masterpiece that everyone has been rating it, but that is just an opinion. I don't know why, but in these type of games without trying I always have my character lean towards a thief. I guess there is something in my nature or inner desires that wants to live the life of a thief – or at least the Hollywood ideal of a master thief. Go figure.

I hate that saying "Go Figure". No idea why I used it.

Some dude in Pakistan created an uproar this week, when it came time to pay a 10 year old poker debt. Problem being when he was playing ten years ago (no doubt before he had seen Rounders) he lost a hand and subsequently offered his infant daughter as payment for the debt. The debt was about 10,000 rupees, or nearly $200 Australian.

That means for the same price I bought the Distraction's Ipod last year, I could have got one and a half Pakistani girls.

A work colleague mentioned that 5 years ago, this story would not have even made the news, but now that poker is everywhere not only is it in the news, it was the most read story on the Sydney Morning Herald website yesterday.

Now most of you are probably thinking what I am thinking – what was the hand? Was it a bad beat or was he trying to draw to the flush? Methinks the flush.


Donkey.

Short Stack Poker

Susan Stanton: Your grandfather was a great man. Jack Stanton could also be a great man, if he wasn't such a faithless, thoughtless, disorganized, undisciplined shit.

"Primary Colours"

In my last post, I used a quote from "The Good Shepard", which is a movie we saw on Sunday. It's got an ok story to it and everything, but to be honest the lead character is just so fucking boring all the way through it kind of ruins it. Not to blame Matt Damon for his job, it was just the character was meant to be that way. Funny though, because early in the film the lead character was in a college stage play in full drag and singing (quite well for a fake female voice I might add) – and the same character is so dead pan for the rest of his life. Yeah, a few things didn't make send about the characters but it is what it is.

Back to the story at hand, we were back into the un-air-conditioned Dome on Saturday night. Before we reached the bar, the guy had our drinks opened and ready. It's good to be considered a regular on your 4 th visit. I think my buddy standing next to me kind of stands out though through looks and personality, and the fact that he drinks Toohey's Old.

Anyways, we get the first game underway eventually as the room is unusually quiet. Parking was a bitch thanks to a Boys 2 Men concert on next door. Seriously, Boys 2 Men. I couldn't believe it myself.

I made mention before the first hand that I had a golden duck once before (knocked out on the first hand), and then my buddy goes and does just that. He had a weak ace, hit the turn and was betting on every street. The opponent had KJ - J on the flop and K on the river. That was enough for him.

Three hands later I had KK in early position and I made a raise. I get one call and then a re-raise from the button, and another call. I thought about pushing right there, and I should have in hindsight, but I was a little gun shy as I could be up against aces again, so I just called for a total of 500, 25% of my (and everyone else's) stack. Four handed see a Queen high all diamond flop. I didn't look at my cards because I remember I have two red Kings, so I have the King high flush draw and an over pair, maybe I can take it down here unless I am against QQ. Even then, I have outs. I bet 500 more, and the next player min-raises to 1000, the last two players fold. I can call which will have me pot committed, so I may as well go all-in or fold. I have zero read on the opponent, but he didn't re-raise pre-flop so maybe he has AQ. I decided to go all-in and he has to call regardless, but he had A9d for the flopped nuts. I hit my flush on the turn, but it was obviously pointless and I was gone already. That was a quick one.

Next game, I am back to my old habits of sitting back and folding crap. I've got a very passive female to my right and a clueless player to my left who is a veteran of many free rolls by the sound of it. He has shown that he bets any pair but then meekly calls if he is raised or bet into. The passive female has shown she will call with just about anything, but did hit some hands early to have chips.

I get down to 1050 in chips with blinds getting dangerous. I have Q5h in the BB and get to see a flop 4 handed. Female player bets 250, I raise to 500 because I believe top pair has her beat and I want it heads up – she'll call for sure. Then the free roll veteran pushes all-in without much hesitation. The other player folds and the female calls for all her chips (more than me). I look at my little five, and then my last 550 in chips. Some people would look at the pot and see value for top pair, but all I saw was an exit to two players that I considered myself better than, and I folded my Queen face up. I got some funny looks from the other experienced players at the other end of the table – "You folded a queen to them?"

"I'm beat." Was all I could say. The female player rolled over KJ for second pair and a straight draw, while the free roll veteran had 99 for a set of nines. The turn was a King and the river was a blank, as the blinds went up to 200/400 and I had 550 left.

I managed a double up on the next hand, but after folding my blinds again to raises I was back down to 550 again and waiting to go all-in with anything decent. UTG+1 with a limp in front, I thought about it with A7o, and had the chips ready but for some reason I pulled them back. There was a raise behind me and three players were all in with King high the best – and there was an ace on the door! D'oh! Maybe the wrong decision there, but for some reason I just thought my ace was dominated. Very next hand, I get the same ace back but with a nine this time, and I push all-in (a raise of 150 on the 400 big blind). I get called by only the big blind, which is about as good as I could hope for. I hit another ace, and that's good for a double up plus some. Then finally the cards start to fall, and I make it to heads up where my opponent is quite passive and lets me steal a few times. He has maybe 60% of the chips at the start, and we get very close to even when the telling hand comes.

I have 89d and raise, he calls. Flop comes KdQd8h. I bet, he raises and then I push all in. He thinks about it and tries to talk me around my hand but I try not to give any clues. Eventually he decides to call with Q5o. I was happy with a call or fold to be honest. I hit my flush on the turn, and he is left with just the big blind in chips. We deal the last hand open and I have ATo vs 73o, and no bad beat this time which means I have my first full paying win at the dome!

I did apologize for the flush draw hitting, but he actually said I was ahead in the coin flip, reckoning it was 53% to me. Just doing the calculator now, I was ……………..

There seems to be a bit of a slow night, and I have to wait a while for the next table to form. We go to sit down finally and there was 11 players, so they decided to run it with 11.

After 10 hands, we were down to 7. After 20 hands, we were down to four. Two guys have been hitting massive hands and getting paid off – including this gem four ways. Board reads QJJK8, 3 rd diamond on the river. Player 1 has KT, Player 2 had A6d, player 3 had J9 and player four had QJ meaning he was pretty much freerolling the hand from the flop.

The final four has me the short stack, as I have yet to see a flop let alone win a hand. There is a female player coming third, who has won one hand. The other two guys have all the chips, and have won every other hand in the game between them. We were on the third level of blinds and already had 7 knocked out.

The chip leader knocked out the last two guys, and then it was heads up again. I had won a few pots by this time, but still was well behind in the chip count. I eventually doubled up again with a diamond flush draw (I pushed, he called with a pair I think). That meant I had 16K in chips now, and he had the remaining 6K. He went into push or fold mode, and with the blinds at 200/400 I was happy to fold if I had nothing – which I usually did and showed him I had four high and was folding. I was going to wait for a hand to end it, and he eventually called my all-in when I had JJ. JJ held up against 68c and it was two wins in a row, and this one was a little bit bigger thanks to the extra player. Well hey, ten bucks is 10 bucks.

After that, I grabbed a bourbon and coke because back to back wins was worth a toast to myself (by myself), and I waited for my buddy to finish the game he was on. Some drunk got refused service at the bar, and then staggered and whinged about it to everyone within ear shot just to prove the bar staff right. The Boys 2 Men concert had just finished, which saw an influx of young gangsta wanna-be white guys flood in, half drunk and half stoned.

I took stock of the night. I was up $190 tonight, which after a disastrous start to January had actually put me back in the black for the first time this year in live play. The room was still hot and was only now getting crowded at 12.30-1am. When my buddy finished his game, we decided to put this one in the books and head home.

FIRST WEEKEND AT THE DOME:
9 games, $180 in entry fees, return of $60. Loss of $140.

SECOND WEEKEND AT THE DOME:
7 games, $140 in entry fees, return of $445. Profit of $305.

I think the main difference was a run of beats the first time around didn't occur the second, and I figured out how to get many different types of bad players to give me enough chips to tackle the good ones. Also, I let a lot of people do the hard work for me and only played hands when half the field had left. And yes, some flush draws and aces when small stacked certainly helped a lot.

