I have been quite on poker for awhile. I do have a few things though, so I will try and bang some of them out here.

First is December results. I didn’t really play any cash games, and no SnGs until later in the month. The results however, not bad:

I have much more data for January, but the month is not over. So far it is near break even after clawing back from a horrible start to the New Year.

My folks gave me two poker books for Christmas. _Super System 2_ by Doyle Brunson, et al. I have yet to open it- daunting to say the least; and _An on the River_ by Barry Greenstein, which is a very quick read and quite informative. Here is my short review:

Mr. Greenstein is obviously very intelligent and obviously a great poker player. However, he is not a great author, adequate for sure- but not great The book is not hard to read, it is just a bit jarring. The physical quality itself is amazing, every page has color photos on photo quality paper. There is a tremendous amount of insight into money management, time management, relationships, table image and “outside the math” areas of poker playing. I do recommend it as a fun and informative read. Absorb the sights of the pages, that alone is worth a few hours of your time. It might not make your play your individual sessions any better, but taking his advise in the long term might improve your game.

OK, I have delayed packing long enough. I need to get that and the dishes done before I try and get some sleep. Take care my fair readers.

I got back Wednesday from a short fling in Vegas with RoccoBoxer and Mookie (Mrs Mookie joined us later). And all in all, things went pretty darn well.

Sunday we landed at about 9am Vegas time and sprinted over to the Luxor where Mook was staying for his Conference. I made it to the sports book before the 10am kicks and got in the three early bets I needed to make. Only New Orleans covered though, so my buddy ended up short $20. We settled into the $50 NL game there which is a tricky game because a $15 bet is a committing bet when you are sitting on $50. It took awhile, but I was able to claw out a small profit for the night ($60 I think). I also placed a bet for another buddy on New England to cover. Eh, not so much.

Monday the plan was to meet up with Don, Carmen, and Aaron for dinner at Nine Steakhouse. Don and Aaron were also thinking of playing the noon tourney at Ceasars. They didn’t make it so Jim, Mando, and myself settled in. Jim was out early when his KK could not beat an AA. Mook lasted quite a bit longer, until there were 5 tables I think. Myself. Well, I played a mean short stack. I was short for litteraly 3 hours of the 6 hours I played there. I think I played one of the best tourneys I have ever played (including the no-rebuy, no-addon run I made at Mook’s house a few weeks back). We cracked the bubble and one of the guys would not deal at all. He didn’t have huge chips, he just didn’t want to make a deal. I ended up 5th of 79 runners for a $569 payday. The entry fee was $135 and I toked $40 so about +$400 for the 6+ hours of play. Not bad. I only lost one race (AQ vs 44), and really just busted because I made a move with A7 on a short stack and ran into AQ.

Diner at Nine was spectacular. The bone-in ribeye was cooked to near perfection and the sides were quite tasty. Todd Brunson was a few tables over- my only “star” sighting.

We hit the MGM for a bit of cash game after dinner and I was involved in the single most expensive pot ever for me. I had about $200 in front of me, as did the adversary for this hand. It was a 1-2 NL game and I popped it to 8 with AJ in late possition. A few callers. The flop came J48 and one of the blinds bet out 10. It folded around to me and I made it 25 to go. He called. A second 8 fell on the turn which is quite a scare card in these low-limit games. He checked and I bet 30. Call. The river is a non-coordinated 6 and he things for just a sec before pushing. I have about 160 behind at this point and he has me covered by 15 or so. I thought a *long* time. Adrenaline rushed though me, I was actually shaking. Why would he push? If he had an 8 wouldn’t he want me in the pot? This just screamed that he didn’t have the 8. No way he has the straight, there was no flush. He can’t have a boat- because he would want to make money on that. A jack then? Yeah, probably. I have the best jack. I called. He flipped over J-rag and I scooped a major pot. It was about $450. Biggest pot, hardest call, and probably the wrong one- but it worked out. I was still shaking for 15 or 20 minutes, it just wouldn’t flush out of my system. Mrs. Mookie called, she was at the airport and we needed to run. We said farewell to Aaron and Don (Carmen wondered off somewhere :-)) and cashed out- +200 for the session.

