Dogs Playing Poker

happy trails....

2004-05-07T16:06:00.000-04:00

Just a quick note to announce Dogs Playing Poker has moved... come visit at www.stinkypants.org

This page will auto-forward you, I will move the archives over as soon as I can figure out how to do it...

2004-05-06T13:36:00.000-04:00

I take a whiskey drink

I take a chocolate drink

and when I have to pee

I use the kitchen sink

- Homer Simpson

Finally some poker content, the new blog site is up and running, but I'm still working out the formatting bugs (check out Stinkypants.org) I'll continue to post at both until it's final.

I got home last night, and since I still wasn't able to cash out of Intertops (i was finally able to today) I hopped on and saw Pauly playing at a $25 NL table. I had stayed away from those for awhile, but since I'm hoping to make it to foxwoods this weekend for the nl game, I sat down... i don't have the hand histories here, But Pauly was playing pretty tight, but pulling down a few pots here and there, I finally got aces and pulled down a good size pot, up to around $40...Then the phone rang, and while on the phone 4 minutes with the fiance lost it all back..dam phone call... i called a $3 raise by pauly when I was in the big bind...by accident..thought it was the check button... folded to a $5 flop bet, he claims to have aces...I kind of believe him.... Tiltedlitt popped in to say hi... one other memorable hand... Pauly was in the big blind, I get the hand he just had a post about KJ (sooooted tho), and make a small raise, get a couple calls, not including Pauly... flop comes Jack high, fishy fish to my right (whom I had started a little tiff with after he raised me out of a pot with an inside straight draw) makes his standard $5 steal raise that was so predictable I could've set a clock by it..i reraise all in... he folds, Pauly thought I had the hammer.... I eventually bankrupt fishy when he put his last $9 or so in with k8 sooted, my AQ clubs hit a queen and finished as a flush.... Pauly left, and I went downhill...i left down $5, sat in a .5/1 table and ended up about even for the night... thats how it goes...

At work today, i cashed out of intertops..since they only offer two ways to cash out (or you can conveniently transfer to their betting side), and the checking account function wasn't working, and the epassporte worked then didn't...it was quite a hassle... but then I realized that epassporte was worthless, since I want to do pacific and pokerstars's bonus's next.. so i deposited into party, and withdrew to neteller... today I did the same again...so the bankroll should be together soon, but I'm doing more money laundering than an Enron executive...

After that, i realize i still have $21 left in my Absolute account... it being lunchtime, I log in... there was one .5/1 game, but it was 6max, and shorthanded at that..I posted a blind, then it went threehanded so i left...sat down at a .25 blind NL game... full this time... I recognize many of the icons from my previous play there...Absolute is not a very busy site, and I think some of them might just be props... but I digress... I buy in at $10... second hand I'm dealt 44, pot is rasied to $1.50, about standard for this game... I go for it, and flop my set..woohoo... then the straight draw comes on the turn, flush on the river..hmmm....bet big at the river, get called by a shortstack who had middle pair... I'm up to $25...

Next hand (several hands later) I get the hilton sisters... I rase to $1.50, get 5 callers... flop comes KJX... I bet $2, get one caller, one of the players I see playing all the time... turn comes the Q, i check, he bets $5...i take the max amount of time..then call... river is a blank...I check again, $5 bet..i reraise all in, he's got me well covered... he calls and shows down KJ, Pauly's favorite hand... my set beats two pair, and I leave a few hands later having quadrupled up...my bankroll at Absolute now $60... I dunno if I want to keep playing there however, lots of good players, not many fishies... I'll have to think about that...

Stinky...out

2004-05-06T13:24:00.000-04:00

Just a quick reply to one of my comments... I know this is political, forgive me Iggy ;) but I went over the 1k character limit and couldnt reply...a poker update later... Johnny posted:

I notice you're not a big fan of Bush, but riddle me this:

Name 3 things that any Democratic candidate, namely John Kerry, are basing their candidacy on.

(And, No, you cannot say; "Bush sucks.", "To beat Bush", or "To get Bush out of office.")

I'm generally a non-political person. i hate politics, I hate politicians. They lie, cheat, and are scum. It just so happens Bush is the worst of them at the moment.

Kerry is probably no better. But he's not Bush. He's not a jeebus religious freak. Hell I voted for Nader last election, and would again too but in the end last time that just helped Bush. I'm all for Kerry's plan to tax the rich, but I'm sure I'd get screwed in the end somehow.

Bottom line, Bush deceived us all, and continued to do so. He's a moron, and he clearly couldn't tie his own shoes or take a piss without his father and Cheney helping him.

I mean look at what has happened with him at the country's helm...he's managed to piss off just about every country besides england, hell even canadians are booing the national anthem. Biggest recession in years, biggest terrorist attack in years, Worldcom, Enron, Halliburton et al. Nonexistant weapons of mass destructions, tons of coverups (including trying to cover up iraqi prisoner abuses, but failing). and that's without mentioning the patriot act, the fcc, and the eroding of enviornmental rights all due to Bush. Hell i'm suprised it's even legal for me to be typing this, as I'm critizing the prez... but if he's elected again, I'm sure I'll be held without bail or lawyers as a "bush-combatant"....

I'm sure Kerry will have his own set of evils, becuase he is after all just another politician. But from listening to them both speak...One is clearly more intelligent, one actually served in a war, instead of hiding, and one is clearly not a religious nutjob... So until some non-politician decides to run for president (Howard Stern anyone? j/k) ala Jesse Ventura, the best we can do is limit one persons damage to four years...

I'm not a very good debater (although several time a week i claim to be a master one, j/k), and politics isn't my forte, try poker, computers, tv, being lazy, etc... but I enjoy a discussion here and there, and I feel if we don't take advantage of the opportunity to critique the government, and berate them when they lie and cheat, then eventually that freedom will be taken away from us, and then I might as well move to China...

Stinky..Out

2004-05-05T13:01:00.000-04:00

"I fear that our true motivation is about oil and our own flailing economy; about the failure to destroy Al Qaeda and about revenge. It is criminal to put our servicemen and women in harm's way and to put
the lives of so many civilians on the line for the misguided frustrations of the Bush administration.

Bottom line: this war is wrong and this war is un-American." - Dave Matthews

Not much to report here, work continues on the new and improved Dogs Playing Poker blog... Today I got a domain registered, and actually got Moveable Type up and running (thanks for the words of support) after a few trips to the support forum.

I decided to play on empire last night...what a mistake...I either wasn't concentrating or had the worst run of luck in awhile... I had put $50 in originally, and two hours later is was down to $7 after a beating at .5/1 and tilting on the 25nl tables... I calmed down and worked it back up to $25, then down again to $10. Not a big deal, a normal swing in the horrible play at .5/1, but I'll hold back and tkae advantage of the other deposit bonus's floating around... so tempting..I 'll get a list together of them someday...

For those interested, TheSmokingGun.com has some of the over 1600 complaint letters received by the FCC concerning Oprah's (read: devil) show on oral anal sex and such. The letters are hilarious, some vulgar, but all ring true, puppet boy Michael Powell is just a tool, and they are clearly applying the regulations in a way that fits their twisted desires... stern bad (obviously, he's white, jewish and has an occasional fart sound), Oprah good (black, woman, gives away shit). Absolutely ridiculous...hopefully it will have the effect of getting all the lazy people to come out and make sure Bush is out of office come November... or god help this country... I'd vote, but doing so in MA is like pissing into the ocean, sure it makes you feel better, but is anyone going to notice? Not a chance in hell bush would ever win in this state...I guess thats one good thing about here....

stinky...Out.

2004-05-04T13:22:00.000-04:00

"I'm to lazy to find a quote for this post" - Me

Just a quick note, as I've been spending a majority of the day learning about cgi script files and all that fun nonsense. This all came about after I lost another huge post due to Blogger, and Maudie mentioned moving her blog to Movable Type. They have a hosted version, but it costs money..and I'm a cheapass... so I decided to install it on my own webserver...

hours later, I'm just about there... I had some free hosting from 1and1.com, and host a couple of sites off of there..if this works I'll register a stinky domain and do that.... boy this stuff can get complicated... and of course my attitude is what's a few slashes or quotes here and there..well, apparently it's the difference between it working and not as I'm finding out...

My bankroll was up for the day before I even got home... when I stopped for my pre-dinner whopper (obscure King of Queens reference) and handed over $5 for a $3 total..and got back $6 and change... now normally I would give this back..but i'm evil..and I felt it made up for all the times they stiffed me out of fries (which happens every third time or so, i think there is a conspiracy)...

So at home I continue my horrible experience with Intertops Poker... the cashout continues to give me an error, and support is clueless... I know whats causing it, but it's a problem on their end and i can't fix it, and if they are too stupid to figure it out it's not my problem (i don't want to point out the fact that the bank account is also registered under a party account). So i sign up for the only other cashout method, some fps visa card..I put $50 on it..and try to cash out... this morning i get an email that it's denied..what a BUNCH OF MORONS! they refuse to cashout to the card until i deposit...so here we go again...once i'm out, I'll be FAR away from them...

pokerwise I was up and down..ended up a little, nothing exciting..almost got to watch sorpanos, but the image kept on breaking up..friggin satellite morons.... noone was online for me to watch, but I need to add more bloggers to my list... anyways, back to moveable type, it seems to have quite a few gadgets and be customizable... see you at the tables

2004-05-03T14:30:00.000-04:00

Playing around with some settings... HTML is a neat thing to play with, but can get dam confusing... thanks to Burt FU for the nifty scripts, now keeping a list of blog's and referres will be easy and automated... too bad my site isn't as pretty ;)

2004-05-03T13:37:00.000-04:00

You suckdiddlyuck - Homer Simpson

Hi everybody...

first let me apologize for the political rambling at the end of last week... certain issues were bugging me, and well, this is my soapbox, so screw off! umm, well, as the fiance put it... "nobody gives a shit". Most people have there minds made up anyways, and the truth won't do much to change that.... and the last thing i need is to be put on some sort of Bush's Blacklist...

A peace offering, if anyone would like a google gmail account, let me know, I have one invitation left...but no friends...

I'm going to have to retract my endorsement of Intertops Poker.... While i made some money on this party skin...the customer service has been horrible.... I tried to cash out my initial $150 i put in through firepay... shot down there..as the only options for cashout are checking account, intertops 'betting' site, or some other cash card i'd never heard of... ok..Ill put my bank info in (suggestion: open a 2nd account for poker transactions, keep very little in it, just in case), hit ok...and...error... no go...email customer service..wait...email again... they say tech support will be getting back to me...wait..email again... response "please wait and try again, or email us the info"...ok..I try again, same error, email them account info..response "you need to register your account online...and provide instructions how to do the same thing i've been doing" friggin uncooperative morons... I'll be cashing out entirely soon and moving on...

I finally managed to get my empire account open... i had to open a neteller account since Absolute Poker wouldn't credit back to my firepay, and they charge $8 to send a check.... jees... i was finally able to put money into empire (my bank accounts being registered with my party address, as well as my firepay account....

Friday night found me, suprise suprise, playing on a party skin, I sat down at a random .5/1 table and who was to my left but Al from AlCan'tHand... the table was very soft, a nice fishbowl... Al got mad when i raised my JJ, he was going to limp in with the hammer, would've flopped a boat too... later, pictured on his site, is a hammer special, the entire board of hammers... a little while later I got 7-2 on the button, limped in, Al was in, as well as 4 or 5 others... i bet the flop with nothing, Al was out, I typed in chat "Can't touch this"...the raised when an A hit the turn..everyone folded, I show and type "Stop...hammertime" as I show my complete hammer-bluff.... Al eventually left...and I stayed at that table for another hour or two, walking away tripling my $25 buy in... I slowly lost most of that gain throughout the weekend in $5 and $10 increments, but I had fun....

Saturday morning involved me and the fiance and digging up bushed, raking lots of acorns and planting grass... tons of fun... fiance worked all night so poker it was...finished 6th in a $10 sit n go... bleh...
Sunday morning involved me sitting out on the deck, trying to re-aim the satellite dish that the bonehead installer wouldn't put on the roof...instead he put it on the deck, where it points right at... a tree...it worked for several months, and he assured it would be fine when i asked about the leaves that would grow in..of course, the leaves come..and half of my channels decide to leave... including hbo... i never get hbo to come in....i did manage to get back to where I started after a few hours...but then last night I screwed up the upstairs box so it gets nothing... a couple of nasty emails were sent, and I'll be reverting to my backup cable connection (provided gratis with my network connection) while waiting for said boneheads to respond...

My foxwood trip got put off, Mark had to do yardwork (the many hassles of a twenty three year old living for free at home with his parents...still) but next sunday is looking good, along with a home game that looks to be forming on saturday night... too bad it's only monday afternoon....

Besides poker, one of my few other interests is theme parks/rides... go figure since I worked on one while doing an internship w/Disney... after working on one, specifically a hi-tech one that launched an 8 ton train of cars from zero to sicty in 2.8 seconds, straight into a loop... I saw how stupid people can be... the worst was a teenybopper cheerleader (there for a competition) who decided she didn't want to be on the ride..after being strapped in and turning the corner, where the ride launches after 20 or thirty seconds...in that time she had half wiggled out of the harness and was just about standing up... me, being one of the three operators that could see over there, was in the control booth, two others weren't looking...at the last second I saw and slammed on the big red button that shuts the ride down... very satisfying button to press, after being tempted to do it so often... luckily the girl ended up not killing herself that day, although i'm sure fate will catch up with her, that whole survival of the fittest thing...
Which brings me to the news story yesterday here where at Six Flags New England, a mentally challenged 55 year old man fell off of Superman, ride of steel. I've been on this, it's a great coaster, doesn't go upside down, just really fast. something like 80 miles an hour.. there is both a lap bar and seatbelt, the ride is designed to feel like you are going to fall out, but is statistically impossible to actually do so, short of user error. From my experience most theme park accident deaths are caused by stupidity, the guy on Splash Mountain at disney who decided to stand up, then fell inbetween logs that bump into each other while queing, as they are supposed to do... or the moron who let her kid stand up in the spaceship earth ride at epcot center (the big golf ball) then sued when the kid fell out.... So last night they had this guys ancient mother all over tv, saying that retarded people shouldn't be allowed on these rides... this baffled me... the guy met all the requirements to ride, ie, he was tall enough, had control of his upper body, and wanted to ride... if they decided to not let stupid people onto rides either, A. the rides would be empty (joke), and 2. that same mother would be in the streets screaming discrimination... the stupidity of people never ceases to amaze me...

The seventh event in the WSOP, a 1k NL re-buy fest... resulted in another moneymaker-like win... details Here.