An Annoying Win

Edward Wilson : How do you know I am the right person?
Ray Brocco: I was told you were a serious son of a bitch with no sense of humour, there can't be two of you

"The Good Shepard"

I had a good poker weekend financially if nothing else, but something was seriously missing that I still haven't managed to put my finger on. But lets get right into the results.

Friday night and we can't get a home game going again, so we head into the city back to the Dome to scratch the itch. We only play in the $20 SNG's, because there is a new one every 10 minutes or better sometimes. In the first two games, I folded rags until I was severely short stacked and then went all in with AK the first time and KJ the second. In both games, that would be the only hand I would play as I was knocked out. Nothing I could do, and I felt really bored with it and helpless even. I reviewed all the folding decisions in my head and decided there was nothing I could do so I should just buy my next ticket and get on with it.

The room is pretty big with 20+ tables. When we get there at 8ish there is usually 8-10 of them running. By 11pm every table will be full. With nearly 200 people in the room, things get crowded and hot. This week though, the air conditioning was busted making life very difficult for my third table, which was stuck in the farthest corner under the brightest lights. Add to this a table of immature guys younger than me, all engaged in their own conversations and not paying attention to the game (meaning about 4 hands per 15 minute rounds) and it wasn't an enjoyable table. They were a mixture of guys that knew enough to be dangerous but really didn't know much at all. There was one woman at the table, maybe mid thirties, who was a bit of a regular. She made some interesting decisions – I think she knows the best plays for the cards, but not for the situations. One example was from the SB she calls the 200 chips to be heads up with the big blind, who was short stacked. The big blind raised to 900 all in, meaning another 500 for her to call (she had about 7700 in chips and the lead.) She folded 64d. I would have probably raised him all-in blind, but defiantly called that last 500. Anyways, that was her choice to play that way.

Again I was cold decked, and sat back and watched some really silly calls, especially by one player in particular (who would later be dubbed Mr Giggles, more on that to come). Without doing much, we got to four handed and I pushed from UTG for my last 4 bets with A6s. I got called by a King-rag and took the pot to double up plus some. The Woman at the table couldn't believe I would go all-in with a weak ace (suited damn it!) like that – I couldn't believe she would fold it!

Anyway, I got to the bubble and busted one of the youger, "Naïve" players as the woman called them, when I hit a set of sevens and he had KK (AJ7 flop mind you). It was the slowest game ever, it was hot and not really enjoyable but at least we were now in the money. Normally the money is $60 for second and $120 for first, but she offered $75 and $105 to end it now, with me having a commanding chip lead. I thought about it for a bit – I was fairly confident I could run over her heads up but I was only leaving $15 on the table. I was happy to end it and hopefully get to a better table, as well as be in the black for the night. This would be my first at the dome as well, so all was good.

On the next table, a few of the same players were there including Mr. Giggles, which was the name my buddy gave him on the drive home. He would sit there expressionless and deal so slowly and deliberately (no dealers used in this card room, that would get them in legal trouble). He would slide one card off the top, on to the table and then around to the player. When it came time to deal the flop, he would slide the burn card off, then the three flop cards face down. Then place the deck down and put the button back on top. Then move the three flop cards together, then roll them over and spread them out one by one. If the Royal London Guards ever dealt poker, this is how they would do it. This would all be very intimidating…if I hadn't seen him call off ¾ of his stack at the previous table with nothing but queen high.

A very interesting hand early involving my buddy and another guy at the end of the table that amazed me. Buddy raises to 250 (25/50 blinds) from late position, Calling Station calls from SB. AQJ flop, check from CP and Buddy raises 500 (which is 25% of the starting stack), and the CP calls of course. Turn is a 2, same thing happens. The river is an 8, and both check. The board shows AQJ28. My buddy shows 66, and the calling station shows T8. He called off 1250 of his 2000 with a gut shot straight, and in the end hit a pair. I was shocked that both players committed so much to the pot.

The CP now has chips, and was prepared to call all-ins with K8o, and thankfully he only won 50% of them which was enough to thin the field, but still not make him a run away chip leader.

I was again forced to sit back and wait for my chance to play and won some chips in hands I do not remember. When it got to short handed, I had a good idea of how all the others were playing. When I was in push or fold mode, I was dealt AQo in UTG+1. UTG was the calling station, who still had a fair amount of chips – enough to be first or second. He pushed all-in in front of me, which was the first time he had done that all game. I had a look at the AQ and decided that I was beat. It got folded all the way around, but he generously still decided to show his hand. He had AcKc, so my fold was the correct and I was very grateful he decided to show it.

Four handed, and this time I have won a few pots and now am 2nd in chips, CP is 3rd. In the BB I have AJo and the other two players fold. CP just calls, so I bump it up (300/600) to 1000 chips on top. He looks at his cards, and the aggressively shows all his chips all-in. I ask for a count, as I consider what has happened. He has called all-ins with disgusting hands, has delighted in showing how little he knows how to play, and when he had a good hand he couldn't wait to get his chips in there. There is no way he is smart enough to call then re-raise me here with a monster. I figure he might have something like KT or QJ even, something that looks good but I have beat. I call and he shows A2o. No help for the weak, and I knocked him out – and get a thank you from the other two players after he has left the table. I don't think anyone wanted him to make the money.

Down to the bubble again, against two decent guys and decent players. One of them played his Aces very well, but the other guy rivered 2 pair with JT after the money went all-in on the turn, which knocked him out and I've made back-to-back money finishes! Out of the 20K in play, I have maybe 8.5K. He offers an even chop because his friends are waiting to go, and I accept but only after we run the last hand to see who can call themselves the winner. He had an ace-high flush draw on the turn to my two pair, and I rivered the full house so I'm claiming that one too!

Friday night – 4 games for $115 profit. This would be the first time I walk out winner from the dome, and I am forced to be satisfied with the night but yet again left hungry for more.

More poker was needed for Saturday night, so I put in plenty of bribes for the Distraction in order to get my Travel Visa, as the Distraction also doubles as the minister for recreation. The bribes involved house work, more house work, downloading a few of her absolute favourite TV shows from the states (that won't be shown in Australia for another year) and then seafood. The visa was granted, but was almost retracted after some post-granting remorse.

As we were walking up to the second level where the card room is, the air conditioning was working beautifully to the point where I could have called those stairs home. I was relieved and even said thank god the air conditioning must have been fixed. As soon as my head rose above the floor level of the 2 nd though, I felt the harsh reality. The air conditioning was only broken on that level, and it was still that way.

Saturday night at the Dome deserves it's own post, so I will continue this later in the week.

Every Hook Needs A Worm

Chris: You're gay?
Bobby: No, I got both my nipples pierced and bought a house in Morocco because I'm John fucking Wayne!

"Rock Star"

I had a great time over the weekend going through DVD shops with the distraction, and seeing some great movies for bargain prices. We managed to restrict ourselves to just $20 (which the Distraction found crossing the road to the mall in the first place) and picked up both "The Game" and "The Godfather" – can't argue with that. I also saw the all time classic "Grunt" up for sale on DVD. My dear lord, I can't believe someone took the time to convert that one over to the newer format. This movie has to go into the "So bad it's worth it" pile some day.

Every hear the one about…

There are these two guys in the jungle, studying the flora and fauna and what not when all of a sudden they see a tiger looking at them from some distance away. The tiger starts to move towards them with a hungry look in it's eyes, and the two guys are to be it's dinner for sure. Then, one of the men sits down and starts putting on his shoes. "What the hell are you doing" says the other, "Even with your shoes on you can't out run that tiger!". The first man finished tying his laces, stands up and says "I don't need to outrun him, I need to out run you".

That was me playing poker this weekend. I didn't play brilliantly, even made some poor decisions at times, but there was always someone willing to make a worse decision when the time came and that is how I got paid off. For example…

Holding Ace King, flop is AK5, not too bad. It's heads up, and I put out a feeler to see if he has an ace and I can get paid here. I get called, and the river comes another 5. I bet, he raises. Now I decided to push all-in here, which isn't a good decision I decided in hind sight. What am I hoping for? If he has AQ or AJ, then maybe I get a call, and I think that is a big maybe. Anything better than that and I don't want a call, anything worse and he can't call. So basically the all-in bet is to take down the pot then and there, and I am not really protecting myself against any draws – inside straight maybe, but that's about it. Anyway, he decides to call and shows TT. Ok, I did not put him on that hand, but that terrible call certainly made up for my bad bet. About a $100 pot or there abouts.

