Whiskey Chaser

at the 4k hand stretch, i’m even. well, down $.70 at 25NL, and up a smidge at 50NL.

it’s not the cards. there’s definitely things i’m doing wrong.

realtime blogging alert:

thought i’d sneak in some cards tonight. ran through 3 buy-ins in the blink of an eye, so i pulled the plug on that and plan on getting back to work as soon as i figure out how i did it. this is no fun.

set under set - 82bb

then this . . .

on the river, i felt committed. i knew if i checked and he shoved, i was going to call. maybe that’s not the right thinking there. i also knew that if i bet, and he came over, i couldn’t fold. either way i guess i just thought i was in too far.

that ace made me sick when it landed.

oh, and this is next on the list . . .

the rub is, the fellow that shoved is the mark. i feel strongly that this is a solid chance to catch him getting it in light. the fellow left behind me, i dunno. if he calls, i’m 2nd best. if he doesn’t, it’s my pot, probably. and if the mark has it, that’s fine too. sometimes they have it.

the next two were -28bb where 2 pair < a set. that didn't seem like much to pay for that encounter (am i wrong?). and AK < A3 on the turn.

and then this one felt standard at the time . . .

excluding the river call, that is.

and before things got too frayed, i shut it down.

so, for the month, which is 3k hands old, i’m up 2.68bb/100. i’m way too emotionally attached right now. screw this, i’m going back to work.

stumbled on this . . .

and while that’s certainly not me, or any of the guys i play with, the fact that Whiskey Chaser is also an irish folk/punk band gets the thumbs up! and, it’s also official that the lead singer warms my blood. you can do better than a redhead who looks good in a skirt singing lead for an irish folk/punk band? i didn’t think so . . .

the new system didn’t arrive yet, but the monitor came in. and i just had to plug it in and test out a 22″ screen. and yes, it does support 6 tables nicely. so, i had to sit down and see if i could handle 6 tables.

the honest answer is probably not yet. the actual session was uneventful. the only big loser is a hand where i got it in as an 85/15 favorite and lost. no hard thinking involved.

in looking at the calendar, i’m still 4 weeks away from my cashout check landing, but i do have a bankroll at tilt that will sustain the ups and downs of a 25NL game. so, i can log in time there until either i grow into 50NL, or my check comes. but honestly, if i don’t grow into 50NL, maybe i should cash the check and put it somewhere else, heh.

obviously my routine has been broken, and that’s probably what’s behind me feeling like i’ve forgotten everything i ever knew about poker. i feel like it’s ALL brand new. weird.

i’m at 23k in FTP points, so when i hit 25 i’ll cash that into 6 months of CR. that, is practical. then i can save them up for worthless stuff, like a jersey or that neon sign.

tried to get in a video last night after my short poker session, but fell asleep. maybe i’ll try again after work tonight.

another day of treading water.

poker-wise, i got in 300 hands or so, where i was up, but puked it back when i hit a set and got it in on the flop for 115bb as just shy of a 4:1 favorite and got outdrawn. bummed me out enough to piss off 28bb two minutes later pushing for a hand that wasn’t meant to be mine. so, i just shut it down.

ended up down half a BI or so. which isn’t a big deal, just today, i don’t like it.

work sucked too. that’s usually not the case.

i did notice that at tilt, i hate everyone. i’ve come to realize i even use the chat box to tell people mean things. since i hate them, i think that’s appropriate.

i’d catch a vid tomorrow night, but the ‘boys/pack is on. that should be my entertainment for the night. here’s to hoping i get my chores done in time to catch the steelers/eagles.

Maybe, and i’m just tossing out ideas here, i need to take a chill pill. hehe.

i’ve been getting in some hands at Full tilt over the past few days.  i’ve been 4-tabling, and i’d like to say something like running super-hot, but that doesn’t really fit.  it’s not like the cards are hitting me. 

it’s a different kind of luck.  when i finally take a stand on someone, they don’t have it.  and as i sit here looking at the HH’s, i’m thinking that out of context, i must look like an imbecile.

This is at a deepstack table, where no one was buying in for a full stack. i think i got it wrong in damned near every possible way.

lead into him on the flop for less than 2/3 pot? where did i get that manouver?

the turns a blank, and i lead weak again? that’s just a prescription for getting shoved on. but i get raised on the turn again. i have no idea where i am because of how i played it, but against this fellow, at this time, i didn’t care where i was.

the river call was a forgone conclusion. the pot was too big. and as the entire thing unfolded, i’m saying to myself - and this was true in other hands - “he’s just looking to push me around, let him”.

i had made a laydown earlier at the table to a double barrel, and that seemed to effect my table image, so in a nutshell, i decided i’m marrying this overpair for better or worse. but man, reviewing this hand in the daylight is like waking up and seeing the caked on makeup of the broad you ended up with from last night. the beauty of the moment, only lived in that moment. eek.

there was another hand that i thought was bad, but today it’s not awful. i hit TP/TK against a maniac and didn’t fold, but that was the plan. he pushed through 100bb with middle pair.

anyway, as luck would have it i’m up just shy of 6BI in the last 1,300 hands.

i think i finally drove the wife nuts, mostly by bitching about my ‘puter, and then by telling her when i buy a new one, i’m still keeping this old machine.  i think she actually grabbed handfuls of hair to pull out. 

sorry, but i’m “that guy” - the one that owns a 13″ b&w tv, and damned near every computer i’ve ever bought.  i have an old P II processor in a basket of junk next to my drum set.  when a cd player or DVD player dies, i do an autopsy. 

i still dream of running linux on an old box just because (although the time for silliness like that probably won’t appear anytime before 2010).

well, i pushed “buy” on a new box at Tigerdirect.  it’ll have:

an Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 processor - the clock speed on this isn’t any better then the P4 i have right now.  so, i’m supposing that clock speeds have reached their practical limit?  and that they’ve been adding processing cores to the chips instead of just making a faster running single processing core?

