4th Annual Birthday Poker Tourney

Last weekend was the fourth annual "Mike's Birthday Family Poker Invitational Fiasco" where I futilely attempt to get my non poker playing relatives to learn how to play poker. As much as I complain about them not getting it, I think some of them may actually be starting to pick up on a few things. I think we even made it through the event without the traditional infinite check loop that they tend to get stuck in.

Lets go around the table and I'll introduce you to this year's players.

To my left we my wife's Aunt Karalee. She claims to have played a lot poker back in the day, and knows more or less what she is doing, but is quite rusty. She has issues with the whole betting "before you get to see all your cards and know exactly what you have" thing. Then again, I don't think I got anyone to raise pre-flop.

(note to self: Next year I need to stress raising rather than calling, and the benefits of limiting the field in a hand where you are favored.)

Left of Karalee was Uncle Jim who isn't a terrible player. He actually won last year or the year before. He is a little tentative in his play, but he did actually raise on occasion which puts him light years ahead of the rest of the table.

After Jim is my father in law and my wife's Aunt Char. I think the only reason they play is because I'm organizing it, and have very little intention to actually play or strategize. I think they are lost causes.

My wife is after them, and I'm proud to say that she is a pretty good player for someone who only plays once a year. I've forced to watch enough poker on TV where she understands strategy, and when to bet or raise or fold. She's probably better than half the people at our regular monthly games. I should also note that she started talking trash about a week before the event claiming that she was going to win and that she had a new strategy. That new strategy was to use the handranking cheatsheet that I provided for everyone.

My parents rounded out the table. They don't particularly care for the poker, but play just to humor me. They do however at least try to play well, and figure out what they are doing. My Dad is also one of the few players to actually use a raise. He's a maniac!

So on to the game. I tried to explain to everyone the value of good hand selection before we started, but I don't think may people paid attention since the average number of players seeing the flop at our eight handed table was 6.

I can't recall as many comical plays as in previous years. I'm not sure if its because they are actually getting better, or if I was doing a better job of moving the game along, or if I just don't find it humerus anymore.

A couple hand of note, which I feel bad about. I crippled my dad when I played ATs for a raise. He called and the flop was ragged, but with two of my suit. The turn was a king and one of the other fifteen people in the hand made a small bet, which he min raised. A bigger bet and I probably would have folded, but I didn't and rivered a flush to beat his AK. Of coarse on the river I made a big raise which he called.

I feel bad because he played a good hand, raised when he made top pair, and still lost. On the other hand, he should have raised preflop like I had instructed and bet more when he made his hand, so hopefully he will learn that for next year. I'm guessing not though.

The other hand was against my wife. I had wired nines and she had AQ. The flop was AQ9 and I took all of her chips, putting me in the chip lead for good. Not much she could do there. She flopped top two pair, and even though I raised her bets, and bet bet big when she checked, its hard to think your hand isn't good in that situation. Unless you've played a lot, and even then its tough to put me on trips rather than AK.

On the positive side, after I raised her bet on the flop, she was about to bet on the turn, and Karalee pointed out that she should check because she knows I'm going to bet anyway. So at least someone is paying attention.

The final three were myself Aunt Karalee and Uncle Jim. I had a huge chip lead and they stood no chance since they weren't willing to bet without a hand and the blinds were a significant portion of their chipstack.

I kept bluffing whenever they would check, and then showing my hand and pointing out that if they check it doesn't matter what I have, if I bet I've got a good chance of winning the pot. No one ever picked up on it though and even after it checks around on the flop and turn, they'd rather check around again on the river than try to steal the pot.

(note to self: Next year do a better job of explaining how to take advantage of position.)

So that was it. After that we got everyone to play wii games. Watching non-video-game playing relatives play Rayman Raving Rabbids is pretty funny. I'd recommend you try that.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

Tourney Time

Time for the NCAA tournament.

Meh

I think I've watched a total of three college basketball games this year. I have no idea who's good or not. All I know is my Illini suck.

So I filled out a few brackets for various pools, but nothing that I'm proud of. I normally post my picks so you can see who not to choose, but I basically took the favorite all the time so you can probably guess what I picked.


Just for fun here's one of my final four picks.

UNC, Georgetown, Memphis and Uconn. UNC over Memphis in the championship.

I hate UNC. How did they make it that far? I eliminated Kansas and Duke for no specific reason other than that I hate them. Lets see who else I picked.

I don't do that whole "sheet of integrity thing". For every pool I'm in I start from scratch and pick whoever I feel like at the time. There are often a lot of similarities but they aren't identical. And that's why I don't remember who I picked. I made my choices based on instinct at the time, weighted for how much I hate certain teams, and I moved on.

Another bracket's final four: UNC, Wisconsin, Texas, Duke. UNC over Duke in the final. Son of a bitch. I picked UNC again? I suck. Now I have to go find what I picked in my third bracket. If I picked UNC in that one I'm starting from scratch.

Crap. I must have really liked UNC for some reason. Maybe because the last thing I remember about them was them spanking the Illini in the championship game a few years ago. UNC, Wisconsin, Texas, Uconn. UNC over Texas in the final.

So I guess I'm rooting for UNC this year. Unless I manage to go back and change everything before the games start tomorrow.

-----

Oh I'm also in a blind pool where I may very well end up with UNC too. In the blind pool you are randomly assigned a team for every entry you buy. If that team is the favorite and it covers you move on. If it is the dog and comes within the spread you take over favorite and move on. If you are the dog and your team wins you move on.


I have the Play in Winner, Clemson, St. Joes, and Gonzaga. So if UNC wins but doesn't cover in round one I'll be rooting for them in that pool too. I hate basketball

Is it baseball season yet?

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

Vegas Trip Recap

Its been almost a week since I got back from Vegas. Lets see how much I remember. A warning: this is probably my longest post ever, but don't worry. I'm a slacker so you will probably have a few weeks to finish it before I get motivated to write another one.

Day 1 - Arrivals and 0

Travel

Our plane left Chicago at 8:30 in the morning. It was rather uneventful except that it was a bit early to be at the airport and we were both pretty tired since it had been quite a long week at work. Oh and our cat had started freaking out the night before and that morning. He kept going in and out of his litter box, and meowing (which he almost never does) and acting like he was going to convert other objects around the house, such as our nice leather chair into his new toilet. We thought he just didn't like the new litter we had bought so rather than packing I had to go to the store to get new litter. Yeah that's right. My Vegas recap is starting out with a cat story. And one that involves pooping. Can this story get any better?

On the way into the Vegas airport our plane did a circle around Lake Meade and and the Hover Dam so we got a great view from all sides. Who needs to take a helicopter trip out there when you get great aerial views from your plane? We touched down at a little after noon Vegas time, and my brother in law, who we were meeting, picked us up at the airport and drove us to our hotel.

We stayed at Treasure Island, or TI as I guess its being referred to now. It looks like they are toning down the pirateyness of the hotel which is a bit odd since pirates seem to be in these days.

This is my wife's first time to Vegas. She really had very little interest except to see the Hoover Dam and Cirque Du Soleil. She's already suffering from sensory overload and we haven't even been to our hotel yet.

After checking in we decide to wander around a bit to find some food. We headed across the street to the shops at the Venetian. They have it set up inside so all of the shops look like brick buildings and the ceiling is painted like the sky, which is really cool if you haven't seen it before. There were tons of shops, costumed singers putting on a show, and the gondola rides. My wife's initial skepticism about Las Vegas started to wane. We grabbed lunch at some Mexican joint and watched people ride down the river/canal/thingamajig.

Gambling Begins

After lunch we wandered through the rest of the shops and into the Palazzo. My wife mentioned something about some art exhibit that she wanted to see. Or something. I don't know. I heard the word art while standing in a casino so I stopped paying attention. She and her brother went off to the exhibit and left me to play blackjack.

I hadn't heard of the Palazzo before, but apparently its one of those fancy expensive type casinos. The cheapest table I could find was a $15 table. Not that I can't afford $15 tables, but I prefer the $10 tables where my money lasts about 50% longer. Plus they tricked me by giving me mostly $25 chips which made me feel like I should be betting $25 a hand. And I did. Because I'm a sucker.

The table was brutal. The dealer was consistently hitting four and five card 21s and my chips went from $200 to almost $0 in what felt like ten minutes. I started looking for my wife hoping she would return and save me from this humiliation.

A couple times I bet my last few chips and won a hand or two to stay alive. If this was a sign of how the trip was going to go I was in for trouble.

