13 hours away

I'm stoked. I just came back from the Rio. I've discovered I cannot stand and watch for more than an hour, or else my back and knees start screaming bloody hell at me. I'm trying to calm them down.

The Turkey Sandwich from the Sports Kitchen at the Rio is pretty solid, but for $8.99 (Casino Prices!) I'd like a couple pieces of bacon and a thick slice of cheddar or swiss. I went with the OJ with it, which doesn't match well with a turkey sando, but is a good choice to give me more nutrition.

The Sunday tournaments were pretty rough to me. I played the Bugsy's Shootout for a change, QQ < AA. I kinda screwed it up though. I also played the Party Million, where K9 < 89 on a 942 flop. Then I played the FT 200k where I lost 2 of my 3 coinflips, the first one would ahve put me in the top ten, the second would have put me in the top 20. Not much you can do except win them.

I figure I'm due for the next, oh, two weeks. Right?

chat transcript

Playing the FT 200k today (laptops + wireless!). fielderflop takes a beat from someone not in this chat transcript. Cole420 feels frisky and gets into it with him.


fielderflop: gg
fielderflop: ?
fielderflop: kiddin me
fielderflop: u r terrible
Cole420: what
Cole420: fielder
Cole420: keep your mouth shut
Cole420: idiot
Cole420: lol
fielderflop: cole....lucky this aint live....i would biatch slap the shiz out of you and get kicked out of a casinop
Cole420: im messing with u fielder i dont even know what happened
Cole420: what?
Cole420: you wouldnt do anything you moron
fielderflop: u heard me pothead
THEOSU: looooooool
THEOSU: afk to get popcorn
Cole420: pothead will knife you if u started your mouth live
fielderflop: u do that
fielderflop: bring a knife to the gun show
Cole420: u dont have the balls to carry a gun
Cole420: wussy
fielderflop: to of em
fielderflop: 2 of em
fielderflop: and they attached at my shoulders
THEOSU: dude, i dind't think it could get better
THEOSU: then the "i have tow guns and they're attached to my shoulders" line
THEOSU: fielder, that was awesome
fielderflop: cole i have a feeling you goin out real soon
Cole420: i have a feeling that u are a huge dork


Unfortunately, someone busted and that table broke before further hilarity could ensue.

see? I'm updating it again!

I have arrived in hot and, to be honest, slightly muggy Vegas. My seat assignment for Monday is table 64, seat 6. I hate seats 5 and 6 10 handed. Too much looking around.

I expect the table to break around 11 or midnight. A full six levels will be played. I hope to win.

I leave today

I have just sucked at updating the past week. I'm sorry. I was so excited last Friday and Saturday because I was running really quite well, I thought it would be a great 4 week rush or something. And then Sunday came. And then Monday came. And so on. It was pretty brutal this week, culminating in me making some absolutely horrible plays borne out of frustration on Thursday. The good thing about making those miserable plays is that they alert you to the fact that something's wrong real, real quick, and allows you to take the proper steps to correct them. I did that, finishing 59th in the Friday Special last night despite no real cards. Winning a couple of coinflips helped.

Anyway, I leave at 8 tonight, arrive around 9. I'll probably head over to the Rio to see what's going on, then probably head back to the room to relax. I'll have the laptop with me, so I will update the blog a bit more frequently than I have in the past week.

GL me.

I leave in 9 days.

Also,

The internet is a series of tubes.

so easy to see...

why Germans love him!

Two Hoaglands in the Main Event

My brother qualified in the Stars Second Chance satellite last night.

I'll go into more detail or let him do it if he ever updates his blog again.

bubble boy

The 30k 150/13 on FT this evening.