From my random poker feedster feed... John Has a vegas WSOP trip report, i guess since I can't go, reading about it will have to do... now I know how those couples that wait till marraige to have sex feel..ugh...

Skipping ahead, the tenth event, $2k Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo, was, not suprisingly, won by an old lady from New Jersey... I've played some stud, and understand the game...and it bores me to tears..sooo slow...... I avoid it like the plague at foxwoods, the average age at those tables is 75...

enough for now..see you at the tables...

2004-04-30T16:56:00.000-04:00

Gotta love this one.... in defending his "end of major combat operations" in which he apparently forgot to put out the memo to the bad guys, as over 600 americans have died since that... he says "We're making progress, you bet," and goes on to say what he 'really' meant, which is what an objective had been achieved, and "And as a result, there are no longer torture chambers or rape rooms or mass graves in Iraq. As a result, a friend of terror has been removed and now sits in a jail." What Bushy apparently didn't mention was that his own goons were at the same time, ironicly, beating up Iraqi's, err i mean terrorists in the same torture chambers, and this time there's pictures...

Image from Sixty Minutes II, in that piece Brig. General Mark Kimmitt says "“Frankly, I think all of us are disappointed by the actions of the few,” I agree with him, we should all be disappointed by the actions of the few.... Bush, Cheney, etc....

2004-04-30T14:02:00.000-04:00

"I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family." - January
27, 2000 - George W. Bush

Not much to update on today, poker wise spent most of last night playing, since the fiancé works late. Back onto Interops/Party, the .5/1 games were getting slow, I lost $15 of my first $25 buy in before deciding to play a Sit N Go (i know, they suck, but I play them when i get tired of the ring games)..

second hand had A5 going all in against AQ, 5 on the flop is when they went in... A on the turn and first player out, good thing i wasn't in that hand...

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t15 (9 handed)

SB (t740)

BB (t800)

UTG (t770)

UTG+1 (t1750)

MP1 (t770)

MP2 (t915)

MP3 (t800)

CO (t695)

Stinky (t760)

Preflop: Stinky is Button with Ac, 8c.

UTG calls t15, UTG+1 folds, MP1 calls t15, MP2 folds, MP3 folds, CO folds, Stinky calls t15, SB completes, BB checks.

Flop: (t75) 5h, Ad, Js (5 players)

SB checks, BB checks, UTG bets t85, MP1 folds, Stinky calls t85, SB folds, BB folds.

Turn: (t245) 5s (2 players)

UTG bets t125, Stinky calls t125.

River: (t495) Ah (2 players)

UTG bets t545 (All-In), Stinky calls t535 (All-In).

Final Pot: t1575

Main Pot: t1565 (t1565), between UTG and Stinky. > Pot won by Stinky (t1565).

Pot 2: t10 (t10), overbet by UTG.

Results in white below:

UTG shows Jh 3d (two pair, aces and jacks).

Stinky shows Ac 8c (full house, aces full of fives).

Outcome: Stinky wins t1565. UTG wins t10.

unbelievable... then this hand came up three hands later:

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em Tourney, Big Blind is t15 (8 handed)

MP2 (t710)

CO (t755)

Button (t1735)

SB (t740)

BB (t860)

UTG (t800)

UTG+1 (t780)

Stinky (t1620)

Preflop: Stinky is MP1 with As, Kc.

UTG calls t15, UTG+1 folds, Stinky raises to t45, MP2 folds, CO folds, Button folds, SB calls t35, BB folds, UTG calls t30.

Flop: (t150) Qs, Ah, Qc (3 players)

SB checks, UTG checks, Stinky bets t90, SB calls t90, UTG calls t90.

Turn: (t420) 5s (3 players)

SB checks, UTG checks, Stinky bets t225, SB raises to t605 (All-In), UTG folds, Stinky calls t380.

River: (t1630) 9s (2 players, 1 all-in)

Final Pot: t1630

Main Pot: t1630 (t1630), between SB and Stinky. > Pot won by Stinky (t1630).

Results in white below:

Stinky shows As Kc (two pair, aces and queens).

SB shows Ad Td (two pair, aces and queens).

Outcome: Stinky wins t1630.

At that point I basically folded my way into the money, got heads up against a pretty decent player, but ended up winning, nice boost to my bankroll...I then squeaked out a small win in the .5/1 tables before I went to bed...

I might end up going to foxwoods again this weekend, provided they are running the new mini-NL game as promised, a call beforehand determines the trip... if not, I blame it on Bush

From the "Reasons why religion and computers shouldn't mix, here is a story about spyware/malware, where the main 'victim' places her pc under a statue of the virgin mary, rather than, say, i dunno, FIX IT! people like her are the reason why IT people will always be needed, and why I don't answer phone calls from family anymore... later on she gets a grandson to fix it, he says "She was all upset and crying; she's a religious woman. She shouldn't have to deal with this garbage. If I find the people who did this to her I will make them suffer." OK, so the only garbage she has to put up with is priests porking altar boy, because that's perfectly allright... oh, by the way, the earth is round lady...

By the way, before you email me how to fix this (i might actually help strangers, no family though) the variant talked about is CoolWebSearch, or CWS... a healthy dose of spybot and adaware (for some reason you have to use both) they will do much better then praying to young-boy-porking gods, both are available as free downloads (see download.com).

I blame it solely on the Bush administration, using it as an excuse to crack
down on 'indecency' and the 'war on terrorism' I wouldn't be suprised if Cheney
was the author of it, if I could be convinced he knew how to use a computer...

Speaking of bush, A tooth study takes a bite out of the idea that modern humans are related to Neanderthals, of course Neanderthals never existed, because according to Bush's religion the earth is only 10 thousand years old.

I love my fiancé, but she grew up going to a Catholic school. She's not religious now (i don't know of anyone who could be after being raised that way)
but she still has some of their twisted ideas in her head. Take, for existence, her insistence that dinosaurs never existed. Not that they were extinct, or for
any other rational reason I've been able to get out of her...she just doesn't believe they ever existed. All the discovery shows are made up... I enjoy
mentioning this around my friends when she's there..the first question is always
"what about the bones/fossils?" and her reply... "well, they
could be from anything" no matter of common sense will get through to
her... same thing with theories of evolution, not all of them, just stuff like
birds evolving from dinosaurs, or early mammals evolving into humans (she points at squirrels and says "there's your cousin" I point at the crack-whore at the side of the street, say "look, there's your...." then think better... she just cant even see how dog breeds are related...that, if you take two different purebred dogs, breed them with enough with different types of dogs, you'll end up (eventually) with wolves... anyways, I blame the lack of common sense on Bush...

Speaking of Neanderthals...wait, already used that one...

Saddam Bush and the real ruler of this country, heir-Cheney

Bush proved he can't take a crap without Cheney along for the ride when the only way he could speak (speak, never testify, avoid that whole lying under oath thing that brought down Clinton) was together. He stated he felt confident after the 'talk' Probably because no record was allowed, no reporters, no proof they said 'anything', and since they were together, no chance for Bushy to slip up and let out the truth.

End of my political ranting...I blame bush for the cause of it...

Poker Links:

Felicia has part three of her Vegas
WSOP tourney experience up...

Chicago Phil is off to vegas...once again w/out me...when will I ever get to
go back there... my last trip was before I started playing poker, and was
mostly free (thank you wagerworks.com) but ended up being almost ruined by the non-closing on our condo the day before the trip, thats a story for another
day...

Chris Halverson, unlike me, actually includes some poker discussion in his latest post, discussing when to defend your small blind...

Over at The Cards Speak the rules of blackjack are applied to poker, like quite a few people, I wasted time playing blackjack before discovering poker... worth the read...

good luck at the tables...if not...I suggest you blame it on Bush...

2004-04-27T16:01:00.000-04:00

"Oh, you hate your job? Why didn't you say so? There's a support group for that. It's called EVERYBODY, and they meet at the bar." - Drew Carey

Just a quick update today, as work actually has some work for me, and I've got a problem that's not solving itself...

I only played for an hour or so last night, the fiance needed help with her access homework (two weeks and she's done, graduated...except for those two summer classes she still needs to take...) but what an hour... interops again, a party skin... .5/1, I was catching up on King Of Queen episodes and watching Fear Factor Models (man they were all a bunch of wimps) and Las Vegas...

After reading some tips from other blogs, i decided to be ultra agressive but still tight, and bet out more, i noticed I've been cutting back on raising, thinking it wasn't doing anything but increasing the amount I'd lose on suckouts... I found a decent table, lots of calling stations, one in particular would call to the turn every time, then fold at the river, or call if he thought he had a hand... I get KK and raise it..the whole table calls... flop comes Kx5, giving me the set, I bet, get reraised and reraise back, still 4 people in... turn is blank, raises all around, river is the 5, also completing a flush draw... i walk away with $40 on that hand alone... i had tagged the one player, after that hand half the table left....so I followed my minnow...he would play a couple hands, realise I was there and leave... Is there such thing as stalking in online poker? I'd be guilty then... finally he either left or figured out how to turn on the hide from search feature... but the table he left me at was another goldmine...player to my left would raise pre-flop everyhand... but would fold to reraises post flop..i won w/the hammer on a bluff...then I got KK again... reraised and capped preflop... flop comes Kx9... turn is blank..river is the 9...I'm seing deja vu as the flush draw is out again, capped with three people showing down... I end up for the one hour session a total of 60bb, very pleased with myself...

I recently sent an email to Kathy Raymond, Directory of Poker Operations at foxwoods, it was about a possibility of tournaments returning, single table tournaments (not for the wpt event), or a low buy in NL game like bellagio and other cardrooms out west are running. Since Foxwoods is really the only game in town, and have been very busy, I didn't expect them to have any of that in the works, or even respond. She wrote back though, heres the news:

It is ironic but I have already placed the order for table plaques in order
to spread a Min/$40 Max/$100 No Limit game. We should have these in by the
end of the week and hopefully be able to start spreading them by this
week-end. This game would be a $1/$2 blind structure.
We would love to have you back at Foxwoods !!

This is a great move i think, I'd love to get some ring game NL experience, but their normal min 200 buyin 5/5 blind game was out of my league (and bankroll) I might be making a few more unscheduled trips once this game starts... I already text messaged mark on his phone with the news, if the game were running now he'd already be down there...

I know some of you readers are computer geeks also, heres a problem I'm having, hadn't quite found the answer yet, but I'm getting closer... non computer people just skip this and go on to the next blog...

-=start geektalk=-
there are several domains here, a 2k active directory enviornment that is linked to corporate headquarters, and the old NT domain. we're in the process of migrating. A user in a lab build a machine (2k), doesn't join it to any domain. When the goto network neighborhood, they see the 2k domain, but not the nt one. They can ping machines in the domain, as well as map to machines there.

a side problem is this, if I ping the netbios name of that machine, it goes to an ip address that is not the one it really has, and times out. If i ping the real ip address, it goes fine. If i do this from within the same subnet, (ie from that machine) it works fine.

I did some research, and I've decided its a netbios problem, possible a subnet master browser issue... everything is dhcp, wins is served by servers out of corporate. I managed a temporary fix by joining the machine to the domain (which they didn't want) then unjoining it, now it sees all the domains...but this is happening to multiple machines in that subnet... I'm in the process of hunting down that machine, but i'm not sure what to do when i find it (it's also listed as the backup subnet master browser) any ideas?
/geektalk

2004-04-26T11:16:00.000-04:00

Well kids, you tried your best, and you failed miserably. The lesson here is: Never try!" - Homer Simpson

I havn't been able to shake this headache all day, don't know if i'm just exhausted, i slept on my neck wrong, or what... luckily it's slow at work today...

While I said I would avoid party for a while, I decided to sign up for interopspoker.com a party skin. They had a 15% bonus on deposit, so I plunked down $150... reluctantly I sat down at a .5/1 table, and although the bad beats still abounded, I got some decent cards and walked away tripling my buy in...my luck continued through saturday, and my total, including the bonus which I earned, is now around $230...so you can look for me, my screename is stinkypantsi. I also managed to win a $10 sit n go on absolute, and made some money in the .25 NL games....

So i got in touch with my buddy Mark and convinced him to come see the new house and make a road trip to Foxwoods. I've known mark for almost 5 years now, we met while I was at UMass Lowell. As a last minute thing I dragged him along to a info session about Disney's Internship program... we both decided to interview and both got in. We drove down and roomed together, had a blast... since then we get together every couple of months, although it'd been almost a year since our last trip to Foxwoods, we just played blackjack and other table games then..him, of course, leaving up several hundred, and me down...

We decide to leave early on Sunday, the last few trips I'd made on weekends the poker room had been swamped, with wait lists for every game 15-20 long at a minimum... we end up there at around 11am, Mark having decided to practice his skills at a home game the night before (and losing $150 or so)...

The list for the $2-$4 game was only 5 people long, we got seats at seperate tables, but he was only one table away.... My second hand dealt I made what in hindsight is a bad play, but I'd like some advice...

In the Small blind I get pocket 6's, I decide to see the flop... it comes 569 rainbow... I bet, 3 callers... turn comes 8...I bet again, gets raised, then reraised... $12 more for me to call, I know the straight is out there, and the only way I win is if the board pairs, I think about it, then fold... of course, In party-like fashion the 9 comes on the river... and A7 and k7 split the pot... I kick myself... I'm not good at math, but instincts tell me I didn't have the odds to call there, anyone help out?

Meanwhile I look over at the other table to see the floor putting a foxwoods poker jacket on Mark... befuddled, I walk over and find out he'd just hit a royal flush and won the jacket... after playing all of 5 hands... jeesh, he took every opportunity to mention the jacket throughout the day.... Needless to say he was up... and after 4 hours or so we decide to get something to eat... I played ok, probably a little too loose, the pace of the game being so slow compared to online... i hit some horrible beats, mostly a straight and a flush beaten by fullhouses, both to the same guy... my $100 buy in was down to $25 at one point, but back up to $160, then down to $84 by the time Mark grabbed me to go eat... Turns out he had just lost a $150 pot... I'm still trying to figure out how $2-4 can get a $150 pot, but I guess Mark had pocket AA's, and had a full house with three sixes on the board by the river.. you can guess where this is going, but Mark couldn't, as he kept raising headsup to the guy with the 6... he amazingly still left for lunch up $80.

