Mmmmmm....Donut

So yesterday MikeL and I are talking to our "boss" about this one regular who used to play with us. This guy had been showing up early, every day, and starting the game with us 4-handed, which is exactly the sort of thing we need to have happen. The problem is he went on vacation and just sort of never came back. Our boss got a text from another player at Commerce saying that said regular "was around at 9:45am, but nobody was there, so he went to Commerce" to which we basically responded "bullshit". Later he softened his claim to "I called around 10, but there was no game" or some such. Anyway we decided to ask him when HE wanted to start, and told the boss to promise him we'd even bring donuts and coffee.

Fast forward to today, after the bossman said we were still firing up at 10am, where I am on my way in and running about 20 minutes early. I say to myself "Self, wouldn't it be a hoot if you actually showed up with a box of donuts?" and since it's 2011 in Bell Gardens (unlike Reno, or my apartment) I google up "donut shop" on my phone and BANG the one MikeL told me about is less than a mile up the street. So 9:50am I'm rolling up to the Bike with 14 donuts and everyone just thinks I'm the best guy I could ever hope to be. Sure MikeL and I ate five of them between us...but that still leaves nine donuts for everyone else. I think I might make it a weekly event.

While our regular is nowhere to be found, another guy who's been playing with us daily shows up and asks me if I want to start heads up. As I'm tripping over myself trying to get chips, a dealer, take a leak without walking my donuts into the bathroom, and simul-text Mike and the boss...well OK I wasn't doing anything other than those 5 things. But those were pretty hard, you have to admit. We got the game fired up in short order with Mike and bossman coming in, I got stuck like a million bets within 20 minutes, but eventually finished the day up 3.3 racks at about 4pm (I only even stayed that late because BJ was uncharacteristically late for his shift, and actually played 6 handed at one point with myself, Joe Tall, DosXX, MikeL, the bossman, and one regular....lol excellent game selection almost certainly the first time I've sat in a game where I was arguably in the bottom half talent wise in quite some time). Mike leaves at 3pm and I find myself now 5 handed (although admittedly losing the Mike is alway good, no matter how good or how many players you have left) with two experts but running hot like the sun. Joe Tall makes one hand against me, but I lose the minimum by playing pretty badly, and I make quads twice in 45 minutes (once on the river in a king maker pot where I got to 3 bet top set 4 ways on the turn). During this time I get some texts that add great joy to my day, on top of the MikeL quote that:

"What we need next is for the government to cancel no limit. Get the FBI chasing Doyle Brunson and such"

First, I get a text from Mike (who safely made his train) regarding our screwed up paychecks (they paid me less than they were supposed to probably because they thought I was still getting money from the scan promotion or some such):

"I told them to pay u less cause ur not as fishy as first believed"

This is based mostly on a hand we played where I had raised A6hh, he had 3 bet Kings from the big blind, I raised/capped the T53hh flop 3 ways, took a free card on the Td turn, and just called on the river Kh after the player in between folded. MikeL said "That's the best thing I've seen you do yet. Great call on your part there. But I don't pay attention to the game very much so I mean you could be doing backflips over there and I might not notice."

Next, I get a text from Pete, explaining how life is his new job is proceeding:

"So today we're giving a demo of our software to the bosses adn my coworker is projecting from his laptop -- halfway through, he switches windows and up flashes a pick of a chick giving a dude a bj. Lolol."

I respond

"Playing 5 handed with Joe Tall and DosXX"

And it comes back

"Take 100% of dos' action"....and you should be fine.

I play a bit more, sell my entire enormous stack to BJ upon his arrival (I was in almost 3 racks and won over 3, so he bought a full $6K off me which was pretty hilarious in and of itself), and...make a drop in at HG on the way home. Danielle has a basketball game and has only been to Home Depot once so far today (two is like the minimum it seems) and isn't going to be home for hours, so what the hell. I get a seat in the 30 and....apparently have the cheat code. I bink a full house on the river against an obvious straight. I bink two pair on the turn against AA that literally just forgot to raise preflop (he claims he thought he did raise, that the player in front of him limped). I sniff out monsters and make nice folds. I in general play great and run great and it's all just great. Eventually the game is short though and I move to the 20 to finish my dinner. On the trip I play 2 hours and book an almost $1000 win, putting me up into (for me) extremely rare $4K win territory.