I wasn't playing particularly well. I can only point to one hand that I really misplayed, but I just wasn't playing winning poker. However, I got lucky in a few key spots to stay alive. 36 paid, 37 are left and I've turned my moderate stack into a good stack by reraising like a badass on the bubble when this arises:



Full Tilt Poker Game #805164465: $30,000 Guarantee (5318341), Table 8 - 600/1200 Ante 150 - No Limit Hold'em - 22:57:38 ET - 2006/07/16
Seat 1: CREAM111 (22,625)
Seat 3: cwj1979 (39,255)
Seat 4: gboro780 (18,867)
Seat 5: majorchaos64 (6,200)
Seat 6: THEOSU (27,190)
Seat 7: cblaze14 (13,666)
Seat 8: rastastan (27,370)
Seat 9: MTT43 (25,330)
CREAM111 antes 150
cwj1979 antes 150
gboro780 antes 150
majorchaos64 antes 150
THEOSU antes 150
cblaze14 antes 150
rastastan antes 150
MTT43 antes 150
MTT43 posts the small blind of 600
CREAM111 posts the big blind of 1,200
The button is in seat #8
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to THEOSU [Ks Kd]
THEOSU: ty. nf
cwj1979 raises to 3,500
gboro780 folds
majorchaos64 folds
THEOSU raises to 27,040, and is all in
cblaze14 folds
rastastan folds
MTT43 folds
CREAM111 folds
cwj1979 calls 23,540
THEOSU shows [Ks Kd]
cwj1979 shows [As Ad]
*** FLOP *** [4c 7h 3d]
*** TURN *** [4c 7h 3d] [6c]
*** RIVER *** [4c 7h 3d 6c] [2c]
THEOSU shows a pair of Kings
cwj1979 shows a pair of Aces
cwj1979 wins the pot (57,080) with a pair of Aces
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 57,080 Rake 0
Board: [4c 7h 3d 6c 2c]
Seat 1: CREAM111 (big blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 3: cwj1979 showed [As Ad] and won (57,080) with a pair of Aces
Seat 4: gboro780 folded before the Flop
Seat 5: majorchaos64 folded before the Flop
Seat 6: THEOSU showed [Ks Kd] and lost with a pair of Kings
Seat 7: cblaze14 folded before the Flop
Seat 8: rastastan (button) folded before the Flop
Seat 9: MTT43 (small blind) folded before the Flop

always good words to hear...

...even when you have top set:



Full Tilt Poker Game #802141787: WSOP 100 Seat Satellite (5321286), Table 1 - 15/30 - No Limit Hold'em - 0:09:12 ET - 2006/07/16
Seat 1: loud423 (1,485)
Seat 2: jujubeez (1,455)
Seat 3: THEOSU (1,500)
Seat 4: dblply (1,455)
Seat 5: Shiny Tim (1,455)
Seat 6: rumbleguy (240)
Seat 8: phinster (1,500)
Seat 9: aceshigh717 (4,410)
rumbleguy posts the small blind of 15
phinster posts the big blind of 30
The button is in seat #5
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to THEOSU [Jc Js]
aceshigh717 folds
loud423 folds
jujubeez calls 30
THEOSU raises to 125
dblply calls 125
Shiny Tim has 15 seconds left to act
Shiny Tim folds
rumbleguy folds
phinster folds
jujubeez calls 95
*** FLOP *** [5h Jd 3h]
jujubeez checks
THEOSU bets 250
dblply has 15 seconds left to act
dblply raises to 700
jujubeez folds
THEOSU raises to 1,375, and is all in
dblply has 15 seconds left to act
dblply: ok now i have to get lucky
dblply calls 630, and is all in
THEOSU shows [Jc Js]
dblply shows [8c 8s]
Uncalled bet of 45 returned to THEOSU
*** TURN *** [5h Jd 3h] [7d]
dblply: ouch
*** RIVER *** [5h Jd 3h 7d] [4c]
dblply: nh
THEOSU shows three of a kind, Jacks
dblply shows a pair of Eights
THEOSU wins the pot (3,080) with three of a kind, Jacks
dblply stands up

tilt!

One of the things that I have been proudest of in my career is my ability to reduce and eliminate tilt. Tilt is not a good thing to have, as it can cost you a buyin (or two) or your tournament. For those of you who do not frequently play poker, tilt is where you just make irrational decisions out of frustration or anger. Think Scott Lazar at the WSOP ME final table last year.