After some horrible chinese food from the food court (the buffet line was longer than a roller coaster at Disney, and not wanting a $30 steak or $10 bowl of soup, we went back to the poker room. i decided to try one of the $60 satellites for the november tournament. I probably should've passed, I recognized half of the table as regulars who I had played against in tournaments before, i had beaten most at some point, but still... I was first out, I lose 300 chips or so looking for something on the flop, then get AK and raise 100 (1k in starting chips) i get reraised 400, I call, flop comes low rags, I bet 100, get reraised all in by the tournament player i recognized... I put him on a big pair, and fold, turns out he had aces and I was screwed anyways... with 300 left I was shortstacked... a few hands later I get J10, raise 100 and get called by the blind (blinds were 25-50). flop comes 10-3-6, i go all in and get called, by the big blind, who had two pair with his 3-6...I was looking for the laptop to throw, thinking I was logged into party again....

back to the ring games, where there was no wait at all...odd for a sunday at foxwoods... the tables were mostly full, but no wait..later the tables were a little shorthanded, not much though, one maybe two seats. I sit down to the table Mark was at before lunch, he's at a different one... The table I sit down at was interesting... 1s was a guy who makes a bad name for native american's, personfiying the dirty-cheating indian steretype... he was new to poker but 'had seen it on tv' and read a book... guy next to him was older, but also knew nothing about poker, indian guy was keen on 'teaching' him... 345 i don't remember, 6 was a local whom Mark had lost the huge pot to with case sixes, i was 7s, to my left was an a near-death older guy who spends 80 hours a week playing 2-4..., 9s was typical NYC/Jersey guy who'd been there all night... I sat down where the small blind had been...so I sat out the first hand... everyone was in the pot, flop came, bet was made... goes around, the dealer, who spoke maybe 2 words of english and had a name like yick or yack or something, deals the turn card before the 1s conveniently forgets to call his two dollars..I would've given him the benefit of the doubt, but it happend 5 more times before i left the table... when the 2s pointed this out, indian acts suprised and tosses in his $2.... old guy to my left has a hissy and says the turn card should be removed.. dealer sits there clueless, finally the floor comes over... old guy trys to explain but can't form a coherent sentence... finally another comes over and they figure it out, now they have to explain, step by step, to the dealer to push aside the turn card, burn and turn a new turn card, then put the 8 back in and shuffle the remaining deck... turns out the only people left were indian and a guy who went all in on the turn... river comes, indian loses (turns out the 8 that was mucked would've given him the straight, i laughed inside at the karma), at this point I wanted out, noone likes an argumentitive table.. I look over at mark's table, see an open seat, ask the floor to move, turns out they had left to buy more money... i turn around, play a few hands...get sucked out on one big hand, but take advantage of indian who check/calls to the turn before folding everyhand. I even got to bluff him out of a pot with THE HAMMER! i was happy, i raised the whole way, got two callers all the way and reraised indian on the river, he folded... I didn't show it though, i was enjoying my tight image... eventually two seats open up at marks table, I ask to move (one floor had said they would move me when something opened) but the other said no, even though it was open seating...so i wait, 5 mins later I flag down the other floor who lets me go...I probably should've stayed at that table, but wanted to play w/mark.. I do ok at that table..end up a couple of dollars when mark busts out (he was playing with the money he won) and didn't want to rebuy, the chinese food was hitting him hard... so my total, first table -$16, -60 for the satellite, and -1 for the second go at the tables (i bluffed a pot w/j10 and got caleld down with middle pair) -77 for the day, not great, but not bad for a whole day of entertainment, including lunch/gas... mark ended up $20 plus his stupid jacket (no, i'm not bitter) we drive home, he had a blast and wants to go back asap, watch the simpsons, have a beer, he goes home..I watch the sopranos but am falling asleep by the end..didn't even log into the laptop....

I learned some good lessons, i definitely need more practice at live ring games, and I won't be wasting anymore money on the satellites... if I hadn't played that I would've been close to even for the day...

I need to work on, and would welcome any suggestions, on table selection. Specifically on party and it's skins... since flop % isn't listed, what do people go on, table hop until they find what they are looking for? what should I be looking for? is it a personal thing...ie some people like tables with an idiot that raises every hand, another prefers calling stations that will call raises/bets with nothing or second best...how to tell? please comment...

Richard
Brodie (pic) at Lion
Tales has some good reports of his entries into both the first WSOP event
and the $25k even at Bellagio, like me this weekend his AK went down to AA
(although mine was a $60 satellite, his was a $25k tournament)

Felicia was in vegas for the
start of the WSOP, too bad I don't get vacations anymore...

ok i'm so bored at work, and all the blogs have been read, i'll think i'll go bang my head against the wall to get the headache to go away.... see you at the tables...

2004-04-26T08:02:00.000-04:00

A Poker post later, including My trip to foxwoods and a royal flush...

I recently was asked by some friends to be on the lookout for decent deals on
dell computers, this happens quite a bit, so I figured I'd list them here...I'll call it:

Stinky's Deal of The Day!

not to be confused with the Stinky deal of the day, which can be found in my backyard...

On the laptop side of things, Dell Home has the Inspiron 9100 Widescreen laptop, the pimp-daddy of laptops... a 2.8Ghz HT Pentium 4, 15.4" WXGA widescreen TFT, 256MB DDR SDRAM, 64MB Radeon Mobility 9700, 40GB HD, DVD+r/RW burner, all for just $1259.10 with free shipping... not bad, Here are the instructions to get this price:

Go to this Link Inspiron 9100 it will take you to the 9100 preconfigured as above (don't worry you can change it)

All of the options for the free dvd burner are already selection, including the free dvd burner. Upgrade/change anything you want, but it may increase the cost.

Select Continue on the next two screens, then Add to Cart

Use the coupon code DCJJMW8SS2DW0B for 10% off $999+ Inspiron laptops (expires 4/27/04). Use code EXACTLY as shown, with no space after the last letter.

Finish checking out, Ground shipping is free

This deal, unfortunately expires on the 27th, so hurry up!

A second Stinky Deal of the day, Restaurant.com has an incredible deal, $25 gift certificates for $3 each..i just ordered a bunch, but they are selling out very quickly. Use code 48831 in the promotional
discount box for 70% off. They're normally $24, on sale for $10, with the discount they are $3! HURRY!

2004-04-23T15:16:00.000-04:00

Liberty bell..... another liberty bell! One more and I'm a millionaire! Come on, liberty bell, please, please, please, please, please. D'oh! That purple fruit thing! Where were you yesterday? - Homer Simpson

Just a quick update today, had a small downturn last night, I logged into Absolute, nobody waiting for the $10 sit n go... so I signed up for Planet's single table satellite to the wsop qualified tourney..$25 entry... unlike the PJK tourney's at planet, nobody was chatting at all...kind of eerie... table was tight passive but I had no cards at all... i raised with good cards, noone called.. 6 people left and i'm only up 200 over the starting 1k of chips... I get QQ on the button, a couple of limpers... I raise to 3x the BB, get raised another 300, I go all in and get called with AK, as memories of Felicia bounce around my head, a K comes on the flop, A on the river and I go home...well, I'm already home, i log out of planet cursing is more like it...

Back to absolute...I sit down at a .25 NL table, lose my buy in... I lose half another $10 buy in before i have to 'walk' the dog... I come
back...noticing i was half falling asleep anyways, but waiting for fiancé to come home, I decide to blow off some steam in a .25/.50 table... min. 2.50 buy in, i buy in for $5.. i figure I'd see what it's like to play like a real fish... instead I got a great run of cards, and become super-aggressive-micro-limit-poker-player... of course I hit my hands on the river most of the time..I left with $20, up 30BB
in 30 minutes... now why couldn't that happen when I was playing 2/4? not a huge loss for the night, my absolute roll is still around $200, and i'm still waiting for checks from both paradise and planet..hope they show up soon or I'll have to
start stalking roy cooke...

Since this weekend's weather is supposed to suck ass, I'm considering a run to foxwoods..they've started up the single table tourney's for the wpt event already... first round is a $65 buy in (i believe), top three get entries into
the second round, which is another single table $2xx buy in... first place gets an entry into the third round, and new this year (i think) 2nd and third get entries into another 2nd round satellite... third round is a multitable, paying out as many 10k entries as possible... last year I played two round one's won both...but bombed out on the round two's... they were too packed to play that many..so i'm thinking a late night trip may be in order this weekend...

I'm also considering building a poker table ala this site to keep in my finished basement... but I am not much of a handyperson so how it would come out is anyone's guess...

Mean Gene just managed to describe my life to a t....

"With swimsuit season just a few weeks away, it finally hit me that now might be a good time to start maybe thinking about losing some weight. I'd like to lose, oh, 50 pounds, but it's a bit hard to do that when you spend pretty about 23 hours per day sitting and/or lying down. I get out of bed, drive to work, sit in a cube for 9 hours, drive home, eat dinner, and then write and/or
play poker while watching TV. Pretty much the most physically demanding part of my day is brushing my teeth. That's bad."

With the exception that along with brushing my teeth, I do walk the dog when I get home...yes it's only to the mailbox (about 200 yards up the street) but it IS uphill...

2004-04-22T15:16:00.000-04:00

When will I learn? The answer to life's problems aren't at the bottom of a bottle, they're on TV! - Homer Simpson

Thanks for the comments, it's nice to know someone's reading...

I spent a little time playing poker last night, mainly during American Idol (I wish they had kicked of Fantasia, I can't stand her attitude, this isn't 'ghetto idol' is it?) although the best was the reaction of the one who did end up going when she found out she was in the bottom three...it was like she thought she had no chance of being there, she was 'that' full of herself...bye bye...

So, i played two $10 sit n go's at Absolute... first one, first hand... I get QQ... i raise 3x the BB, three callers... flop comes 9 high, no straight or flush draw...i bet 200, get one caller and raised the mimimum.. hmmm, i think and go all-in (i know, you're supposed to play tight at the beginning of tourneys, but this was a group one hand, and I like to have a loose image at a table)... raiser calls, one fold, and a third calls....oops... I had QQ, raiser had... KK, third guy had A9... i get ready to go find something else to do, when the Q comes on the river, I triple up and knock two people out, first hand... I ended up taking 2nd... second one I also took second, after crippling myself, then coming back... not bad, I'm up almost $200 at absolute, good for the levels i play at...

I just logged into blogger, and saw a banner asking if I'd like to try gmail, google's new free email service with a gigabyte of storage...being the geek I am, of course i said yes...and since I'd like to probably use this as my main email, for non-poker related things, I didn't choose a creative name like stinkypants or dogsplayingpoker..just my name... maybe they'll let me have two... I bet you are all jealous, eh?

For those that haven't read about the third member of my family, meet Dooley

Dooley, as you may have guessed, is my dog...he's a Pug, around 2 years old, this pic is almost a year old, no, i don't dress him up, the fiance does... I was never a dog person, but i've coped with him really well. A few craps on the carpet, two leaks on the bed (the dog, not me), but he's better now. He sleeps in our bed like a person, even with his head on the pillow, paws outstretched... he snores almost as loud as me... he spends his days lounging on the lazyboy and couch. Coming home is the best..nothing like the happy dance he does when I walk in the door, jumping around, tail going, running up and down the stairs..

I swear he thinks he's a cat, he jumps around like one, up and over furniture, his favorite spot is perched on my shoulder and the couch like a parrot... hes about 25 pounds..big for a pug, but smaller than most other dogs...you'd never guess though, he has no problem going up to dogs three times his size..yet things like brooms and plastic bags scare the crap out of him...I'll post some more pics of him later if anyone is interested...

On to the Poker Blogger and news trail, my apologies if I ripped this off from anyone, I just cut and paste as i read throughout the day. i try and
give linkage when possible, but I'm an idiot and forget...

Happy One year anniversary to Maudie, who has some great wisdom and advice on how she has survived and grown the past year, you, and myself, would do well to listen and learn...

Minor Third, who also lives in MA with yours truly, tells how dangerous playing cards in boston can
be...

Under the "don't you think cops have anything better to do" category, Baltimore Ravens cornerback Corey Fuller was charged with hosting
high-stakes card games at his house Link

Here's a story about Harrah's
and their possible use of the Horseshoe name in another strip casino, If i had the money to invest (and i certainly don't) I'd put some money into these casino companies, with the WPT going public, and gambling in general becoming more accepted (except for the religious whackos who try and restrict anything that can't be done inside a church), it looks like a good bet....

From the hypocritical politician dept, interesting article: here
those crazy Texans, maybe we should elect one as a president...hah, that would be the day, if we did i'd be gas prices would go way up, we'd be at war with
'terrorist' countries that happen to have lots of oil, and in the name of 'god' and 'decency' all of our constitutional protections would be taken away...oh..wait...never mind...

and yes, hell must be freezing over, as I agree with a church group, in this article, a christian church group slams Bush on the Clean Air Act... here, on the subject of big dumb animals, check this out, perhaps the Rhino will get fined by the FCC?

In what must be good news to Pauly,
A study shows poets die younger than writers

Interesting Boston Globe article on online poker here and another one here,
thats it, keep the fish coming.. i've even got my little brother coming to my next poker night...

HDouble gleans poker wisdom from The Big Lebowski.

Mean Gene explores the
nature of luck: "We now delve into the realm of the unquantifiable, the mystical, the probably completely stupid."

Thats it for today, hope you enjoyed the show....

2004-04-21T14:08:00.000-04:00

"Once there was a time when all people believed in God and the church ruled. This time is called the Dark Ages."

"Last night I stayed up late playing poker with Tarot cards. I got a
full house and four people died." - Steven Wright

From http://www.rickblaine.com :

Pick up the nearest book.

Open it to page 23.

Find the fifth sentence.

Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.

Here goes . . .

"Dust and other foreign particles can hold an electric charge that
slowly bleeds into nearby components." - Server+ Study guide by
Osbourne

Since I'm not sure if anyone even bothers reading this anymore (i judge this by the lack of comments, so feel free to leave a note if you do read this, make me feel better..pleeeeasssee?...fine, be that way)
I'll just continue on rambling. Today's post will be quick, as I'm at work and up to my elbows in laptop parts, amazing how many screws go into these things, and if you saw the size of my hands compared to the size of some of these screws, you'd fall over laughing...

my reversal of fortune at the poker tables has continued since leaving party... I know someday i'll have to go back, but for now I'm happy at Absolute Poker, they seem to have the right mix of decent players, but still enough fish to make it worthwhile...7 people calling you down when you have AA, someone's bound to suck out and beat you..however if theres only 2 or 3 at a table, then I seem to be doing better. After my 5th place in the freeroll, I won a $10 sit n go last night. It lasted quite a while, they give you 1500 chips, and the levels aren't too short.. blinds were 50/100 before we lost the 2nd person... I was on top of my game, playing tight/agressive preflop, agressive post flop, betting big when scare cards came on the turn and river..and, suprise suprise, people actually folded..this isnt kansas..err party poker anymore, toto... As usual I made one bad play and was down to 500, but clawed my way back, getting QQ at least 3 times, AK two also helped... I then entered another $10 sit n go, since no interesting multitable tourneys were starting, and took 6th place after blowing most of my stack chasing an open ended straight into what I knew was a high pair.... i had q10, flop had KJx....

