Home Game re-cap...

Whew, what a weekend. Crazy ass weather, all night work phone calls, and an insanely loose/aggressive homegame, and oh so very much beer. My head is still freakin' pounding 2 days later.

On to the game. As you know(all 2 of you), I had a home game to go to on Saturday night. I've been going to this game off and on over the last 6 months, it's certainly not a regular occurrence, but it's ALWAYS crazy. So off I go, to the west side of town to pick up a friend. Little did I know that it was supposed to snow like a mofo out here. What I truly love about the snow is that it turns my car into a 2000lb snow sled, which is oh-so-good for the blood pressure. To top it off, on my way there I get paged for work (yeah, I'm still on call). As I am turning on my friend's street, my car decides it wants to keep going straight, I almost end up in someone's yard, and I yelp out "oh shit" on a conference cxall full of co-workers and management types. Nice huh?

So after surviving my near-death experience, I pick up my friend and deicde to take it pretty slow to get to the game. My slow speed made us about 20 minutes late, but it was no big deal. They were all playing Tiger Woods 2005 on the Playstation 2 for $1 a hole. Damn degenerates. As an aside, I purchased the game on Sunday in order to try and take their money in the future.

The format is pretty simple, $10 buy-in, No-limit, Cash game. 1 $.25 blind(we only had 4 colors of chips damnit.) I know everyone there, there is only one other decent player aside from myself, and some, like my buddy, who have only played Hold 'em once before. I settled in for a lot of folding, and a lot of drinking.

I suffered my first horrendous beat in the form of AK going down to J2o. No biggie, pretty damn funny actually, as the guy didn't even realize he had 2 pair when a 2 spiked on the River. I drank copious amounts of Sam Adams Light, and played some dubious hands from some dubious positions. My poor buddy, was one of those "gotta keep you honest" types. He saw a lot of people bluffing early, and started calling them down later on in the night, when it should have been an obvious fold. I tried to tell him after we left that if he is going to try and bust someone bluffing, don't try it with 10 high.

Later on, I limped in from UTG with A4 of clubs. Guy on the button raises to $1 and I call. Flop is a lovely K of clubs Q of clubs and 7 of clubs. Nothing quite like flopping the nut flush against a pre-flop raiser. I check the flop, dude bets $5, I smooth call. Turn is a blank, he bets big again, something in the neighborhood of $7. I call. I think I maybe should have pushed here, but I wanted to try and extract more out of his, what-I-thought-tobe AK. River is another King. The idea that he has KQ briefly pops into my head, but I dismiss it. He bets like $5, I come over the top all in and he gleefully calls to show me his KQo for the Rivered Full House. Uggg, REBUY!

I made it all back, and came away with about $25 more than I started with. I had a really great time, my friend had a really good time, and even though he was down $30 early in the night, he battled back to win about $5.

On my way home, I was paged by work. Trying to drive in all the snowy weather and talk on the phone after having a few beers is NOT easily accomplished, or recommended for that matter. I ended up getting home around 2am where I promptly logged onto the laptop to help troubleshoot an issue until 9:00am in the morning. And I wonder why I have a fucking headache today?

See you all soon, good luck out there.

Home game madness...

Well, had a pretty decent run the last couple days in the $10+$1 SnGs at Party. Won 2 last night and placed second in one today. I really wish I could fins more time to play. I've also been tossing around the idea of playing more than one at a time. I used to multi-table back when I was playing limit, but I find my concentration lags a bit if I am playing more than one table No-Limit.

I decided to start playing the $25 NL tables. I suck at cash games, always have, but I really want to use this to help with my bankroll. My style of play is much more suited to the No-Limit format. So far I've lost one and a half buyins. Not great, but I'm sure it will come around.

I've been invited to 2 home games this week, one is tonight, and one is in the near future. Tonight's game is one I've played in off and on for quite some time. They all play like complete maniacs, and it's actually more of an excuse to drink copius amounts of beer, which I am completely fine with, trust me. The other game is with a bunch of guys from work, who I do not know very well. They saw me surfing poker blogs, and asked me if I played, to which I happily responded yes. Seems like these guys religiously watch the WPT, so it should be interesting.

It's been a hellish week at work this week, I'm glad it's the weekend. I have been trying every night this week to find a Blogger NL Table on Party. But, I don't have many blogger names in my buddly list. Plus I have to go to bed probably too early to play, but I still look.

Been spending a lot of time listening to old music lately, stuff I haven't listened to in years, because I've been trying to import all 2000 of my CDs into my iPod, I've been dusting off some of the old classics. Feels good to listen to some of that music, I get some very vivid memories from some it. Quite nostalgic. Overkill's "I Hear Black", reminds me of the very first time I was in Vegas. I bought the tape while I was there in 1993, and it vividly reminds me of walking through Circus Circus before I was old enough to Gamble.

I've spent the last couple days desperately trying to convince my boss to fly me out to Wilmington, DE next weekend. They're right across the way from Philly, and I can only imagine the party that will be happening out there on Superbowl Sunday. It's pretty cool having co-workers out there, my boss included, as the Eagles fever is very catchy.

I think that's about all for today, talk to you soon, good luck at the tables.

Of work and cards...

So, I wake up late for work this morning. I am running around the house like a maniac trying desperately to make it to work at a decent hour so I don't end up being there half the night. I get my laptop, and my iPod and haul ass out the front door. Well, in Columbus today, the high was 17 degrees. Did I mention I am from Florida originally? And that I REALLY hate the cold? Anyhow, when I walk outside, there is a nice coat of ice on my windshield. In my rush I totally forgot to pre-heat my car so that I didn't have to stand in the cold like an idiot trying in vain to scrape away the thin coating of icy hell on my windshield.

