Sleep With the Fishes, Dine on the Whales

Ultimate (losing) Bet. Thanks to Cornell Fiji of 2+2 for this wrap-up. It's long but it's thorough. Follow the link below for the rest. Cliffnotes, UB a cousin of Absolute Poker, who had their scandal last year, at around the same time had some guys KILLING it in high stakes poker. Like never missing a bet, only folding losers and value betting the thinnest of margins. It was like they could see the cards. Well they could. Some highlights... 1. This Rorsach test spot (I see a guy a in a robe being attacked by bees)... Here's a graphical representation of the abusdity of the Absolute Poker cheater's success, which the shared parent company of UB, said was not suspicious. Left side is money voluntarily put into the pot (doesn't count blinds). Bottom axis is Big Blinds won or lost over 100 hands. Running up through the middle of that blue ink spot is zero, to the left is losers, to the right is winners. Two things of note, the more you trend upward in Volunta...

Oh how I love the Preaker. It's basically 10,000 drunken idiots surrounded by a track where part of the triple crown is going on. The horse race couldn't be more irrelevant. In fact, they could just as likely be defusing nuclear bombs on the track or crushing litters of kittens, the people inside the track would equally oblivious. In my time there I've seen everything, fights, coitus, guys in port-a-potties getting trapped insided when somebody pushed the portapottie on the door (so they can't get out), theivery, hooter-meters, fights, fights, did I mention fights, drunkeness, and everything you'd see at Mardi Gras and then some. One year it rained and it was cold. I started a fire out of beer boxes, to have the police walk up and say "You can do anything you want at Preakness. ANYTHING. But you can't start a fire. So put it out. And keep it out until we are least 50 yards from you." It's been a while since I've been there but I see t...

Every once in while, I'll post some weird links around the web, I've stumbled onto recently. Iran is questioning the legtimacy of a bronze battle mace top that they thought was 2000 years old. Why? Because it looks like the head of a mortar. Like from the 1980s and fired at their neighbors the Iraqis. And we are worried about these guys building a nuclear bomb? www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=169224 After stumbling onto the Tehran Times, I looked around a bit was surprised to see the most viewed article was this one... tehran times : Stanley Cup returns to Ice Belt www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=169159 Yes, the most commonly viewed article on the Tehran Times is about NHL hockey in the U.S. and Canada. I'm completely flummoxed here. Is there an Ice Hockey program in Iran I should know about. While I'm bashing the international world, I found this nugget from Mexico... Mexican donkey jailed for ornery behavior - Yah... news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080520/...

I prefer to remain faceless, anonymous, and just the regular average/bad poker nit that I am. Okay, I don't really think I'm a bad poker player (what player does) but I haven't done anything significant yet so, until then I like playing from the shadows. Gene knows this and likes to tease me a little bit with that random picture of that dude... that looks like me. I took it down as I don't want to confuse anybody about who I am. That guy is a fine looking fellow... but I have to say I'm even better looking. Sorry ladies I'm taken. I do have a story where I met a guy who is kind of enough to read this tripe and recognized me, which I'll get to later. Speaking of pub, I'm not sure my bubbling was worthy of front page material for http://www.gulfcoastpoker.net/ . Everybody does it, but I do appreciate Gene giving me some props. Before I continue to ramble about myself I want to congratulate Monkey for another stellar tournament showing. He's put up some...

Yesterday, I endured another bad run with big cards and had to keep pushing money into the pot because I knew it was the right thing to do. Still, that at times requires almost as much guts as a bluff when you are running so bad. Courage was important yesterday and I actually lacked it in a critical place, very odd because I talked myself out of making a move when I knew it would work. Still, it wasn't all bad. I ran much better in the sit n gos yesterday. 1 win. 1 chop. 1 second (money back) and 1 third and 1 fourth. The game I came in third I had aces twice. Yes. I won with them both time... the blinds. The 4 of 5 is so misleading because I think all my wins are blinds or preflop folds. All the ones I lose are the suicide bombers that cripple my stack or knock me out. The game I came in fourth, KK knocked me out, yeah guy chased his open ender-(had an overcard to the board too but a bad call because he was priced out and would have had plenty of chips... still with s...

The hornets are kicking ass despite their hiccup in San Antonio. Despite one hornet doing a hit and run on my man Tex at a 2-5 game we still are pulling hard for them. Ricky Flair is pretty much ubiqitious in the Hive and now in Harrahs. Apparently he's got a role in the democratic process. Enjoy.

Had a couple of good sessions in a row. Won the hourly best hand prize for quad kings while my man Ed completed his tournament tour down here by chopping the Isle of Capris tournament. Yeah, he officially was 4 for 4 in successive tournaments. Good job Ed. The tournament was painful as once again I build a big chip stack and once again I look at Aces in late position after a medium stack in early position has open shoved. I call. Small blind shoves too. EP has 64 o/s (Hello suicide bomber, my name is collateral damage). SB has 22. I came in third. Yeah, fun. Then I get a call station to my left that refuses to release a hand until the river. She says she loves the river because that's where she makes all of her hands. I lose the minimum to her with my AK vs. her K10. She later rivers a straight, then pairs her kicker to give her bottom two vs. my top pair on the river--almost considering just not playing until someone else wounded her, but realized that was cowardly--...

Turned down watching the Pfunk to play poker. I got some pfunk of my own... Flop a straight, get it in, he turns the full house. Bye-bye 1 buy-in plus small winnings. Flop top pair, gut shot and flush draw, bet, raised, brick, remaining chips get in brick. Bye-bye 2nd buy-in plus small winnings. Pocket Kings. Couple of limpers. I raise. Call, call, call, call. Flop has straight possibilities but all low. I bet. 1 caller. Turn brings a flush draw. I pound it. Call. River is a brick. He bets the rest of my stack. Call. Hello Aces. Wow. I'm not good enough to play them that way. 3rd buy-in gone. Lose half my stack. In big blind with a table full of limpers. I look at AA. Big bet for our table. 1 caller (dude that had Aces vs. my kings). Then the button shoves. I barely have him covered. Dude that I wanted folds. My aces hold up over his 9s. I say, "way my night is going I thought for sure I'd lose to a set of 9s." Win some more pots. Stackn back ...

Congrats to Big Smooth and now Big Papi. Ray's a daddy. You the man Ray. Also congrats to Ed, my friend from NYC. He has been on fire. He chopped both final tables yesterday, Harrahs 11 am tournament and Boomtown's 7pm tournament. A daily double I've never done. With the bar tournament from the night before he's three for three on this trip. As we been trading 10% of each other he's been paying for my entry fees. Fortunately after I busted at Harrahs, mid 20s, I won some at the cash tables. So, I've freerolled on his back and been winning some in the cash games. He's a little tired of paying his agent after every win. Course I told him if we had set odds for one of the two of us going three for three I probably would have given him 50 to 1 (at best), and bet on me. He quipped, what would have sucked about that bet is he would have won and still have to give me a 10% cut. (This paragraph is soccer related feel free to skip) After I was bumped fro...