I then reluctantly sat back down at a .5/1 table, ready to be destroyed by suckouts... 40 mins later I left up 15BB, due mainly to getting a fish who would call everything down to the turn, fold on the river, or raise if he had a hand... he reloaded twice...thank you ken2...lol.... I decided to try some of planet's wsop satellites, i've had good luck at their site, even if the interface blows.... errr, needs improvement (sorry Roy Cooke).... enough for now, everyone seems to be in vegas while I'm stuck in my cubicle reading about their trips...lots of fun...see you at the tables...

2004-04-19T15:12:00.000-04:00

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

I apparently just lost my uber-post I spent all morning working on, but got called away to fix a zip disk so didn't post... it was wonderful, had movie reviews, funny stories, lots of poker links, oh well.... BACKUP YOUR WORK! i make fun of users all day for losing data..shame on me...

Heres a shortened re-cap:

Movies: Forced to watch Somethings Gotta Give, short review: chick flick, long review: dunno cause i fell asleep through most of it

Story: Meet Woody, he moved into my neighborhood, caused a ruckus, he's one of those red-heads....making lots of noises, trying to pick up chicks, causing damager... yes, hes one of those...a woodpecker... waking me up at 5am every morning by sounding like a jackhammer..ON MY HOUSE... not fun... long story short, it involved a trip by me to walmart, purchasing of one bb gun ala the red ryder in a christmas story (no, i did NOT shoot my eye out, yet), first shot, bang, one down...hour later second one gets hit... they are probably still alive (it was just a small pellet) but for three mornings they've stayed away from my house...believe me, i've been waiting like elmer fudd hunting wabbits...

Poker: I've given up on Party for the time being... I guess i'm still trying to figure out the type of poker player I am. Given my history, I don't do well at party playing low limit limit poker... I've done much better at paradise and planet, where there are still some fish, but also some decent players in the mix. I mean I can win the PJK tourney one day, with twenty-something good to very good players plus a professional, then lose a mojority of my bankroll playing .5/1 the next... So on friday night i blew off the rest of my roll there....

I then decided to deposit into Absolute Poker, I've heard good things about them so put some money in, they had a 15% deposit bonus... I played some .5/1 and did ok, lost a little... I then moved over the .25 NL table, the min. buy in is $10, which is great, and blinds are low, but the avg pot size is around $10 normally... I have much better luck there, ending with me getting pocket 10's, raising $1, getting a call and a raise to $1.50... i go all in over the top, get three callers (oops) they turn over 66 and AJ, river brings a 10, turn brings an A and i triple up with a full house...i leave then...

I head over to Planet Poker, buy into a $10 tourney, turns out it's limit, around 25 people enter, i do suprisingly well and finish 3rd for a nice profit...

Back over to absolute, I enter a $5 tourney, 19 players, I again take 3rd, for twenty something dollars, plus got an entry into the weekly $1000 freeroll on sunday night. I play one more $10 sit n go and win it, for a nice $50 in winnings...

Fast forward to sunday night, 7pm rolls around and I get into the 1k freeroll at absolute... I do ok for the first couple of levels...play a couple of hands...then around 8pm i realize i needed to get my hair cut (i go ultrasimple and just shave my head...usually the fiance does it) so I make a series of all-ins with decent/semi decent hands, they either win or don't get any calls..and all of a sudden i have 25k chips, avg stack size is 10k... The top 27 pay, with 27-15 not making mroe than $12 or so. I do well, and actually am close to the chip lead by the time the sopranos roll around... i then realize i missed the PJK tourney...oops sorry guys, missed out on another chance for me to woop all of your asses lol...

I'm up to 150k in chips at the final table, two small stacks go down, 8 people left... at this point I'm up and down, at one point i had a stack of 230k, but averaged around 170k or so... everyone had at least 100k for awhile... I call a couple of bluffs, i had been playing for awhile with some of these people at the final table, and correctly put them on hands most of the time...unfortunately I correctly read two hands in a row, had the best hand going in and got beat on the river both times, but I did manage 5th and a $60 payday...my $150 deposit into Absolute is now up to $250 or so..not bad...

So it looks like i'll stay there for awhile, I plan on going to a party skin soon, since Empire made it clear they don't want my business, I'll look at one of the others i've heard about...if you want to sign up for Absolute *shameless shill ahead* you can use my link here If not mine, use someone's from the blogging community... see you at the tables...and remember..SAVE YOUR WORK!!!!!!!!!!

2004-04-16T09:16:00.000-04:00

"This very week in 1989, there were protests in East Berlin and in Leipzig. By the end of that year, every communist dictatorship in Central America had collapsed." -George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., Nov. 6, 2003

Well i'm back...never actually went anywhere, but how exciting is it to hear about my slowly losing my bankroll on party to obscene suckouts at .5/1, pairs of Kings losing to runner runner flushes (holding 9/3 and nothing buy one of the suit on the flop, calling raises the whole way).

You can also call me bubble boy, as 'every' sit n go i play, no matter the level, I come in 4th. Last night was a little different, instead of logging into party to let the sucking begin, I went to planet and got into a $10 NL multitable tourney...I use multi loosely as a total of 26 people entered. First hand i get pocket 10's, I know this is a very dangerous hand, especially early in the tourney... however it's checked around to me, I make a 3xbb raise, and get reraised the minimum...i call, flop comes low rags...checked to me, i go all in..and get called by pocket 6's. My 10's hold up and I double up... I stayed at that amount for the next 4 levels or so. Not getting many hands, and the one i did get, A4 hearts, two hearts on the flop, the phone rings, and apparently my cordless phone likes to kick me off the wireless to my on-loan laptop, i reconnect and the hand's gone, no all-in protection apparently... eventually its down to 4, top 3 paid, i get KQ suited, flop comes Q9X rainbow, i raise a standard amount, get called, this continues to the river, when the one other player in the pot, about the same size stack, raises all his chips except 50 or so...this seems odd, there was a straight draw, but i didn't have him on it...I call and he shows second pair, and i'm in the chip lead...he busts out next hand, and i'm in the money. unforunately I dont get any further, I dont remember the hand I went out on, but I was the best going in (AQ against K9 and a 9 hit i believe) so i walk away with forty something dollars, not great, but good practice to the PJK tourneys.

That reinforced my belief that I play better against better players. This explains why I suck so much at .5/1 on party. I also think i'm a better NL player, but I think i'm a better NL tourney then ring game player, and I don't have the bankroll to lose an entire buy-in on one bad call... After getting sucked out at on party for awhile, i switched up to 1/2, i ended up 3bb after 30 mins or so, but felt a lot more confident I could beat that table given more time..so maybe I'll risk more of my bankroll and try that this weekend, maybe some more planet tourneys too.

On a personal note, after this horrible northeast winter, I've been itching to move the hell away from here. Convinving the fiance is a whole other story, but I can dream. Since vegas would never fly, florida is my second choice, after spending a semester in orlando, I like the area, lots to do, nice weather... i've decided on St. Petersburg, the house prices are cheap, tampa is right there and there are quite a few tech jobs according to my informal research. Plus all the parks/entertainment isnt too far a drive away... so now to work on my mind-control techniques....

I recently changed my screenname on party, my old one was created over a year ago, so I am now rechristened 'stinky_pants', so come steal some of my money, or say hi, i don't bite...not since the whole restraining order thing anyways...

Grubby is giving away his tax refund to anyone who signs up with empire with his affilliate link, qualifies for the vegas dreams freeroll and finishes in the top twenty... not bad...i'd go for it but I still havn't been able to get an empire account setup, and yes I've tried the whole different computer thing...maybe its time to try again...

Pauly's in Vegas and sounds like he's having a good time, read up, why the hell don't I ever get vacations???

well, enough for now, see you at the tables...

2004-04-12T09:45:00.000-04:00

Down in a hole and I don't know if I can be saved - Alice In Chains

That pretty much sums up my weekend. I won't go into too much detail, but my party account went back to zero, I had to rebuy, and I've lost half of that. .5/1 is just brutal, all my decent hands, two pair, straights, full houses have been losing to hands that nobody with an ounce of poker knowledge should be seeing the flop with, much less calling down raises the whole way. i tried tighening up, didn't help, tried loosening up, but only ended even, and I felt like a schmuck when i did finally get a suckout or two on the river.

Now I didn't lose most of it in .5/1, and thats probably my problem. I'd get tired of buying in for 25bb, then losing 10 of those over an hour or so. So i'd play a sit n go. Over the weekend, I placed 4th in all buy 1 of my 6 sit n gos. That included a 30, a 20, two 10's and two fives, me placing second in a 10. I did manage to cash another $50 out of paradise, and played off the last $16 so i have a zero balance there. I also cashed out $150 of last weeks' PJK tourney win, $50 to firepay, $100 coming via check. It's not a disaster, but I'm clearly doing something wrong, but I can't figure out what. If I lose this last buy in, I'll probably take a break and re-read some of my poker books.

I played a lot this weekend because I had borrowed a laptop from work. an older one I had fixed up, I loaded up the wireless card I had from my old laptop I had to sell off, and was sitting pretty on my couch, watching tv and playing poker..should've been in heaven...but i could only play one table, maybe that hurt my chances...maybe the laptop is just bad luck...

So i had to defend my title in the third PJK tourney put together by Felicia. I got back from Easter dinner around 7, emailed and got the password, 16 players total. I loaded Planet on the laptop, and sat down with the fiance to play and watch the sopranos.... the tables were shorthanded, 8 to a table, i went down to 1500 fairly quick, I remember pushing the player to my left out of a hand after an Ace hit and i had nothing in a hand I shouldn't of been in. I raised the hammer and noone called... and once again EOS was my downfall when I raised with A10, got reraised and went over the top... he had AQ, and my 10 hit on the flop...but so did a Q, and I went home 1 out of the final table. Stupid play on my part, but consistent with the weekends i've been having. Congratulations to Pauls Burbon on the win, I logged back on after the Sopranos and saw the last hand... I did get to see the whole episode, although not too much happened, and after I got to help (ie do everything) the fiance with her MS Access class. I just don't understand when computer stuff doesn't come naturally to someone... the stuff she's doing, although I'd never worked with it (switchboards) before, i figured it out in 30 seconds...I spent 45 mins explaining it to her...now she wants to drop the class, and put off graduation even longer..wonderful...

I did get to play a little with Pauly on some NL tables, I didn't embarass myself too much, and watched him have a much better weekend in a 3/6 game. I should try and learn something from him lol...

An article from the Oklahoma Daily about students using Poker more now as a form of entertainment, I like the quote “[In poker], you’re always talking about stuff when you’re playing,” said Shane Clanton, advertising sophomore. “You can kind of relate it to girls going to get a manicure. It’s mostly a social thing.” The full article is here.

from the "giving strip-poker a bad name" dept, we have Teacher Admits playing strip poker with girls

2004-04-08T14:57:00.000-04:00

""Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense." " - Buddha

Once again I got shut out of my pc for most of the night due to the fiance doing 'homework'. I'm all for homework, and all for her getting her ass out of school and getting a full time job, but when her idea of working is setting everything up on the desk, then getting a phone call and spending the next 55 minutes chatting, hanging up for 10 minutes, then getting back on the phone, I don't see that as being very productive. Especially when it's cutting into my poker time.

So i sat down to catch up on tivo, and considered popping in the third matrix movie which just arrived thanks to netflix. before i could, the dog insisted on going outside... we go outside he freaks out over a tiny little cat, and runs back inside...5 mins later he wants out again, i never thought i'd have a sissy for a dog...

Around 10 fiance decides to goto bed, I give up and decide to join her...but somehow she decides that she doesnt want the tv in the bedroom on.... now, for the 7 years that I've known her, i've 'always' gone to sleep with the tv on, thats what the sleep-timer is for, duh.... I can't just lie down in silence and goto sleep, i need to be listening to homer or the discovery channel.... Even when i lived down in Disney World and didn't have a tv in my bedroom, I still had to have the radio on to get to sleep (much to the annoyance of my roomate, after we got back, he couldnt goto sleep w/out a radio also). So i get pissed and decide to play poker, thinking i'm bound to have a losing session because i'm angry (even making plans to return the just-bought patio furniture).

I only open one table, as i'm trying to export my poker tracker database and upload it to Henry's ftp server, but was having no luck with the password, but in an hour doubled my buy in and was up 25bb. I lost a little but cashed out up 23BB, back over the $100 mark at party. Tonight I should get to play more, fiance is working late. I finally got Pauly's Party name so I can watch his adventures, I'm reading about them all the time Pauly

The wonder of blog's in general...there is a "poker" feed setup in my syndirella, it just lists any post with the work poker in it... this one from a Joseph Fox wins my "bitter ex of the day" award:

So. . . In short. . . Thank you ever-so-much for deciding to take what little left I had to my name, Elizabeth Michelle Armetta, and shoving it up my arse with the blunt end of a red-hot poker. You stupid, overbearing, overly-attached, emotionally unstable, emotionally dependant, psychotic, mentally-unstable piece of garbage. . . If you're going to bitch at me, or about me, I would think you would at least have the common desency to do so to my face, much like I did to you a few moments ago. Oh yeah. . .I'm mad, now, Liz. Before, I was just indifferent. But now? I'm fucking mad. Prepare for all-out war, woman. . .
And I know you still read this thing every so often, Jennifer. . .so I would highly suggest you keep to yourself, on this one. I still like you, more or less. And although I know this is falling on deaf ears, I want you to stay out of this.

So at work i have some down time..i mean service pack 4 on windows 2000 takes sooo long, what am i supposed to do? so i set up a laptop, and once in awhile i log into party, other times I load up some games, the game of the week is Civillization III. It's a stategy, turn based game, the whole world domination thing, it's great... and it's also very long.... so i play a turn here and there, the game waits for me patiently... what got me writing was a pop up command asking me this: "China has finished work completing "The Cure For Cancer" would you like to build "ICBM" instead?" Of course i said yes, nothing like nuclear weapons instead of beating cancer.... Of course I only use them as a last resort, earlier today I made the mistake of sending one over to blow up Athens, but China got pissed and sent 30 of them my way. So i go back to my last save, and this time I have enough to wipe out those pesky Chinese... hmmm, i wonder if this will get me on some of those terrorist black-lists... better not travel anytime soon...

2004-04-07T14:19:00.000-04:00

"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest" - --Denis Diderot

Not much to talk about on the poker front, the time change has forced me to fall asleep earlier, thus cutting into precious poker time. I've played a little, sunday i reloaded $100 into party, and promptly lost half, but i'm back up to $85 now. I've found I must play at least two tables, anything less and I get bored and play too many hands. usually a tournament/sitngo and a ring game are good, but i havnt had the lenght of time to invest lately, the fiance has had a lot of schoolwork to do, read i end up making powerpoint presentations and access databases for her.

