FeralBlog

Hey, I’m going to go to Vegas in June for the next WPBT event! A tourney at the Aladdin, but more importantly all the cash games that Vegas has to offer for 2 days full of nothing but poker. It should be interesting to meet some of these people that I know by name and URL only. Can’t wait.

My sister’s recap of the final part of her trip here to visit, in which much poker was played, is now up. She’s practically a poker blogger now!

Well, Stella finally got her groove back. I did a fair amount of multi-tabling BBJ $2/4 tables a few nights last week when the jackpot was so astronomical ($250k to the guy who eventually hit), and it went well. Monday night at the regular $2/4 tables were no exception, and now I’m up about 150 BBs from where I was last week. Nothing has changed in my play style, so cards are just falling for me.

The last few sessions have felt really good. When everything is clicking I feel like an incoming tide. Every so often, a big wave will come and increase my stack, withdraw slightly, and then move forward again… a slow surge that is as inevitable as the tides themselves. The actual play starts to feel secondary, dreamlike. Cards come, bets and raises are made, hands are won and lost, but Zen calmness prevails. I’ve felt like this a few times while climbing where moves just feel more like instinct than work, and it’s almost like you’re watching yourself in your activity. It’s a nice feeling.

Time to post my long-overdue report from my trip to Las Vegas last weekend. (more…)

In other news, it’s Kim’s birthday this weekend (I’m not at liberty to say how old she is), so we’re off to Vegas on Saturday for a few days. I’m hoping to have a bit of a turnaround in my poker, because it’s been pretty bad lately. Nothing wrong with my play, really… just hitting a bad stretch of cards. Perfect example would have been at the B&M casino over the weekend. I flop a nut flush, and get beaten by a one-card straight flush. I flop a full house, and get beaten by a bigger full house when the board double-pairs.

Online hasn’t been much better; I’ll meander around at the $2/4 tables, and maybe be up a bit, maybe be down a bit. Then I’ll go to $3/6 and either make $100 in about a half an hour, or lose 3/4 of that in 2 hours.

We’re staying at the Palace Station Saturday night, and the Rio Sunday. It would have been nice to do the Rio both days, but rooms are amazingly expensive that weekend, on account of the fact that it’s both the CES show AND the AVN awards... In fact, we’re going to try and sneak into the CES show and collect lots of gadgets and pens and USB keychain drives.

Interspersed with all the gadget-coveting and fake-boob-spotting, of course I’m going to try and play some poker. Last time I was there I didn’t really play long enough (or well enough) to get a good idea about where the good games were, so this week I’m scouring the online archives of my favorite poker bloggers to try and find where the juicy tables are. I’m going to want to hit Aladdin, the Flamingo, the Luxor, Excalibur and perhaps the Mirage. Oooh, maybe the Bellagio for some celebrity-spotting. Any other suggestions? I’ll be bringing a notebook to the tables, so I should be able to give a pretty good trip report when I come back, as opposed to “I did good” or “I did bad”.

I was in full-on car upkeep mode this week, as the ‘rents might borrow it to toole around while I’m working on Friday. Got the oil changed (and washed it) yesterday, and today I went first to State Farm to move my insurance over to AZ, then to the MVD (as opposed to DMV, which is what every sane state calls it) to get a new driver’s license and registration for the car.

Apparently owning a newer car is A Bad Thing™, because the registration is amazingly expensive. I walked out of there with a $500 hole in my wallet, but on the plus side I did get a cool personalized plate out of the deal.

Update: Robin sent me an updated license plate. Really sort of demonstrates what she thinks of me.

You can also make your own here.

Update 2: Crap. After doing a Google popularity contest between 27o poker and 72o poker I should have made it be “72 OFF”. Crap. Maybe I’ll have a nice run at $3/6 and just get it anyway.

