(SIGH)

"Work is the curse of the drinking classes."
Oscar Wilde

It's hard to read all of these WPBT events and not be able to attend. Every damn blog I read everyday is counting down to the Winter Classic. By the time I can actually attend one of these events I'll be fat, gray-haired and old.....Wait a minute I am fat, gray-haired and old. DOH!

I have added some more blogs to my Daily Reads List!

Fish Soup - Soxlover....The adventures of a traveling poker player..who obviously loves NE sports
Ramblings of a Madman... - SirFWALGMan...Boston based online poker player and his online strategies
NickleandDimes - DrizzTDJ...An easy going guy who's caught the poker bug and is a funny bastard
PokerGrub - grubby...This site should be requisite with linking to lasvegasvegas by the PokerProf..grubby and his Las Vegas adventures in poker and food.
WickedChopsPoker - Chips, Snake, and Addict = Poker, Hot chicks, and Online gaming news all in one cool setup
Up For Poker - Online poker adventures from G-Rob, Otis (PokerStars), and CJ ......The UpforAnything.Net Tri-Clops.
Call, Raise or Muck It-Pokerblog - BuyItInVegas...This blog implores you to do something!!..namely Call It, Raise It or freakin' Muck It!!

Well that does it for this month.....I hope everybody has much fun at the Winter Classic.....

Donkey Days

And I always thought this would beThe land of milk and honeyOh but I come to find out that its all hate and moneyAnd there's a canopy of greed holding me down
…..Tones of Home (Blind Melon)

I played really late on Sunday night…1:30AM…late for me because of my 9-5 job.  The reason?....a 1.00 entry fee to PokerStars Limit Seven Card stud MTT. I really love these low buy-in MTT’s…great practice for the bigger buy-in tourneys. They are also great for learning a different game other than HE (Seven Card Stud Hi/Lo..Omaha Hi/Lo) in a tournament format.  I placed 10th out of 477 for a whopping $5.80…better than nothing I guess. Wait a minute that’s pretty good rate of return for a low-limit hack!

Last night I was tired..but of course not tired enough to ‘not’ fire up the PokerStars NL crack pipe. I buy-in for the max 25.00 to a .10-.25 NL HE table that needed one more player. Within the span of 1 hour I am up 180XBB!! I’m going to have to find these two donkeys that were on the table that gave me 95% of these winnings. Loose/Aggressive players…priceless. There were two hands in particular that amounted to these ridiculous pots that I took down.

1. I’m in the 8th seat of a full table and get A-Ko (I noticed earlier that one of the two donkeys had A-Ko and raised to 1.00 driving out all 4 limpers)…and raise to 1.00. Everybody folds (3 limpers) except donkey number one. He calls and a flop of K-8-3 off suite falls…I raise another 1.00 and he calls that. The turn is another K….and I raise another 3.00…he re-raises another 10.00! I figure he has K-8 or K-3…he must…right? I go all-in (I can’t fold A-K with a board like that)…he calls immediately and turns up K-10o..I take down a massive pot.


2. I’m in late position with Ad-As and call the BB along with 5 others…a flop of K-7-x off suite falls. 3 limpers in front check and the guy to my immediate right bets 1.00. I re-raise 5.00….and donkey number two goes all-in…??? I call and he shows A-2o after the turn and river. He didn’t even have a pair or any draw at anything…what a tool.

I will be looking for these two when PokerTracker pulls all the results for this awesome session of low-limit NL.  All I was doing was playing for my latest PokerStars bonus and lo’ and behold I get an early Christmas Present. Happy Turkey-Day to all and to all a good night!!!

Football Sunday

I'm kicking serious ass in my fantasy football leagues. I had the foresight to pick up Larry Johnson from the Chiefs because I knew that Priest Holmes wouldn't play the whole season. (Sigh) it's tough being this good. Those Philly Eagles really suck...I feel bad for D. McNabb he's too good to have to deal with Drew Rosenhouse..Or T. O. My Patriots are doing well today...We as N.E. Fans are very fortunate for having a team and a coach dedicated to winning.

Not much in the Poker scene lately..Although I will probably be playing online at PokerStars while this is going on at 7:00 PM tonight on "60 Minutes". Here we go again...I-gaming is illegal..blahblahblah..I think they should separate online poker from their argument..It's just not the same as slots or roulette or whatever other games are played online. However..My experience is that it is a lot easier to call a bet with an A-7 offsuit online than it is at a table with someone staring at you with a large chipstack and others to act behind you.
I'm getting itchy for a home game really soon. I'll have to get something going on the Thanksgiving weekend. Happy Turkey-Day to all..