When I tried hitting on 21 I knew it was time to stop. In my defense my hand was something like 2-A-A-A-4-2 and I counted 11 which sounds to me like I should hit. One thing I don't like about blackjack is that the dealer has seen so many hands that half the time she's already decided that I'm going to stay and moved on to the next player before I even add up my cards.

It was about 4 o'clock Vegas time, and 6 Chicago time, and so far I hadn't had any caffeine all day. I had that kind of dazed numbing headache that comes from caffeine withdrawal so I cashed out and went looking for a coffee shop. I had managed to battle back to $120 so I was only down $80. I can live with that.

O - Cirque Du Soleil
Friday night we went to see O. This was to be one of the highlights of the trip, but to be perfectly honest I was a little disappointed. Maybe I had set my expectations too high after years and years of hearing how incredible Cirque Du Soleil is.

It was very entertaining. The set and costuming were fantastic and the acrobatics were incredible. I just felt like it was missing something. The very beginning had a hint of a plot line and every so often they would bring it back, and I kept expecting it to develop into an actual story, but it never did. And while the acrobatics were incredible they tended to get old after a while. Each set consisted of them doing more or less the same move over and over again. It gets less and less impressive with each iteration. It was still a good show and probably falls into the "things you have to see in Vegas" category, but it isn't the best thing you'll ever see, like you may have been led to believe.

Pirate Show

We got back to our hotel just in time for the free pirate show. Again, maybe I was expecting too much for a free show, but this was embarrassingly bad. I was hoping for some sort of pirate battle with cannons and swordfights and pyrotechnics. Instead what we got was Sirens call. Some cheesy lame innuendo ridden crap. Now don't get me wrong, I enjoy hot scantily clad women dancing as much as the next guy, but there's a time a and place for it, and in the middle of what I was expecting to be a pirate show is not it. There are plenty of places in Vegas to see women dancing, probably hotter and more scantily clad women at that. And, I can't believe I'm saying this, but it was/should have been a kids show and could have been more entertaining for everyone had it been more pirates and less dancing. I really wanted to leave about a minute in, but the crowd had packed us in and we were stuck for the duration.

After that we grabbed a quick bite to eat, and some drinks and called it a night.

Day 2 - Poker and Clubbing

Poker at the Mirage

My wife and her brother headed out to the Hoover Dam in the morning and I wandered over to the Mirage to check out their poker room. It was considerably bigger than the TI's but most of the table's were empty. Could be that it was still early. Their lowest limit game was $3/$6 which was a little higher than I wanted to play since I haven't played limit table games in months. They didn't have any big tournaments running or scheduled soon, but they did have a SNG that needed one more player. Sign me up!

I think it was a $70 tournament with not nearly as much going to the prize pool as I would have liked, but what can you do? I also wasn't thrilled about the blind structure/starting chip count. We started with only $T1000 and blinds at $T25/50 raising every 15 minutes. It turned into a crapshoot real quick.

Shortly after the tournament started, my phone started vibrating. Great. I know that its bad etiquette to talk on the phone at the table, and its probably not even allowed, so I ignored it. A few minutes later it vibrates again to remind me that I have a voice mail. That became a bit distracting so I checked to phone to acknowledge the voice mail and make it stop. Ten minutes later it rings again. WTF? who keeps calling me? I almost never get calls on my phone. Its either my wife, and she and her brother were lost and/or in an accident, or its somehow work related and a server just blew up. Because that only happens when I don't have time to deal with it. So I do the responsible thing and decide to wait until after the tourney to check the voice mail. It would be a lie if I said that wasn't very distracting, but ultimately I don't think it had an affect on the outcome.

Back to the tourney. During that tournament I did make a really good read on one particular hand. One of the players I had pegged as someone to look out for had made a pretty big pre-flop raise. Any raise seemed big pre-flop because the blinds started so high, but I had a bad feeling about the hand. I had AK, and thought there was a good chance I would be in a race, and a better than average chance I was way behind, and I folded it pre-flop That's not something I can do easily but it didn't feel like it was worth putting my whole tournament life at stake so early on, so I let it go and waited for the next opportunity. One of morons to my left pushed all in on the flop with a garbage straight draw and the original raiser turned over aces. The moron rivered the strait and knocked out the aces. I would have had ace high and lost either way. I was proud of myself for that play. Although if the original raiser had turned over AJ and won the hand with her jack kicker I would have been kicking myself even now. That's just how it goes.


I chipped up a little bit early on, and was encouraged by the fact that the two people I had pegged as the decent players at the table went out early. Unfortunately I was soon to follow. I was dealt QQ in early position and made a raise to $T400 or $T500. The short stack to my left moved all-in for less, and someone in later position pushed all in for about $T200 more. The super short stack had garbage, I don't remember but the other guy had a pair of fours which turned into trips on the turn and crippled me. I was then relegated to all-in or fold mode and got not cards worthy of an all-in until I was under the gun an orbit later. I pushed with AJo and the big blind called with something worse. I don't remember what, except that he paired one of his cards and I didn't.

So I busted out fairly early in my first Vegas tournament. Not the result I was hoping for, but what can you do? I was satisfied with my play and as long as I continue to play well things should swing in my favor.

I head outside to check my voicemail to find out what hospital my wife is in or which client's server was on fire back home. Luckily, it was neither of those scenarios. We had asked my mother-in-law to stop by our house to check up on the cat that was freaking out earlier. Apparently he was just going in out his litter box, and she noticed some blood so he was on his way to the emergency vet. Turns out he had a urinary tract infection and he should be fine in a few days after some anti-biotics.


Slots
Treasure Island runs tournaments four times a day. I signed up for the 2:00pm tourney and wandered around the casino for an hour killing time. I put $20 in a nickel slot machine thinking it would take about an hour to run through that, until I realized that you could play up to 10 lines at a time and bet 25 credits. Since I think you have to bet the max to get the best odds for slots (something like the top payouts are proportionally more if you bet the max, or progressives jackpots only payout on max bets) I soon found that $20 only lasts about 5 minutes. If you are lucky. Somehow on my last spin I hit something big and before i knew it I had $50 in credit. Time to cashout.

Something I noticed that make no sense to me at all is that slots in Vegas no longer
accept coins. Even the penny slots don't take change. I hate having loose change in my pocket and on more than one occasion as I was walking through a casino I would have been happy to drop it in a penny slot machine to see what happens. Only I couldn't because the coin slot had a piece of metal welded over it. On every machine in every casino I went through. Now sure, taking my 37 cents isn't going to make or break them, but I'm guessing that I'm not the only one that would rather drop my change in the machine that carry it around all day. 37 cents times however many hundreds of thousands of people that walk through the casino each day has to add up. And its not like the machine isn't already there? The casinos are actually actively preventing me from giving them my money. I don't understand.

TI Tournament
Treasure Island's tournament structure was a bit nicer than the SNG's at the Mirage. $T3500 chips to start, blinds at $T25/$T50 increasing every 20 minutes. It is also sort of a rebuy tournament. They have alternates that fill in as people get knocked out during the first hour. If you bust out, you can rebuy as an alternate. Depending on how many other alternates there are, you can get right back in.

I think after all the rebuys there were over 65 entrants in this tourney. Most of my table was from the same bachelor party and were either terribly hungover or drunk.

Someone busted out on the very first hand. The board showed 88333, not in that order. He had an eight and pushed all-in, the other guy had the case three. Ouch.

I played OK for a bit, playing pretty tight and winning a few small pots. Then I was dealt queens again and had three callers to my preflop raise. I had to lay them down when no one folded on the flop and an ace came on the turn.

The next hand I limped with most of the table from the small blind with 23s. I flopped a pair and an open ended straight draw which I chased to the river and didn't hit.

Now I was a little tilty since I was getting short stacked and frustrated at not being able to beat this table. On the button I got KT or AT, something like that I tried buy the pot pre-flop. One of the guys I had pegged as a pretty good player limp-called. I missed the flop completely and he checked. I either had to push all-in with my few remaining chips or give up the hand and get destroyed by the blinds in a couple orbits. So I pushed. He thought about it for a while and ultimately called. He had a ace, and better kicker, but as I think back on the hand, that was a ballsy call. Sure he won, but I'm pretty sure represented a hand better than his. For all he knows I started with a pair and he has at best has six outs.

I think he went on to win the tournament. At the very least he was in second place.

I was steaming now. I was very disappointed with my play in that tournament and pissed off that I had not cashed in two attempts. I know its a small sample size, but I considered myself to be better than most of the players in those events and busting out so early in both was frustrating.

I got on the list for the $2/$4 game and walked around until my name was called.