Since everyone in the poker blogger community seems to use yahoo messenger, and i've traditionally used aol, i signed up for a yahoo account...after 954 tries at a name that wasn't taken, my yahoo id is stinky_pants2 , feel free to give me a shout, talk poker, *ahem* college, whatever... my aol id i'll put up on the sidebar too.

I've spent a lot of time catching up on my tivo'd shows, Sopranos, simpsons, king of queens, starting to watch deadwood, finally finished the 2nd episode of kingdom hospital (i love the term 'king if ice cream'...mmmm ice cream) And of course i've been keeping up with the plethora of blogs out there at work.

Today at work I got the wonderful assignment to count every pc in the company. Since there are quite a few, many very old, or not connected sitting around, a lot running linux, Sun machines, etc..i asked if they wanted every physical machine...the response did nothing to clear anything up..so i counted. The other person also doing my job (there are 2 of us) estimated it would take a day, i said 3/4 of a day..total time spent...1 hour. 773 total pcs (the estimate before was 400) 90 something laptops... makes me wonder if they are considering selling off the company... I have no idea what they do here..we're part of a telecommunications company, and this site makes a product that ISP's use, basically the main product they sell could run an isp big enough for every house in the country to have a cable modem... which meant I had to wonder around through labs full of thousands of cable modems where they test the product (hmm, why am i still paying $5 a month to rent a cable modem when I have 5 sitting under my desk..)

I watched an interesting episode of law and order special victims unit (i'm waiting for the "law and order: crack whore" series) where a bunch of african american men got together to play 'poker'. Well it turns out that 'poker' was actually gay sex... but they didn't consider themselves gay because they had wives...they even used the term 'down-low'. I'd never heard of it in that context...down low info... jees i live a sheltered life....

2004-04-05T11:39:00.000-04:00

Once again my rss feed bit the dust, if anyone can help give me a shout, or if anyone knows a reader that supports atom that doesnt suck, let me know...

Lemony Fresh Victory is Mine!

2004-04-05T09:39:00.000-04:00

Lemony fresh victory is mine... - Invader
Zim

Ok, so my weekend didn't turn out 'that' bad. At least it ended up on a good note. After losing my party bankroll this weekend, I entered the 2nd PJK tournament put together by Felicia. Special celebrity guest once again was Roy Cooke, host of Planet Poker. I never figured out how to get the hand histories (all right Felicia told us but I was too lazy to request them every 25 hands) so if anyone did get them, could they forward them to me? I remember a couple of hands, but otherwise most of it is just a blur...

First off, I think I had a somewhat unfair advantage at the first table. Felicia was at my table, and didn't go out the first hand (although QQ was her downfall...again), I don't remember the others, but the two to my left were both absent, letting me pick up their blinds quite a few times, giving me some chips to work with. I even got defensive when others tried to steal the blinds I was stealing, I believe it was mean gene who raised while I was the button and the dead blinds were to my left... since the raise was small, and I had a healthy stack I called with Q2 off suit (I know, what the hell was I doing)... again I don't remember the hand, but I ended up putting Gene all-in with at least trip 3's, putting him out....

I just had a great run of cards, my pocket 7s flopped trips, and the board paired on the river for the full house, I had AA at least three times. By the time we were down to two tables I was the chip lead with almost double the 2nd place chip holder... of course noone would play w/me then, I then proceeded to
take down uncontested pots, including KK, followed by KK, 72 (off suit), then AK, again no callers... describing hands is not my specialty (since I can't remember most correctly)

The final table was great, I started with around 15k in chips, but tightened up, with my history of blowing chip leads I figured it'd be best... I did raise one pot w/the hammer, but got called and nothing hit on the flop, so I had to fold to a raise...I slowly bled down to 12k or so, and was down to 2nd or 3rd in chips, with several big stacks around me... Roy Cooke was now at my left, which was a plus, but I do remember making a horrible call that cost me almost 2/3rd of my stack, I had KJ and raised, Roy called and the flop came J high...I missed the straight possibility (of course Roy had flopped the nut straight) and proceeded to lose my stack, although I don't remember if I went all-in or not...

Roy at one point was down to 700 chips, but came back to be a big chip leader at the final table. I managed somehow to get my 5k back up to 15k. Fast forward...last weeks winner gpoker finished 5th on the bubble. JsonHoldEm was next, followed by RickBlaine, who for some odd reason spent most of the night with some form of 666 in his chip amount, had his A3 cracked by Roy's K5

At this point (well, far before this point also, but I got lucky) I was severely outgunned. Kind of like an old west shootout where I pull out a slingshot and Roy has a machine gun... heads up I believe Roy had 25k to my 20k (correct me if I'm wrong) and I quickly learned heads up play is my weakness... Roy went all in several times from the small blind, and when I made stupid small raises he would push all in the way a good player would. I did manage to fight back, had the lead for awhile by reraising Roy and taking down a few pots...eventually (again I'll elaborate if I get the hand histories) we were just about even, I think Roy made a decent raise, I reraised all in with AQ suited, he called and in the .25 seconds it takes for all the cards to show up, the pot pushed somewhere and the 'tournament over' window showed up I figured I lost...till I saw the 48k stack of chips in front of me...turns out Roy had pocket 3's, and I paired the Q on the flop to win. I was extremely lucky, and would've been happy with anything better then last week's horrible finish; I think Roy's wife wanting to go to dinner might've had something to do with it, but this does help my bankroll, and I'll be there next week.

I learned a lot, and I'll be hard pressed to make such a showing again, thanks again to Felicia and Roy for setting this up... best comment of the night, not sure whom it came from, but I think we were heads up or 3 left:

unknown: Roy has to get back to playing in his 80/160 game

me: lol and I have to get back to my .5/1 game

One more thing...I'd like to clear this up after Felicia and hdouble both called me 'college boy' during the tourney... I'm NOT in college... haven't been for a few years now. I was thinking about it...my fiancé 'is' still in college, part time on the 6 year plan but will be finishing this semester. I'm 26, live
outside of Boston (Yankees Suck!). In high school I played football, wrestled (I was at one point ranked 2nd in the country) and was a state championship finalist. I never quit finished college, I spent a year at Western New England College, a year at Framingham State College, and 1.5 years at UMass Lowell, I
then did a semester internship at Walt Disney World where I worked on a Roller Coaster featuring Aerosmith. Now I'm a system administrator for a telecom company.... got it!? no more college boy, or I'll come kick your ass, mmk?

Doh!

2004-04-03T20:32:00.000-05:00

One of those nights...i should've just said screw poker and gone out drinking....but the fiance was working, the dog was sleeping... and now my $60 party bankroll is kaput... brutal beats tonight, every playable hand had the worst possible flop..AA got three to a flush, not my suit, my two pair on the flop pairs the board so my bottom pair is useless...crap like that, i go on tilt (again) and start playing $10 sit n go... with a buck somethin left in the account, and one sit n go still running (although i am 2nd in chips now, i'm sure it'll change). Looks like i need to take a break from party...although I do have that backup i withdrew from paradise...*sigh*....

I've pretty much given up on raising good hands at .5/1. It doesn't drive anyone out of the flop, the blinds will always call, and they almost always stay to the river and get runner runner straights or two pair... i'll only raise with AA or KK, maybe queens or jacks...

I also think i've been playing way too loose. I seem to be in too many hands. Seems like i'm playing blackjack poker, where any two face cards are good enough to play.... I'll have to look into my pitiful stats on pokertracker and see.... see everyone tommorow night at the PJK tourney, may be my last for awhile unless my bankroll improves....

2004-04-03T15:47:00.000-05:00

"I won't sleep in the same bed with a woman who thinks I'm lazy! I'm going right downstairs, unfold the couch, unroll the sleeping ba- uh, goodnight." -Homer Simpson

POKER TRACKER PROJECT UPDATE BELOW, below tonights post.

Last night I had a decent night, I was up 20BB or so. I didn't play during the day, i did check in by usual lunchtime fish wasn't on, so i didn't bother playing.

I was in a .5/1 table, and noticed a player that was raising a ton. They then turned over some horrible hand and lost a $15 pot after raising the whole way. They then continued to do so...every hand. Laughing, i started playing, calling one raise to see a flop, then either folding or raising to build the pot. I was way up, but they got lucky a couple of time, getting a turn of 7, river of 4 to make two pair with their 74 offsuit... and several similar hands... once they'd bust out at a table, or after 15 minutes or so, they'd move. With the magic of Party's buddy list and find a player, I'd be right behind them... this went on for 4 or 5 tables, with most of the night's profit coming from this one player... we played shorthanded for awhile, which was great, with a full table it wasnt as profitable... I'm waiting for them to log in agin, no luck so far tonight. I'm still not convinced whether this was a bot gone bad, a lousy player, or someone's pissed off ex blowing off a bankroll. They raised 100% preflop, and about 98% the rest of the way. i saw one or two checks, and maybe one or two folds...anyone else see anything like this???

So i've been thinking on this poker tracker project, letting it rumble around in the emptiness.... Heres the current thought after my fish chasing expeditions on party....

Looking through the features of PT, the best, besides letting you see your own stats and analyze your play,is the 'player performance summary' screen, it shows the name, site, level, # of sessions, hands, $ won, bb/hour, all the relevant info... for instance, for my approx 3000 hands, i have 1200 unique players on 3 sites, 5 different play levels, with approx 40% winneers, 60% losers, 366 hours played. The #1 loser is down $90, and you can be sure they are on my buddy list at party.

So the idea is to pool people's hand histories/poker tracker databases together, and find the biggest fish on party, the...err.. whales, and then go on a whale hunt.... i think you get the idea....

SO how to get started... we need to put together hand histories. If you'll send me your hand histories , i'll combine them, and export a 'whale' list of the biggest losers. We can publish this last weekly, monthly, whatever.... If you will send your hand histories to me (instructions on how to export from poker tracker below), as a start I'll send you back 'my' whale list, which has 51 people who have lost $25 or more at mostly party (some paradise) at .5/1, and $25NL mostly. Once combined, you'll get the complete, combined list of fish.

Obviously we'll have to work out the details, but i think this is a really strong idea that can be very sucessful. Eventually I'd like to set up an ftp site to get the incoming files, and maybe a website (any good name ideas?) for now email will do.

Instructions on how to export hand histories out of poker tracker:

1. create a directory on your hard drive for the files. I suggest c:\poker or something easy to remember
2. on the utilities menu in pokertracker, chose 'export hand histories to file'
3. enter your 'poker' folder to export the hand files to
4. change 'hands per file' to 300
5. select all dates, leave everything else unchecked
6. choose start export
7. this will create a bunch of files in that directory, mine was around 4mb. This is kind of big for email, so I suggest compressing and combining the files into one. This is easy to fo with winzip available for free download. Once installed, highlight all the files, right click and choose add to zip. This will compress and combine everything into one file. You can then attach it to an email and send to me at poker@worcesterpc.com.

2004-04-02T13:52:00.000-05:00

English, who needs that? I'm never going to England! - Homer Simpson

no poker last night, caught up on some of my tivo stuff, and watched the apprentice with the fiance...

In the 'follow the pack' department I'll do a quick recap of some current interesting blog entries,

Felica, in what may or may not have been an April fools day post, says she is now banned from the Belle casino, it's quite an intersting story and turn of events, i suggest you go read up, hint: the phone number for the casino is listed in case you want to call and bitch them out. The Link

Showing the sense of humor this blogger clearly lacks, Tao of Poker either got a great sponsorhsip deal or had a good idea for an april fools joke...my bets on the second....

Welcome to the neighborhood Tilted Litt, a new poker player who from the looks of it is a whole lot smarter than me, and is currently in Taiwan, i can imagine the time difference (according to him, 9pm there is 8am here) can make it hard to find some of those juicy games...good luck...

I've been familiar with designing/creating websites for awhile now, I've created a few personal, a couple of my own business type ones, never very sucessful. But i've always used traffic/site meters, i find it interesting to see how many people and where/how they get here... blog's are very interesting, and when they get crawled by google its amazing how a site can come up... here are the top ones for my few week old blog:
"bad boys of poker"
"seinfeld poker"
"poker at work"
"how to setup pokertracker with partypoker"

very interesting... enough for today, have a great weekend, i should be playing a bunch, it's supposed to rain the whole time.

2004-04-01T15:21:00.000-05:00

Warning: the following quote may contain sexual content unsuitable to some nutjobs. However, this did air at 4pm in the middle of a weekday, so please don't fine me, FCC:

a rainbow party is an oral sex party it's a gathering where oral sex is performed and rainbow comes from all of the girls put on lipstick and each one puts her mouth around the penis of the gentleman or gentlemen who are there to receive favors and makes a mark um in a different place on the penis hence the term rainbow
The Oprah Winfrey Show Thursday, March 18, 2004, yet to be fined by the FCC

I usually write these posts in the morning, today's is late, kind of a backwards day. It seems lately my 'system administrator' job has consisted of reading poker blogs and, today, replacing not one, but two laptop keyboard that took a bath in coffee....

My feedster RSS feed decided to croak the other day, still havn't figured out why. All of a sudden I noticed my new posts weren't showing up in syndirella, i looked at the feed and the dates where out of whack (i wasn't alive in the 60's but apparenlty i was posting about poker then). Feedster support was of no help (they did manage to leave me a comment, but no answers) So i set up a new one, which seems to be ok so far, for those of you that do read me, the new feed is at http://subscribe.feedster.com/stinkypants2 if anyone understands the whole rss thing and wants to explain what happened, the old feed is the same like above, without the 2.

On to poker.... I didn't get much time in last night, the fiance was busy trying to find websites to spend my money on... but after my slaughter on party the past couple of days, I went back to paradise.... I sat in a .5/1 game, and entered what I thought was a $10 sitngo no limit, turned out to be limit. The limit ones take forever, and you don't get those one or two maniacs who bust out the first round... but it turns out a monkey could've won with my cards, but the time is was down to 5 players, I had 6k chips, everyone else was under 1k. i was hitting almost every flop and draw, amazing... then w/the big stack i had fun raising with junk being the bully, i don't get to do that much anymore. So i end up $50 for the tourney, down $5 at the .5/1 table... I cash out $50 into firepay to build up some reserves... I logged into party and ended up even after half an hour, but a new king of queens episode was on so I went and watched it w/the fiance....

bankroll at the end of the month (started with two $100 deposits)

party: $65
paradise: $100
planet: 45
reserve (in firepay): $50

for a total of $260, or up $60 for the month...not great, would've been much better if not for party this week. And I only started playing a lot the last half of the month, heres to a great april!