I think I owe it mostly to the donuts.

Life is Good

Lots of stuff going on around here so I might as well get right into it. First of all, Danielle and I are officially moving (for something like the 6th time for me since 2005) on Saturday. We've spent the last 4 weekend days doing as much work as we could on the house, and actually did manage to accomplish a fair bit. This weekend's project was ripping out the ceramic tiles that cover half of the first floor, a project for which Danielle was quoted a cost of $3500. Now mind you, as soon as I heard that number my reaction was "There is simply no way the two of us can perform $3500 of manual labor in a weekend. It's not possible". But we tried anyway. As it turns out, the tiles were very easy to rip up, as the the concrete like substance that holds them to their sticky paper basically all came off the floor with them. The quote she got was based on that sorta not happening and it being like 5 times harder to get the tiles off the floor. So we spent the entire weekend working, got something like 30% of the tiles up (and scraped the sticky paper off the floor, which is like 90% of the work), with her realizing at the end of day 1 (and me realizing at the end of hour 1) that we simply had no chance to finish. So we left the job 30% done and she got a new quote from the contractor and...success! As it turns out the simply fact that we had been able to get ANY of the work done ourselves in a single weekend was enough to convince him that the job was super easy. He re-quoted her $800 for the removal, for a savings of $2700. What's the real take home lesson here? It's that the job would have cost $1200 had he known how easy it was, and we managed to take down $400 of it over something like 25 hours of combined hard labor. That's a lot more in line with what I thought my physical labor was worth :)

So we're moving and most of our stuff (or at least most of my stuff) is all packed up. When we move though we're not really going to be able to move in because the contractors are going to be blowing up everything for something like a month (I hope just a month) and we are basically going to be camping out in the living room. So consequently Danielle doesn't trust me to pack any of the stuff we have left because she's afraid we'll need it and she wants to know what box it's in. Admittedly, my "smash 'n grab" methodology of packing is a little unorthodox, and I can see why she might not trust it. But it's gotten me through 5 moves in 5 years so far, and really nothing bad has happened. But whatever, less work for me which is always a bonus.

Moving on to the realm of poker....I really miss full tilt. It was fitting into my schedule perfectly, allowing me to quit after my shift at the bike was over and come home to grind out a few hours and keep my skills sharp while generating some reasonable winnings. Perhaps it's for the best that I've had a good bit of "free" time to take care of some other stuff (like today for example I realized I haven't had health insurance for 4 months...they just stopped billing me in January...their explanation was "the card didn't go through". It wasn't a new card. They'd billed it before. They claim they sent me letters. This is also false), but really I'm concerned my skills are going to deteriorate as I went from playing thousands of hands a day back to, you know, like 300 or something silly. At the risk of interfering with the boom switch, however, things could almost not be going better at the Bike. Everyday I just win. And win. And win. I take horrendous coolers, like MikeL raising his BB 3 ways with 98s, me having 97s in the small blind, and the board running out A98-9-4, or the dumb fat man who always complains about everything ("I'm the only regular here who doesn't have some sort of deal" or "This game is too small, you can't win anything in 15" or "I can't afford to play 40") sitting in the 40 and not realizing he's not posted and therefore calling my raise with 92s and the flop coming T22-K-5 and me fist pump 3 betting the turn with the AA and being confused as he calls the river and shows me el deuce. It doesn't matter. That stuff happens, but I also get to turn two pair against MikeL, hit my gut shots, and generally just destroy people. Everything is wonderful. I might even start getting paid soon....lol

I will close with a MikeL monologue performed while we are playing 40/80 4-handed:

"No no, what we need is that guy (motions towards the 15 table) to get over into this game. He used to play 40 all the time but now he's just playing those damn yellow chip games. I don't get it, it's not like it used to be. Back in the day the fish, the really committed fish, would beg, borrow, and steal just to continue playing as high as they possibly could. You just don't see that sort of commitment anymore. You should have seen it, it was like man's quest to go to the moon. It was truly noble."