$2/$4 at Treasure Island
As people busted out of the tournament the condensed tables and a new $2/$4 table opened up. I bought in for $100 and before I knew it I was sitting at about $250. Things were finally going right. I was getting decent cards and they were holding up when they were supposed to. I kept beating the same guy who was continually surprised when my AK outkicked his A4. It was kind of amusing.

Unfortunately my luck didn't last and I went pretty card dead for a quite a while. And when I had cards I started getting rivered. It was kind of amusing except for the bad beat part. I would bet betting for the entire hand and the same guy would call. On the turn he would call and laugh, and then hit his card on the river. I think he was actually embarrassed that he kept doing it to me. After a while he started folding early in the hand so his hand wouldn't develop into something he could justify chasing.

I folded a lot for the next few hours. before eventually calling it a day. I finished up about $20 overall. Its nice to get a profit, but again disappointing since I had been up so much more a few hours earlier.

I did get to see a straight flush though, which was somewhat exciting. And it pays a $250 bonus to the player.

Fancy Dinners, Clubbing and the $140 appetizer

For dinner that evening we went to the Company American Bistro in the Luxor. My wife was enticed by one of the reviews she had read in one of the promotional magazines in our hotel. Specifically there was an appetizer comprised of tater tots topped with caviar and served with a shot of vodka. We couldn't find it on the menu, and when we asked about it, the waiter said he'd only seen it as part of a tasting menu, but he'd ask the chef. A few minutes later he returned saying that the chef agreed to make the dish.

When the waiter returned with our drinks he informed us that to make the tater-tot appetizer he would have to open a jar of caviar, and since no one else would be eating it, it would cost $140. Ummmm. Pass. Instead of that we ordered a beet sampler which had quite possibly the most interesting form of beet you will ever consume. It was a beet marshmallow. I didn't realize that marshmallowing was a cooking technique, but apparently it is, because I've eaten a beet marshmallow. It was very odd trying to reconcile the marshmallow texture with the beet flavor in your brain. The two things just don't go together. I'd recommend trying it because I don't think you'll ever see that somewhere else. I'd also recommend the mac-n-cheese side with your steak because it was the best I've ever had.

Here's a bonus tip for those of you that like clubbing and have managed to read this far into the post. I guess LAX in the Luxor is one of the cool trendy clubs for celebrities and what not. You could wait in line like a sucker with hundreds of other people, or you could go to eat at this restaurant before hand and they'll let you cut in front of everyone and get in for free. It's an expensive meal, but if you're in to that sort of thing it might be a good idea.

LAX is completely not our scene. Its not a place we would even consider entering except that we can get the VIP treatment and go in front of everyone. So we wandered around the Luxor for a bit until the club opened up, and watched as the line grew and grew and grew. And then when 10:30 hit we walked in front of everyone and into the club. Or almost into the club. The bouncer stopped me a foot away and told me I couldn't go in because I had tennis shoes on. I'd have been pissed except the only reason I wanted to go in in the first place was to show up the rest of the people trying to get in. Oh well.


Casino Wandering and Sic Bo
We decided to walk back to our hotel from the Luxor. Treasure Island and the Luxor are on opposite ends of the strip so it was quite a hike, but I enjoy walking through all the different casinos just to check them out and this seemed like a good time to do it.

We also found one of my new favorite games at New York, New York. It the only place I've seen it. Its called Sic Bo and its one of those crazy Asian like Pai Gow. There's a three dollar minimum bet and I think the odds are decent, so you can sit there for quite a while on a small budget. The game works like this: The dealer rolls three dice, and you bet on the outcome. You can pick a specific die, which pays out 1:1, or a two die combo, or a specific total, or any pair, or any set, or high/low total. After the roll, the dealer types in the results and the winning numbers light up. With the single dice bet if you bet on three, and the dealer rolls 1-2-3. You get paid out 1:1. If he rolls 1-3-3 you get 2:1, and 3:1 for trip threes. My general strategy was to put a buck or two on two of the single numbers and then a few bucks on the three dice combos which paid out pretty well. $20 lasted for about an hour and a number of free drinks. I'd highly recommend it. It's also a great drunk game because you don't have to think or add or anything like that and you get a bunch of random people to show up at your table to try to figure out what the hell you're playing.

Other than that, our trip back was largely uneventful. We caught a lounge act at Bally's where they were impersonating various member of the Rat Pack, and finally made it back to our hotel. Stupid time change kicked in too. Who ever's in charge of that owes me an hour in Vegas.

Day 3 - More poker and Zumanity

TI Poker Tournament

We started off day three by going to one of those half price ticket places. If you plan on seeing a show in Vegas that isn't one of the top attractions, and don't have a specific day when you want to see it, and won't be terribly disappointed if you can't get tickets, I recommend trying to buy tickets the day of the show at one of these places. They have a bunch throughout the strip and we got good tickets for Zumanity for $65 instead of $130.

After picking up the tickets we wandered over to check out the Wynn since we had not yet been there on our casino tour. We didn't recognize anyone famous in the poker room but there was a final table for a big buy in tournament event later that day so I figured I'd stop back. The casino layout was different. Rather than the maze of slot machines and table games designed to trap you in the casino area, the Wynn's casino had big wide pedestrian lanes, right through the middle and getting in, out and through was not a problem. I found that interesting.

After that my wife went to do some shopping and I headed back to the TI poker room for another tournament. Not quite as many entries in this one but that's ok with me. I think there were 36 after all the rebuys.

Things started out well for me. Early on I had an AJ and some guy who had A9 was sure he had a winner. I had had raised pre-flop and again on the flop, so I wasn't thrilled when he kept calling, and still bet on the turn an river. I reluctantly called thinking he had to have at least two pair and was quite pleasantly surprised when all he had was the 9 kicker. And then I got moved to another table.

I got a little over aggressive with AK and then I went card dead. Before I knew it I was back below the starting chip count and starting to worry about busting out early again.

As the donkey across from me turned over his third pair of aces in two orbits I started to try to count the number of hands I had been dealt since arriving in Vegas, thinking it odd that not one of them was a pair of aces, or even kings. And I had gotten queens twice and both times lost a lot of chips. I was just about to declare live poker rigged when I looked down at beautiful pair of red aces. A couple players limped and it was on me to raise. I had a problem. I needed to raise, but I had just enough chips where going all-in is overkill and yet anything less leaves me with not enough chips to make a significant bet on the flop if I need to. I bet about 2/3 of my stack going for a pot multiplier rather than percent of my chips and got one caller. I pushed on the flop and he called again, doubling me up.

A few hands later and I got my pair of kings and took down another huge pot. And once again as soon as I started to get confident I changed tables as we condensed down to two.

The blinds started creeping up there, and some players weren't willing to invest the 3x blinds that I was raising preflop. Which was nice for me. And usually when they did call I had the better hand which was also nice. And then as I was starting to take command of the table I was moved. Again.

My new table was a bit more aggressive and I had a hard time adjusting. I also stopped getting cards. I tried to take the patient approach to wait everyone out, and while it worked, it didn't leave me in a very strong position.

We finally eliminated the 11th place player and got down to one table.

I had a medium sized stack, but it seemed like every time I got playable cards, the pot was raised in front of me, and I wasn't willing to put my tournament life at risk. Maybe I should have been more aggressive but I was sure that my cards would start improving soon.

I was able to win enough hands to stay alive and before I knew it we were down to four players and I had made the money. I think I was the best player at the table, but I also had the least amount of chips, so I needed a bit of luck to help me out.

I thought I got it in the BB when UTG raised and I had A9. Four handed that looks pretty good. Especially when another round of blinds or two is going to remove any fold equity that I might have. I pushed and he turns over AT. Oh well. I cashed in fourth place for about $175 on a $65 entry. Not the best result but it beats not cashing.

After the tourney we went off the strip (who knew you could do that?) for dinner. My brother in law had to leave after that so he dropped us off at New York, New York where we had a little more than an hour to kill before the show. Time for some more Sic Bo! This is the one game my wife actually enjoys playing. So you better believe we're playing it.

Actually before we got the Sic Bo we had some roulette to play. A few coworkers had given me $5 and number to play. Of coarse it was $10 minimum bets and they all wanted their own spins, so I had to put down my own money as well.

I bought $50 worth of chips and it was gone in 7 spins. I won a bet on red and then went back to picking numbers where I lost everything. I hate roulette.

So we killed time and another $40 at the Sic Bo Table. We got a few other couples roped into the game as we were playing. Its going to be the next big thing. I'm calling it here.