Tourney from Friday the 11th

Went to the charity tourney for UNICO in the merrimack valley...Actually it Indian Head country club and there were about 80-85 entries. I didn't get close to the money but I had fun. I did get an all-in call from a guy that didn't really know how to play..I ended up with quad J's after the fourth J fell on the river. It was down to about 40 people left when I found A-Jd and had to go all-in (blinds would have put me all-in next hand). The guy next to isolation raises and puts another guy in a bind. The guy says "nice isolation raise" and mucks his two 9's face up! The guy who isolation raised had 2 9's!! I was in great shape to double up....but this isn't the internet and although two more diamonds flopped giving me 15 outs I still didn't improve and got knocked out. I talked to one "kid" before the tourney..He placed 4th in the World Poker finals 1,000 entry NL hold'em last week..He won the entry through another charity tourney at a castle earlier in the year...write up is here ....This is the tourney where I got "godsmacked" by the lead singer of the band. He can play and he can back it up!..the picture is hilarious though and he says that he takes a lot of shit because of it...I think it looks like he just got off of a 3 day bender.

I should rename this blog "Charity Poker" because it feels like I donate more than I should!! I have cashed a couple of times though..Once in a chop for first. It's such a good vehicle for raising money especially lately. Massa-friggin-chusetts laws are prohibitive though and they make it hard to raise the maximum amount of money. No rebuy tourneys as of June 30th, 2005 has killed a lot of fundraising. I really like the idea of the philanthropy and poker combining for all sorts of charities. I guess when I saw my wifes best friend die from a different form of Lymphoma that she suffered from 10 years earlier....It sort of changed the way I looked at the whole fundraising idea. We named out daughter "Cara" in memory of her. She was supposed to be one of the Maids of Honor at our wedding and her sickness prevented that. We went to a fund raiser for the Neely house last night called "comics come home" ...it was hilarious. Dennis Leary, Lenny Clarke, Adam Ferrara...and a host of other comedians from the Northeast we're performing at the "Agganis Arena" at Boston University. Back in the day when newly annointed to the hockey hall-of-fame Cam Neely was in his prime he had to deal with both his parents passing away from Cancer. Soon after he met my wifes best friend "Cara" who was sick for the first time with some form of lymphoma (she literally became the Poster child or in this case billboard child of the Dana Farber Cancer Institute) and asked her to be a fund raiser for the Neely house. She declined at the time and went on to become a fund raiser for Tufts Universities Labs or something like that. Her parents have setup a foundation in her memory here . Ten years later my wife and I who were engaged asked her to be a Maid of honor at our planned wedding and she bacame sick again with another rare form of cancer. It's a very sad story but one that changes ones outlook on life. Massachusetts is going to miss out on some very good fundraising opportunities but I guess they will lose the opportunity to New Hampshire which is 5 miles away from where I live.

Other miscellany:

Haven't played a lot online recently due to my new "getting up earlier routine" to help out the wife with my daughter. I might just start playing the drunks earlier in the morning that have played through the night before. I used to play all night but when you have an infant in the house it's damn near impossible to do that. I'm looking for a reload bonus on Party but they haven't had one recently.
If someone wants to vent rage you can go to RGP and just tell everybody that their an asshole everytime someone posts. That's what seems to happen every time someone puts up a post. There seems to be a "clique" mentality on there and there are only a few posters who don't get insulted on a regular basis. It is funny once in a while but it gets old fast.
I may just have to redeposit to UB..I've won the most money on tournaments on UB by far over the other sites....I have no idea why The huge low buy-in tourneys on Stars are really good for practicing against big fields but the cash-ins are pretty low for me. They are also good for the large field-low buyin tourneys for Omaha Hi/Lo 8 and Seven card Stud.

Charity Tourney and other stuff

There was another poker club raided in the Northeast recently. They were playing for a seat in the World Poker Finals at Foxwoods. I think I'll play this charity tourney on Friday night...which I believe will also have a buy-in to the WPF for 1st prize.

On another note..I've been playing a ton of the low buy-in MTT's on PokerStars lately..placing in a bunch but just over the bubble..not near the real money at the final tables...

My EmpirePoker playing days may be over really soon...unless they give me the bonus that they advertised..I think it was for playing raked hands from 10/30-11/4. I probably played 600-700 hands and I don't see anything yet..better make it soon or I am moving my pathetic balance somewhere else!! This is probably the second such "phantom bonus" that they have offered recently and me thinks it has something to do with the impending PartyPoker takeover?! Let's hope that they get this done soon and good times will be had by all again.

I can't keep up with all the new Poker Blogs out there...there are so many with so much to offer...I wonder how many are from the New England area...shoot me an email at vze2tbkc@verizon.net if you have one. I'm always looking for more poker/stuff to read.

I want to play all these Blogger tourneys that have been setup recently but the family commitments take precedence. I had to miss the Online Blogger Championship (folded my way to 650th or somewhere around that number) and other recent blogger tourneys. It would be cool to have one on Friday night at 9:30 (that's when the wife and baby are both sleeping). I got a chance to help my buddy drink his freshly reloaded keg-erator this Sunday...man I wish I had one of those. It is just so much easier than recycling cans/bottles and only needs to be reloaded every now and then.

This is pretty funny...the new hockey fans..