If you've followed my ramblings for awhile, you'll know that i've talked about howard stern and his fcc troubles. It's amazing how much the yahoos in charge of the government today are turning us into a taliban-like religious led state where free thought is banned and you are pursecuted for critizing the government. I encourage you to visit Stop The FCC and sign their petition to stop the FCC from inflicting the religious nutjobs twisted take on 'decency'. It must be nice for Colin (my daddy got me this job) Powell Jr, head of the FCC, who is clearly just a puppet for religious organizations and a president who didn't win an election and got the office by a technicality

What got me is that Janet Jackson was bleeped for using the word jeebus... hmmm, if they are censoring across the board, those sunday morning tv church shows should be very interesting, kind of like a scene from reservoir dogs on TBS (with all the bleeping)....

I don't really have a strong opinion on that matter or anything (lol)

Whats funny (if you are still with me after that rant) is this morning i'm in the shower, fiance knocks on door and says 'they've pulled Howard Stern off the air!' of course it didn't suprise me, I didn't listen to his show often before, but do now because this whole thing bothers me... anyways the fiance has listened every morning for years...apparently she went downstairs and cried for ten minutes...yes, over a radio show... she then got angry, went on the computer and wrote a nasty-gram to the fcc.... I had hoped to post that letter, but I fear I'd get fined by the fc... oh yeah, i also couldn't pull it up from work...lol... anyways, right after she sent the email, they came out and said it was all an april fools joke... for some reason this really amused me, not what Stern did, but how fiance reacted...i laughed all the way to work....

enough rambling, time to go home! good luck at the tables

ouch

2004-03-31T09:16:00.000-05:00

Ouch.... thats all I can say about last night.

It started off well enough. I had some time during the day to play, and actually tripled my $25 buyin at a .5/1 table at party and was up to $75, total party bankroll $175. i then blew $25 in a nl table, but was back to $160 by the end of the day.

Come home and log in during american idol (most of them sounded horrible this week), lose a buy in at a $25 table right away...ok...log into a .5/1 table, decide to play a $10 sit n go... second hand of the sit n go i go all in on the river with top pair ace kicker and get called by two pair, j-2, made it ont he river, both smaller pairs....friggin ridiculous...

anyways, the bleeding continued, losing consistently on 1 out of 3 tables, while staying even or just above on the other two.... out of frustration of the absurd beats i was taken, i took $50 of my last 80 and sat down a at a $2-4 table, deciding to only play premium hands, but ramming then when i did.... i also sat down at another $10 sit n go... I finally got a hand at 2/4, AQ suited.. i raised, 3 callers... flop comes XXQ unsuited... a bet, i reraise, gets capped... turn comes another Q...bet, i reraise, gets capped, only one player left... turn comes a rag, 6... i call one bet, and of course the one guy left had friggin q6 and had raised the whole way with the dominated hand, until of course the river... i finally left with $10 of my $50... I ended up taking 2nd in the sit n go, my party bankroll is currently at $60. back to .5/1 for me, luckily i still have my paradise roll, and enough for another PJK tourney at planet... although If i lose the party bankroll I'll be taking a break... I've been studying to take the Server+ certification, and have been putting it off, if i quit playing poker everynight i could probably pass it...nah i'll just study at work lol....

One plus side I had my first sucessful fish hunt in the afternoon... I looked through pokertracker, found a target, used party to locate the table, got on the waiting list... sat down at the table, and doubled my money in 10 minutes. This person blew through 3 reloads, calling everything. They left the table, followed and sat down next to them, and doubled a buyin again... they finally left, but i'll be doing that again. If anyone wan't to trade a fishing list, I have a good one for .5/1 on party.

TV -
American Idol - as I said i watched this last night while being slaughtered at party, I liked the guy with the gap in is front teeth, JPL, George Huff was good, but everyone expected that, being motown week, the redheaded guy was absolutely horrible..and whats with Fantasia??? her name makes her sound like a hooker, and her attitude doesn't help any. She may be able to sing, but do you have to look like ghett-trash? So i had my fix of reality tv for the night

The Practice - I tivo'd this from sunday night, I love this show, i've watched it since the beginning, too bad it's going to end, but i hear there is a spin-off... it's also funny that my real-life lawyer's office is just about where the show's lawfirm is in boston, too bad they don't return my calls lol... great episode, and suprisingly no serial killer or rapist this time...

here is what all casino ads should be like (thanks to loveandcasinowar for the link.

unrelated to my flogging last night, poker violence

thats all for now...

2004-03-29T10:31:00.000-05:00

"I bet Einstein turned himself all sorts of colors before he invented the light bulb."
- Homer Simpson....or myself on Planet Poker's off choice of 1980's Atari Style graphics

What a weekend....

last night saw my horrible downfall in felicia's weekly tournament at planet poker. I wasn't in the best mood (see "playing poker while angry, why not to" later) and I didn't see a decent starting hand the first level and a half... so when i got AK suited in late position, I raised 400, only to be reraised all-in... i said the hell with it and called, of course my AK didn't improve against QQ and i was done...but i did outlast felicia who went out with QQ against AA i believe a while before me.

As for the rest of the weekend, I ended up down a overall, did horrible at paraside and rings games, but won one $10 singe table, and placed third in two others. I also had this odd situation...i registered for a $5 multi table tourney about 15 mins before it started, then realized it was limit... i didn't have the patience to play limit, so i unregistered, and joined a $10 single table... about 15 mins later a window pops up and I'm in a seat at the $5 tourney!! i played, but i emailed customer service asking what had happened...of course they were useless and said that's odd, but didn't offer a refund...I'll think twice about playing tourneys there i guess...

At party, again i was down quite a bit. I played in one single table $10 and lost. I also played a single table $10 qualifier for the million $ tournament. I won that table, and won an entry into a $64 single table tournament, if i won that i'd have a seat at the million dollar tourney. this was friday night around 10pm... halfway through, i'm average stacked, get AA...of course the dog then decides he 'really' has to go outside, and the fiance won't move...so i get through the hand with a crying dog at my feet, and go AFK..get back 5 mins later (he took his dam time finding just the right spot) i came back shortstacked and angry and blew the tourney...

Stinky's Poker Lesson #43: Don't Play Poker Angry

Poker is a way for me to get away from crap, away from the everyday life stupid stuff... It relaxes me most of the time. Of course it seems like the objective of the dog and fiance are solely to disrupt my playing time. This angers me... we've also still been going back and forth over the stupid patio furniture thing (she found one she likes for $450, i thought it looked cheap and wasn't even comfortable....i then found one at target that was still $400, but at least was comfortable, but it didn't 'match' the house..wtf?) so when we got back I sat down then proceeded to burn through my bankroll.... same thing last night, this time the argument was i spent all weekend playing poker and didn't do anything around the house (this discussion happening right after I had started a load of laundry, picked up after dinner, and was in the middle of folding clothes) she then goes to bed w/out settling things...this really bothers me... she's the type of person who will have an argument, then go to bed. The next morning she'll wake up and apologize...i'm the exact opposite...if it's not settled, i don't sleep... or if i do it's an angry sleep and I have a horrible day the next day, and when she tries to apologize in the morning it just makes me more angry....

I stuck around the PJK tourney until the final table, then went to bed... I still don't know who won, Felicia has a year old post up today, and my Syndirella somehow reverted back to an old version, when i got the new one up all my settings were gone, so i now have to reload ALL of the blogs...jeesh...

The fiance decided to have a poker game at home. She refuses to come to foxwoods with me and play, and won't play for money online. She watches on tv though, and I did manage to teach her how to play and she goes on and does the play money thing once in awhile. For christmas I got a nice poker table, set of clay chips and automatic shuffler... about a month ago she invited some family members and some older friends over and we played for fun...it was a good time... she decided to do it again, this time for a little money... we only ended up with 5 players, myself, the fiance, her mother (who was tipsy when she arrived, and with a full bottle of wine in her just got annoying), her brother, and his girlfiend (with their baby in tow). The mother's boyfriend was also supposed to come, but didn't show up, something about catching fiances mother in a lie (she said she was at grocery store, but was at bar instead, and boyfriend was parked behind her car at bar while she was lieing)... so i spend some time, google home poker tournaments and come out with a blind/chip structure, a $5 buy-in tourney, one rebuy, one add-on after 4 15 minute rounds... sounds good, I print up some sheets with poker hand rankings to help out....

Everyone shows up, buys in... we play a couple of hands, brother just constantly bluffs, mother just constantly calls... after 4 hands they decide to take a break,break lasts 30 minutes...this continued most of the night, brother busts out early, gets mad and leaves... mother, getting wasted, is next, fiance is out, she played ok, but thought she was a genius when she noticed i only played when i had good hands, so she would fold whenever i was in a pot... brother girlfriend actually played well, and if i hadn't picked up all the chips from everyone else, she might've lasted longer...in the end, noone rebought or added on, so the prize pool was a whopping $25.... some adjustments had to be made.. only i dealt, blinds lasted one orbit instead of 15 minutes, or we'd only get 1 hand a level... more of a 'lets get together and eat food' kind of thing, and poker was an afterthought.... hopefully i'll be putting together a tourney at home w/some people who actually want to play....

TV/Movies -

I've decided to start a section on my second love in life...TV... my baby is a nice 54 inch RCA Scenium D52W136D, 16x9 HDTV integrated progressive scan dvd...i start drooling just thinking about her.... my baby. We just got directv installed since Charter cable is evil, and I was able to sell off my old tivo and get a directivo, which is amazing... hours and hours of stuff i actually want to watch, at the tips of my fingers...

So shows that I watch regularly, i'll update my thoughts on them every once in awhile...

The Simpsons - Like coming home and settling into the ass-groove of my couch, The Simpsons have been a staple of my life for longer than i can remember, and even though i end up deleting most of them off the tivo because i know them line for line, I keep recording them, hoping that I find a lost one, or as a standby in case everything else just sucks...

The Sopranos - Finally back baby, since the tourney was at 9 last night, I didn't watch them, but tonight me and Tony have a date....

King Of Queens - This is a relatively new show to me, and i've enjoyed catching up on the Heffernans, and since they are on 3 times a night I have a steady stock on tivo, and the fiance likes it too, not to mention that i could be the main character, if I delivered packages and had a hot wife.

Kingdom Hospital - Stephen King is a favorite of mine, and although most of his movies end up sucking like a recent Ben Affleck film, his books are amazing. Just recently I finished the latest edition of the Dark Tower series, I love how he ties his stories together (The Stand, Talisman, BlackHouse, and more all have ties to the Dark Tower series). I started recording this new weekly series on ABC when it started, but just started watching it this weekend...amazing is all i can see, freaky ant-eaters with teeth, ghosts, vampires, it's got it all... my favorite part though in the first episode, theres a scene in the parking lot and in the background a song is playing that I've had for years on a live recording of dave matthews and blues travellers, it's a country-fied version of Snoop Dog's Gin and Juice... I used to embarass the fiance and friends and blast that song driving along in the ghetto here... I would recommend this show to everyone.....

Enough for now, back to work...

2004-03-26T09:41:00.000-05:00

"Gambling is the future on the internet. You can only look at so many dirty pictures." - Simon Noble, an Austrian-based internet bookmaker

I spent some time cleaning up my site, changing the template, the links, even created a feedster feed thanks to Jeremy at love and casino war I followed his intructions here and now have more blogs to read than i know what to do with, but I'm happy. I actually had the software installed, but it was an old version and never worked quite right, but Jeremy's got a great list that he keeps updated (hopefully I'll be on that soon, lol)

Didn't get much chance to play online last night, fiance is still on a mission to bankrupt me with spending, she was looking at more patio furniture... our last place had a balcony that was like 5 by 3 feet and scary to stand on, the new place has a giant, two level deck (one level, then a step down to a bigger one) and of course she finds the most expensive one, even at target or walmart... i told her we'd look at yard sales next weekend, i don't think she's speaking to me lol...

But i did manage to log into paradise, cash out my $50 i plan on moving to planet for the PJK tourney this weekend (info here) just waiting for it to hit firepay. I sat down at a .5/1 table, and decided to try a $10 sit n go. The tourney was fairly tight, but i'm not sure they were the best players, I busted one guy out after being low stack for awhile, had around 2500 with 7 people left. i get pocket 10's, raise to 300 (blinds for 50/100) two callers and a raise to 500, I go all-in (i know, probably not the brightest move), and get called by ALL THREE, they were all fairly short stacks, under 1400 each while i had 2600, so even if i lost i'd still be in it. my pocket 10s were up against AK, AQ, and KQ. i thought this was good since 6 of the 16 overcards were out already.... flop comes XX10 with low cards, no flush, turn and river are both blank and i'm at almost 6k chips...woohoo i ended up heads up 8k-2k and called an all-in with 44 (he had been going all in w/any playable hand i didn't raise) he had k9 and i won $50...woohoo! I think i'll be moving back to party though, I want to get back into the 25 nl games now that I have poker tracker to track the fish...anyone care to give me some to add to my buddy list? I'll share some of mine!

screw this...

2004-03-25T15:48:00.000-05:00

So i didn't like how blogger handled the links, the green was getting to me. So i changed the template...and lost all the links..eventually i saved them, i have no idea how someone who hasn't spent quite a bit of time with HTML could figure this out... still working on the styling and getting my picture back.... hope it's easier to read....

2004-03-25T14:57:00.000-05:00

Not much again to report today, i've been busy all day building working laptops out of piles of old ones...not exactly a fun job, but someone's gotta do it.

Thanks for the link and traffic from Icey in the World of Poker add another one to my list to read, screw work lol... One of these afternoons when I'm waiting for windows 2000 service pack 4 to download I'll update more links , I've decided the let the traffic grow itself, and if either of my two readers want to spread the word, they will, otherwise I think just writing this helps me think about my game/life from a point of view I don't usually have.

I spent about an hour playing two .5/1 tables at paradise to finish up getting my bonus money. i was down most of the time, but finished up a little and got the final bonus bucks. Total from my $100 deposit is not $110. Thats after the $20 tourney I bombed in. I think i'll be cashing out and concentrating on party, hopefully getting my bankroll up enough to move to 1/2.

i've had some interesting feedback on the pokertracker project, keep it coming, and if anyone wants to donate some hands for testing, let me know....

One interesting hand, besides my KK and QQ being busted continously... I get AA on the button, raised twice before it gets to me, i cap it... flop is XXK rainbow... again i cap it, another blank comes on the turn, again it's capped, by now i'm worried about trips but am committed to losing my money... river pairs a low card, a 5 i believe, one bet to me, I rase and get called by two people....showdown...
first guy - KJ for top pair... me - AA, third guy......... AA...figures, though i end up w/half an $40 pot...

