Sleep With the Fishes, Dine on the Whales

Sorry been playing lots of poker lately and that usually translate into fewer blog posts. Last go round I mentioned how I got angry at a cashier but didn't go into it. We had just chopped the weekly and we took our tickets to the poker cage, and the new cashier behind the counter said he couldn't pay us out (first time I've ever heard that in all the times I've cashed there) because basically it would be too hard with the change. Ummm... what? A number of us are confused and he told us to find a different cashier. Okay, mental note taken. Mental picture taken. This guy with his attitude and lack of interest in helping us probably wouldn't ever get a tip from me. I'll revisit this. So, everybody follows me to the middle cashier cage. Not too bad as every window is open and everybody is about to get serviced at once. Even though I'm there slightly first I have the misfortune of running into Sh$$y cashier number two on the day. It was also a male. T...

She resists and for a moment I think, I pressed too far, she knows I’m messing with her. Maybe she remembers Mr. Mister once belted out Broken Wings. Though I’m also gleefully imagining the visual for a third party as she’s still holding a hand out for a handshake and I’m looking like Tonto saying “How.” After some delicious awkwardness, I smile and pull at her hand again to give me a high five. The moment was as sweet as flopping a Royal Flush on bwin poker . She relents, though I know she’s trying to understand the “Mr. Mister” introduction. She even throws back to it… “Oh, so where then are you from?” as though there is some place I can say where it’d make sense for people to have the last name Mister. Or maybe, and far more probable, she’s decided to humor my “eclectic” personality as some sale-training handbook has instructed her. The game is still afoot, I just found a miracle card to stay alive in during a session of Sit and go poker tournaments . “Originally… Lithuania.” Lithu...

As Kai Landry has proven this also works on on a Texas Holdem poker table if you want to mind-f somebody do and say stuff that makes no sense at all. Try as they might they won’t be able to stop themselves from replaying the situation in the head time and time again. This is even more effective in Omaha poker and suddenly you'll be typecast as the nut who never has it. You want action? You'll get it. Anyway, back to the store, when we paused as my wife saw something flashy, glitterly and likely improbably expensive that attracted her eye, the saleslady engaged in some of the banal conversation openers that she learned in some hour long training seminar on how to engage the customers. She knew she needed to ask us our names and like a good hooters waitress knew she’d increase the likelihood of a sale, or an up-sale, by initiating physical contact. By the way, strippers learned the immense value of this sales technique first, and everybody from a car salesman to a shoesal...

First off... Getting excited for the Harrahs Texas Holdem poker tournaments. With Christmas coming not sure how to divide up my meager bankroll. Play some nooners +1 (they list 1 pm start times which is great for the late risers) or try and stick to the nightlys to play multiple tournaments. Should I hit the satellites or Sit'n go tournaments whatever they are called there that I seem to run so bad at recently. We'll see. -Write a blog post and try to get in the mind of a world class player and fail. Joe Cheong discusses what he was thinking in that famous hand much better than I could do: Go here to read more. -Okay, penalize me a million points for knowing the name of a random alien in Star Wars. In my defense I googled it because my in-laws have a dog that looks like him. Or so, I thought it was a him. Check out the high-heels and ask yourself if Greedo was a chick , or an alien cross-dresser. And while you are busy asking yourself questions, also ask if you could tell if...

Continued from previous posts... Awesome… or not. I tried to time his nap for noon but of course that day was the one day he wanted to go to sleep at his regularly scheduled time of 10 AM. This was going to make online Texas Hold'em poker a little difficult. Most days, he fights it, and if I let him, as I have once or twice in the past he can just skip the nap and be alright. Some days, he’s winding down and dive-bombing into pillows, rubbing his eyes, and getting cranky tired. Normally, I enjoy that as it means he’ll go down quickly and sleep soundly for at least an hour. Then he’ll be in better spirits the rest of the day. On this day, I wanted him to barrel right through 10 am and maybe put him down at about 11:50. I also planned to set up snacks and activities that could be done when he woke up round about 12:55 (right when the break in the tournament starts) to keep him going for another hour or so. Then I’d have to do my best to play and entertain him til about 3:30 when the...

Continued from previous post... In the Texas Hold em poker satellite, everybody tightened up as the bubbble came and I knew I was going to have to weather some shoves and maybe some flips to get the seat. Course, had I not sat on my hands I might at that point have entered the safe zone, instead I was on the edge like I was in a turbo Sit'n go . Using that as a bad lesson for the MTT , I returned from the break and quickly got snapped off in two hands in a row, losing flips in both to get knocked out. The first hand, I isolated an opponent with a pocket pair (maybe 8s) and was getting about 4 to 1 on my money. Great spot to be 50/50 for only 1/7 th of my chips. He hit both of his overs, which I usually enjoy because it's no different than hitting one, when the rivers coming because a set still wins it for me. Usually, beats seem to have a sense of humor by teasing the player with needless bettering cards if you know what I mean. The river brought no set, and I fell a bit in...

Brian told me he had a number of winning Texas Holdem sessions at Harrahs but had gone into bankroll rebuilding mode and would pull up when he was far enough ahead. Then eat and come back for the minimum buy-in. Third night he did it a dealer he didn ’t even have that night told him he had to put all his chips from his first session on the table if he wanted to play. So, after dinner, Brian left a winner, again, I guess he's not just an expert in online poker strategy , he's pretty good live too, and I rejoined our old table. I then ran into Mr. Luckbox . Irony is I heard a big stack at the other side of the table lamenting about how lucky the guy was and I thought to myself, that’s poker get over it, somebody is always getting all the cards. Yeah. Then I proceded to get the dealer down from hell. Yeah. So, I sit down and take a look at Mr. Luckbox ’s chips and think I’m going to double through him and maybe follow Brian’s lead and head to the exit a solid winner. He raised ...

Alright maybe not tape delay the stuff that matters, though it would be nice if I could TiVo some of these tournaments I play in and fast forward to the end to see how I fared. Would make patience easier huh? Though it's not the destination it's the journey, the trite quote that rattles around my skull when I've been card dead in a large Multi-table tournament and I feel boredom onset. Maybe it's my background in soccer where they will be long spells of inactivity (especially as the up striker or goalkeeper), where as a really young kid, my attention would be diverted to a buzzing bee or the soccer moms on the sideline, but as I got older I'd stay focused knowing that in that sport suddenly there would be a spurt of action that would determine the outcome of the game. You don't know when it's going to come but you have to be ready when it does. That's tournament poker (okay deep stack tournament poker). Alright, that's a typical tangent for me. ...

There are some changes... First off, it starts in May. Seems to start a little earlier every year. Read a while ago there was an effort to gradually pull it all the way back to February some day down the line. Of course if they continue at this incremental pace, the icecaps may melt first. Big news is a no limit holdem 40k event, in honor of the 40th anniversary of the World Series (really 40?), to start off the series. Wonder if and when the qualifiers at online sites will start feeding into that event? Sites like bwin will release their qualifiers soon enough, check in on their online poker blog here for updates. I'd imagine there will be a lot interest for the first event and the biggish payday. Will the qualifiers mostly be directed at this new event, and then a solid month focused on the Main Event? I also believe it's a tester for the possible raise of the buy-in for the main event maybe as soon as next year. That's another rumor that's been going around the last...