Zumanity
Zumanity is the sensual side of Cirque Du Soleil. And by sensual I they mean topless. OK fine, they had a little more sexual overtones to their routines than the other show, but this was another disappointment. I guess its my own fault for expecting this to be great, but it seemed like they just took their boring acts, made the women topless and called it a show. Now don't get me wrong. I like boobs as much as the next guy. I'm very much a fan of boobs, but there are hundreds of places in Vegas to see boobs, and this is probably near the bottom of the list for places where I think they belong. There were some impressive stunts, but not as many as in O, and the comedy acts in between sets were quite entertaining, but if you really want to see Cirque Du Soleil, they have a show at just about every hotel on the strip, go there. If you want to see boobs, I think most hotels can accommodate you there too, or else go to the stripclubs. From what I hear they're not too bad in Vegas. All in all I felt ripped off by Cirque du Soleil for this trip.

And that was the end of the trip. From there we headed back to hotel. The next day we checked out and headed to the airport.

I'm ready to go back.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

Back from Vegas

Just got back from Vegas. Its going to be a long week at work, but hopefully I'll be able to write up a trip report sometime before I forget what I did. Long story short I cashed in 1/3 poker tournaments, ended up about even on poker for the trip and a little down overall, but not too bad.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

lolcats Poker Contest

About a week ago a friend IM-ed me telling me that I he was going to enter this contest on icanhascheezburger.com where he could win a trip to Vegas, and that I should tell my many readers to vote for him. Of coarse, being the lazy bastard that he his, he has not yet submitted a picture, so I can't tell you to vote for it. If you'd like to check it out, or send in your own the details are here.

Now. What the hell is icanhascheezburger, or an lolcat you might ask? I certainly did. Apparently it is a fairly well known site where users submit funny pictures, usually of cats, and add clever captions. Its all very amusing. I asked a bunch of other people if they had heard of the site because I thought my friend had stumbled onto some new uncharted part of the internet, but a surprising number had already been to the site, and seemed unimpressed with the fact that I had found it.

And this is the part where I claim I should be a gagillionaire. These people put up some retarded site with with stupid pictures and bad grammar and as far as I can tell are making a fortune doing it. They must be doing something right if they can afford to give away a trip to Las Vegas. If these idiots can put this crappy site up there and get a ton of traffic then why can't I think of something just a little bit better and profit even more? And don't say it requires more than four posts a month smart ass. You just wait. I'll get that fifth post in there tomorrow.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

Mystery Package Revealed

So the mystery package from PokerStars arrived today. I got a nice PokerStars bag and a couple decks of plastic cards. Still not sure what I did to deserve it but I'm not complaining. If anyone from any other pokerrooms happen to stumble across this site,and feel like they would like send some free crap my way, I'm all for it. I could use some more poker chips, or a table. If you're feeling really generous, I certainly wouldn't complain if you sent me some fancier stuff. Maybe one of these, or how about this?

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

Mystery Prizes

I got an email a couple weeks ago from DHL saying that they had received a pickup request from PokerStars for me. I thought it was odd since I didn't order anything from Stars, and haven't played there in months so I certainly couldn't have won anything.

I forgot about it until today when I got an email from PokerStars saying that my order had shipped. They gave me tracking numbers for two items. I have no idea what they could be. I guess I'll know in a few days.

In other news FullTilt is trying to woo me back by offering a $75 bonus. I don't even have to deposit anything. Just login press a button and then work of the bonus. But I had to claim it by yesterday and I managed not to. To be honest I intended to play some this weekend. That bonus offer was just the thing I needed to motivate me to play some. Or so I thought. I got busy with other things and forgot about poker until tonight when I realized the bonus had expired. Oh well. Maybe next time.

In other other news our monthly game is this Saturday. Turnout is looking weak though. A number of the regulars have already bailed. Has poker's popularity really dropped that much?

For those of you counting at home, I'm on now pace for five posts this month. Almost 6. Stupid short months. Who wants to take the over on number of posts I actually get out? Come on. You know there's going to be at least one after Saturday's game. And another when my mystery package arrives. That means I would only need three more posts to hit the over. And only two for a push. Come on I'm not that lazy. Am I? On second thought don't answer that.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

Vegas Baby!

Is that the most original title for a blog post or what? Sometimes my creative talent amazes even myself.

A friend IMed me the other day, commenting on how impressed he was that I had actually written two posts this month. This is really going to blow his mind. I'm going to put a third, that's right third post out this month. Enjoy it while you can folks. Marvel at it. This doesn't happen very often and could very well be the last time its ever seen in this section of the blogosphere.

I suppose I should write something with actual substance for this momentous occasion, now what was I going to write about? Ah that's right. Vegas Baby. I'm going to Vegas.

I haven't been to Las Vegas in many years. My wife has little interest in it so it makes it hard to get that at the list of vacation destinations. The only reason she really wants to go is to see O. I want to go to play poker for 48 hours straight.

My wife's brother lives in LA. We went out to visit him a couple years ago, and my wife has gone a few times with her parents, but I really didn't care for LA all that much. I do however really want to go to Vegas. Since LA is reasonable close we decided that we'd fly out there, and he could meet us for the weekend. Its a win-win. She gets to see her brother and the Cirque du Solei show, and I get to go to Vegas.

As I mentioned before, I haven't been in many years. In fact, I've only been there once, about eight years ago, before I even played poker. So I want to get in some low limit poker, and possible a decent sized tournament while I'm there. Anyone have any thoughts on the best poker rooms and/or tournaments on the weekend for someone like me? Any advice or recommendations would be appreciated. We're going in late February/early March if that matters.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

XBoxes for All

And by all I mean me.

The XBox elite package that I won on Pokerstars for being the 11th best poker playing blogger in the world finally arrived today. It even came with an extra game that I wasn't expecting. The game was NCAA 2007 March Madness which is kind of cool except that of all the game genres Sports is probably my least favorite, and of all the sports, basketball is also one of my least favorites. Combine that with a game system that I really have no use for, or overwhelming desire to play and you get a pretty disappointing prize for the amount of time I put in to win it. Plus its going to end up costing me more money because I'm going to end up buying another controller, and a wireless network adapter, and an XBox live subscription and the hd-dvd add-on. I'd sell it on EBay but I don't think I'd get that much for it, and I'm too lazy to deal with it. Plus Halo looks pretty cool. Man, winning free stuff is a pain in the ass. Maybe I should bitch some more.

My wife and I were watching High Stakes Poker last night when an add for PokerStars came on featuring freerolls with trips to Atlantis as top prizes. She asks, "is that the vacation you didn't win?" She's even less than impressed with the XBox than I am. Maybe next I won't tell her what the top prize is until I actually win it.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

Jedi Reunion 2007

Hey look! Two posts in one day.

Memorial Day weekend means its time to get together with a bunch of my good friends from high school in for an annual event we affectionately refer to as the Jedi Reunion. Yes, I like Star Wars, why do you ask?

This year's reunion was somewhat more tame than in years past. There are a couple of reasons for this. The first being that with the exception of my wife and I, everyone had a child under the age of one. That means sleep is a precious commodity and staying up until the crack of dawn isn't much of an option any more. Not that I can stay up that late anymore anyways. The other reason is that John, our host was suffering from food poisoning and couldn't drink as much as usual. More often than not he's the one instigating the excessive drinking that often accompanies this weekend, but he was somewhat restrained on account of illness. At least that's the story he gave. Could be he's getting soft in his old age, but for now I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.

In addition to the regular shenanigans that accompany these weekends we did actually play some poker. Or what loosely resembles poker to the untrained observer. We played a 6 handed cash game with each player taking turns calling a game for an orbit.

Last year John kept calling a game called guts, which I refuse to acknowledge as a poker game. The game works as follows: Each player is dealt two cards and then must decide if they are in our out. The dealer counts to three and player that are in hold their cards while player that are out drop them. If more than one player remains in, the winning player takes the pot while the losing players must match the pot for the next hand. Play continues until only one player stays in and he beats a blind "Ghost " hand.

It's retarded. It takes an hour to play through a full "hand" and more or less negates any actual poker earnings that you may have made. We might as well just roll dice with the high roll taking the pot. I tried to declare it as an illegal game but it was John's house so it was his rules and he called it. The fact that he knew it pissed me off certainly didn't have an effect on his decision to call that game.

My wife tried to back me up by calling Euchre and Kings in the Corner when it was her turn to pick a game, but for some reason those games weren't allowed.

All in all, the play was abysmal. More time was dedicated to arguing about, talking about and deciding on the music being played on the Comcast music channels than actual play. An average hand took about five minutes to play. Maybe next time we should start playing before we're fairly well intoxicated. Then again we'd have to start around noon.