At this point Mike returns to his phone to continue his next game of Carcassone and I'm left to ponder how much money I'd have if my entire life was shifted 10 years back in time.

* Addition...

I remembered that the 92s hand was actually even funnier. I'm sitting at the table on the left of two pretty hot shot pros, wondering why I'm in the seat. To boot I have MikeL on my direct left, which really just makes life...difficult. So the seat halfway across the table opens up and the fat man is taking it and as he's doing it I say to the big potato "I really should have taken that seat" as the dealer is pitching me my UTG hand. I get the ace of spades and an ace of red and raise and am like "well, maybe not" and get cold-called by a fish and...the fat man in the cutoff. I actually say "what the f" at the table because the fat man, while being irritating and kind of a jerk, really never cold-calls raises. It crosses my mind that he doesn't know he wasn't posted in (even though you don't have to post in the other games...he's new to this game...maybe he thinks he has to post) but I don't really bother because the flop is:

T22 with two spades

I even have the freaking ace of spade here people. I bet, the fish raises (sweetness), he cold calls (I put him directly on the king and the queen of spades...immediately) I 3 bet and they both call.

Kd

Amazing. I bet, the fish folds, he raises and I 3 fist pump the 3 bet. He calls me down sheepishly and can't believe I was stupid enough to 3 ball ONE PAIR on the turn. I say "You do know you weren't posted in, right?" and he says "No, I didn't know that...I never would have played it otherwise!" while stacking the 16 bet pot.

High Energy Rant

I haven't put together a high energy rant post for quite some time, and I usually feel like those posts come out pretty well. I think the reason is that I've been playing in the mornings again, and that's the time I generally have the best chance of being in a high energy state; when I get home at 8pm after 9 hours in the casino the last thing I really want to do is sit in front of this screen and peck out any interesting stories. So today for a change of pace I brought my laptop to the bike and am gonna write until somebody wants to play 40/80.

Yesterday was a long, trying, hilarious, and expensive day. I walked into the bike top section around 9:40 and listed myself for "everything" which the floor man understood to be just the limit games (what with me being a limit hold 'em prop and all). The man behind me (which was odd since we were the only two people in the room basically) said jokingly "I want to play whatever he's going to play" and we had a good laugh. 3 minutes later he introduced himself (let's call him Brian) and effectively challenged me to huhu action. My spidey sense was not tingling in the slightest (in fact I had that warm gooey feeling in my stomach you get right before you're about to do something awesome) and I asked him what he wanted to play. "The biggest game in the house" came the response. I began to salivate as I told him we could start the 40/80 right now and immediately texted my fellow prop and the host so we could get the game off the ground. His response was "sure, but you gotta buy me drinks". I mistakenly told him that me, Mike, and the host would buy him all the drinks he wanted (which apparently is not true for liability reasons) and we even called for a dealer when he realized...DUN DUN DAH!

"So this is 40/80 no limit?"

I actually laughed out loud and explained that I was a limit hold 'em prop, and that no we would not be playing 40/80 no limit hold 'em huhu. He was appalled, and explained that he only wanted to play no limit, and that he wanted to play big, and let's go. I explained that in the current universe in which we reside, that simply wasn't going to happen, and when pressed offered that my job was to start the 40/80 limit game as early as possible. He eventually understood, and we went on our merry way, at which point MikeL walked in the room looking like he'd run (or at least walked quickly) from the parking lot saying "Where is this customer" and I sadly had to report it was a false alarm but that we did sorta owe him drinks.