And another hand, this time online so it could be forgiven as I haven't played against this opponent often, if ever, so there is no table image to speak of (unlike the previous hand which was in a regular home game). This is on Full Tilt, 6 handed 25c/50c table. Middle position makes it $1.75 (pot raises) and I call from the small blind with 74d, big blind also calls. Questionable to call out of position with 74d, but it was about the third hand and it is easy to get away from when it misses. The flop comes 7h4sQh, which I guess is about as good as I could hope for. I check – hoping for a follow up bet from MP. BB also checks, and MP bets $8 into a $5 pot. I raise it up to $50 all-in. If there ever was an over bet, that was it. BB folds and MP instantly calls – and shows AA. Turn and river are both rags, and I have felted the guy within the first orbit.

No doubt he would have spoken about how online poker is rigged, how I am a fish calling with 74d to his raise pre-flop and so on. But really, would you call with an over pair when someone bets nearly 5 times the pot on a check raise? Ok, I might have had AQ, but really I would have put me on 44 or 77 and trying to cash in on AQ or get rid of the flush chases. 74 would have been the worst hand I could have been on, and again the all-in here might not have been the best move, but I got a caller.

I did bust out of a few SNG's, once to a semi-bluff into quads, but in the last one I played I would have knocked out 7 of the 8 players myself. A few times I had the nuts on the flop or turn, and the pot was already big enough so I would push, only to get called by hands that were drawing dead or near enough to it. Set over set on the bubble helped too mind you. But then heads up, I lost to two beats in a row when I had a 10-1 chip lead. Not terrible beats, but I put my money in with the best of it and he hit the river card he needed both times. First time was T22 flop, I had T8 and pushed to get called by AK. Ace on the river, but what can you do? Next time, I had J8 and the flop some T92. Check, small bet from him I call. Turn is the 7 and I push, he calls with 22. Another nine on the river, and now we are pretty close to even. Eventually I push with a flush draw plus overs and loose to his bigger overs when none of my outs come. But what can you do? I was happy enough with the second place finish as I haven't played this much poker online in quite some time.

Talking with one of the regulars after the game on Friday night/Saturday morning, he mentioned how he doesn't gamble on horse racing or casinos or whatever, only poker but he admits to being addicted to it. Not addicted in the sense that he is putting his mortgage on the line or anything like that, but he would play good long sessions of poker at least once a weekend, more often than not twice, and some online play during the week.

Last week was the first time I ever felt like I was actually addicted. I needed to play and poker was all I could think about, which meant back to back nights into the city. This week, after finally getting out of the SNG's and back into some proper cash games, I didn't feel the need to go into the city come Saturday night, even though I got a free pass from the distraction. I think the itch was sufficiently scratched and I was quite pleased with myself that while I would have liked to go play again, I didn't feel the need to. Having said that I did put in a few hours playing online come Sunday morning, but never the less.

While playing on Sunday morning, I was also watching the episodes so far of season 3 of High Stakes Poker. This is still my favourite poker show on TV, and I'd much rather watch this that the WSOP even. I have just started watching Poker After Dark, which is ok, but just ok. Signs that televised poker have gone to far – I saw advertised this week "Hip Hop Holdem". I can't imagine how bad this is going to be.

First Visit To The Dome

Seth Davis: I had a very strong work ethic. The problem was my ethics in work.

"Boiler Room"

Yet again this past weekend we had trouble getting enough players together for a home cash game, so we had to cast our eyes further in order to scratch our itch. We heading towards the city to the "Poker Dome", a RSL that has turned one level into a 7 days a week poker room. The story as told to me was the place was going bust when they put in the poker like every other pub in Sydney. Then some bright spark thought that instead of running like everyone else, they will run SNG's all day and take 10% juice. Now 10% juice may be high, but when there is no competition for them it in this area then it starts to look pretty attractive. I went on a Friday and Saturday night, which I am going to assume are the bigger nights, and all 20+ tables were full around 9pm. They were churning out $20 tables, and had the odd $50 and $100 moving as well.

Small stakes as it may be, but I think this is smart. It is all about appealing to the masses, not the pros. It's the wanna-be pros they want. They pay 6x buy in for first and 3x for second. While the caliber of player varies as much as it does anywhere else, for any poker player it is an enjoyable experience. They take the poker seriously, and have done their absolute best to set the place up to be a poker room. And that is what is most impressive – it is a poker room, not a pub playing some poker.

After I had a rough run (more later), I went for a walk through the other levels of the building to see what else was going on. On the main bar level, there was about 6 people playing the pokies, and I think about 5 of them were poker players taking a break.

Apparently the law doesn't allow them to have dealers or cash games, but with dealers it would probably be not profitable at the lower limits (which would kill the business) and well while cash games are the preferred game, I think the casino owns that exclusively and you have to make do with what is available.

So I rocked up with a buddy on Friday night to see what it was like. I stuck to just the $20 games to get a feel for it, to play at a dollar level I was comfortable with, and because there was always a $20 table opening up.

In my first game I got some cards early, and made the chip lead before the first orbit was out. I raised nearly every hand, if it hasn't every hand. Then when I had JJ I had a shorter stack call for all his chips. Heads up, and he has 83c. Yep, both of them come up on the flop and there goes my chip lead and I am back in the pack.

After that hand, I don't think I got to play another hand until I was eventually knocked out in 4th with 83o on the big blind. Such is life.

For the rest of the night, I went 3rd, 4th, 4th. Every time I got chips early only to loose half of them to a beat or coin flip, and then get blinded out. In my last game, I was down to 700 chips (start with 2000) when I had KQo on the big blind. There were 5 other limpers for 100 chips, and I thought it would be best to push here pre-flop to try to get 1 caller – 2 at the most. Well, the train was running on time and everyone came on board. I was the smallest stack and a few others had me slightly out-chipped, but it was pretty much half the table all-in pre-flop. The board comes King high, and my hand held up. Yes, 6 ways a pair of kings with a queen kicker was good to move from 700 in chips to 4200. The hands a remember that called were 66 from UTG, K5h from middle position and AQo from the small blind. I think the other two players mucked their cards but I couldn't believe it and I actually think that hand put me on tilt a bit even though I won it.

What else annoyed me about this particular table was the girl sitting 2 seats to my left. She was young and attractive, with cleavage spilling out and giggling all the way. This wasn't what annoyed me though, as I figured out pretty quickly that she knew what she was doing when it came to poker and I considered everything else a bit of an act (the constant giggling and lines like "I like it here, there's so many guys"). But this didn't annoy me. That fact that the act worked on the drunks sitting at the table is what annoyed me more. The same people that would call an all-in with K5 earlier were now folding strong aces because they didn't want to knock the girl out. Good job champ, she'll totally want to sleep with you know.

Speaking with my buddy about it later, he ht the nail on the head as to why this annoyed me so much – I could see the angle, but had not figured out how to use it to my advantage. Alas, we shall have to wait until next time. The Vietnamese guy sitting next to me was pretty funny though, talking about her to his friend right in front of her. I think he might have been a little annoyed with the act too. I mean, it's a freaking $20 table for Christs sake. Anyways, when I was knocked out in 4 th, it was the drunk, the giggling girl and the Vietnamese guy still in there so what do I know?

My first outing and I felt very un-satisfied. 4 tables and 4 good showings, but no money to speak of. I needed more and if it were not for the Distraction spending our entire download limit this month, I would have gone straight home and hopped on Full Tilt to soothe the thirst. My buddy had a very different night, finishing 1 st, 2nd, 1st and then second. Not a bad effort at all, and he was unlucky heads up in the 2 second places.

This meant a return trip the following night, both of us in tow again. I needed to play, and even said my first table or two would go quickly because of the need. I wasn't far off the mark.