Foxwoods Trip Report

It’s much more fun to play a live game…especially when you’re drunk…and it’s your birthday! I was at Foxwoods on Sunday the 30th..And played until the 5:00AM on the 31st. I got a room with two beds and tried to upgrade to a suite to no avail. There were four of us there but I knew that I was going to be playing poker all night so by the time I got back to the room I was happy just to crash on the floor. I think I played a 9.5 hour session at a 1-2 NL table starting at 7:30PM. Let’s see if I can recreate the table by memory. I was sitting across from the dealer. To my left was a late 20’s dude that would say “raizzzzzzzzzzze” every time he got a hand. It was a slow controlled tone..The same “raizzzzzzzze” even when he bet…..some of the guys at the table were ribbing him when he bet and said “raizzzze”..They said “bettttttt” and started laughing hysterically…he didn’t think it was funny. He also didn’t think it was funny when I spilt my beer on my leg and splashed all over him…you see I was one of the “Drunk guys” at the table..After all it was my birthday and I was drinking a lot of beers. To his left was a young guy that had a decent chip stack that fluctuated a lot throughout the night..I was the reason that guy left the table when he went all-in and I called with two pair (that was about 3:00AM or so). He was a good kid but when I got there and announced to everybody that I only play on the internet (I sometimes do this to get some loose calls and they generally don’t respect internet players for some reason) and it was my first time playing live he snickered and looked to his left. To his left was another twenty-something guy that was somewhat excited to here me say “I’ve only played on the internet”. That guy was better than his friend on the right and he was there all night as well with a decent chip stack. He had a talent for putting people on hands like my Q’s when I threw out a large bet. To his left was one of my high school buddies younger brothers who is a 30 year old physical therapist/body builder and likes to gamble (well all my friends like to gamble but he’s the only one that is a poker player like myself). His chip stack fluctuated quite a bit and was down about 250.00 when we left at 5:00AM. I think he re-bought three or four times…with a 100.00 max buy-in that can get pricey. To his left was the dealer or dealers…they switched every hour…and collected the 5.00 per hour rake when they sat down. This was much better than the rake on the 2-4 limit HE tables that I’ve played at Foxwoods previously. To the Dealers left was a friggin’ nightmare for tight players and easily frazzled players. I realized how tight I play live but I was “Drunk Guy” so he was actually entertaining and tilt inducing for some of the players. This kid (20-something) would “staddle bet” a lot and kept talking as if he was coked out of his head. I think he was your typical Ridlin popping A.D.D. brat when he was younger. Nevertheless he was kind of annoying times but had some interesting tricky plays. His chip stack was small and he was happy to have a few bucks when he left the table at 5:00AM..I think he just likes putting everybody on tilt and being the center of attention.
To his left was the “shaved-head-tattoo-guy”. He liked to make forceful bets with a sort of threatening stare. It was kind of funny because he scared nobody and left at 4:30AM with Nothing! To his left was the “Phil Ivey look-alike guy” who actually resembled Phil in his stack of chips..he must have had at least 1200 in chips when he left at 12:00 and we were at a max 100.00 buy-in table so he left when things got a little crazy. Come to think of it….he resembled the guy in that video by the Fine Young Cannibals…you know the lead singer that says “She drives me crazaayyyyyyayyy”. To his left was a small frail looking 30-ish dude with Space goggles….he was wearing a baseball hat and these ridiculously huge sunglasses and he looked like a fool! He was actually a pretty good player but everybody got quite a chuckle at his “Space-bug” look. He left at around 2:00AM with some chips although not many. For some reason I can hardly remember the guys sitting to his left and my right…I think that a bunch of players jumped in both seats all night…one was a Chinese guy and one was an 50’s-ish guy but nobody sat there for more than a couple of hours. One guy sitting in that seat actually spilled his beer on the table…the card room managers and brushes ran over and asked if we wanted to move but everybody wanted to stay put….there was a few TV’s with the Patriots on them at that point in the night and Tedi Bruschi came back so everybody wanted to keep up with the score and the game in general. How did I do?…I bought in for 100.00 fluctuated up and down for the first few hours…and left with 400.00. I’d say pretty well…considering it was a crazy 1-2 NL table. I’m starting to realize how tight I play live….I must have not of had a high flop-seen ratio. This table was full of characters and I had a great time so I think I’m going to be going down to Foxwoods sometime in the near future again. The world Poker finals were starting this weekend but most of the tourneys were either early in the AM or had qualifiers that seemed easy to get into. I didn’t do any of them…I was just happy to be playing at the table I was at. I think you would have to be staying there for a while to be in one of their tourneys..I got there at 3:30 on Sunday and left at 10:30 AM on Monday so there really wasn’t time to plan a tourney into my stay. Had a hangover when I left with 300.00 more than I started with so the last two times at Foxwoods I’ve left with about 1500.00 of their money. The 1200.00 from the previous visit was all from Blackjack and that was a whole different story.