I figured at the end of the day today I’d do just a little bit of online poker before heading out for the evening. I had just re-read some sections of “Small-Stakes Hold ‘em” last night and was feeling all pleased with my play. I sat down at two $3/6 tables and proceded to get completely smacked in the face by the deck. Sit down to two pair, kings and 9s. $40 pot there. Other table I sit down to AKs, flop 4 to the flush, and my lead-out bet gets no callers. Only $16 there, but it was still a good sign. I proceded to get a few flushes, a couple of open-ended straight draws that came through, and pocket aces twice in 3 hands (both of which held up for a $70 and $80 pot) at one of the tables.

Bottom line, I made $200 in about 20 minutes. Granted, my win rate of around 60 big bets/hour (a good player will average about 3) was completely unsustainable, so I quickly got up before the cards went cold and went for a nice bike ride, but it was still a lot of fun. I’m hoping I’ll get similar cards tomorrow at Casino Arizona, but confident that I’ll play patiently and well regardless of what I’m dealt.

Wow, haven’t done a poker post in awhile… I guess without a home game every week there’s not usually anything exciting to report. This past weekend I hit the casinos, tried $3/6 Hold ‘Em for the first time, had some ups and downs, and came out on top. (more…)

• Leaving this weekend to go on the family vacation to Antigua. We’ll be staying at a lovely resort on the south part of the island. I’m not super into laying on the beach, but there are a few things I think I’ll be able to do: 1) Sleep. 2) Do lots of pushups and situps to get my flabby body back into shape in preparation for a winter of Hueco bouldering. 3) Catch up on some reading. 4) walk around with my climbing shoes and a chalk bag. Virgin Gorda is too far away to take a puddle jumper, but it’s the same volcanic formation, I think.. so there’s probably at least a little bit of bouldering to be had on the island. 5) The place we’re staying has a casino, and there’s also a nice looking one a cab ride away. I figure there will be lots of fishy tourists (not including me, of course), so if I can find some $2/4 hold ‘em I’ll be very happy.
• It’s been pretty quiet here. Paul and April got married in New York over the weekend, and are on vacation in Banff and Jasper parks in Canada. I think they come back a week after I get back, and it will be good to see them. I have to order more holds for the woody, and have some problems set for when they get back.
• Been getting out and about on my fixed-gear bike. It’s a whole different kind of riding, but it’s really nice to have something that’s so cheap and so easy to maintain.
• Poore Brothers Habanero Potato Chips are the shit.
• My cat is a one-cat lizard-killing machine. I found 3 small ones scattered around the guest house just yesterday. You know that awful smell when you drive by a dead deer or something on the side of the road? Shrink that down about a fifth, and that’s what the little treats are that my special boy is leaving for me.

Not much play lately, as I haven’t worked out a home game yet, although I might have an in for one this Saturday night (even though it sounds like a lot of dealer’s choice garbage, there also was talk of some straight Hold ‘Em). I’ve puttered a bit online, but trying to stay away from that as I don’t want it filling up my spare time, as I seem to have a lot more of it now. I did take my first stab at two $20+2 SNG’s on PartyPoker, and bubbled (i.e. finished the highest non-money spot) in both. Guess I’ll stay away from those for awhile.

I’ve been doing lots of reading. I’m pretty much done with Super/System, and the one I’m reading now is “Zen and the art of Poker”, which is philosophy as opposed to actual strategy. It stresses patience, even emotions, and general Zen. As I like to consider myself having a bit of an Eastern bent, philosophically, it meshes well. Detachment at the poker table is a hard thing to do, but I’m trying.

Seems like the home games in Pittsburgh are picking up a little bit of steam, which is awesome. I was especially happy to see that David cleaned up last night. He improved vastly from when we first started, but sometimes played a bit loose, and had the worst luck with pocket Kings. Nice that he finally caught some cards and was a big wiener.

At some point I’m going to have to check out the local casino action. Desert Diamond apparently has some low buy-in tournaments running pretty much all the time (and I feel like my tourney play is pretty strong right now), and Casino del Sol sounds like they have a nice poker room. Maybe I’ll check that out this weekend. It would be fun to do like a once a month thing, go bring $50 and see what happens.