On the first table, I never played a hand. Never had anything worth playing, eventually blinded out and went all in with 45o with a five on the board. Lost to A5, but I knew I could have done no better.

The way the room works is you buy a ticket at the bar, then when they call a table you sit down and hand over your ticket. I knew I would play 3 or 4 in the night, so rather then line up with the unwashed masses later on, I thought I might buy two at a time. Seems like good planning to me.

At the first table I sit down and get ready to ply my trade. UTG I get dealt KK, so I come out betting for 300 (blinds 25/50) which might be a bit much but it will do. I saw everyone fold and expected the big blind to do the same. Instead, he raised it to 1600. Wow, this means one of two things – either he has Aces or he is an idiot. Since I had never seen this guy before in my life, and because my opinion of the average poker player was low, I went for the later and was wrong. First hand, KK vs AA and I am going home.

So I used the second ticket, and last 3 hands longer. First hand I play, limp with 3 others from late position with 88. Flop comes J83, two hearts. First player checks, second bets 200, third calls. I think I should raise so that flush drawers will need to pay for it or go away. I make it 700 and then the first player goes all-in over the top. The other two fold and I have to call for the remaining 1200 of my chips. Of course he has JJ, and my one out does not come.

2 tables, four hands, $40. Just like that. That makes your confidence take a hit. In review though, I should have folded the KK and the 88 – well, I don't think I could have gotten away from it. I definitely would not have checked with JJ on that board, but then again I was walking out without any chips so again what do I know?

My buddy was still going on one table while all this was happening, so I thought it would be best to take a break and vowed not to return to the fray until he had finished his game. I couldn't bare to be knocked out four times while he was on the same table. And I will never buy two tickets together for myself again.

He did well, finishing second and then we sat down for the fourth game of the night. After some playing around, I got some novice player to call off all his chips in two hands with nothing, so that was nice. Maybe he had somewhere to go, who knows? Anyways, I get heads up (yah, my first cash in my 8 th game!) and I make an all-in call with a OESD, which hits. The other player knows what he is doing, and a nice guy so I tell him I owe him a beer. Later on he declares all-in before the cards are even dealt - when I have about 70% of the chips. I get dealt pocket tens, so it's an easy call to see him roll over his blind hand – 73o. Yep, the flop comes 7 and a 3, and I get no more help. He relieves me of my offer to buy him a drink. Can't remember how, but I lost but I was just happy to finally cash in that game.

The final game was a funny one, with my buddy getting a big chip lead early. Down to 6, he calls an All-in from the short stack with A9 vs A4. The board deals out an ace and no 4, so the other player gets up to leave and the player behind me goes to muck the board cards. Before I could even think about it I grab the cards and flip them back over and call the player back. The board was A262T. The ten on the river made it a split pot, and it seems I was the only one to spot it.

Here is the thing – everyone, including the player who was "knocked out" was happy with him leaving, believing he had been knocked out. I made the call that it was a split without thinking, and I know it is to my disadvantage to do it. Not only that, but the person it affects adversely the most is my good buddy who would have won the big pot and had half the chips on the table. But I believe every player at the table has an obligation to speak out on these things if they see them. If I stayed silent, that's as good as cheating. Nobody at the table complained, and all seemed happy with it.

Until that same player hit the luckiest run of cards I've ever seen. He was half way out the door before I called him back, now he was getting dealt an Ace every hand. He was either winning the hands or chopping them. When down to five I called an all-in now being the small stack with AKo. He had A5o and hit the five on the door. You'd think I'd have some karma coming to me after my display of fine sportsmanship moments earlier, but apparently not so. My buddy got knocked out in a very similar way a few hands after by the same guy.

Fuck karma.

9 games, 1 second and a net loss of $140 on the weekend. I hope I will do better next time, but in the end I still enjoyed it and it went a little way to scratching the itch.

What Did That Buy In Ever Do To You?

Lewis: Can that chubby boy handle himself?
Ed: Bobby? He's rather well thought of in his field, Lewis.
Lewis: Insurance? I never been insured in my life. There's no risk.

"Deliverance"

Wow, work has been kicking my ass of late. I have been far too busy to think about poker, and after an unusually busy weekend socially, I am tired and sunburnt and not feeling like overly thinking things at the moment. That means a continuing series of early nights and not much poker again this week.

I did get a live game in a week ago that I have yet to post about, and I will be brief. I ended the night up $120 which was the first profitable night for the year, breaking the back-to-back $200 loosing sessions previous to this one. It was a good night, where I made one of the best lay downs I ever had.

With 77 in middle position, I call a small raise with a few runners. Re-raising pre-flop just doesn't do anything in these games. The flop comes a harmless 742 rainbow, and I'm all happy. An early position bettor and then a min-raise and I think things are looking good. I just call and we have 3 or 4 runners to see the turn (I can't remember which). The turn was a six, putting 7x4h2x6h on the board. 77 still looks pretty good. UTG checks, then the player to my right bets $10, which is better than the standard $4-$5 bet that goes on. Something smelt funny, and I just didn't believe that top set was still ahead. Sure, if I was right then I would still have plenty of outs and I could have even pushed the action a little harder before now, but I could not get the thought out of my mind that he had just hit his straight. I agonized over the decision for a while, and then showed my cards to a few of the guys who had already folded, as I said to them "I can't believe I'm folding this". Then I mucked my cards and let the rest of them finish the hand. The river didn't pair the board and my opponent to my right's 58 straight held up.

Say what you want about the play pre and post flop, I was mighty proud of that fold on the turn (regardless of the river). After having a bit of a bad run up to this hand, I said "I'm getting sick of making great lay downs". After this, my luck turned some and I got a few good wins to get up for the night. One player lost a buy-in in 2 hands by firstly way over playing top pair and then pushing with some hand against a big pair. One player commented the title to this post – "What did that by-in ever do to you?" – which I thought was pretty funny and will soon become a common barb around our poker tables.

Last weekend we had a change of pace and went back to a lower level SNG home game. I started my home game career on these games, so it was good to see the guys again (even if we can't convince them to join the cash games – mores the pity). In short I didn't find myself enjoying it as much as the cash games, which isn't a surprise since this is what we left the games for, but it was good to change the pace. I finished in the money in the last 2 of the 3 games, for an ok profit on the night.

But to more important issues, I am noticing more and more than some of the regulars are now becoming not so regular. The people that are leaving the poker games are the gamblers – the people that are either up 5 buy-ins or down 5 buy-ins. While I am by no means a student of the game, I think I have learnt something over the past few years. Some others have been paying for the lessons but ignoring the teachings I guess. Once their wild ways get figured out, everyone knows they can be relied on to pay them off when they get a hand or miss a draw. I will admit, most of my winning sessions, my bigger winning sessions, these guys are directly responsible for, so it is always sad to see them go. But even more so, it will be sad if the games themselves go. I'm happy to spend 7-8 hours tosses chips and cards and then to walk out with the same amount of money I walked in with. You've got to be happy with that in home games among friends.

Which is why we have agreed, it might be time to expand the circle again. Or we just wait until the lost guys grow fonder with their absence, and come back to us.

PSO Is Awesome

The saying goes, “There is no such thing as a free lunch.” Wrong.

Well, Poker Source Online is not going to give you a free meal exactly, but the money they will give you will be enough to buy several of them. Through Poker Source Online’s (PSO) free poker money promotion, also known as Instant Bankroll, you can start playing for real money at one of three online poker rooms for free. No risk to you at all. PSO will deposit money directly into your new poker account so you can start playing.

The most common question Poker Source Online gets is, “How can you guys afford to give away free money every day?” It’s a great question and the answer is actually very simple. Online poker rooms pay affiliates like PSO to bring them customers. So, in exchange for signing up through their site, the folks at PSO want to spread the wealth by giving you part of that payment.

The Instant Bankroll promotion is fantastic for all sorts of online poker players. For the newbie, it is a way to try out online poker without worrying about everything new involved in this new activity. For the seasoned veteran, it is a way to try out a new room without having to commit a penny of your hard-earned bankroll. And for the broke poker fan, well…that should be obvious.