After picking up the Mrs. we headed back to the Luxor and cashed it up. I was dead tired and cabbed it back to the Rio to crash about 2AM. Total for the day +700. That was a nice feeling.

Mookie had his conference on Tuesday so Jim, Mrs. Mook, and I donked it up at the Luxor. I ended up down a couple of buyins and sat out for awhile. Jim needed his hours for the chop and Mook showed up at 5 to hang out. I got a hankering for a Hot Pot but no one else did, so I made my way over to the Crown and Anchor. They had a special Hot Pot made with lamb rather than beef. Tasty Tasty. The draft beer is free if you play the video poker so I donked off a bit of change there. Sometimes you make money, but the real trick is not to lose more than the beer costs. It was a wash for me. They have a very odd liquor license there- only beer and wine at the bar- full service in the restraunt. Very odd. Back to the Luxor (I had the car) and donked off another 150 to a few really solid players. I wasn’t on my game and there were a few too many quality players there. I bailed and cabed it back to the Rio. I got a beer and a shot at The Bar for $14. Yep, $9 for a shot of semi-cool Jaegar. Ooof. When I got the room they show adds for the hotel on the TV and showed some hottie dancing on a stage at that bar- not when I was there. That might have made it worth $9 but I doubt it. For the day: -250.

The room was comped, so airfare, rental car, and parking and I was into the trip for $250. I came back with more cash than I left with even with the food, random drinks, and tipping. A very nice feeling.

‘Till next time, Viva Las Vegas.

This is going to be a short review since I have only played two of them:

* The structure sucks. It starts off fine 5/10, 10/20 with 1K starting stacks- last night it was 400/800 with three people left. Ouch.
* 10 players is odd, but fine by me- the payouts are even amounts which is oddly comfortable.
* Personally I am not used to hand counts making rounds- not claiming is is better or worse, just a lot more different than I expected.
* The BoDog table is pretty hard to read, even in “large” mode. Apparently it is much better than it was, which makes me glad I am playing now.
* Hand History is painful. Hard to follow in the scrolling window and hard to navigate on the search feature.
* The play, especially the mini-levels, is pretty bad.

I’m going to give it a few more tries, but I can’t see myself putting too much time in on the SnGs there. It is too much of a crap shoot.

Ran another 5K on Tuesday. 30:10. I, emmm, had a bit too much social activity all weekend (with me getting home at 4am Monday) so I didn’t do any running this weekend. It rained all day yesterday and I am too out of shape to get motivated to run in the rain. I plan on trying for another 5k today, the weather turned nice about noon.

Here I sit waiting on the DHL guy so I can get the heck out of here… Later.

I gave this “poker” thing a shot on Friday night at Mookie’s (and Mrs. Mookie’s) house. It is a $10 rebuy tourney with an optional add-on at the end of the first hour. I really didn’t like spending too much money so I did my origonal buy-in and told the table I wasn’t going to rebuy. I actually never got too short stacked so it was fine. There were plenty of rebuys and nearly everyone added on- but not me. When we hit the final table I was 9 of 10 in chips. Luckily I picked up QQ on the first hand and Henry got to double me up.

There were two big lay-down hands- both of which I think I played correctly. The first was having AK on the button when Jim (in mid position) comes in for a modest raise. LeeAnne (the monster chip stack) quickly pushed. That hurts. I folded, but so did Jim- so I have no idea what would have happened. I think she was the only one at the table who had me covered at that point, so I didn’t want to risk it on a draw. Later on I picked up QQ in the small blind, Henry pushed and David W called. I re-raised about 1/3 of my stack. Rocky only peaked at one card when I said “raise”, when he peaked at the other card he re-raised all-in. David fairly quickly folded. I thought about it for awhile, I had Rocky covered but it would have crippled me to lose. I folded and he turned up aces. I was going to be sick if a queen hit, but the fates were fair that night and an ace on the flop sealed the deal. David folded jacks.

It is nice to play and only put your chips at risk exactly once- and have it hold up. Heads up lasted one hand 99 against 66 and I turned my $10 into $190. Not bad.

I also was able to catch _The_Depated_ on Friday. Scorsese put on another great show. It is long intricate peice, but not so twisted that it is hard to follow. Recomended if you get the chance.

Saturday was football. Texas got to stomp OU and that makes Austin a happy town.

