Reversals
In tournament poker the short stack can go to the big stack and the big stack can be eliminated in the blink of an eye. Reversals of fortune are common, you pray for one ride and wish the other against the jerk with the bigs stack. Hmmm... I sense a poker analogy coming, and those are generally terrible and lazy, so apologizing for the derailment, let me get to the point.
First off thanks to everybody for the prayers and well wishes. My wife and I were kind of blown back by the generosity of support we received as we struggled with the possibility our son might have some issues at birth. Thanks to many of you in our little poker community who sent me positive thoughts, prayers and well wishes. Means a lot.
We got really bad news which just gradually got better and better until he arrived. Our third child joined us, and his health and spirit surpassed anything we were advised his birth might be like. Basically, we were given a couple of options, little did we know there was a third option where he'd come into the world pretty much a vigorous and healthy specimen. That meant no air-lift to children's hospital, no emergency surgery on his heart, no nervous ambulance ride to Childrens either, and even better no time spent in the NICU (neo-natal icu--whatever icu stands for), and as of yet, no medicine to allay a condition in his heart.
His cardiovascular ultrasound when he was born showed a healthy heart, albeit still an enlargement that indicates perhaps a couple of worrying things later... or it might just fix itself. This was the better than the best of outcomes we were given. The nervous day wait to find that out, as apparently the results of the ultrasound were sent to the NICU instead of the well babies, and never forwarded on, was pretty treacherous though. Kept telling ourselves no new is good news then prayed that that was true. It was. As I said, our son will need follow ups and his heart will need to be monitored but so far, so good.
My wife and I talked about how difficult it was to undergo all that, and we basically just had a couple of weeks of not knowing and the sudden blunt agony of possibly losing a child, or dealing with a severe health issue. Couldn't help but think of our friends that have had realized issues with the children from birth and the pain they've suffered through. We got just a hint of that. I now have an added category for my prayers at night.
Naming our son, was another issue altogether. On the short list were Dean Smith Phillips (yes, I'm a Tarheel fan--I also think it's a pretty cool name), Toby or Tobias James Phillips, Gabriel, Liam--short for William--or just Liam, and couple of others. And the name we chose (sorry, but I'm not big on putting everything out there in public forums--much of it, yes, but not all of it) will remain a secret for now :). It was hard. Toby is the name of a friend of mine who was murdered by a hit and run driver a few Mardi Gras ago. I would have liked to honor his memory, but considering the possible heart condition of our child, I didn't feel comfortable putting Toby's family through the wringer again, if something tragic happened. I also have liked the name Tobias since I was a kid and would call Toby that sometimes, so it would have been cool to honor him and we almost did.
Anyway, last time I talked about some cool stuff that was going on. I was cryptic, and I will continue to be so for the near future. Turns out, as everything went right for my son, in the meantime, everything kind of fell out of place on the other front. Two complete U-Turns. Obviously, if you had told me the way things were going to shake out two weeks ago, I would gladly have taken it.
That being said, this other "mysterious" project was going to be pretty cool for poker in New Orleans, on the Gulf Coast and tangentially for me. It still might be for any, or all three of the above. I hope it is. I won't go into more detail now, but I'll probably have some interesting back story when this thing comes to fruition. Hopefully, I'll be more a part of it then the way it appears I will be now, and not just a footnote.
As for poker, I haven't played much. When I have things have gone pretty good. Took third in a donkley, and then seventh, and then had an amazing down or two where I turned $200 into $1100 as I was waiting to talk to a friend. Had the nuts three times and got called twice for my stack and made a lot before shoving and not getting called the other two times. On one I had KK. Board came out j109. Q on the turn. Ace on the river. He led out the river and I shoved. He stewed forever, asked if I gave to to charity, and then called. Maybe he had an 8? That was yummy.
In the two donkleys, I got eliminated by 109 both times. First time I had pocket 9s. He made a pretty bad call I think when I opened shoved. He got rewarded by flopping a straight. That was the fifth or sixth time he got it all in way behind and somehow he only ended up second. The other time, I was short and had A5. Chipleader called from mid-position with some big stacks behind. They all cleared out. I was good until the river with the board coming QQQ4. Either a 9 or a 10 binked. I felt it the whole way. Tried to talk myself out of it as I waited for the river but it didn't work.