It is easy to signup. Just visit http://www.pokersourceonline.com and navigate to the “Free Stuff” tab. There you will find the “Free Poker Money” registration. You’ve get nothing to lose except PSO’s money!

Video Game Memories: Part 2

Dixie: Hey, what about your boyfriend? What was his name?
Roxanne Kowalski: Richard.
Dixie: When's he coming?
Roxanne Kowalski: He's not. He's not coming.
Dixie: What happened?
Roxanne Kowalski: We just ran out of gas. I guess I mistook sex for love.
Sandy: Oh, I did that once. It was great.

"Roxanne"

51 – In the same era as "Low Blow Boxing" came R.B.I. Baseball 2 for me, which I spent many hours on. I always tried their season mode but after 15-17 games, it would not remember them and always went back to maybe 12 or something like that. Shame, but this might have started my unhealthy obsession with season modes when it came to sports games.

52 – Another baseball game, hardball 2 kept me entertained for hours. I would rename all of the players after people I knew, and would drop them if their batting average got below .750.

53 – We had this weird game called Ugh-lympics, which was a caveman version of mini-games in an Olympic style type of thing. All I can really remember is that some of the events seemed really random if you could win or not. Oh, and once for footy I think we had a player billeted with us who set a record on some event that we could never beat. I didn't like that. Hated the fire starting event too.

54 – In more modern times, I remember first seeing GTA 3 on the shelf at the video store. I didn't know anything about the game, but one look at it told me that it would be awesome. I was working at the video store at this stage, and it was always a competition between myself and another guy working there over who would take it home. God knows how or when a customer could get their hands on it. I still remember trying to get our copy of it when it was banned in Australia, and a customer had actually decided to keep it instead. I made my first eBay purchase to get a un-censored copy at nearly 150% of the normal price. Later on I found out you could just buy it from New Zealand and get it shipped to Australia without the censorship and pay maybe $5 extra for the privilege.

55 – I reckon I could fill 100 with GTA themed inclusions alone. But the original GTA was something special, and I will never forget that there was one mission I could never complete because I had already finished the main story line, and in this mission you had to pick up porn magazines while driving a van or something like that – but the mafia hated me and would always shoot the van before I got all the way through the game.

56 – And really, what GTA3 memory would be complete without a mention of the first time you got with a hooker, and then used the baseball bat as a method of refund. Good times, good times.

57 – For a while, I was addicted to G.1 Jockey and similar horse racing games. Again, any game with a decent season or career mode, and I'm there. This used to piss off other people though who didn't share my same enthusiasm for the long term appeals of a horse racing video game.

58 - For me, the greatest racing game of all time will always be Street Rod. I loved the way you could buy car parts and customize your ride, and then save up to buy (or win) the best car in order to challenge "The King". It was a bit short though, and the sequel really sucked. Most people talk about racing games as "Need for Speed" or "Gran Taurismo", but for me racing games went down hill from Street Rod. Other racing games I liked were Burnout 2, Mario Kart and the previously mentioned Rock n Roll Racing.

59 – While working at the video store, I was always really into this Japanese golfing game…(searching Mobygames.com for the name now)…Swing Away Golf it was called. Not a very popular title, but I loved it because you had to earn the prize money and then buy better equipment and so on. I recall having to beat this really tough opponent in a game where first person to take the lead wins. I won it on the very first hole when he was inches from the cup in 3 strokes, and I sunk a 128m shot for eagle. I was impressed I tell you.

60 – Dead or Alive Volley Ball. I hired it out because it had to be more than what it was claiming to be, because my friend at the video store told me it was so bad, and because I could hire it for free. Wow, what an empty game. I couldn't believe how much it sucked.

61 – When we went over to a married friends house for dinner one night, it turned into a video game playing night. We had the best fun playing Fusion Frenzy on the Xbox. So much, that we just had to go out and buy it straight away. After that, I never lost a single game on our Xbox in Fusion Frenzy. In the years we had the game, we only ever saw Samson on the winners podium.

62 – There was also Balder's Gate: Dark Alliance that I got into, both 1 and 2. The main reason I got into them was because they were a good Co-op game. The Distraction loved them, and it was something to look forward to after work. It's a shame there are not more Co-op games around, with all the focus being on either single player or VS.

63 – One game I never got finished was Max Payne on the PS2. Loved the game, but just couldn't get passed this one part. No matter how hard I tried, and I even used walk throughs to help, I just could not get through this burning building. Had to let this one go.

64 – On one of the wrestling games, I think WWF War Zone or something similar, I went over to my uncle's house where his partner's (now wife) 14 year old son was playing it on the N64. I had spent many hours on this game and became what I considered was unbeatable. He just assumed I had never played before. I have never seen anyone so shocked at loosing at a video game before (except for memory number 34). My uncle thought it was hilarious.

65 – Back to Rock n Roll racing, we sued to cheat in a way to win it on the hardest level. When playing two player season, we would both enter in the same code (my older brother and I). Then one of us would not even try to race, and just sabotage the other racers. It wasn't an overly hard game, so the tactics were not really needed but we did them anyway because the thought that this was cheating was just too much to resist.

66 – Another arcade memory…We were doing some fund raising of some description for the swimming club my family was involved in. Me and this older kid decided we needed a break and headed to the arcade for a little while. I was playing some WWF wrestling game with a Royal Rumble on it, and without knowing what I was doing I won with the Hulkster. I only remember it because I was maybe 12 and there were two guys about 16 behind me who couldn't believe I had beaten the game on my first go.

67 – When I first move to college, me and my roommate were wasting some time at Timezone when things got competitive. We must have spent two or three hours competing against each other on every game they had and kept score all the way. I can't remember who won, which means I probably didn't.

68 – Back to GTA3. I think on the third Island near a save point, I figured out that if you drove the Cheetah as fast as possible into this hill it would throw you up in the air and you would complete a perfect double back flip. I couldn't do a double anywhere else in the game.

69 – When I bought the Leisure Suit Larry compilation series, it came with a big book full of walkthroughs and plenty of jokes from Al Lowe. I must had read that thing cover to cover – not for the walk throughs, but just for the humour of it. That, and for some reason I had to make memory number 69 about Larry.

70 – The new free-roaming Spiderman series is awesome. I don't know if I actually played the first in the series, but we were looking for those damn tokens everywhere in the second of the series. Another game the distraction really got into.

71 – The Distraction seems to love searching for tokens. This was what I recruited her to help in with GTA Vice City and San Andreas. She loved to navigate to find all those little tokens, and especially on GTA:SA there were plenty to find.

72 – I bought the original Black & White when I went on a trip into the city for some reason. That game was awesome, but so full of bugs that it wouldn't really work beyond a few levels which was really frustrating.

73 – One of the best little games, perhaps a predecessor to Worms, was Scorched Earth. While the money earning system seemed to be very random at times, it had an incredible amount of options it seemed for some a simple looking game.

74 – I came into the Xbox world a little late, as I couldn't see the point in buying one if you couldn't play GTA on them. Thanks to a great mobile phone deal though, I got one for free (same went for the Xbox 360). This then introduced me to Halo, which in turn led to Halo multiplayer, and before long we were having Halo parties. In our two level unit, it would be one team upstairs and one team downstairs. On special occasions we would have a projector upstairs to make a seven foot screen on the wall. While we had many great times playing these parties, I can still remember my favorite kill – on the level with the massive street ramp in the middle of it (actually, this could even by Halo 2). Two guys from the team upstairs were in a Warthog driving around, when they thought it would be fun to go for a jump. The driver shouts out "Watch this!" as he sped up the ramp. I had perfect position to view the action, and changed to Sniper Rifle. Just before they got to the end of the ramp, I had two perfect head shots withing milli-seconds of each other, and the Warthog slowed to a standstill, about 2 feet from the edge of the ramp. I couldn't stop laughing.

75 – There was this neat little Sierra game called "Jones In The Fast Lane", I could have spent hours playing as it was really addictive. The only disappointing thing was once you got enough money, nothing was challenging and you could do pretty much as you wanted. I used to not pay rent for the first 10 weeks, and then try to come back from there to make it interesting.