I'll be moving some money over to planet poker for the weekly tourney that Felicialee was kind enough to set up, hope to see you all there, of course I'll have to bring my best suck outs with me....

I was briefly considering going down to foxwoods tommorow or saturday for their new england classic tourneys, $300 and $500 events. but decided against it. if i went, then I couldn't defend myself when my fiance brings up spening 500 on goddam patio furniture again... plus playing online I have a much better chance...maybe next year i'll have more of a bankroll.... anyone going, be sure to get there at 7am, it'll be a long day.... see you at the tables!

2004-03-24T10:24:00.000-05:00

not much poker updating today, I got home from work last night and promptly heard "I need to use the computer tonight to write papers" from the fiance, who is on the 6.5 year college plan.

Of course as i sit down to catch up on my episodes of king of queens and other tivo goodness, the house help desk phone rings (well, its not actually phone, but a loud yell) that her email is screwed up. So i spend a good half hour fixing her email setup, while she finds someone to talk on the phone to. i finish, she's still talking away... i think, hmm... and a sly grin comes across my face as I load paradise and bring up a couple of .5/1 tables. An hour later when i get kicked off again, I had been down almost a tables buy in ($20) but ended up just about even, losing a couple dollars for the session.

I went back downstairs and watched last weeks Soprano's episode, the fiance said it was boring, I loved it. nothing like a good beating like those landscapers took, and the old guy wandering around the ghetto was great, not to mention the kids selling candy for the 'church'.

I've gotten a little feedback on the poker tracker database project, but am waiting for some more. To do that people might actually have to read this, so today I might be begging for some links from my fellow bloggers, not my favorite thing to do, maybe I'll just leave notes in the comments. Not that my ramblings are anything great to read, but I think this pokertracker idea has some good potential.

Since I finished my latest book on tape and concluded the entire harry potter series during my commutes, I've been listening to Howard Stern in the morning. Now i usually don't , nudity on the radio just doesn't appeal to me. but lately he's been dealing with the whole FCC thing, which I think is a load of crap. His rants about the FCC and Relgious Rights are dead on. This country is turning into a taliban-like state, which a few religious nuts running things. I myself am not religious, but coming from two very different backgrounds (jewish and catholic) I support people rights to practice whatever they choose. However, keep it to yourself. Keep the preaching, bible thumping crap off the tv, radio, and especially out of government. I've dealt with religious zealots and the nepotism that comes with it in a previous job, and thats mainly what my whole lawyer thing is about, so i may be slightly biased, but only based on my own experiences.

A great sight I came across is The Brights, a group of people who choose not to enlist in specific organized religions or cults which, traditionally, have been used by the few rich and powerful to control entire populations and countries (ie, taliban, bush, etc)

Ok, i'll step off my soapbox, and return to the originally scheduled poker content next post. Please know that I do respect everyone's right to their own religion and beliefs, and I'm sure I'll be roasting in hell someday....

2004-03-23T09:13:00.000-05:00

The fact that he relies on facts....says things that are not factual...are going to undermine his campaign George W. Bush, New York Times

In case you havn't seen it, Travel Channel is running a contest for a chance at playing the 'bad boys' of poker: Travel Channel contest Here
hmmm, my chance to try and get Phil H to swing at me so I can take him out lol....

So last night I went back to paradise poker, didn't feel like playing in the $20 rebuy tourney again, so sat down at the .5/1 tables to work towards my reward money... I don't know wether it was the cards or the table selection, but i could've sworn the fish at the table were lining up to shove money down my pants like I was a chippendale dancer. I ended up $60 after an hour when I got called away to do laundry....
I sat back down decided to enter the $15 10pm multi table tourney. I played this while playing a .5/1 game. I learned a lesson, it's not as easy to play two tables at once if one it limit, the other a no limit tourney, I got very disoriented, and my good hands always seemed to come at the same time at both tables.. I did horrible in the ring game, lost a good portion of my winnings to bad beats and poor plays, i even hopped around to different tables...no luck.

The tournaments was another story, around 450 entries, I played real tight until the second round, I went all in with the nut flush, got two callers and I was chip leader! I stayed in the top 15 for most of the next few rounds until I got QQ in late position, I reraised a small raiser, he went all-in, I had him covered by almost double, so i called, flop comes 10QX, he has J8 offsuit. turn is of course the king, and the river, well, you know of course that is the Ace the crippled my stack. I was down to the intial stack of 1500 then.
I built it back up a little, went all in and picked up a few pots, and had 9k by the break. top 50 paid, and I was in the money.... on the button I get a10suited (my hand o' death it seems), checked around to me, i raise to three times the blinds (which were 6/1200 by then) get called and flop comes 10 high. checked to me, i go all in get called and see JJ in the small blind...nothing comes and I go out 47th. for my 2 hours of hard work I made my buyin back plus a whopping 1.90, go me. my bankroll at paraside is around 95 now, up 15 from yesterday, down $5 total... I seem to be getting better at tournaments, but always just squeaking into the money, i need to figure out how to get to that next level... I guess I'll stick to 10 to 20 tourneys, once (if) i can conistently place in those I'll move up....

on a non-poker note, WTF is up with banks... I applied, back in january, at charter one bank for a home equity line of credit, this would refinance the one I have now, but give me an additional $20k in credit so I could pay off my credit cards with my savings, but still have the line of credit in case of emergencies.... after taking forever, faxing over everything like 4 times, i signed 2 weeks ago. however they still havn't funded it. They claim they havn't gotten the payoff from my existing HELOC, which is stupid because i've requested it 5 times now. But to top it off, now they are saying they will pay off all my credit cards with the heloc. the ones listed included several that had zero percent for another year, and one that was joint w/the fiance... I told them I didn't sign up for that, and it wasn't kosher since half of the ones listed I had already transferred, and didn't want to have to go hunting down payments made to cards already paid off, besides thats not the reason I was getting the loan, I only listed those debts because they require you to, not because i wanted them paid off. So the bank manager, who is clueless (what do you expect for a bank in a dam shopping mall, although i applied on the net, they referred me to this dope), calls the main office, who apparently can only be reached through special telephones in the bank (since it's impossible for ME to talk to them directly), takes days to get back to me and says that all i have to do is show that those cards are paid off.... i told them it's non of your business, that nowhere did it state that this was a contigency of getting the loan...ridiculous, so now i'm looking into other places, since even if they did fix it i'm not sure id want to do business with a bank who can't even fund a loan properly... *sigh*

Money can't buy happiness but it can buy healthcare

2004-03-22T11:23:00.000-05:00

"And as for your case, don't you worry. I've argued in front of every judge in the state. Sometimes as a lawyer." -- Lionel Hutz (simpsons)

Lawyers are evil... I've yet to have a positive experience with them. Currently I'm involved with one concerning my former employer. I did this on the urging of an uncle I rare talk to. He is a professor in Sweden, graduated from harvard and a couple of other schools... he reffered me to 'the best' employment lawyer around... I met with her, she agreed to take the case, mouth watering (i won't go into it now, but its a fairly obvious discrimination thing, against a very large organization). However, that was around thanksgiving... since then I've sent bi-weekly emails and phone calls, and pretty much gotten no response. We have yet to file a complaint, but according to an update a few weeks ago they are now planning a federal first ammendment case. What I don't understand is, with something obviously so important to someone like me, why they can't send a weekly update, even if nothing happened. I understand they are busy, but jees... it's like pulling teeth....

meanwhile on the poker front i've been having much better luck, after my first place in the money on a multi table tourney at party, I spent an hour or so playing .5/1 the next day, with the fiance around I couldnt spend too much time, but in between hands I was typing one of her college papers for her. I took by $25 buyin up to $80 before I got kicked out. Later on I entered a $5 sit n go (i know i said i'd stay away, but there weren't any multi's and I was on a roll from the tourney the night before) and ended up placing 2nd. My bankroll at party, initially $100, is now just below $200.

Then in an apparent brain fart, I signed up at paradise poker, thinking I'd play in FeliciaLee's sunday night tournament.... but apparently I was way off, in that it's not starting till next week, and its at PLANET poker, not PARADISE...oops, my mistake.

So since I had money at paradise, I entered their nightly $20 tourney, then realized it was a rebuy/addon, and didn't feel like investing another $20. So I played thinking i wouldn't rebuy and hoepfully have enough chips to not need the add-on... I did ok, out of 1000 players, I was 300-400 throughout, but dropped down to 1500 before the break. On the last hand, i went all in w/KQ suited and lost to JJ, the fiance was happy because she could finish her paper...i went to bed early, happy i didn't waste that 2nd $20 on the rebuy. I'll be playing some .5/1 there to get the deposit bonus, the tourney's didn't seem too bad either, we'll see if I can work with a bankroll on there too.

I did a whole lot worse money wise outside of poker, however. Last week I opened some mail to find an unexplained check for $3000. The celebrations didn't last long as it seemed the fiance had already spent most of it in her head. Turns out the money was from an escrow mortgage insurance account that was from the condo I sold back in september. I wasn't complaining.

So the spending began... i never knew storm doors were so expensive...i guess it helps if you pick out the priciest ones. The front one had to be ordered, the back was was installed yesterday, complete with movable screens/glass. I was upset because it appeared to be missing a part, and there were some unexplained bulges down by the hinges... since it was already installed, we now have to take pictures and send to the company for warranty...it works in the meantime, but for almost $200 wtf is that?!

Next up on the purchase front was a new grill. The old grill got left behind on the balcony of our old condo, it was one of those small round ones but took propane, made famous for the constant barrage of sausages that would roll off the edge while I was turning them, make the journey across the very small balcony and fall three floors to the parking lot... after looks at lowes, sears, and finally home depot, I was either rooting for the really nice $300 one, or the cheap-o $99 grill... fiance had another idea and chose the $170 one, bigger than we need for the two of us, but will be nice for cookouts... christened the grill with hamburgers after I spent the afternoon assembling (and another hour convincing fiance that the extra bag of parts really was extra, and not my lack of mechanical skills) and didn't blow myself up with the propane tank. Burgers were great, real test tonight w/some t-bones.

One more thought for anyone reading this before I head out for lunch... I broke down and purchased poker tracker, great software and I recommend it, still discovering new ways to use it. One idea I saw mentioned in another blog (sorry don't remember where) was to combine everyones databases, or share hand histories to help identify trends and big fishies.... I am working on setting up an ftp site, anyone contact me if interested in participating and working out the details email me. I know there may be concerns about other people seeing your hand histories. Myself i don't care because i play very straightforward, and if you want to join the list of people trying to ruin me go ahead, theres probably a blog out there devoted to my downfall :) But there are ways to exclude certain players, only include hands where you didn't show hole cards, etc.

My thought was the easiest way would be to export databases to files using the export feature in pokertracker, putting them all up on an ftp site (probably compressing/zipping them to save space) and having daily/weekly updates. Access could be limited to only those who share more than 1k hands, or there could be ratios (ie for every 1k hands uploaded, you get access to 3k hands), or it could be restricted to those actively contributing histories (ie you contribute your updates each week, you get access to that week's updates) please comment, I'll be working out the idea and spreading it out, If you are interested in testing let me know... I'm off to lunch, good luck at the tables everyone!

and the winner is.....

2004-03-20T00:29:00.000-05:00

not me.... after having almost 20k in chips, i whittled it down to 8k at the bubble, then after getting in the money went all in w/AK suited, got called by...AK unsuited and 1010.... 10's won, we both went out.. i get $35.80 for finishing 129th...oh well....

Save me jeebus!!!

2004-03-19T22:23:00.000-05:00

Just a quick update, i've been busy the past few days and havn't had much to write about.
I've only been able to play a few short sessions, and my $100 buy-in at party has gone up and down, up to around 130, down to 50, right now sitting around $100. I've been at the 25 nl tables, .50/1 and i moved up to 1/2 for a night, did ok, sat at the 6max tables and felt confident, but didn't want to put my smaller bankroll at risk so stopped after a short gain. I played in on 5 sit n go and of course went out 7th all in to a bad beat, oh well.

Tonight I built my 25 buy in at .5/1 up to 50, and decided to buy into the $20 multi table. 2nd round i had an unbelievable run of cards, knocked 5 people out in 4 hands, right now its the 5th leel, i'm aroung 3600, average is 2500, 713 out of 1700 players left. The significant other saw I was playing poker again and started to whine, till i pointed out the first prize was almost 7k...i think she's already spent it...

I swear for a while i felt like I was playing in one of those slot machien tournaments where the machines are rigged to always give high payouts...every card hit, i had QQ 3 out of 5 hands at one point... however the cards are running slower, and at this point I'm just trying to stay alive and steal enough blinds to keep my stack above average....

I'm still trying to get money into empire...i managed to register but it won't let me deposit from firepay, i've tried calling but can never get through... i registered a bank acount with their igm service, but then realized i registered it under my party account...doh...
I'll be setting up a paradise account for the tourney on sunday, hope to see y'all there....

2004-03-17T10:33:00.000-05:00

"You call...gonna be all over, baby." -- Scotty Nguyen

I didn't play any more monday, I was too busy cleaning up dried crap on the rug and floor, and don't think I need to go into details. Tuesday I actually had some work at work, so after work I decided to sit down, play and watch American Idol...I have this thing about reality shows, I can't stand them, yet I always seem to watch them..go figure...

First I downloaded truepoker to see what everyone had been talking about...seemed ok, but was too slow for me (i guess the fact i was copying a dvd in the background didn't speed things up... then I tried to put some money into empire again, which again got declined, I called the number and of course couldn't get through, so i gave up and just put another $100 back into party.

So I sit down at a 25NL table, third hand in I get 77, I make a small raise, get a couple of callers, flop comes 937 rainbow, woohoo I say... I bet $3, one folds, other guy raises to $10. I put him on overcards or a big pair...and reraise all in....he things about it, calls, and has KK....of course the K comes on the river... After i'm done yelling at the monitor I leave that table, sit down at two 25nl tables.... for about an hour and a half I'm even, up on one table, down on another, then reversed, since it was a good seinfield episode on, i gave myself to the end of it and then I was going to bed... finally i get a decent hand, a-10 suited, raise and get 6 callers, flop comes jqx, i call a $2 bet from a loose player, turn is a blank, another $2 raise...I call thinking he's got nothing based on how many times he's tried to bluff me out of a pot..river is a K... he bets $10, i think and reraise him all in $35 for me...he calls and shows KK. I end up the night up $30...I was just happy to make up for that bad beat that cost me my first buyin....

