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.