76 – I was always a big fan of Mario Kart, but I never got the hang of how to properly turn the corners so you could get the boost. Anyway, I was playing against a few friends on the indoor arena Wario level, which I thought was pretty fun and I had a chance at winning on. I think my lap times were around the 2 minute mark, and my friends were both under 15 seconds. Turns out there was a glitch that let you jump the track that I didn't know about and obviously they did. They had completed the race before I was half way through my first lap.

77 – GTA:SA was the last game I really got into, playing for hours on end for days on end. The same goes for the earlier games of the same series, but nothing has come close since. I used to sit upstairs in the other spare room playing all night sitting on this cheap vinyl couches we got from Uni.

78 – While on the topic of GTA, in Vice City I was so impressed the very first time I played it when the C64 loading screen came up. They certainly did well on that one.

Back in the days before the internet, we would scour the video game magazines for the best tips and codes to use – none more so than for Mortal Kombat fatalities. I used to buy the magazine Hyper quite frequently. Now days, the internet makes them all pretty much irrelevant. Not that I think that's a bad thing, as those magazines were 70% filler anyway, and Gamefaqs.com is a fantastic site.

79 – I bought a classic PC version of "X-Com: Enemy Unknown" for $10. I still enjoyed playing it all those years later, and I think I lent it to my older brother who still has it.

80 – On the C64, there was this game where you would select which monster you would be – I remember Godzilla and the Blob being two options – and then you would go and terrorize the city and stomp down buildings. I can still hear the music score in my head, but I can't find the name of the game anywhere.

81 – At the same time we bought the above game, mum and dad also got another text adventure where you where searching for robots or something. I only remember it because mum actually got into it, and I don't think she has ever got into a video game before or since. Can't find the name of it, but I do remember that there was a robot caleld "Danielle" that mum found, none of us could ever find her again.

82 – On the NBA Jam SNES version, if you were extremely lucky you could fluke "Powerup Dunks". That meant the next game was yours and yours alone. No matter where you were on the court, it was jam time. Full court dunks were common, and we thought it was the greatest thing ever.

83 – Lakers vs Celtics on the PC, what a game. Actually, it was pretty average but I got a kick out of it at the time. I went one entire playoff series with Chicago, constantly playing Michael Jordan and keeping tally of how much he scored in the back pages of a school book. I think he averaged somewhere in the low 150's for the series. It was also interesting because the A.I. would never dribble the ball for some reason. I guess A.I.'s back in the day had not progressed to that stage yet.

84 – There was this other great PC game called Crystal Caves, which gave you the freedom to choose which level you would do next (which was pretty rare for the day). We played it heaps, but never saw the promised sequel to it.

85 – The worst game I ever played was some Western game I picked up for next to nothing. Maybe it was the "Town With No Name", or something like that. After I finished it in less than 15 minutes, I got the feeling it was a high school student project and not really a game. Oh, it had elements of a game, but in the end there was about five things you had to do before it was finished. I might have played it again to see if I had missed anything – I hadn't.

86 – I think the first game I ever bought on eBay was Monopoly Tycoon. Not a bad game, if somewhat more restrictive than I had hoped. I realised early on though that the way to make big money was buying all the railroads – because you could get 3 cheaply and then even if you didn't get the forth, the computer player would bid far too high to make it viable for them anyway, or to become a slum lord. Sure, you only collected $64 rent for each room, but the 200 room apartment building would fill up before you knew it.

87 – I also got into Golf Tycoon for a while, and had plans of playing it until I had a golf course in every available country. After a while, I had earned so much money that I couldn't even spend it all if I tried. I think I managed 5 or 6 countries before I got bored of it.

88 – An unusual selection for my renting habits was "Theme Hospital", but damn was that game addictive. The console version was much more appealing than the PC version for me. I spent many hours trying to work my way up the ranks in that game, even got my younger brother addicted to it.

89 – I got a copy of the original Caesar some how, that part is not important. Not a bad game for it's time, but I figured out a little glitch. You had to draw a wage as the ruler, and that had to come out of the cities funds. If your city was broke for three straight years, you lost the game. What I would do was put my wage up to maximum for the first two years, and even though the city had no money they were still paying me my $100K a year (which was a lot in ancient times). Then on the third year, I would have enough money to build the city from scratch to completion in the matter of days.

90 – Another game we used to cheat to play was Sim City. It was one of those games that they let you play at school under the guise of being educational. There was a cheat code that gave you $25K, but if you used it too often you would get earthquakes. What I would do was pause the game before I had built anything and use it until I had $10M. The the earthquakes would come but I would have nothing to get damaged, so it was happy days from there. No matter how small my city was, it always needed a sports stadium.

91 – Tony Hawks American Wasteland – the first game I ever completed on Xbox 360. A friend in town lent me theirs for some reason, probably because he wanted to see it on a big plasma TV. Anyway, thanks to my mad skillz honed playing number 3 in the series, I was able to complete American Wasteland in a few days on the hardest level, with only 2 or 3 tasks seeming difficult. It was kind of disappointing in a way, and made me realise that perhaps this skateboarding genre has done as much as it could before the next big change – whatever that is.

92 – Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain. One of my favourite games of all time, and I know I have already included it in this list. The idea of the duel endings was something I thought was a really new idea and revolutionary even. Of course the evil ending was the one they wanted you to pick, and was the more interesting one.

93 – Going back again to Black & White, in the game you could command your followers to come to your temple and worship you, giving you power to cast miracles and stuff. I was always trying to be a good God, but my followers would keep dying while worshiping me. Only later did I realise that maybe I could send the followers home once in a while, instead of making them worship me for years without a break. Maybe that was why they were all dying.

94 – A few weeks ago while down in Melbourne, my older brother was playing the new Smackdown vs Raw wrestling game. I had not played on a console for ages, and this is what probably set the wheels in motion for me getting the new Xbox. One day, a wrestling game will come out with a career mode that is really what I am looking for.

95 – Gang Wars was an fun little game, and one of the few interesting Mafia related video games to come out. Very cartoonish, but funny enough to excuse that. Had some fun with that one.

96 – Syndicate was another great game I spent a lot of time on. We used to use the mind control on heaps of the citizens for no real reason, and make them follow you around like the piper. That was when you introduced the flame thrower to the situation.

97 – Could never really make Theme-Park profitable, but had fun going through it with the cheat codes anyway. Without looking it up, I think the cheat code was something that sounded like Forza…(quick google search)…Looks like it was Horza. Not a bad memory there, pretty close.

98 – One of the first video games, if not the first, was some Atari system mum and dad had where the controllers were a square piece with numbered buttons from one through 9 on them. When we played baseball, you could slip this cover over the numbers that told you what to do. It was pixel heaven. I do remember though mum showing us that you could make the pitches curve – you had so much control over the ball infact that you could make it curve around the bat and then come back and still go over the middle of the plate. It seemed if you hit a ball near the home run fence, it would go into a different screen to catch it or let it go over. The system would crash about 50% of the time doing this, maybe more.

99 – One Christmas a few years ago I bought the latest cricket game out. I returned that one the next day too as I realised you couldn't do as much in it as I had hoped, and you could really try to hit a six every ball and still hope to not get out.

100 – The final one comes from just last night, when I finished Kameo which came bundled with the Xbox 360. I really liked the last stage as it seemed to be what a last stage is supposed to be to me: A compilation of everything you have been able to do in the game so far and long enough for you to enjoy, hard enough to keep you challenged.

While it may seem that my life is somewhat centered around video games, I assure you that is not the truth (save for the month or so following a GTA release). I just have a really clear memory for a lot of little things, and here I have collected all the ones relating to video games. It's amazing how much time I spent playing them when I was younger considering all the sport I was playing as well. I guess if I wasn't doing one, I was doing the other. This little trip down memory lane also re-confirmed for me what I had forgotten – that my older brother is way more into video games than I ever was.

I must give a shout out to MobyGames.com. I had a ball looking through that site while making this list, and I can see myself spending a few more hours doing just that.