Sunday was BBQ- ribs, chicken, Elgin sausage, the works. I have a picture of the grill on my phone- but can’t figure out how to get it off yet.

Last weeks running totals: 10.5 miles and one loop of Forest Creek (about 5 miles). I shot a 111 from the blues and still can’t get off the box to save my life.

First the poker:

I have played 3 SnGs in the last week or so, all $10+1 events at FullTilt. I somehow won all three. Nice. Last nights pushed me into the next level for my Self SnG Challenge (which has no home page). I will next try my luck at a $20+2 event. I railed smokkee for a bit in a $20 SnG that he won not long before I took mine down.

I did get a chance to work on my table on Monday. I finially screwed the folding legs (which will no longer fold) onto the subframe and used epoxy to make that bond pretty perminent. I should be able to get the table top attached tonight. The felt (velveteen) I used had faded quite a bit (and not evenly because of a wall hanging I had set on the top) so I am going to need to re-felt the top. Mookie suggested I look into the suited-cloth, which looks good. I will probably also build a light canvis cover so fading won’t be an issue in the future. Pics will follow, probably tomorrow.

Now other stuff:

I’m running again- not huge distance yet, but I am working on it. I went to RunTex last week and got some new shoes that fit much, much better than I had been using and started hitting the trails again. I have a Garmin Forerunner 301 which I have programmed with the distance I want to run for the day. It keeps me on pace and records my heartrate. Pretty cool toy. Along with PodRunner I hope to be up to last spring’s distance of about 25 to 30 miles a week by Thanksgiving. The weather in Austin has been perfect this week, it is nice to run in cool, dry weather when you are just trying to get back into it again.

I ran into my buddy Billy on Sunday. He might have an extra ticket to the Texas-Sam Houston State game on Saturday. It is a Pay-Per-View game, so I would rather go to the game rather than pay to sit on a bar stool.

One of my other friends had tickets to the Everclear concert last night here in Austin. It was doors at 8/stage at 9 with two opening acts. I’m really trying to get to bed at a reasonable hour (so I can run in the morning) and seeing Everclear go on at 11:30 or even later did not seem like a good plan. I skipped the show. He really wanted to go, but I’m not sure if he made it or not. Honestly, Everclear is not one of my -must-see- bands, so it doesn’t bother me much.

Thanks for reading- all 3 of you 🙂

A random dump, but here it is anyway:

I have moved most of my on-line bankroll into FullTilt and Neteller. I left money on Stars to play the occasional tourney- but I plan on using FullTilt from now on. The money on Neteller is there in case I wish to bonus whore.

My finish in the Tanner Evers Charity event was not spectacular. 26th of 66. I did outlast Andy Bloch though. It is really cool of a pro to show up at a 2+20 event to help a little boy who *very* few of the players have ever met (even me, and I have been over the Mookie household countless times). Thanks to everyone who played and donated. I know it was a success and the Evers family can be nothing if not thrilled by this generous donation by total strangers. The live charity event is tomorrow and I am trying to work it into my weekend. I told Mookie I’d play so I probably ought to show up 🙂

On tap for this weekend is… FOOTBALL… it is about time. The big game is, of course, Texas vs Ohio State. Texas is favored by 3 at home (at least on Bodog). The game is at 7PM CT which is great for Austin- but not so good for me because the Hokies are playing at 11AM CT. That makes for a *really* long day.

I did nothing on the table this week which was dumb because it was actually cool in my garage (only in the mid to upper 80s in the evening). I have a feeling the heat will return, this is Texas afterall. I know what I need to do, I just need to take the time to do it. If I don’t head to the bar to watch the game tonight maybe I will do just that.

My Thanksgiving plans are done. I am flying to Massachusetts (well actually Providence then driving) for a 5 day weekend. My sister is there, pregnant but due in October, with her husband and daughter; the folks will be driving up from Georgia; and my brother, his wife, and the kids will be coming in from Ohio. Normally for this kind of trip I wouldn’t get a car- but I have a feeling I am going to want to disappear to watch football and drink beer at a bar somewhere.

