Four Aces!! I hope I can keep my expression in check!! 

Poker Withdrawals.....

I'm already going through poker withdrawals...and my daughter hasn't even been born yet! The birth should be sometime in the next week...although it could be at any time! I was hesitant to go to the RedSox game last night but the wife bought tickets and insisted that I go...these tickets were about as far away from homeplate at Fenway Park as you could get...the Sox were up 8-3 in the third inning when my buddy and I took off to go drink some beers and get some food at a bar across the street from Fenway. That score didn't last long and the Orioles started to feast on the Boston bullpen...oh well...a trip to Fenway Park and drinking beers with a buddy is better than staring at my computer screen anyday...I have to say the amount of good looking women is astounding when you think about the normal sports event...it's ridiculous but only a decade ago there were hardly any good looking women at a sporting event...where the hell am I going on this post...more meaningless ramble as usual. I guess I can still play poker online after the birth of my daughter but I'm going to have to play more ring games instead of tournaments...I win most of my money from ring games anyway...tourneys are so much fun but if your going to be time constrained...like I surely will soon..ring games are the way to go....I have to say Party Poker is getting more and more popular...and they are adding more jackpot/bad beat type prizes...yeehaa..

Online and local tourneys.....a good mix to test yourself

I've been playing on a few different sites for a little less than a year and a half and something has been missing...I couldn't quite put my finger on it....until I started to play local (VFW..hall type) NL Hold'em tournaments. So far I've played in 3 and placed in 1 of them (actually I tied for first as explained in my last post). This is great....for raising money for charity and sports or music programs. I have some friends that are thinking of having a poker tourney for a real good "cause"...I think their still in the planning stages...but it brings up the reality of : winning real money, donating to a good "cause" or charity (and getting a tax break because of it!), and actually getting "live" experience. I live to far away from Foxwoods and it's tough to play with any regularity in the Northeast.. so I can get my fill of playing against real people online or at a local Hall tourney. There is really no drawbacks to this....but there are some hilarious/ridiculous wannabe card players out there....I keep talking about recently famous card players that spawn clones that seem to appear every time the annual World Series of Poker is played in Vegas. This phenomenon is of course propagated by ESPN's coverage of those snapshot moments that make people famous and or infamous...classic case is Phil Hellmuth...but recently Chris Moneymaker and Josh Arieh. I'm telling you it's the greatest feeling in the world busting out these guys...It's not that I don't respect the actual famous card player but the clone/wannabe guys are so goddamn cocky. One of these guys actually walked up to the final table and announced "Man..If I knew the final table was going to look like this I would have played better!"....somebody at the table then shot back with "Hindsight it 20/20 buddy".....put him right in his place!

Local NL hold'em tourney at the Knights of Columbus

I played a NL hold'em tourney at the local Knights of Columbus run by these guys
who run the tourney well but there were only 33-35 poeple who showed up!...it was advertised but it gave me a better chance to win...I ended up tying for first place..the chip leader had probably a 2-1 chip advantage at about 11:00PM so we decided to end it there..he got a little bit more of the prize pool. Only the top three paid so I was happy with the result. the thing that cracks me up is the typical character that show up...one or two of the guys that showed up seemed to be Josh Arieh clones...I don't know what that is all about but I busted one of them out with a K-Jc for a flush on the river..he had Q-9c...oh man was he sour! It didn't take long to get to the final table...there was a whole 'lotta bluffin' goin' on. Everytime it was checked to me I went all in...the other guys seemed to be holding on for the last three spots....The last 3 were one of the Josh Arieh clones..me and an old guy that had most of the chips...who ended up busting out the JA clone...then we decided to split the last two prizes pro-rated for chip count of course...not bad for my 3rd live tourney...

Poker Tracker...

Poker Tracker was recommended for tracking all stats etc. for online play...I like what I see...and I don't like what I see! I used the autorate icon feature and I was the dreaded "Calling Station"....although the time I was Playing like a "Calling Station" I actually killed the competition...this kind of makes me crazy because I thougt of myself as Tight-Agressive on the poker table...I realize after this that I play like that in a "live" tourney but not online. The stats from my ring-game play was a relatively short time-period on Empire Poker and Party Poker...but this is verrrrryyyyy interesting. I will have to analyze my play with poker tracker and tighten up!

Nothing much........

Nothing much to talk about lately...except I am going to become a father for the first time sometime in early May.............on another note I noticed that there were 78,990 players on Party Poker the other night...I think it was Wednesday the 6th....amazing....