So fast forward like 5 minutes to the point where the floor realized that with the way this guy was acting and talking they could build any game they wanted around him, and you'd see a hilarious situation. We were trying to start the 15/30, with the table next to us was getting ramped up as some absurd 2/3 NL game with like a $7 drop or whatever, and of course the 15/30 game won. It will always fucking win, even with Brian at the other game reeking of stale booze (at 10am!), because me and MikeL simply won't let it lose. We've also got Mr. Volleyball (who will later deliver the death blow to my afternoon) ready and willing to gamble; all three of us are practically reaching into the deck to draw cards for the button while the dealer is still shuffling.

So Brian's game eventually does get going though (and despite Mike L's constant cry's of "Seat open, 15/30 limit hold 'em, biggest game in the hosue"), and he is making quite a scene, just carrying on about all manner of stuff. Then the chip runner/floor staff/generally semi-in-charge woman who also happens to be smokin' hot (by poker room standards at a bare minimum...like 10:1 against you seeing someone hotter inside the Bike on a given day) walks in and he's like "Does she deal here?" I stand up and declare "Yes she works here, and this is her husband" and introduce the yellow chip prop who is in fact her husband. A good laugh is had by all as Brian walks over to our game and shakes the man's hand saying "good job man, good job". This leads to a discussion on how long they've been married (and how many times), with Brian declaring he just got married. For the fourth time. At this point Mike L turns to me and says "It's like haunted house marriage. Blebhebhebhe! Surprise, Divorce!"

Moving right along, I texted La Peste to inform him that 15/30 game was go and that he should come by and give it a go. He did, I got up for him (because it was about time to make the big gambool anyway), took half his action, and watched in horror as he got lit up for like 35 bets in less than 2 hours. Whatchagonnad0? I gave the man his fun tickets, a pat on the ass and sent him on his way. Rumor is he's going to be able to get his monies off of the internets soon, so I might not have many more chances to stake him, but I'll do it as often as I can until then.

(The 40/80 game started at this point in my writing session, and now I'm at home on my couch trying to conjure some high energy....it's just not there).

So at this point in the day me, Mr. Volleyball, Mike L and the host have moved to the 40/80 table and decided that the best way to get the game going is to start off playing 30/60 deuce to seven. I'm all in favor of this because it gets Mike and Mr. Volleyball out of La Peste's 15/30 game, and because deuce is fun and I'm not allowed to ever lose. So we play like 20 hands, I win like 10 bets, Mike wins like 10 more, Mr. Volleyball wins a little and somehow the host is stuck like $1500 before we even fire up the 40 game. Some hilarious stuff happened, like Mike L opening the button, me defending and drawing...1, and him promptly declaring "well that's not good" and taking 4. But alas, it was not meant to be, as customer arrived and we were forced to play 2 card poker.

Things are going kind of well, with me basically breaking even and not much happening. The game fills up and is pretty much amazing, but I can't really get any traction. Every time something good happens, something bad immediately follows. The Dream manages to sorta slow roll me with kings (his line of limp/call, bet/call, check/call, check/call/stare/laugh/show on the queen high board was actually expert), and something else weird happens that I don't remember, all the while with Brian coming over asking the host to buy him a drink and the host giving me the stink eye and saying "Jesse, let me do the hosting next time. You play poker. I host" to which I responded "But you play poker with us every day" and the response from him comes "Yeah, and look how well that's working out for me" while gesturing at his chip stack which happens to be missing about three thousand of the dollars he started the day with. His point is well received, and painfully true.

Then it happens. Mr. Volleyball, whom I declared in my well as the luckiest winning player I have ever seen, strikes again. The host and the dream limp up front and I raise the HJ. A semi-regular in the CO calls right behind me, and the button 3 bets. Volleyball cold caps it from the small blind. The big blind folds, the host eats all 3, the dream folds, I make hollywood and call, the cold caller calls, the button calls, and we're off, 5 ways for the cap, with me holding black aces.