I could tell it was going to be a great day.

So I finally make it to work, cell phone already to my ear because I got paged on my way in. We switch our on-call rotations every Thursday. So the Thursday I first get on-call is like 10 Mondays combined for me. Busy as shit all day today, which is why I am writing this post at 9 0'clock at night. Thanks goodness I have my iPod at work so those rare moments when I am not on a call I can shuffle through oodles and oodles of Heavy Metal music at my leisure.

I didn't even get a chance to read through the 'blogs today like I normally do. What a shitty day. Anyhow, I come home, and load my hand histories for the last few SnGs I've played. I have actually placed in the money in 9 straight SnGs. Not half bad, so of course I get a little cocky and decide to enter a $20 + $2 SnG. I finished 4th. Nice huh? That'll teach me.

I enter a $10 +$1 SnG after the debaucle at my last table. I actually finished first, which is nice since I made up what I lost in the 20+2. There was this guy at the table, who played pretty much any two cards, bluffing all over the place, and making terrible calls. Every time he wins a hand he types into the chatbox "yeeeeeeeeeeeeeees". He sucked out on me in one hand and it set my blood boiling. Luckily I was able to calm down and play properly, it actually ended up being myself and him heads-up at the end. The last hand I raised on the button with K 10 o to 1200, he re-raises me all in, I have him covered and call. He turns over AQo. The Flop is all rags, the Turn is no help, then the River was a mighty King, taking him out of the tourney and giving me the $50 win. I typed into the chatbox "yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees". Petty? Yes. Did it make me feel better? You betcha.

I see that Iggy is having shoulder surgery soon. I feel bad for him, I had pretty intense shoulder surgery about 3 years ago. I was in a sling for 10 weeks, and in a tremendous amount of pain for the first 2. They put 2 anchors(aka pins) in my shoulder, and repaired damage to my Labrum. Not fun in the least. Hope he recovers quickly.

Grubby is having site financial troubles (you think it could be all the bandwidth those Porn collages ate up? Nah!), go over there and help him out by signing up for one of his affiliate links. I'd hate to see his blog go away for any length of time whatsoever. I will probably sign up for The Gaming Club under him as soon as I get some extra money. PLUS, he's giving away PORN for christ's sake. What better incentive is there than that?

I think that's it for now, good luck out there. Thanks again to Iggy for stopping by.

My cat-like poker skills...

Well last night was interesting. I went home from work and hung out with the wife for a bit. she had prepared dinner, and makes a huge fuss if I come home and immediately hit the computer for some Poker or WoW. I had steak and potatoes...not very interesting, but tasty. So after my wife left to go hang out with some friends I fired up Party Poker.

I started a $10 + 1 SnG, everything was going fine, I had a fairly good stack and was in 2nd place. All of a sudden, my Cat decides she wants some attention. She deftly hops onto the table and starts rubbing her head against my arm like "pet me motherfucker". I was playing a hand and noticed that I had the Hammer. The guy with the biggest chip stack raises about 10x the BB. I prepare to fold when it gets to me, however, my cat has a different idea. She promptly walks over to the mouse, and sits down right on top of my hand and the mouse, in the process she moved the cursor and made my hand press the left mouse button. So here I am, raising all in, with the Hammer, against the only guy at the table who has me covered, and who isn't a bad player. He gleefully calls me and turns over Cowboys, Pocket Kings, KK, whatever you wanna call it.

Party happily shows him my cards and he lets out a little "lol". I imagine he choked on his own laughter when the flop came A 7 2. The Turn and the River were no help to him, and I severley crippled him. He asked me in chat how I could have possibly made that play. I told him: "I atttribute it to my cat-like poker skills". That got a lot of "lol"s and "haha"s in the chatbox. He was knocked out about 3 hands later. Little did he know, that it was my 16 year old cat, "Dizzy", who cost him $11.

An introduction...

So, here I am, talking about the silly things that make up my daily life. Mainly Poker, Music, Work and my Wife. Why am I doing this? I don't know, perhaps I've come down with some sort of mental condition. Or it could be, that I'm actually trying to track my progress as a Poker player, while at the same time, making you, the ever-insightful reader, listen to me piss and moan about daily life.

A little about myself, I'm 27, married, and I live in Columbus, OH. I work in the IT industry(I know this is a huge shock), and I hate my everyday job, that usually turns into an everynight job. One of the "hobbies" I've developed over the last 18 months is Online Poker. I'd like to think that over the last year and a half I've improved some. I've read the Two Plus Two Forums, I've read almost every book imaginable, and continued to improve. I really really want to be free of the whole "real job" thing, and become a professional poker player. Even if it's playing 3 tables of $3/$6 every day. that kind of "grind" is far more preferable than 9-5 and being on-call.

Back in September, I was making great strides, moving up limits, building the bankroll, etc. Then I hit a bit of a financial snag, and pretty much had to blow my whole bankroll. So here I am, in January, trying to get this thing started again. I've not played online since the day I cashed out. I've been at it for about two weeks, and it's been, interesting. I've pretty much only played Sit n Gos at the $10 level. I've got probably 30 or so under my belt, and until recently, I'd say I wasn't doing so well.

I started out with a whopping $300, I hope to turn this sum into a future career. Will it happen? Likely not. Some have done it. But, at this point, it's fairly safe to say, that I'm no where near the player they are. Hopefully some of you will find my journey interesting enough to read. Talk to you all soon.