Thanks to Guinness and Poker for sending me what looks like..well...all of my traffic so far. Hopefully some others will link, and I'll be continuing to add to mine... see you at the tables!

lessons learned today

2004-03-15T17:25:00.000-05:00

ok, a few things i learned today:

Don't play poker at work..... ok so today was a slow day, and i spend most of it loading cd's into computers at my desk imaging them... doesn't take a rocket scientist...i also dug up an older company laptop, got it working and was able to angle it so that it can't be seen from the hallway. I loaded up party, logged in and proceeded to lose my $25 on a horrible play.

AK suited, on the button I raise, get a few callers... flop comes 6k6one of my suit. Checked around, I bet $2 and am called by two players. turn is a blank but puts out a flush draw (not my suit) checked all around. River is the K, give me a nice full house, i'm pretty sure someone has a flush... first player checks, second bets $5,i re-reraise all in, third folds.........

and I bang my head repeatedly onto my desk as the second player calls and turns over 66...not sure how I played that, my head hurts too much right now to analyze it. I then went on tilt and lost my remaining buy in, thus ends that chapter of my party story, subtitles including "doh! how not to play poker online" and "why not to play poker at work". I then tried to setup an empire account, finally managed to, but it won't take my firepay account, says it's declined, I dont have the time to call from work, but it's frustrating, i'm just not looking forward to buying back into party, should I try another site? hmmmm.....

Another thing I learned...don't feed your dog people food, no matter how much he begs and whines...
the last week or so my pug (see above) wasn't eating his food, we figured it was the fact we changed it a couple weeks ago... then I notice he was flinching when drinking water...now you don't know my dog, but hes very jump, things like plastic bags, brooms, vacuum cleaners, squirrels, etc scare him.... and it turns out last week he was given a nice shiny new set of water/food metal bowls.., instead of the cheap plastic one he's had for over a year... I hold the bowl up to my head, laugh, then do the same to my sigificant other...she almost jumps at the scary, distorted reflection in the bowl....now imagine that when you're trying to eat/drink... as a test, i take out his old bowl, put the food/water in it, and he goes nuts and down it all...problem solved....

well, he got his revenge today.... after going through two bowls of dog food, 1.5 hamburgers, popcorn, and whatever else he could get into his mouth, i get a tearful message and call home... turns out the revenge was getting diarrhea all over our brand new carpets.... and as she so gracefully put it "not just one or two spots, but like twenty!" I know, more detail then you needed to know...I'll be going home to survey the damage now, hopefully the cleaners worked, i think i'll forgo the poker tonight, relax, watch some tv and try and get rid of this headache (and losing streak!) cya,

The only monster here is the gambling monster that has enslaved your mother! I call him Gamblor, and it's time to snatch your mother from his neon claws!
-Homer Simpson

bleh

2004-03-15T10:16:00.000-05:00

All right, let's not panic. I'll make the money by selling one of my livers. I can get by with one. --Homer Simpson

All in all not the best weekend.

I realize driving home from work that I must've damaged my hearing somehow...whenever theres no sound I hear a buzzing sound, kind of like crickets at night, this used to happen after I went to a loud concert, and when i worked at Rock N Roller Coaster in disney world, part of the job was listening to the preshow with Aerosmith over and over.... where we would stand would be loud, and some other places were near some loud sounds...

So because of this i'm not in the best mood, and I can't get to sleep, i decide to get some poker playing in. I played till 3am, and played very little the rest of the weekend, the results speak for themselves:

My bankroll at party is now $45. bleh. This a result more of my own stupidity then the crappy cards and ridiculous bad beats I was getting. It seemed for awhile everytime i had a playable hand, A10, AK, 1010, etc, an overcard would flop or the board would pair, and the tight player still in the pot would raise and reraise....

I would've done a lot worse if not for the $25 NL games on party. I'd play two tables at once, one .5/1 limit and a 25 NL. I'd slowly lose my money at the limit game, then make up for it with a big hand at the NL, mostly ending up even. Then I decided to try some party sit n gos....big mistake.

I remember a long time ago when I was first at party playing sng's and losing money, but didn't remember why. I'd had decent results with stars sng's. It must be the structure that doesn't agree with me, with only 800 chips and the blinds going up after a set amount of hands, stars has 1500 chips and timed levels... My experience was horrible, I'd go all-in with the best hand, and lose to runner runner straights, flushes, etc... my AA lost to 92 offsuit when a 2 came on the river giving him three of a kind... end result, none, zero, zip finished in the money, one $20, two $10 and two $5 sng's later, I'm back to by $50.

I went back to stars and played off my remaining $12 in $5 sng's and lost those too, finishing on the bubble (4th) in each one. Oh well, I'll stick to the 25 nl tables at party for awhile, try and focus on my NL game....

I'm not too concerned about the loss, I went through several swings and a few cards changed, i could've been up by $50 instead of down. besides, this amount of money is nothing compared to what the significant other is draining out of my checking account, with a newly remodelled bathroom almost finished, she's already set her sights on the kitchen... jees....

well, in the words of Homer S. "I'm not normally a religious man, but if you're up there, save me, Superman!

Last Night - Welcome Back to the Party - (Poker Content)

2004-03-12T11:29:00.000-05:00

While I enjoy writing about poker, I'm sure some of you have absolutely no interest in my personal life posts that I'll be getting into soon if things don't pick up here at work, so I've decided to clearly mark poker and personal posts for your convenience..... I spent several hours playing last night,

So with $17 left in my pokerstars account, I decided to give up and re-introduce myself to party. Well, first I tried to get into my newly created empire account, no luck, when i finally did get in it said I already had a party account, looks like I'll have to try and create one from work, I was able to scrounge together a nice laptop that I can angle neatly so people walking by the cubicle can't see...hmmmm

So giving up on the bonus at empire, i deposit my $50 into party. I sit down at a .5/1 game which seemed fairly tight, until a couple people sat down and started raising everything, eventually I opened a second .5/1 game also...

I also realized that it will be very difficult to play three games on my monitor. I have an 18 inch lcd flatpanel...which is great, but... the highest resolution isn't that high, and I can only fit two compelte game windows at once...why the hell can't you resize them??? 25 minutes later I get kicked off the computer because the significant other (read: she who spends all my poker money) felt the need to look up new kitchen cabinets online...wonderful..., however I was up to $70 and feeling much more confident....

A while later I sat back down and tuned into survivor (not as much fun this week w/out Sue screaming about Hatch's crotch) and opened up party again. I sat at a .50/1 table, and also opened a $25 nl table.

I've never had great luck playing limit in live casinos, at foxwoods/mohegan I probably totalled even in the long run. I seem to do much better in the live NL tournaments i've played, and the NL sit n go's have kept me afloat pokerwise...it might be my poker style, or my inability to lay down hands I know are underdogs when all it takes is 'one more bet' in limit...

So i'm gradually losing money at the limit table, but my stack is growing at the NL, I'll plug the hand histories into pokertracker tonight, but after several hours of up and down I was still at my original $50 (two $25 buy ins), $40 at the NL and ten left at the limit. I left the limit when i got up to $15, the NL table was down to $30.... when my first AA in four hours of play came flop comes J9x off suit, 4 players bet minimum before me, I raise to $2, get 2 callers. Turn is J, checked around to me, i bet $2, one caller. River send me an A...woohoo i'm doing the homer simpson dance around my room, thankful that these poker sites don't involve webcams... the dog comes barking out of the bedroom looking at me like i'm nuts.... remaining player bets $5, I raise to $15 and he calls, he shows J9 for the smaller full house and I goto bed with my party bankroll now at $96, not bad for some of the horrible plays/cards I had during the session, I'll need to take a look at where I'm making stupid plays... hopefully i'll get some time in this weekend, and I'd like to start linking to some other blogs and get some feedback....

how I got here (pokerwise)

2004-03-11T11:29:00.000-05:00

So about a month ago, i had just finished a contract (more on that later) and was bored around the house, my signiciant other said why don't you play some poker...since the money worries were somewhat relieved, I reluctantly (yea right) agreed and deposited $100 into pokerstars. I get another contract right away so don't have a lot of time to play, maybe one $5 sit and go every other day or so. As of last week, i had my BR up to $150, I moved up and played a couple $10 sit n gos and got up to $190. Fast forward to last night, after reading a bunch of poker blogs (i'll list later) I'm excited to get home and play.

First I try and sign up for empire, after hearing about the garunteed tournaments...I sign up...but can't log in...send an email to support, they say try back tommorow..umm..ok...
I then withdraw $50 from stars into firepay, wanting to put it into party and begin playing.... forgot that it takes a day or two to show up...
Ok...i have some cash, I'll just use firepay and grab some more out of checking... well firepay has an error (i later found out it was a system wide thing), and even set up a 2nd account w/different checking just in case...
I should've given up there...but no...i go back to my $130 on stars, sit down at a 6max 1/2 table..but $20 in...middle position, second hand, I get aqoffsuit, but its raised and reraised by the time it gets to me...i muck...and of course flop comes xqq, turn is A... pot was $30 w/out me in it...
I should've given up there...but no...I play badly, get down to $5, put another $5 in.....then i change tables, this time to one w/one person sitting at it, minimum buy in...i come out aggressive, he's folding, I won the first 6 pots, he rebought 3 times and handed over to me before he left...table had gotten full by then, but I was up to even, around $45.... of course I get some big bad beats, then go on tilt and lose it down to $10...
I should've given up there....but no, I say screw it and play in a $50 sit n go (WTF was i thinking, i should've just gone to bed, oh well), I play pretty good, am the big stack w/5 left,and lose my KK to a straight after i flopped a K...I have 400 now...build it back up to 1400, but am still the short stack, I end up going out w/ AJ vs a10 and the 10 hit the board.... well, with $17 left at stars, I GAVE UP THEN!

Tonight, I'm taking the $50, putting it in party and will start with .5/1, or maybe some small no limit (i did suprisingly well before in the .10/.25 stars nl game... I've downloaded pokertracker, looks great, but I can't bear to look at it after my hosing last night...oh well...

2004-03-10T11:19:00.000-05:00

I told myself for a long time what would be the point of me writing one of those? Who cares what 'I' have to say? So I never did. Now, I come to find myself in a new job (more on that later) with a bit more free time during the day. There's only so many news web sites you can surf before you go nuts. So, I started surfing around for my hobbies. Only problem, I really don't have any... Well, I play poker. OK. I've always ready the poker newsgroup weekly since I started playing, never bothered posting. Problem was, there is way too much junk on there to be useful. So I started reading some blogs. My favorite posts on the newsgroup were mostly trip reports, and a blog is just like a really long trip report.....

So why Stinkypants2? Well, I think the more relevant questions is who the hell is stinkpants, and why is he using my name?!? This country can only hold ONE stinkypants...Well, upon further inspection, it turns out stinkypants1 is from Canada...So I guess I won't have to kill him....For now...

So I've been playing poker for a couple years now on and off. And, despite everyone's comments whenever I sit down at a table at foxwoods (NO, I don't bring the baseball cap and dark sunglasses), I started playing before the whole TV poker thing. Actually about 6 months before moneymaker and the whole wpt thing. I used to head to foxwoods (about an hour away) with friends every couple of months, we'd play blackjack mostly. The crappy thing was that the casinos were so crowded on weekeds, the lowest tables would be $25 a hand, and they'd be full. There were a couple $5 tables but they'd have screwy rules and were packed three people deep anyways. Since my gambling budget would usually be a hundred or two, 4 or 5 losses at blackjack and I'd be going home....Not fun....

Then, one night when I was watching some of those neverending travel channel shows about Vegas, they had Scotty Nguyen on and followed him around, playing poker, this a couple years after he won the wsop. On our next trip to foxwoods my buddy decided to learn Caribbean stud poker, I had no interest (read:money) left so I wandered around into the poker room. So I decided to learn to play poker. I signed up at partypoker, deposited $50, had no idea what I was doing and lost it....hmmm...I then went out, bought a couple of poker books, read them, deposited $50 more at partypoker, and ended up a little up. I then forgot about online poker for 6 months or so, I played a couple of times b&m, mostly at mohegan sun until they closed their room (bastards, I loved their cheap weekend tournaments). Then the WPT and moneymaker came along, but I didn't have the time to plan online (between working and moving).

Come October I get laid off (I'll post later about that), so all of a sudden I have much more time for poker! :) by this time I feel I have a better grasp of what I'm doing, and even have half a strategy. I played in a couple of weekend tournaments at foxwoods (and now they cancelled them, bastards), with my best finish being 28 or 29 (one spot out of the money) So I load up on pokerstars (I had gone through party and didn't like their software, Ultimatebet but didn't like their sit n gos, and settled on pokerstars, their software was/is great, and the sit n go's are always easy to get into. I basically played to keep myself busy and out of doing work around the house....

Meanwhile the WPT was hitting foxwoods for season two, I make my way down there since I'm not working, and try to get into some of the tournaments. It was incredibly packed, even with the tournaments and satellites being in the ballroom. I finally get into a $60 singe table no limit satellite to the next days $500 no limit tourney. At the table were several local regulars, and several people who obviously knew each other chatting constantly about traveling around following the WPT, being staked, etc. Me looking like the typical TV player, I got no respect. I played tight for the first couple of rounds, then hit a couple of great hands, knocking out several players. I ended up heads up with a guy who looked very familiar, but I'm horrible with names and faces so I never figured out who it was. I had slightly over half the chips. Based on his play, and my poor history of heads up play, we made a deal and split, he took $200 in lammers, I got $300 plus the cash entry fee (maybe I had a little more than half the chips, and maybe he gave me more respect after knocking out half the table). I was planning on just selling the lammers, but my gambling instict got the better of me, so I came back a couple days later and played in the $300 limit tourney. Almost 600 players showed up, along w/me, way too early. 45 minutes into the tournament, as a result of a couple bad beats and a couple poor plays, I'm down to 400 chips (out of $1500 or 2k to start). Luckily the table breaks, but I'm down the 250 in chips and ready to go home. The embarrassing feeling walking into a new table, being forced to put all 3 of my chips into a rack.... Apparently I picked the right table, the next two hands I doubled up, and 3 hours later the table broke with me knocking out 6 people, and my stack at 15k (I actually needed TWO racks then LOL). I then get moved to a table full of pros, with only 100 or so people left, and the blinds around 500-1k. Of course my first hand is on the blind, noone raises, 3 or 4 callers, I look down to..... 72 offsuit...I almost bang my head... The flop comes 277, sb bets, I call, one other calls, rest fold, turn was an Ace, sb checks, I bet, third guy raises..woohoo....sb folds. river is...7! I check, he calls, I raise.....and I just doubled my stack with the worst hand in poker lol.... (he had Ax for the boat). Unfortunately it went downhill from there, the blinds went up very fast, and the cards ran cold, I went all in with a10off suit and was out in 55th place out of five hundred something...not too bad, but they only paid to 28. That ends my experience with the world poker tour...for now lol