T32sss

Just wow. Volleyball donk-checks and immediately I smell a rat. The host checks, I bet, the CO calls (scary also), the button calls, Volleyball now raises and I think to myself "Self, this is fantastic. He has black kings and has like 7% equity and is going to build a massive pot for you". The host folds, I 3 bet and the CO instantly calls (again, not great, but I have black freaking aces). Volleyball calls. 3 ways to the turn:

T32sss-Ah

OK. Now I have top set and the nut flush draw. Volleyball checks, I bet, and the CO wakes up and...raises. Volleyball...3 bets. I put the cap on. Both call. The river bricks off and I bet....this bet is questionable, as realistically one of my opponents should have a flush a fair bit of the time here. But my logic was that the CO had a set of tens and would call the river (I was exactly right about that, by the way), and that Volleyball could have something like AK with the king of spades and just completely left the reservation. If he has a flush...well, that means he had to cold-cap with suited spades preflop. From the small blind. And I have the ace of spades. It just doesn't seem possible. The CO calls and volleyball calls. I declare "Just top set" and CO says "That's good" and volleyball rolls...K9 of spades. The king. And the 9. Of spades.

In my life I have seen some people with horse shoes stuck up their asses. He takes the cake. That pot had $2400, and he really should know better than to cold cap K9s out of the small blind. He's drawing all but dead, preflop! In my entire poker career I do not think I have been that out of line preflop a single time. As an aside here today at showdown on a J87-J-9 board volleyball was shown QJo (by the dream), promptly showed a jack and then mucked. The rub is that he had raised, under the gun, in an 8 handed game. Think about that one....

I left the bike stuck something like $1400 in poker games ($2200 of which I lost in like the last hour I was there) and drove to the the land of pixie dust and unicorns to pick up....Pete. He was in town with the family and had a free night to make some gambool with me, so off I went. We ended up chilling out in his hotel room for what seemed like an hour waiting for another family member to arrive (which never even happened), then set out for...dun dun dah! Hawaiian Gardens.

Do you ever have those moments where you just KNOW something terrible is about to happen to you? I feel like that every time I walk into HG. I played it so expertly it was almost painful. I texted us onto the list. When we arrived we were first and second up with 8 names on the list, and I convinced the floor to start a 3rd 20/40 game. We were must moved out of it within 5 minutes and spent 2.5 hours in seats 8 and 9, shooting the shit, with me losing every 3rd pot in some preposterous fashion. I capped the flop and bet/folded the turn with Kings (and she showed her set of 7s to the all in player). I lost 3 flips to the same guy who was really just trying to bust so he could go home. I ran QQ into AK and AK. Obviously they turned a king. It just all went wrong. Somehow I only lost $800, and Pete enjoyed not only the Shish Tauok, but also the sushi bowl. After a single drink we bailed at 9pm, immediately after Pete dumped back his one rack of winnings. I drove him back to the land of pixie dust and unicorns, and probably won't see him again until July, but it was great to catch up. I ended the day stuck something near $3000, but the best part is...I didn't even really care. I was sort of OK with it. Maybe it was because I'd won the table share, maybe it was just hanging out with Pete, or maybe I'm actually building up some tilt resistance armor in the face of playing this 40 game everyday. Either way, it sure felt nice not to feel like shit.

El Jackpota Grande

So I'm hanging out at the Bike putting in some overtime, trying to get into the 25/50 game but currently just sitting at the 15/30. The world's most incompetent floor man (who just took the belt from Garden City's Fung...Feng...fuck I don't know...Who once made back to back rulings of "There is no misdeal in Garden City" and "Misdeal") gave my seat to a customer who was throwing a hissy fit after I put a bad beat on him, rationalizing to another floor man "he's a prop" with me protesting all the way. Before I knew what had happened the customer had my seat and I was explaining to this guy that I'd been off for over 2 hours. Obviously I'm not going to make a real scene and make the customer uncomfortable, but it's the floor's job to, you know, let me make a fucking living when I'm playing overtime and helping his room. So anyway the 15/30 eventually breaks (with me getting button'ed, of course, when a customer quits 5 handed, a prop fails to post his blind, another pro takes his blind 3 handed and another prop declares "I don't play 3 handed" and quits) and eventually I get my seat in the 25 (after the guy who basically stole it cashes out 4 racks in 40 minutes). So I get my seat. Yay.