The only real significant hand that I remember was when I was in the small blind and John was in the big blind. It's probably not a good idea for us to sit next to one another since we tend to antagonize each other for no good reason. For example I would cut the deck for John to deal and he would pick it up and start shuffling. The first time or two I think he just didn't know what he was doing. After I yelled at him he did it on purpose for the remainder of the night.

Back to the hand, I decided I'd raise blind and popped it to 3xbb. He called blind. I bet about half pot, still blind, on the flop and he called. On the turn I had to look. I had nothing, but I figured if I bet after looking he would assume I had a hand and at least look at his. I don't know why I thought that because he's a stubborn bastard and would have called any bet out of principle. He called both my turn and river bets. I had picked up nothing and he paired one of his hole cards so I erased all of my earnings on the night on that hand.

In other gaming news, for the geeks out there reading this, I'd highly recommend the board game Carcassonne

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

2007 NCAA Picks

Ok, I didn't have time to run my various random picker tests, so this is the best I have. Picks.

I have a few subtle variations on that bracket for the various pools that I am in, but that is more or less what I'm going with.

My biggest chance to win money in one of these pools is with our company blind pool. This also goes to show that everything is more fun when there's money on the line. Either that or it just shows that there are few things that I won't put money on. For those of you who have never been in one, it works as follows.

• Each entry gets a team assigned at random.
• If your team is the favorite, and covers the spread, you move on.
• If your team is the underdog and wins, you move on.
• If your team is the underdog and loses by less than the spread, you take over the winning team, and move on.
• Otherwise, you are out.

Its tough to know what makes a good team for this format. Your number one seeds are such high favorites in the early rounds, that they can easily fail to cover the spread. Plus there are more than enough straight up upsets in the central pairings, that you probably want to have a decent team that is likely to be the dog in each match up.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

Basketball Tax

People say that state lotteries are just a tax on people that can't do math. Well then the NCAA tournament must be a tax on people that don't know anything about basketball. I'm pretty sure that the odds of me winning the Mega Millions are just about the same as me winning an NCAA tournament pool with as few as 8 other participants.

Never the less, every year I pay my taxes and watch in dismay as three of my final four teams are eliminated by the end of the first weekend. I have a bad tendency to let my feelings towards certain schools or conferences affect my judgement in these things. Take this year for instance. I have to pick Illinois to win at least one game. And after that they have SIU. There's no way I can pick the Illini to lose to the lowly Salukis. Who cares if they got a four seed and Illinois barely made the tourney. And then I have to pick them to win the next game because they're playing Kansas and fuck Kansas.

At that point I come to my senses and realize that no matter how much I hate Kansas, and how much Kansas has choked in the Bill Self era, the Illini are still probably no match for the Jayhawks. So I pick Villanova to upset Kansas in round two so the Illini don't have to face them. And that's why I won't ever win a college tourney pool. That and I know almost nothing about college basketball outside of this state. Or in this state for that matter.

If I have time, I think I'm going to do an experiment this year. I'm going to do my normal bracket. Then I'm going to try to do one where I objectively pick the winners. Then I'm going to do one based soley on coin flips, with the exception of the obvious games such as the 16-1, 15-2 match ups. Finally, I'm going to do some other random picker where the odds are weighted based on seeding. Not sure how I'll do that one, but I'll think of something. My guess is that the random weighted bracket will win. You would think that's the one I would choose to put money on, but you would be wrong. Maybe the tournament really is a stupid tax.

I'll try to have my picks done and posted here by the start of the games on Thursday. Feel free to mock them once they are up.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

Bowling for Dollars

The only thing I've done in the past month that even resembles poker is during my bowling league. And I can't even win that.

I think the absolute worst thing that someone with a gambling problem can do, other than going to Vegas, or just walking into a casino is joining a bowling league. I don't think there's anything that happens during a night of bowling that doesn't get wagered on.

First off, for those of you who have never been a league, the whole concept is gambling. You pay X dollars a week to play and at the end of the season there's a payout for the top teams. But its not just based on who's the best bowler because everyone is handicapped based on their average. So in theory everyone is equal and whoever wins is determined by the team that was lucky enough to have a good game that particular night.

But that's the boring stuff. The real gambling is amongst team members.

First there's the split pot. It's relatively simple. You bowl a split, put a dollar in the pot. Pick it up, collect half the pot. Miss everything on your second ball, put another dollar in the pot. I've think we've gotten it up to $30 or $40 before the expert bowlers on our team would "accidentally" get a split they can easily pick up for an easy $15-$20 payout.

It's also fairly common for teammates of approximate equal skill to wager lunch on the results of any given game. People have had free lunches for a week before losing it all on a double or nothing bet on the last game of the night.

Then there's the prop bets. I don't know what triggers it, because we don't always start betting on random things, but I think it might be when we are getting killed by the other team so we need something else to keep our interest. So we'll put over/unders on the number of pins the current bowler will pick up, or bet on whether or not they'll get a strike, or pick up a spare, or pretty much anything. Bowling gets to be a pretty expensive activity. I haven't even factored in the beer yet. MMMmmmmm beeeeeeeer.

Finally, there's the poker. It fairly simple. Everyone throws a buck in the pot before the game. Every time you mark (that's a strike or spare for you non-bowlers) you get a card. Best five card poker hand wins. I think many there's another rule where if you strike twice in a row you get two cards on the second strike, but we have a pretty diverse group as far as skill, so to keep it fair we don't include that rule. We also spot a few of our teammates some cards before each round to even up the odds a bit.

I have the worst luck in these poker games. I think most cards you can have without getting a pair or better is 11, and I've made it as far as 9 cards while still only having ace high. I've also been known to get four pair on a few occasions. That's always fun when you have twice as many cards as the guy who beats you. Typically it takes a high flush or full house to win, but two pair has been sufficient on a few occasions.

The game also makes for some great bad beats. Some one will have an flush after bowling in the tenth only to see someone else strike out to hit a full house he didn't even think he was drawing to. Plus since you have so many cards you usually have about 15 outs by the last frame.


So yeah. There's the extent of my poker play in recent weeks.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com

A New Car

A New Car

If you didn’t read the title of this post in the voice of the announcer from The Price is Right go back and do it again. Doesn’t that sound better.

More than two months after my old piece of crap car got totaled, I finally have a replacement. We’re lucky that we rarely need the second car since it allowed us to take our time looking for a new one, and we certainly took advantage of that.

I ended up with a 2006 Honda Civic Hybrid. I’ve been thinking about getting a hybrid for a few years, but the newness of them and goofy looking options stopped me from considering purchasing one until now. Ultimately a combination of escalating gas prices, my inner hippie’s desire to be environmentally friendly, and the fact that the Civic Hybrid looks like a normal Civic helped finalize my decision.

Buying this car was no small feat. The demand for hybrids is greatly outpacing the supply so it was a challenge finding one that hadn’t already been sold for a test drive. One of my concerns was that in an attempt to maximize fuel economy the engine would be severely underpowered, and I so I had to make sure it had sufficient power before I bought it

Side note: I type the word poker so often that anytime I start a word with p o my hand just automatically types in the following k e r, so sufficient power started as sufficient poker, and I really don’t think any car has that. Anyone else have that problem or am I just weird?

Where was I? Finding a car to test drive. According the Honda website, there were four within a reasonable distance from my house. A typical Saturday would involve the following script repeated four times.

Me: Hi I was wondering if you have any of the Civic Hybrids on the lot.
Salesman: No we don’t, would you like to put down a deposit?
Me: No thanks, I would like to test drive one before I commit to anything.
Salesman: We should be getting one in Tuesday, if you put down a $500 deposit you can reserve it.
Me: I’ll call back Tuesday.

Eventually one dealership did have one in stock. When we got there we were informed that it had just sold, but we could put down a deposit to reserve next incoming car. No thanks we said, although we did test drive the Civic EX, just to get a feel for that line in general.

A few weeks later, that same dealership claimed to have two in stock, but again by the time we got there they had both sold. Do we want to put down a deposit?

Now, I understand that these are highly desirable cars, and that they don’t last long, but there is no way that the three cars that this dealership managed to last up until we call, but then get sold in the thirty minutes it takes to get to the dealership. I’m 99.9999% certain that they would just tell us the cars were in to get us down there to either put down a deposit on an incoming vehicle, or test drive something else.

Fool me once, shame on me, yadda yadda yadda. So we expanded our search and found two more dealerships that claimed to have hybrids in stock.