So anyway, everything is upside down since my last blog post.
First off thanks to everybody for the prayers and well wishes. My wife and I were kind of blown back by the generosity of support we received as we struggled with the possibility our son might have some issues at birth. Thanks to many of you in our little poker community who sent me positive thoughts, prayers and well wishes. Means a lot.
We got really bad news which just gradually got better and better until he arrived. Our third child joined us, and his health and spirit surpassed anything we were advised his birth might be like. Basically, we were given a couple of options, little did we know there was a third option where he'd come into the world pretty much a vigorous and healthy specimen. That meant no air-lift to children's hospital, no emergency surgery on his heart, no nervous ambulance ride to Childrens either, and even better no time spent in the NICU (neo-natal icu--whatever icu stands for), and as of yet, no medicine to allay a condition in his heart.
His cardiovascular ultrasound when he was born showed a healthy heart, albeit still an enlargement that indicates perhaps a couple of worrying things later... or it might just fix itself. This was the better than the best of outcomes we were given. The nervous day wait to find that out, as apparently the results of the ultrasound were sent to the NICU instead of the well babies, and never forwarded on, was pretty treacherous though. Kept telling ourselves no new is good news then prayed that that was true. It was. As I said, our son will need follow ups and his heart will need to be monitored but so far, so good.
My wife and I talked about how difficult it was to undergo all that, and we basically just had a couple of weeks of not knowing and the sudden blunt agony of possibly losing a child, or dealing with a severe health issue. Couldn't help but think of our friends that have had realized issues with the children from birth and the pain they've suffered through. We got just a hint of that. I now have an added category for my prayers at night.
Naming our son, was another issue altogether. On the short list were Dean Smith Phillips (yes, I'm a Tarheel fan--I also think it's a pretty cool name), Toby or Tobias James Phillips, Gabriel, Liam--short for William--or just Liam, and couple of others. And the name we chose (sorry, but I'm not big on putting everything out there in public forums--much of it, yes, but not all of it) will remain a secret for now :). It was hard. Toby is the name of a friend of mine who was murdered by a hit and run driver a few Mardi Gras ago. I would have liked to honor his memory, but considering the possible heart condition of our child, I didn't feel comfortable putting Toby's family through the wringer again, if something tragic happened. I also have liked the name Tobias since I was a kid and would call Toby that sometimes, so it would have been cool to honor him and we almost did.
Anyway, last time I talked about some cool stuff that was going on. I was cryptic, and I will continue to be so for the near future. Turns out, as everything went right for my son, in the meantime, everything kind of fell out of place on the other front. Two complete U-Turns. Obviously, if you had told me the way things were going to shake out two weeks ago, I would gladly have taken it.
That being said, this other "mysterious" project was going to be pretty cool for poker in New Orleans, on the Gulf Coast and tangentially for me. It still might be for any, or all three of the above. I hope it is. I won't go into more detail now, but I'll probably have some interesting back story when this thing comes to fruition. Hopefully, I'll be more a part of it then the way it appears I will be now, and not just a footnote.
As for poker, I haven't played much. When I have things have gone pretty good. Took third in a donkley, and then seventh, and then had an amazing down or two where I turned $200 into $1100 as I was waiting to talk to a friend. Had the nuts three times and got called twice for my stack and made a lot before shoving and not getting called the other two times. On one I had KK. Board came out j109. Q on the turn. Ace on the river. He led out the river and I shoved. He stewed forever, asked if I gave to to charity, and then called. Maybe he had an 8? That was yummy.
In the two donkleys, I got eliminated by 109 both times. First time I had pocket 9s. He made a pretty bad call I think when I opened shoved. He got rewarded by flopping a straight. That was the fifth or sixth time he got it all in way behind and somehow he only ended up second. The other time, I was short and had A5. Chipleader called from mid-position with some big stacks behind. They all cleared out. I was good until the river with the board coming QQQ4. Either a 9 or a 10 binked. I felt it the whole way. Tried to talk myself out of it as I waited for the river but it didn't work.
So anyway, everything is upside down since my last blog post.
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