Hopefully next post I will have some more poker stuff to report (including the new season of High Stakes Poker which was off to a slow start this week). Hope the cards are treating you well, and feel free to share a few of your favourite video game memories right here if you feel compelled.

Video Game Memories: Part 1

Fletcher: Your honor, I object!
Judge: Why?
Fletcher: Because it's devastating to my case!
Judge: Overruled.
Fletcher: Good call!

"Liar Liar"

Well, what a few weeks it has been. Poker has been totally kicking my ass of late, to the tune of the last 12 buy-ins have come and gone with barely a whimper. In light of that, I really don't feel like talking about poker at this minute, so I have turned to a brighter topic, for me at least.

Long term readers will know that I have a big video game fan. Just before New Years I managed to score a X-Box 360 which re-enters me into the console genre for the first time in a few years. In honour of that, I decided to record 100 Video Game Moments in my gaming life. These are memories involved with video games, individual achievements or just some great times playing a favourite game over the years.

When I starting this list earlier this week, I didn't realise how big it was going to be. In light of that, here is numbers 1-50 in no real particular order:

1. Myself and my older brother saving up for months so we could go to Dick Smith’s to get a copy of Double Dragon on the C64. We paid for it with one $20 note and the rest was coins.

2. A few years later, getting a pirated copy of the same game on PC for nothing from one of Dad’s friends from work.

3. Spending maybe four or five New Years Day completing “Mixed-Up Mother Goose” as some kind of tradition. In the end I could get it finished in about 22 minutes. Not really that great when you consider it was designed with 4 year olds in mind.

4. Educating myself sufficiently enough in American culture so that I could pass the entry questions to Leisure Suit Larry. I still remember that “Ken sent me”.

5. Figuring out how to aim in some random snooker game we had on PC. Once I realised there was a way to make sure the aim was true, the 147 point breaks came flowing. Always had a few perfect games of bumper pool once I figured out the angles.

6. Getting a copy of Wrestlemania for my 12th birthday. This was the second wrestling game we had, the other was one I don’t remember the name of but had a Hulk Hogan rip-off main character called K.C. Colossus (after a quick google, I found this game was called “Championship Wrestling). These games starting a long obsession with wrestling games that continues to this day.

7. Figuring out the alien alphabet from Commander Keen. Also from Keen…

8. In year 6 we had a big open day at our school. Being one of the few students that had half a brain, they asked me to run tour guides through both campuses of the school. Mind you, this was from Kindergarten to year 10 over two massive areas on a Thursday night. They were supposed to take 30 minutes, and then we would round up more people to take the tour. My first tour took about 90 minutes. It concluded in the computer lab where I learned that they had one of the Keen games on the machine. I stayed there for the rest of the night.

9. Playing the Snoopy version of the Lemonade stand game on cassette. We had about 8-9 games on the one cassette and you had to fast forward a certain amount on the counter to get to the different games. Only about half of them worked, and that became less over time.

10. Paper boy on the same cassette.

11. We had a Ghostbusters game where you had to line up your ghost buster and set a trap to capture the ghosts. We could never figure out how to actually make enough money to stay alive in the game long, no matter how hard we tried. First time I realised that some games were not made very well, and nothing could be done about it.

12. Had an awesome games pack that contained California Games, Summer Olympics and a Winter Olympics all in the one. The Winter Olympics never worked properly and each event was pot luck if you could do anything, same went for some of the summer games. But California games made up for it.

12. Here’s one for the Sega fans out there – ABACABB. That cheat code has been used plenty of times in games, but for me it will always mean blood mode for Mortal Kombat.

13. I bought this boxing game in Adelaide called ”Low Blow” I think. At best I could get up to the Muhammad Ali clone, and I think after him was a Mike Tyson clone. My older brother could get to Tyson easily, and I think even dominated him. I got to Mike maybe once or twice, and never got close to a win. I think this was one of the first games that I really tried to beat and came off second best.

14. One of my few memories of fun at the video arcade – we would pay $5 each to have the NBA Jam machine exclusively for an hour. You couldn’t beat that for value. Spud Webb was always the best, and you thought you were cool if you knew how to get big head mode. Older brother also once beat the “Tank Game”. I can’t remember if I ever played that.

15. God Mode – got introduced to the concept in Wolfenstein. Which I think also introduced Nazi’s.

16. We sued to go down to the local video store to rent games. And by we, I mean myself and my two brothers. Once we got the Warlock game around the time of Warlock Armageddon came out. For a young lad, it was pretty scary movie and game for some reason, which is why you had to play it at night with all the lights off.

17. We spent many hours out in the back room playing Rock n Roll Racing. What a great game that was – “Rip…lights em up.” “Jake…is in another time zone.”

18. The humour and fun of playing “Hero quest”, or as it was later renamed “Quest For Glory”. We were fortunate enough to start when they re-did the first one so that it was point and click instead of typing. One of the best buys we ever made.

19. Also led to the disappointment as the series got older. Number 4 was so full of bugs that it could never be finished, which was a shame because I was really into it by that stage and thought the story was really good – I had no idea how our hero was going to overcome villains. Sadly, it always crashed a few steps fro the end. In all the games, I was always the thief. Never made it to Paladin when I tried the warrior.

20. Battle Chess. Never got that interested in chess, but we used to set up the matches just so we could see all the different deaths. It was a real skill to get all the deaths for the King, or at least so we thought.

21. My brothers and I received a SNES for Christmas one year, as the first game console we would own. I think Mario Kart and Rock n Roll racing got the most play time.

22. All the consoles I have owned and how:
SNES – Christmas present for all three of us.
PS – Birthday present, all for myself!
N64 – Won some prize money/scholarship thing through school, and decided to go buy it the next day. Gave myself the three extra controllers as Christmas presents that year (even wrapped them up and put them under the tree ready for Christmas morning).
PS2 – When the price dropped down to $500, I got my then-girlfriend (now wife) to hook me up with a store credit card, which had an interest free period of 12 months or something for purchases over $500.
Xbox – Came free with a new mobile phone deal.
Xbox 360 – Same deal. Been four weeks now, and the new mobile phone still doesn’t work. The Xbox does though.

23 – With some Xmas money one year I bought “Pokemon Snap”, which for some reason I was fascinated with and enjoyed the simple game play. My brothers and I had a fair go at it that night, and finished it 100% in just a few hours. We then un-scrunched the security stickers and stuck them back on, then returned it for a full refund the next day.

24 – You will never forget that sensation when you first lay eyes on the BFG. That, along with the favourite IDDQD and you would be running through Doom for hours.

25 – I was always a fan of compilation packs, especially for the PC. I bought one that had some generic Tennis game in it which was ok but had a few glitches. The idea behind it was good, you would play in these tournaments that simulated a year on the circuit. You could pick and choose the tournaments, or just train to get yourself better. I’ve always liked those character building type games and mastered this one – well, mastered the glitches anyway.

26 – We had an early Sierra title based on the Black Cauldron. For the life of me we could never complete it. I even tried searching for a ROM once so that I could beat the game now in my 20’s. A good use of my time no doubt.

27 – There was this CGA (Ah, remember CGA graphics? You thought you were spoilt when you got a game that came in EGA.) game of Who Framed Roger Rabbit? I think after hours and hours and trying to figure out what to do, I actually finished it once. Then it crashed and never worked again. The hardest part was getting through the security questions after the first level.

28 – Like many others, we spent many hours playing Goldeneye multiplayer. I was always a big fan of the proxy mines. Spent the last few hours before our final year 12 exams playing that game.

29 – WWF Royal Rumble on SNES was a favourite of mine, another that I downloaded as a ROM a few years ago. There wasn’t really much of a career mode in those days, but the music of each of the characters kept me interested, as well as the statistics after the rumble game.

30 – Spent many a rainy day inside playing Worms on the PS1. After you watched the 6 or so cartoons they had on the disc, you wished they had more and just skipped them. Another game we rented enough that it probably would have been cheaper to buy.

31 – That first time when you get Kain to feed in “Blood Omen: Legacy Of Kain”. I can’t tell you how many times I hired this game before I completed it. I never owned the first in the series, and it still remains my favourite amongst them all. I still think the story line would make a great movie, though it gets a bit mixed up and jumbled after that.