ACL Fest is next weekend. These are some of the bands I am going to try and make. Friday: Gnarls Barkley, Gomez, Thievery Corporation, Ray Lamontagne, Van Morrison (nods to: Nickel Creek and Los Lonely Boys which are double booked). Saturday: I Love You but I’ve Chosen Darkness, Ben Kweller, Ian McLagen and The Bump Band, The Shins, Calexico, The Raconteurs, Kings of Leon, Willie Nelson (nods to What Made Milwaukee Famous, South Austin Jug Band, and Explosions in the Sky which are also double booked). Sunday: The Stills, Jack Ingram, Matisyahu, The New Pornographers, The Flaming Lips, MUSE, and Tom Petty (nods: G Love, Ben Harper). The schedule can be found at here if anyone has any suggestions of “can’t miss” or “please do miss” I would be happy to hear them. I am going to try and make all three days- but if it is like last year (110 in the shade) then I might not be able to. My chair, backpack, and sun hat are ready. It should be a blast.

I got a few gifts in from the folks today. Two books: an Alton Brown cookbook and _Freakonomics_. I also got the video game Stacked for the PC. This is the Daniel Negreanu project. I’m going to give it an honest go and write up a review.

Is anyone else *not* looking forward to the new ABC “docudrama”: The Path to 9/11. It sounds to be as much propaganda and anything else. I don’t condone a boycott over it, mainly because it won’t do any good, but I won’t be watching. Why would I? There is football on anyway. It is going to be hard to go against Sunday night *then* Monday night with this movie. I’d say good luck to them, but I don’t mean it.

Does anyone else think Olivia Munn is just sex personified? Damn.

OK, that’s it. I’m done. For real.

This is an amazing read. Did reality actually slip that far that quick?

[Update: I changed my gallery software and broke all the images. You can go to my new gallery to see all the pics.]

Even though it was probably 120 in my garage this evening I spent some time building the subframe to my poker table. Here is what I did today:

I cut a bunch of lumber, in this case 4″x1″ pine. The long peices are 60″, the short 20″. This will make the subframe 60″ x 21″.

To connect the frame together. I am using pocket screw technology by Kreg. This stuff is awesome. There is a clamp on jig and a special drill bit that drills the pockets. I used my corded drill to do the pockets and my cordless to drive the screws.

Here is a completed corner. Note the dual-pockets with screws. This particular Kreg jig has two pockets built in. It made this job cake. You may wonder why there are two flat boards in the picture. This is where the folding table legs will be attached. They are spaced so the attaching plates of the legs will be centered on each flat board. Note, this shows the frame upside down, the flat peices will be touching the underside of the table.

Here is the completed sub-frame. It is amazingly strong.

My plan is to screw and epoxy the folding legs to this frame. I will then epoxy some blocks onto the underside of the table that will fit into this frame. That way it won’t slide around. I’ll try and take more pictures as I make progress. It probably won’t be tomorrow because I have an afternoon tee-time in South Austin.

Don’t ask about my round today. It sucked- and it was brutal hot, even though we finished in 3:20.

As far as I know the results of the 45 Person SnG Challenge are in and I ended up third.

I cashed in 6 of the 15 (40% ITM), but only managed to peak in 2nd place in any event. I did end up playing mostly the $1+.20 events (13 of 15). Even still, I ended up cash-positive with $26.60 invested and winnings of $35.00. As it turns out I would have liked the bankroll boost if I stuck to the $5+.50 events even though I got pretty well smoked in the two I did play.

I found the key to being in the money, and making a deep run is not necessarily to have a huge monster stack when there are 10 or 11 people left, but to make sure you have 4K to 5K in chips. Yes, a monster 10K+ stack would also work- but is not needed. The blinds are quicker in these events than the private multi-table events I normally play in (the Mookie, WWdN, or WWdNot for example). There is a lot less time to wait for true premium hands, especially when the M gets low. But yet, the best way to build that roughly-average final table stack is to nut-peddle, try and get in cheap with AXs or pocket pairs and really punish people with flushes and sets. I stay away from A-mid off, mid-connectors (suited or not), and even dump low pairs when facing a 2 or 3 times raise. Yes, you probably will get paid if they hit, but getting bled away to a short stack with rapid progressing blinds is nearly a sure way to get bumped in the teens pushing with AJo because you are forced to make a move.

Just one man’s opinion of course.

Here is a screenshot of my Google Spreadsheet tracking my own results.