Last night, I could not control it. I was in a 2 table heads up match (four enter, one leaves with all the money). I love these things - if I go 2-0 (not unusual) i win 3 buyins, not 2. The second table is usually deeper money than the first (again, for the uninitiated, there's more play) at least at first, though it shrinks pretty quickly as it goes along.

So the first match was frustrating enough. I was against a player who could not miss a hand and I was struggling to make anything. Often when a match begins this way I usually spot the player a solid lead (1500 starting chips - I usually will be down 2000 to 1000 pretty quickly). He caught a miracle card, then had top two pair against my TPTK (top pair top kicker - AJ on a J high board) to get a 2500 to 500 chiplead. I remember IMing with Eric and mentioning "I think I'm still the favorite." Well, I slugged it back, got him to double me up drawing nearly dead, played actual good poker to take the lead, gave a lot of it back by donking a hand quite badly, then got him to put his chips in drawing dead. It was really gratifying winning the match, because it was such a struggle (though I made it sound really easy).

Going to the next match, it was disgusting. The player was awful, which was good (and the only reason I hung around as long as I did) but he could not miss. He would call me on the flop with no pair, no draw and either pair his overcard or, on a couple of occasions, runner runner something. Two pair, flush, straight. He couldn't miss. He never hung around pointlessly and caught a hand that was worse than mine - he'd either catch two pair against my one pair or a bigger pair than my top pair. He'd make a straight against my two pair or a flush against my straight. It was really disgusting. The last hand he checked Q6 on the Q63 flop, on the Q turn and on the 2 river. I pushed my deuces full (I had 22 in the pocket) and he called, obviously, busting me. I hadn't bet to that point in the hand, and was just stunned that this could happen (I make a miracle only for it to be no good) after all he was catching.

In writing it over, it really seems like nothing, but at the time it really set me off. Like I said, I've gotten incredibly good at just shrugging these things off, and I'd like to think that had I still had chips in the match I would have been able to, but since the match was over I just let the frustration loose. I closed the software so that I wouldn't jump into another game, and decided to play a little World Cup to cool off. It worked, I calmed down (helped by destroying Peru 5-0 with Argentina) and went to bed.

Alarming that it arose, but sensationally good that I didn't do anything stupid about it.

weekend

I was going to write this Sunday, but I didn't get home till retardedly late. Then I was going to write it Monday, but I was understandably quite tired. Yesterday I plumb forgot. And so here we are.

Anyway, so we went to Cleveland this weekend. Saturday I got to hang with my friends for the first time in a while. Greg and Sarah and their son Alex, Damon and Lindsay and I all piled over to Besser's house (the first time I'd seen it) for a cookout. Good times. Geeks that we are, we played Trivial Pursuit 20th Anniversary Edition, where I learned that I am teh suck at literature. Yow. I owned the rest of the game, but I couldn't get that damn brown pie, then when I finally got it, I couldn't get the last question right. After that, we went over Damon and Lindsay's place to wait for Mike, who was at a wedding. I proved my awesome poker skills and owned a mini tournament. I hit an inside straight, flopped trips, won flips, etc. I'm goot at poker. Mike didn't make it over, and I went home. Boo Mike.

Sunday I went to breakfast with my family, then went over my brother's for the afternoon. We relaxed for a while, talked about poker, watched Mitch Hedberg, and then headed to dinner with Debbie and Vick(iy. You'd think I'd know whether it's an i or a y by now, but I lose track. My bad). After dinner, we met up with my parents at Playhouse Square to see Wicked. Absolutely sensational show.

On the way home Sunday night, the weather was kinda cool, then totally sucky. It was after 11 when we took off, and I had the ipod going. Initially I was listening to the 1812 overture, and off to the southwest there was a storm, so the sky was lighting up. That was pretty cool, so a tip of the cap to the weather. Unfortunately, it kept up after I was done listening to the 1812 overture, and then it started raining. That sucked, so a wag of the finger.

Anyway I'll probably get around to writing about the world cup again pretty soon, but not now.