And I get hammered; when lagfish run hot, there really is nothing you can do. He has A8s, I have A9s. The big blind also has A8s, and I do not win. I have aces, he has 8s. I do not win. I have AKs, he has 96o. I do not win. All of these pots were capped, by him, preflop. The carnage is graphic, and I've been at the casino for approaching 9 hours now. But I buy 3 more racks (bringing the total for the game to an even half dozen) and soldier on. The bleeding stops, the lagfish leaves (by the way, the lagfish is also a prop who hit and ran the 40 for $1800 earlier today, literally picking up on his button) but I don't really like win any pots. It's 9:05 and I resolve to go home before my next blind. I rack up my chips. I pick up KK UTG and say "great, this will be my last hand". I raise, the big blind defends, and I bust him (the flop is 765ss and he has K8s, so it's no small victory for my 93% preflop favorite to actually hold up) and he....doesn't rebuy. He just leaves from the small blind position.

So now I can't leave. Why, you ask? I get a lap with a small blind on the button, which is a huge advantage, so I decide to play one more lap. Foolish, you say? Perhaps. But when you're trying to grind a living out of this game you can't pass up edges. So I play my big blind (in the small blind position) and nothing happens. A new player comes from the freshly broken 40 and takes his free hand in the cutoff as I post my small blind on the button. The cards are dealt and God's truth I don't even pay attention until the man in seat 3 turns over his cards and is screaming "two deuces? two deuces?" and the guy who just called all in on the river in seat 9 turns over 2 deuces. I look at the board:

6h 3h 2s - 2h - X

I look at the cards

5h 4h

2c 2d

We go go bananas. The floor can't decide if it's the big one ($100K) or the regular one (which was up to $61K anyway) because he thinks it has to be quad 10s beaten. We inform him that's not true, that the light is one, bring the 100 large. Sure enough, we are correct, and an awkward celebration ensues. I don't know how to describe it, but we just had the wrong mix of people. The big winner was this nitty white guy who barely said a word. The $25K winner was an older Asian man who was very calm and subdued. There really was nobody at the table who was super duper excited. 3 people immediately picked up. We fought on for another 40 minutes or so after they took our IDs and everything, but the game eventually broke. It took over 90 minutes for them to start paying the table shares, which were $3572 a piece (all 7 of us were dealt in, and we got 25% of the money). Congratulations pour in on my cell phone, but one message stands out from Torello:

"So are you up or down now on jackpot drops?"

I do the math....a shade under 2000 live LA hours. 3 hands per hour, $1 per hand dropped, $6000 dropped....I've won $5572. Way to be a buzz kill Torello.

Life Got Fast

I've found myself saying that to people on a nearly daily basis these past 10 days. I had my next post all mapped out, and it was going to be a beauty. The title was "The Big Potato; A Model for Responsible Degeneracy", and in it I was going to detail the man's recent exploits, including his attempts to become a slum lord, his back to back 8 hour days in the Bike 40 BETWEEN graveyard prop shifts, and his willingness to play sports bookie for a fellow degen and the ensuring $4K profit. But, alas, life got fast. So what's been going on the past 2 days:

I Can Haz...Warrant

Unless you've actually been living under a rock, you've heard that the FBI basically shut the shit down in the past 24 hours. I'm not completely up to date, but what seems to be true is that US based players can no longer make the gamble on Full Tilt or Poker Stars. Obviously this is Defcon 2 level catastrophe for lots of my friends (Babar, OnTheRail, and DosXX) and a pretty BFD for many more (the DC guys in general, Bellatrix, DougL), myself included. I had basically just figured out how to make money playing online poker, and for the first time ever it was a part of my plan for world domination. In the first 14 days of this month I had made just shade under $4K playing on the internet; admittedly I was running hot like the sun, but in the near term future my hope was to make 4 figures a month pretty easily off of FullTilt between actual winnings and bonuses. Now I'm just hoping I can get my money out sometime before the 4th of July.