A few stressful wrong turns later and we pulled up to the dealer almost sure that they had sold during the hour it took us to get there. But there was not one, but two Hybrid Civics sitting there right before our very eyes. It was a Christmas miracle.

As the dealer was going through his spiel, telling us about the safety features, and Honda’s customer satisfaction rating and showing us under the hood, another salesman came up, took the keys from him and informed us that one had been sold.

Onto car number two. He starting going into the spiel again and all I could think was “For the love of God, shut up and let me drive the car before someone else gets it.” Finally, he grabbed the keys and we were on our way. The day we never thought would come had arrived. We actually got to test drive the car.

And it was great. There was nothing significantly different between the hybrid and a normal gas guzzling counterparts. The only weird thing is that the engine shuts off while breaking, which will take some getting used to. I don’t think it affects the overall performance though, because the engine is back on before you can get your foot from the break to the gas.

Unfortunately the one we test drove was used and it was a girly pastel blue color, so we had to order one. And we weren’t able to pick it up until last night. But, we do now have a new car and it rocks. It was well worth the wait, and I’d highly recommend you pick yourself up one, the next time you are out.

I should also mention that we did try the Toyota Prius, but I was never very interested in it. I really don’t care for the design. If they just could have made it look like a normal sedan instead of the goofy hatchback look with the split rear windshield I might have considered it. Not only does the back half look odd, it’s really hard to see out of, which I found quite annoying. It also seemed too gadgety. It was like the designers decided that since they were going to have a futuristic hybrid gas/electric motor, everything in the car should be futuristic, to the point where it was complete overkill. That being said, if I had had to wait another week or two before I was able to test drive a Civic, I probably would have gone for the Prius.

So now I can’t wait for gas to hit $5 a gallon so I can laugh at my friends who mocked me for being a hippie and not buying a normal car.

The End

Those of you who know me know the kind of fine automobile I drive.  And by fine automobile I mean flaming pile of dog crap in the shape of a car.
 
I drive a '93 Oldsmobile Cutlass Cierra with over 150,000 miles that hasn't been exactly well taken care of.  Its a miracle that the thing functions at all, but function it does, and pretty well all things considered.  I would get a new car, but I'm a cheap bastard and I can't justify spending 20-30k on a new vehicle when I have one that is still functions sufficiently.  Plus I really only need to drive it once or twice a month.  My wife usually takes the train to work, so I just drive her car. 
 
Monday was one of those days when I got to drive my car to work, as my wife had to stay late and thus couldn't take the train. So there I was, driving along just minding my own business when all of the sudden some goofy lady in a minivan decides that she doesn't need to use her brakes to stop, the car in front of her will do just fine.  Unfortunately the car in front of hers was mine, and while it did stop her car's forward momentum it sustained a fair amount of damage in the process..
 
The damage isn't so bad that a couple grand couldn't fix it like new, or at least as good as it was prior to the accident, but as I said, the car is an old piece of crap, and a couple grand is most likely a bit more than its worth.  I think if I were to try to claim the expense for an oil change through my insurance, they would just total the car.  That's about how much its worth.
 
So tomorrow morning I will be taking the car into the shop for them to tell me what I already know.  Time to look for a new car. 
 
On the one hand this really sucks, because hadn't exactly planned for a new car in my budget,  and I really don't have time to do any new car shopping or research. But on the other hand, I've never had a new car, and it would certainly be nice to drive something that I'm not embarrassed to be seen in.   
 
Anyone have any suggestions? 
 
 

Schnitzel

My wife and I went to this German restaurant called Schnitzel Platz last night with a few of her friends.  This place was as hardcore authentic German as you could imagine. Not that I have ever been to Germany or know what authentic German food is like, but if I had to guess, I would say this is pretty close.  

They had like forty different flavors of schnitzel.  Until last night I was only aware of two.  That’s a lot of schnitzel to choose from.  Sorry I just like saying schnitzel.  I’m cool like that.

When I ordered a beer, I was given the option of a half liter, liter or two liter.  None of this sissy pint crap.  They went straight for liters as their designated unit of measurement.  I opted for half liter, not thinking that I would be able to consume liters worth of tasty beverage in one sitting.  The other guy that was with us went for the two liter.  After he ordered it, and the waiter brought it out, the waiter explained that it’s usually ordered as group, kind of like a pitcher at your regular drinking establishments.  Oh, and it came in a glass/mug/container(?) shaped like a giant boot.  It was a lot of beer.  

And nothing says authentic German restaurant like live German music.  There were two old time German guys there in full gear playing all of your favorite polka’s.  Classics like “Who Stole the Kishka” and “Too Fat Polka (She’s Too Fat For Me)”.  And yes we bought their CD.  And no we will never listen to it after last night.  And yes I still have polka music in my head and I can’t get it out.

Good Times.

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I should note that this is my first post written from my new computer, which I finally have up and running.  I have just about everything moved over to the point where I can get rid of my old laptop.  Here’s a question for you.  How much crap from the old laptop should I keep?  Space really isn’t an issue.  I’m going from 40GB to 500GB, but do I really need source code for some project I worked on six years ago?  On the other hand, what if I wrote something that I end up needing in the future?  I‘ll probably end up keeping a whole bunch of crap I don’t need, I just hope I can keep it at least somewhat organized.

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Mario Williams?  Really?  I don’t know a lot about college football, so I’m not really qualified to comment on draft picks, but that hasn’t exactly stopped me before.  I was pretty sure that Reggie Bush was as sure of a #1 pick as we had seen in a while, and maybe Leinart and Young had a slim chance.  Shows what I know.

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Oh yeah, poker news.  Now that the new machine is up and running there is a good chance I will be playing actual poker again sometime soon.  Crazy, I know.   There is a WPBT event tomorrow night that I should probably play if I have any hopes of claiming the POY award.  Somehow I don’t think playing in only one event is going to cut it.  Of course tomorrow is a seven card stud event, so I don’t exactly like my chances but you never know.  

How I Spent My Spring Vacation

How I Spent My Spring Vacation

by Mike Miller

This is a bit overdue, but I’ve had a bunch of other things to catch up on.  And I haven’t played poker in about three weeks now so I don’t really have much else to write about.

Day 1.  Travel

It was 6:30 in the morning and I was hitting the snooze button for the third or fourth time, only this time, my alarm clock wouldn’t shut up.  Then I realized the reason it wouldn’t stop is because that obnoxious noise was coming from my cell phone, not my alarm.  What kind of asshole is calling me at 6:30 in the morning?    There could only be one person, and it’s my friend John.  John and his wife Allison were flying out of Richmond.  They had a connecting flight at O’Hare where my wife and I would meet up with them on our way to Hawaii.  He was calling because his flight was delayed, meaning he would miss the connection in Chicago.  Luckily he got rebooked for a later flight and would be arriving three hours after us, rather than two and half days as the airline originally told him.  

Other than that, the flight was rather uneventful.  My wife and I arrived on the big island on time, and were able to pickup the rental car, and check into our condo despite the fact that John had registered for everything.  I was expecting them to tell me that since he made the reservations he would have to be there to check in/rent the car/condo, but everything worked out ok.  Their flight got in on time, and we picked them up at the airport and the vacation was on.

Day 2.  Kona Beer Festival.

Ummmmm …. Rock?   We spent the early afternoon walking around Kona doing checking out the touristy shops and things.  We were basically killing time waiting for 11th annual Kona Brewers Festival to start.  John and I had pretty much talked this thing up to the point that it could never come remotely close the expectations we had set.  We had ordered tickets months ago, which was fortunate because it sold out.  It worked like this.  $40 got you entrance to the fest and eight tickets.  You also got a free beer mug.  They had over 40 microbreweries, many of which were local, although there were a good number of beers from the mainland.  They also had over 25 different chefs offering up samplings of their various cuisines.  Everything from sushi, to tacos, to lamb, to curry to deep fried apples, and chocolate fountains.  All the food was free, and each ticket you had got you a “4 oz” sampling of beer.  Most vendors gave a bit more than 4 oz.  Allison is pregnant, which meant John and I each got four extra tickets, and my wife isn’t much of a beer drinker (weird I know) so we had a few more from her.  I definitely got my money’s worth as far as beverage consumption goes.  Despite the expectations we had set, the festival was way better than we even imagined.  Even my wife gave rave reviews despite not fully partaking in the beer part.  Looks like they already have the date set for next year.  Get your tickets now.  Its totally worth the nine hour flight to attend.

Day 3.  Beaches.

Day three was the day we finally made it to the beaches.  We wanted to travel around the island checking out a bunch of different options.  A lot of the beaches there have different colored sands, which my wife wanted to collect.  We went up the western side of the island stopping at a salt and pepper colored beach and white sand beach.