32 – We had a mini Street Fighter 2 tournament going at a friends house who lived on the same street as us one time. I choose E.Honda and found a way that nobody could defend against his powerful low kicks if you cornered them. I won too many games in a row that everyone started to get annoyed with it, but nobody else had the timing to emulate it. I didn’t even like the game that much.

33 – Another of my favourite series of games was Monkey Island. Funny how the games got worse as the graphics got better. But never the less, I played and finished them all. Guybrush Threepwood is still one of the coolest character names ever.

34 – I had some generic 3D wrestling game on the PS that I loved, because it was the first wrestling game that had a full 3D environment to explore. I took it over to a friends house once and his mum beat my older brother. I think he was really embarrassed about that – but it was one of the great features of this game that when it got really close it could go either way.

35 – Lots of people spent lots of hours on Tony Hawk Pro Skater. I really got into the series in number 3 when they introduced the revert. I was working at the video store at the time, and one of the other guys there and I would come home after work and play it until 3 or 4 in the morning trying to finish it on the hardest level. Took maybe a month or two before the last goal was achieved, and gave a great sense of accomplishment.

36 – On the SNES, we borrowed Battletoads off some friends and found it to be one of the most frustrating games of all time. Impossible to beat without infinite lives, and even then it was borderline impossible. We had it set up for an entire day out in our back room, thanks to it not having a save function or passwords every time you reset, you had to start again. Still hate this game.

37 – Another wrestling game, WWF Warzone. It bragged about having full motion captured action, but it was pretty shitty in the end. However, I loved it at the time and played it a lot – so much that I became invincible. It did serve as a pretty good four player game though, and I think I had more fun watching the girls have a four way. Then they played the video games after that (boom-tish. Try the veal.)

38 – For the N64 I bought Castlevania after my $1 Trifecta came in and paid over $900. It was the one item that I bought for myself out of that win as a splurge. I never got to finish it though because one part became too hard and when you reset the console, I was stuck there minus a few power ups. I sold the console before I had a chance to revisit it.

39 – Spent many hours playing “Heroes of Might and Magic”, and again bought the compilation set at one stage – which somehow got lost when I lent it to someone much to my grief. Always favoured the Titans. I now have HMM5 on PC, still left
unfinished at this stage (blame poker).

40 – The first game I ever played over the internet was the original Grand Theft Auto. At some friends house that were more tech savvy than I back in the day, they had it set up to play matches against each other. I can still see my little man firing off a rocket launcher into the moving car the opponent was driving for a perfect hit.

41 – After that, I bought GTA for myself on the PS. I think I spent most of my time trying to run over all the Hare Krishnas in one go, unsuccesfully.

42 – One bad memory was X-Com: Enemy Unknown. While I got into the PC version, the video store had it on PS before that and my older brother got into it. So much into it that he would play it in my room even when I was asleep.

43 – As I said before, we used to go down to the video store to rent games all the time. When my older brother had his drivers licence, I remmeber the three of us going down to the store to pick out a game for the holidays or whatever. Older brother wanted Tekken, younger brother said “Tekken sucks”. For insulting his favourite game, older brother threatened to make younger brother walk home. I guess he liked his games. I agreed with younger brother.

44 – WCW vs nWo Revenge. I had one or two of the predecessors of the series, but the revenge one was by far the best for me. Slightly faster (but still very slow), easy finishers and really well set out. I had the high scores in everything except the battle royal, and I spent ages trying to get that one only to fall just short each time. Still, many more hours spent. I was always Raven or Sting.

45 – We used to have some great D&D games on the PC. What I remember about most of them was that they would crash more often than not, but a few of them worked. I am always a sucker for the character building type of games, which is pretty much at the centre of D&D.

46 – On the D&D sort of line, we once had a copy of a game called “Hillsfar”. It seemed like a great variation on the theme, but it only worked a few times before dying. Might have to try to find a ROM for that one.

47 – On a trip to Adelaide, I bought a second hand copy ($5) of the PC game “Wolf”, where you take on the role as a …wolf. It tries to be the realistic life of a wolf, which was boring as shit and I would always get lost from the pack even if I was the Alpha Male. It sucked and marked the shortest I have ever played a game that I paid money for before throwing it out. Even if eBay did exist back then, I still would not have on-sold it. I couldn’t do that to a stranger. When I bought it the store clerk said “Well, you can’t really go wrong for $5”. That was the exact reason I bought it, and we were both wrong.

48 - “Ah, a visitor. Stay a while. Stay forever!”. Yet another game that our young minds could never figure out. We knew you had to collect puzzle pieces, but what these pieces did was always a mystery to us.

49 - One on One basketball was all about Michael Jordan vs Larry Bird. Larry never got a look in, and who knows how many of those dunks we tried to emulate on a 7ft ring.

50 – While on the basketball front, another arcade game I easily got addicted to was “Arch Rivals”, which I believe was a predesessor to NBA Jam. I can still remember playing it at the Brock Works in Adelaide, which is more than likely closed down now.

51-100 in th enext post, stay tuned...

Service

Tony Soprano : You're looking good. Looking better.
Uncle Junior: Tony, if you're gonna lie to me, tell me there's a broad in the car waiting to tongue my balls.
Tony Soprano: Hey, You want that, it's a phone call away.

"The Sopranos"

Happy New Year! To one and all, and welcome back to the third year of Poker On Film.

2006 proved to be a very successful one for this here blog, about which I will go further into detail in my next instalment as I haven't had a chance to compile all my online results as yet. Offline, I was up on the year around the 1100BB mark. More on that later also.

This holiday period has been very slow and restful, and very welcomed even if I had no choice in the matter. Christmas at the in-laws was nearly as painful as predicted, and the cricket has been good if not a little one sided. In my time off (which ahs sadly now ended) I have managed to renew my video game obsession and spend quite a few hours watching Sopranos DVD's with the Distraction. Watching these on TV is nearly impossible in Australia, with the scheduling being all over the place when the show is in production, and at terrible hours to boot. DVD is the only way to watch TV these days.

I also spent some time watching season 1 of F-Troop, which was a Christmas present to someone other than myself this year. What a top show that was, can't wait for the rest to make it onto DVD for future consumption. I might even indulge later on in a bit of fantasy casting, if they were to remake this old show like they have so many others in the past few years.

I have not played online poker in what seems like a month or more, but I did manage to sneak out for a live game that Friday night. It was a game of two halves for me. Half the time I played poorly, and the other half I got unlucky. I doubled up on the second hand of the night, and it was downhill from there. In the end I was getting desperate and betting my draws, none of which came, but I kept betting them.

The game did have a sour note, with a few players leaving and vowing not to return. I don't think I can say anything positive about that so I'll leave it there. It was a real shame for the host.

Had a most peculiar incident at a restaurant on the weekend. We were at Darling Harbour for a friends birthday with a large group of people – for those not familiar with Sydney, Darling Harbour has heaps of restaurants and is on the left side of the Harbour Bridge that has the Opera House on the right, more or less. Anyway, there are lots of restaurants in this area, and most are quite pricy and you'd expect their standard of food to be the same – which it was, but just some terrible service ruined the night. The majority of the staff don't speak English, which can cause a bit of a problem. After making a few minor mistakes that were not worth worrying about, they neglected to serve one meal, to the host and birthday girl no less (27 years, so not a child). Not only did they refuse to correct the mistake, they argued with one member and another of the party at length – the owner this is – about why he should not have to supply the meal because his wait staff did not understand English properly and that caused the mistake. The stupidity of it was the restaurant was packed, we had a large group with a total bill over $800. You reckon he would have better things to worry about than the one missing dish. And now he has sent our entire party out who will now steer clear, and advise others to do the same. And the food was good too! Such a shame for them, but I guess that is their loss.

When it comes to service, I am pretty lax about it. When my main was brought out as an entrée instead, I didn't worry about it. No big deal. But forgetting the hosts meal, and then blaming us for not allowing mistakes from his non-English speaking staff, well that just got a bit ridiculous. But oh well, what can you do?