I Can Haz....Old

Appropriately, Los Federales attacked on my birthday, christening it "Black Friday" to the entire poker world. I am old, or at least will be next year, and honestly didn't enjoy my birthday very much. Like, I guess nothing bad OTHER than whole can't play poker on the internet thing happened. But it wasn't exactly great. As an aside, Thursday was a day of unicorns and pixie dust, spent at Disney Land for Danielle's birthday, during which she reminded me nearly constantly of how old she was (which is 2 years younger than me). I ate way too much amusement park food and spent the next day (my birthday) going to the bathroom every 2 hours, got blisters on my sore feet, and a got just a bit sunburned. But honestly it was still fun, I just wish it could happen on some day other than the day before my birthday and didn't cost in excess of $100.

I Can Haz...Job

It's official; I am a 40/80 prop at the Bicycle Club. My orientation was....Friday (AKA Black Friday AKA My Birthday), and during it I learned many useless and infuriating things. In the useless camp there was lifting with my legs, using a properly inspected ladder to reach high places, and not wearing gloves or loose clothing while operating machinery with moving parts. On the infuriating side we had the explanations that we have to work overtime on zero notice or can be summarily fired (yet need to give 3 hours notice if we plan to miss work), are not allowed to circulate or sign petitions (not that I would, it just seems un-American), and that employees can cash their checks at the main cage free of charge (my immediate response of "that should be against the law" was met with confusion). But for now I am all badged up and good to go, so if you want to play you some 40 you know where to find me.

I Can Haz...House

This is I guess the biggest one, which was also finalized on the day formerly known as my birthday; Danielle closed on the house she put an offer in on 3 months ago. It was a short sale and the people who lived there (who were originally thought to be the owners but were in fact tenants) were a little slow moving out and there was some hassle with the bank but eventually everything worked out and holy fucking shit she bought a house. Today we spent 8 hours cleaning it, during which I determined that we might be screwed, as there is just so much to be done. But whatever, we made progress.

So like I said, life got kind of fast all of a sudden, but I'm managing. And hey, I have lots of free time now that I won't be bothered with all that super profitable internet poker I was playing from the comfort of my bedroom.

What Happens When

So MikeL and I are writing a book, apparently. Or at least he's giving me enough material that, combined with cherry picking the stuff I've written here and the (extremely limited) amount of interesting strategic discussion I could generate, if I wanted to I could bang one out lickety split. The beginnings of the book were a few weeks ago at Commerce, when we agreed the title would be "What Happens When". I mean really, you can't go wrong with that title; you have any automatic lead in for virtually every chapter or story you can think of. So anyway Mike is in the 40 at Commerce and says "So I found out what happens when you cold call with AKs....Someone raises, you just call and get all kinds of action. The flop comes KTT and you bet, someone raises, and two people just call. You're a smart guy; you see what's going on here. You take one off, miss and gracefully check/fold the turn. Bang, king on the river. The guy with jack ten has no idea what just happened. But that's what happens." Later on that day I found out what happens when you open limp pocket 7s UTG; you get action from 73o, which, confusingly, you do not want. That's what happens.

So now we know, we've got a few chapters, and we're working to fill out the rest. Or at least I am; Mike is just saying things he perceives as common knowledge which in fact are brutally and fantastically hilarious. For example today he turns to me completely unprompted as a regular has just finished declaring "aaaright!" in a high pitched whiny voice and says:

"You know, all people have their thing that they do all the time that they think is endearing, and everyone else just plays along but is really thinking what an asshole. Every person on Earth." I pause for a minute and realize he's 100% right. So right in fact it's just scary. As an aside Mike is sure that this man, who literally cannot be understood over 30 percent of the time despite having lived in this country for more than two decades, speaks the Queen's English in his home and is literally just fucking with us by pretending to have the language skills of a 4 year old. It's a little far fetched, sure, but impossible? Nay.