The scenery on the big island of Hawaii is quite interesting.  You go from these lush areas filled with tropical vegetation to almost completely barren lava deserts wherever there was somewhat modern (within 100 years or so) volcanic activity.  There is also a pretty unique form of graffiti there.  Since the terrain is almost all black people will gather white rocks and pebbles, and use them to spell out names or slogans or whatever.  The landscape in some areas is covered with them.

I continued my streak of getting a bad sunburn on some obscure part of my body.  A few years ago we went to Cancun and I had my first snorkeling experience.  I had a shirt and life jacket on, so I didn’t think my back would get burnt at all.  Well my shirt rode up to the bottom of the vest exposing about a four inch strip on my back which was then exposed to direct tropical sunlight for hours.  It took a few years but I think the tan line has finally worn off.  Just for the record, sitting in a plane for four hours when anything that touches your back causes excruciating pain:  not fun.  The year before the Cancun trip we had gone white water rafting.  I managed to forget to put sunscreen on my knees which were exposed to the sun all day as we were sitting on the raft.  I think I still have scars.  Oh and putting on a wetsuit the next day because it was cold and rainy:  also not fun .

This time it was the back of knees that I missed.  They were a nice shade of purple by the time we went home.   Yeah, and walking when the backs of your legs are burn:  you guessed it.  Not fun.

Day 4.  Volcano.

On day four we were going to hit a few beaches on the southern end of the island, picking up some black and then green sand on our way to check out the volcano.  We were then going to drive around the volcano and then hike out onto the lava fields at night in hopes of seeing some lava.

Somehow we missed the turn for the green sand beach.  By the time we made to the black sand beach it had started raining.  We basically ran out grabbed some sand, took a picture and jumped back in the car.  

The island is a lot bigger than I expected.  It was about 100 miles from the town of Kona to the volcano.  It was still raining when we got there, and it was considerably colder than I expected it would ever be on Hawaii.  We scrapped our plans for doing any sort of hiking and opted for the much shorter drive around the rim of the volcano with a stop to check out a lava tube, and the steam vents.  The lava tube sucked.  It was basically a cave in the lava, and thanks to the rain, it was cold and miserable.  The steam vents were kind of cool, but still cold and miserable.  We headed back to Kona early and chilled in the pool.  The West side of the island, where Kona is located gets very little rain while the Eastern side where the town of Hilo is located gets all the rain.    As a side note, the next day we heard on the news that the rain washed out part of the road between Kona and the Volcano, so it’s a good thing we returned when we did.  


Intermission.  I’m a jinx.

Before I get into the second half of our trip, I want point out that my wife and I are Jinxes when it comes to travel. Consider the following examples.  

A few years ago some friends and I rented a house on North Carolina’s outer banks.  We traditionally get together for a week or long weekend around Memorial Day each year, and that year we were in North Carolina.  The second to last day of the trip saw a huge storm go through the outer banks, knocking out the power for at least the next 24 to 48 hours and forcing us to cut our vacation short by a day.  Now if you consider that on its own, it’s probably not a big deal, but if you consider the next few pieces of evidence I think you’ll see a pattern.

A few years before that my wife and I were on our honeymoon in Belize.  I don’t blame you if you don’t know where that is.  I didn’t until I started looking for vacation destinations.  It’s a small country on the Yucatan Peninsula, South of Mexico and East of Guatemala.  It’s well known for its great snorkeling/scuba diving, Mayan ruins and Jaguar reserves.  Oh, and the first season of Temptation Island was filmed there.   We spent the first half of our trip inland doing jungle tours, and excursions to Mayan ruins and stuff like that.  The day before we were to head out the Cayes for a few days of beachfront leisure at we received a call from our travel agent.  (There were no TV’s or radios at the lodge).  She said that we might want to consider staying where we were for an extra day since there was a pretty major hurricane on its way through the caye we were going to stay on.  The next morning the hotel staff informed us that they were evacuation the lodge since it too was in the path of the hurricane.  We were already a few hours inland and had to move further in, almost to the Guatemalan border.  It ended ok, as we were only relocated for an extra day and the hurricane missed our area.  We made it to the now almost deserted island a day late and had a great time with the remainder of our vacation.  It was just a little more adventure than I bargained for.

This year I had tickets to see a Bears away game.  Booked the airfare and everything.  I bet you can’t guess where it was.  Yeah that’s right.  New Orleans.  At this time at least Mother Nature unleashed her destruction before I was there, although I’m sure that’s little consolation to the city’s residents.

Now where was I?  Ah yes.  Kauai.

Day 5.  Rain, and Travel to Kauai.

On Day five we headed to the Garden Island of Kauai.  At the airport we were warned that while the flights were on time at the moment, there were strong storms moving in and flash flood warnings, so we might end up getting delayed.  Our flight did make it out on time, but that was about the only thing that went right for the next week.  

The guy at the car rental agency said we might have problems getting to our condo since there was a landslide earlier that day.  Fun.  Fortunately they had been working on the road all day, so by the time we got there they were almost done.  We were only delayed an hour or so.  Our condo wasn’t ready when we got there anyway so we drove around for a bit and checked out the scenery.  It was kind of late by the time we checked in, so we didn’t do too much else.

Day 6.  Also Rain, but, some sunshine too.  

The weather channel was calling for rain all week, and issuing more flood warnings every hour.  A reservoir on the North Eastern side of the island burst the previous night destroying several homes in its path.  At least one person was dead, and several were missing.  People in the Northern most towns were getting airlifted out.  We were on the southern town of Koloa, near Poipu which wasn’t hit quite as bad, although the reservoir closest to us was also close dangerously high.  As we learned on the Big Island, the Western side of the Island tends to be dryer, so we headed out that way, touring the little towns and taking in the scenery along the way.  The beach was actually rather nice and we managed to get a few hours of sun.  

Day 7.  Also Also Rain.  And then some more rain.

Ummm…. Suck?  This time the entire island got it.  There would be no sneaking off the West for us.  It rained all day, pouring for hours at a time before letting up for ten minutes and then pouring again.  During one abnormally long break in the rain we ventured out for a walk.  We were gone for all of five minutes before the rain picked up again and we got drenched.  I had planned on getting in the water a lot this trip, but this wasn’t quite what I had in mind.  

The one good thing about the situation is that this was the first day of the NCAA tournament, so I watched basketball for about 12 hours.  The 5 hour time change works great when it puts live sports on my TV at 8am.  

Just to give you another indication of bad the rain was, this was Allison’s birthday and we had reservations at the restaurant that happened to be next door to our condo.  It couldn’t have been more than 100 feet away from our door.  We drove.  And used the Valet parking.   The valet probably had to park further away than the parking lot for our condo.  

After dinner we went into town to pick up something to mix with the excessive amounts of rum we had already purchased.  Upon returning to our condo we noticed a patrol car parked outside.  The officer was recommending that we evacuate the area to somewhere more westward because the water level was almost up to the only bridge into this section of the island.  We had noticed that the water levels were impossibly high on our trip in, but didn’t consider that the bridge might be in danger.  

We really didn’t know where else we would go, and we were going to be stranded somewhere regardless, so we figured we would just hole up in our current location.  But first we had to go back across the bridge into town to pick up food and supplies for the next few days and hope they didn’t close the bridge before we got back.

We made it back safely and I don’t think they ever had to shut down the bridge.  


Day 8.  That’s right.  Rain.

The weather channel claimed this day would be mostly sunny.  Apparently by mostly sunny they meant continual heavy rain, because that's what we got.  As we were sitting in the condo prepared for yet another day of just watching basketball and lounging around, one of the nearby condos decided it would be great time for some home improvements. I'm not sure what they were doing, we theorized that it was some sort of router type machine, but whatever it was it generated the loudest most mind numbingly awful sound you could possibly imagine.  After about ten minutes we couldn't take it any more and decided to drive somewhere in hopes of finding something to do.  Its probably a good thing we did leave because my wife might have killed someone, obnoxious noise or not, if she was forced to spend another vacation day trapped in that tiny condo.  

We headed into Lihue, which is the big "city" on the island.  At least I assume so.  It’s where the airport is anyways.  We drove around for a while, and checked out the Kauai Museum which killed a few hours.  We were all in bad spirits, and starting to contemplate moving our flight up a few days so we could just go home and get not have to deal with the crappy weather on Hawaii.  