Next up for discussion on Mike's agenda; Royal Flush Poker. Apparently the game was spread on Absolute years ago, and Mike made just an absolute killing playing it as high as they would spread it (3/6) for as long as he could (like a year). The game plays exactly the same as limit texas hold 'em, with a single (massive) twist. The deck only has 20 cards, ten through ace. All the tables are 6-max (obviously, and at a full game all 20 cards are dealt if you include the 3 burns), and according to Mike people simply could not learn how to play. And I have to admit, some of it wasn't very intuitive to me. Imagine you flopped a straight (it doesn't matter what two cards you have...you flopped broadway). That's good, right? Fail. You practically cannot win, because your opponent is either going to also make a straight as well or fill up. There are only a few cases where he can miss, in fact, where has has something like AJ, you have JT, and the board runs out AKQKQ. In that case, sure, you've got it. But most of the time you're just completely screwed. Another twist is that in this game there is no flush. If you make a flush, it is exactly a royal flush. Mike went on to explain that basically you can only play AA, KK, and AKs, and that honestly you shouldn't even defend your blind with like AQ. After 5 minutes my brain was throughly sore.

Later on after an amazingly hilarious situation took place (briefly; there was a big game and a small game, and a megafish walked in the room and wanted to play a game in the middle which was not currently running. The floor decided to simply open that game and risk breaking BOTH of the other games. What happened then is that the entire smaller game just picked up and walked to a new table to spread the middle game, while the players at the bigger game were like "wat") he turned to me to tell me stories of the megafish all the fuss is about. Now I've played with her before, and she is truly truly epic. Like honestly she's one of the worst 5 players I have ever seen, so I'm prepared for this. But Mike's hand goes like so...he raises with AA in the big blind and is in like a 7 way pot. The flop comes KJ4 and she just donks right into him. He raises, somehow everyone but one other player folds, and she just calls. The turn comes a ten and she re-donks. He's like whatever and just calls, the other player folds. On the river he binks a queen and she bets again.

"So I'm sad that I'm gonna chop the pot with this woman but whatever, I raise anyway. She calls, I show my hand and she turns over king deuce. After all that, the donking and me raising the river and everything else that's happened here she is turning over one pair like it's good and just send the pot."

We share a few more stories about her, and he explains his theory in a nut shell as a hilarious showdown occurs at our table. "I call this haunted house poker. You have aces, the flop is like K84 and everything is going fine. You're betting, they're calling, it's like you're walking around at Knot's and you're like "Ooooo, house of mirrors, this is kind of fun" and then "bleblblblblblblblbl" she jumps out at you like a zombie on the river and shows you two pair. That's haunted house poker"

Sunday Sunday Sunday!

Everyone has always said that Sundays are the best day to play poker on the internet. I never gave it much thought, mostly because my religion (Steeler's Orthodox) prevents me from logging a lot of hands on the sabbath. But if I put together a few more like today I'm going to have to rethink that position. My current plans do involve being a hybrid pro, and results like this are a big part of the reason. Of course I ran really, really hot, but I also think I'm getting extremely comfortable and confident in the games I'm playing, and the money I'm making is actually pretty comparable to what is reasonable for me to make live. So hip hip hurray for Sunday.

Pointers To Funny Things I Have Said

I have made some humorous posts on two plus two and feel like I should share them here for those of you who don't read it. If the site is blocked where you work...sorry.

My Black Card Finally Arrived

Someone Spews Against Me. Relentlessly.

Result Of Playing 40/80 With MikeL

In general things are still going well. I'm feeling positive about poker and think I have myself in a couple of good situations (playing an hour or 2 a day on Full Tilt, and grinding away live with confidence).