We ultimately opted to stay since there really wasn't much benefit in going home.  It was supposed to be cold and snowy in both Chicago and Richmond.  Instead we drove to see the Wailua falls, which you can only see from the road anyways, so it didn't matter if it was raining.  Just in case you doubt the amounts of rain that we were receiving, this is what the falls should look like.  






and this is what it did look like.  That's a lot of water.








On the way to the falls we started to see patches of blue sky.  It was almost too good to be true.  We tempted fate by jumping back on the highway and heading west, where the clouds were breaking up more and more.  By the time we got to the beach the sky was almost clear.  

In our optimism we had packed our beach clothes and chairs, and boogie boards before heading out that morning, so we were all set for an afternoon of beach time fun.  Unfortunately all the rain ran off the island taking large amounts of dirt with it and contaminating the entire shore line.  Instead of the picturesque clear blue waters, we had dirty red brown dirt colored waters, and were warned not to go in due to high bacteria counts.  So we settled for sitting in the sun for a few hours.  

We even got to see a sunset for the first time on our trip that evening.

Day 9. Surfing.

One of the items on our list of things to do while in Hawaii was to learn how to surf, and we managed to check that off in the morning.  It was actually much easier that I expected.  Once you can stand up, it’s not too hard to keep your balance and ride the wave in.  The challenge is catching the wave in the first place.  Fortunately we had an instructor to help us and give us a little push if we needed it.  You probably don't expect surfing to be all that tiring but it really is.  Before you can ride a wave in, you have to paddle your way out there, and that is exhausting.  We were only going out about 40 feet, but after an hour or so, I was ready to call it a day.  

The rest of the day was cool and cloudy again, and we really didn't do much else.


Day 10.  Sightseeing and checking out.

This was our last day in Hawaii.  We checked out at 11 and went out to drive around the canyon.  Of course this was the sunniest day we had, but we couldn't go the beach because we had to check out of the condo and we had no where to shower/change afterwards.  So we drove up the Waimea Canyon and checked out the scenery.  I'm glad we did, because it was amazing.  I’ve never been to the Grand Canyon but John and Allison said it was similar except green.    

We drove all the way to top, stopping at the various lookouts along the way.  On the way back we stopped to do a little hiking which was another activity that was on my to-do list.  I was pretty disappointed that we hadn’t been able to do it yet, but slopping around in the mud and rain with just didn’t sound like much fun.  We didn’t go far because didn’t want to do anything to strenuous without the ability to shower before getting on a plane, and plus it started raining again.

By the time we got back from the canyon and drove to Lihue, we had just enough time for dinner before checking in at the airport.  


And thus ends the longest post ever on this here blog, and it had absolutely nothing to do with poker.  If you made it this far then you have way too much time on your hands.

Back from Hawaii

I'm back from Hawaii. To say they some rain while I was there would be a bit of an understatement. I think so far for the month of March, they already have received more rain on Kauai than they did during all of last year. Despite that we still had a pretty good time. I have a ton of other things to catch up on, but I might write up a more detailed summary of the trip tomorrow. I need to wait for some pictures to be developed/emailed to me.

Since it did rain so much, I got to watch more of the NCAA tournament than I was expecting. Could the Big 10 have sucked any harder? Its a good thing I wasn't able to fill out a bracket because I don't think many of the teams I thought would advance got too far.

Off to Hawaii.

In about 12 hours I’ll be boarding plane destined for Hawaii. Not that going 10 days without posting is abnormal for me, but at least this time I have an excuse. My friend mentioned that he might bring his laptop, so I might try to borrow it so I can put in my annual no chance in hell of winning NCAA tournament picks. Just in case I don’t get my picks in here’s my final four predictions based on Joe Lunardi’s bracket as of nowish

UConn, Duke, Ohio State and Illinois. Dammit. Yesterday he had U of I and Duke in the same bracket and I was so looking forward to predicting the upset there. God I hate Duke. My dream tournament would have Illinois going through Notre Dame, Michigan, Michigan State, North Carolina, Kansas, and the Duke. I threw the Michigan teams in there just because I can’t think of any other schools I really hate right now. When in doubt Michigan is a good choice.

That’s all I got. I should probably start packing.

Random Comments

Random Comments


If I was smart I would break this post up into a bunch of little posts so that it looks like I post more frequently than once a week, but I’m not so instead I present to you: one long post for your reading enjoyment.

What does FC mean?

I wanted to play at GamesGrid on Sunday to try to work off some of the $8 billion bonus that I have sitting there.  Unfortunately there were very few tables active, and most of them were full.  Except for a few of these “FC” tables.  I had noticed them before and wondered what was different about them.  All I could tell was that the max buy-in was a little less then the non-FC varieties of the same game.  

I pulled one up and I was amazed at the loose aggressive play.  There were a few players that had more then five times the max buy in, and there were all-ins a plenty for well over the max buy in.  I was almost afraid to join in but I figured I could just sit back and wait for a big hand and then hopefully double up.  Plus the large pots meant I would be earning points towards the bonus at a much higher rate than normal.  

After a while of folding garbage and watching people lose their buy-ins and rebuy like they had infinite hordes of cash just sitting around, I decided to check my points balance to see how I was doing.  That’s when I noticed something wasn’t quite right.  It claimed I had not earned any points this session.  It also claimed that my bankroll had not changed and that I had $0 in play.  Hmmmmm.  

So, I go back to the table lobby and see that I have the “all stakes” option checked.  Apparently this also includes “Free Chips” which is what FC stands for.  That would explain the maniacal play I had been witnessing.  And it only took me a half hour to figure that out.  I know.  Sometimes my genius amazes even me.  

2005 WSOP Tournament of Champions

I finally saw the TOC the other night.  I say that assuming that it has been rerunning on ESPN for quite some time now and I somehow managed to avoid it.  For all I know this week was the first time it aired.  I came in towards the end, just as Mike Matusow was sucking out on Steve Dannenmann twice in the course of a few televised hands.  That left him, Phil Hellmuth , and Hoyt Corkins as the last three remaining.  As much as I can’t stand Hellmuth or Matusow, that was some good TV.  Watching those two go at it, trying to put each other on tilt was classic.  I have new found respect for Matusow as he really seemed to piss Phil off.  Its too bad Corkins couldn’t have won the thing.  

Volleyball Update

My volleyball team finally started winning.  We had to get demoted to the special ed. league to do it, but so what?  The league is broken up into three seven week long sessions.  There are five divisions, A Through E.  At the end of each session the best team in a division is moved up, and the worst moved down.  We stated in C because we figured we would do all right there, and it was on a day that worked out well for everyone on the team.  We were competitive.   If by competitive I mean finished with 4 wins out of 21 games, in dead last.  So we got demoted to division D.  No big deal we figured.  We’d just win this division and be right back in C for session three.  Yeah.  Not so much.  We were a little more competitive this time. Winning five games, and even a match, but again we were demoted.  So far, two weeks into the division E session we already have six wins.  And we’re not even trying.  It isn’t even worth playing.  I’m pretty sure that our opponents don’t have full use of their limbs because that’s about the only way you explain how much they suck.  I hope our opponents in the other divisions didn’t think playing us was as boring as we think playing these other teams is.   On the plus side, our games finish early so I can get home at a reasonable hour.


New Toys

I have two new computers arriving soon.  The first is a new server since my current server just decided last week that it wasn’t going to run anymore.  I have no idea what the problem was.  It would just sit there trying to read from the cd drive without actually doing anything.  Luckily the hard drive was OK, and I was able to drop it into the shell of my old desktop whose hard drive had crashed a few months earlier.  Speaking of which, my laptop is also getting up there in years, as I mentioned a few weeks ago, so I’m building a new desktop to replace it and my old desktop.  And yes I do need that many computers.  No one asked you.  I was going to be lazy and just buy some prebuilt machine from Dell, but a coworker of mine just built his own, so I stole his part list, and basically ordered the same machine.   I still need new monitor, but those are a bit pricey.  I may have to wait on that.

So I should have some new toys soon, the only problem is that there is a good chance they will be arriving in the middle of March when I am going to be in Hawaii.  Hopefully UPS won’t just return them.

Fun With Search Terms

Fun with search terms.

I’ve seen some other people post about some of the more unusual things that people search for in order to end up at their site.  I figured I’d have a look at my logs and see if I was getting massive hits on some obscure term.   The answer is pretty much no, although I did find a few interesting results


“I Hate TicketMaster”.  It seems I’m not alone on this.  Maybe I should form a club or something so we could have some community outlet to vent our TicketMaster frustrations.  Remember in the mid 90s when Pearl Jam accused TicketMaster of monopolistic practices but then lost their case when they planned a tour without using Ticke