4 gig of Ram - which is 4 times what i’ve been running.  i think the box comes maxed out on RAM, as in the motherboard won’t hold any more than 4 gig.

the graphics are driven by an NVIDIA GeForce 7050, which is apparently built right onto the motherboard.  and to be honest, i use the ps3 as the gaming machine in the house.  i haven’t bought, or even considered buying a computer videogame in years.  and i don’t see myself changing that at all.

500 GB hard drive - plus i have an external 280 with room on it. 

heh, my current box is so old that it has a floppy drive on it, which apparently has been non-standard for some time.  i only found out when i took data on a floppy to use on a different machine and was floored when it turned out they didn’t have a floppy drive.  hehe.

ok, enough of that . . . .

How This Changes Things -

• i’ll be able to get holdemManager, or at least entertain the idea as a possibility.
• i’ll be able to use Skype/Mikogo and do sweats/rails again
• i’ll have enough screen room to run at least 6 tables
• i’ll have enough power to run a poker room and stats tracking software without hiccups
• i’ll have a DVD drive.

On the Poker Front - i haven’t been playing too much.  i found some cash i had lying around at poker.com, and goofed off at the $10NL tables the other day and picked up 4 BI.  then i had a session at Tilt last night where i picked up another 3BI at the $25NL tables. 

i’m just too distracted to even care that i’m playing such low stakes, and only about half the things that are going to open up at work have opened up.  so there’s probably double as much to do in the near future, and if i’m distracted now, i can’t see it getting much better in the short term.

oh well.  i’ll still be checking the blogs, and sneaking in some sessions.  and when i get lost i’ll definitely post some hands.

football is upon us, and things have taken off at work so i’ve been banging out the hours.  tonight, i get home at 11, and catch the end of the ‘boys/birds game.  yeah cowboys. 

as i’m watching the post-game interview two things happen.

A.) Tony Romo turns into a card player.

B.) A bat suddenly appears on the floor of my living room - with one of the cats looking at him with this “let’s play ‘try to fly’; start anytime you want” look in his eyes.

Romo - insightfully mentions to the press group that they won by 4 tonight, so it’s a chorus of “everything’s going right, you guys are on”.   but, if a play or two goes the other way and they lose by 3, it’d be a round of “what do you do now to regroup?”. 

he says that we’re trying to play, and i have to paraphrase here, “above that.  we’re trying to succeed on each play, each assignment, each drive.”  and the conclusion is that if you do that, the scoreboard will start to slant in your direction. 

sounded familiar.  very - very - familiar.

The Bat - makes some interesting sounds when distressed.  i trapped him under a plastic bucket, which he apparently didn’t understand was a life-saving procedure - and kicked his ass out of the house. 

i had a long talk with the cat afterwards.  i don’t think any of it sank in.

in the meantime, i might be between computers.  i am between rooms.

Oh - and the whole banking/investment thing in America seems to have taken a bit of a blow.  Lehman Brothers?  Merrill Lynch??  can’t wait until the insurance industry follows suit - AIG.  eek.  that should make for some wonderful reading. 

it’s one thing to see that a company runs into the perfect storm.  or that someone in charge gets ‘white eyes’ and overreaches.  but to see that it’s become commonplace for all the players who should have known better to get swept up in a wave of piss-poor decision-making at that level is shocking. 

it’s like a bookie writing down a $6k take from a punter who brings home $350 a week.  NO - that’s NOT a great week, you nitwit.  sheesh.  but this is corporate America, with much, much more no the line.

oh well, maybe next week they’ll find the Higgs Boson and that’ll cheer me up.

my damned computer is giving me grief.  it’s an old dell dimension 2400, with an intel P4 chip in it.  i used up the 40GB main disk drive long ago, and have an external drive hooked up to it.  that, is empty, but it doesn’t house the operating system, so i still run low on virtual memory.

i checked, and i have 57 processes running in the background.  i can’t imagine i need them all.  so, i should look into it and “degunk” starting from there, but who has time to dig up the dirt of 57 odd computer processes?

the box also has 1 Gig of RAM (maxed out) and my system cache is chewing up over half of that. 

in short 1.0 - i need to clean out/optimize this machine because its lack of power in its current state is killing me.  in theory i ought to be able to build one of these damned things, but to say i’m rusty is an understatement.    plus, i’m still using it for business stuff, so if i accidentally screw something up, i’m screwed

in long - i run a third party stats tracking program that always seems to be one step behind the updates at Bodog, so the other night i noticed as players left the table, the stats package didn’t update.  the old stats just stayed.  within a half an hour, i had the wrong stats on half the players at the tables. 

that pissed me off.

combined with the fact that there are so few tables (4 tables of 25NL the other night, no seats at any of the 3 50NL tables), i pushed the cashout button.  that should arrive, no kidding here, before halloween.  probably the second or third week of October.

so, off i go to get some hands in at Stars.  but, i’m having import problems with PT2.  so, no hands are importing.  that sucks. 

so i go to check up on what holdemManager offers, but the damned flash intro is stuck in a loop and i can’t get past it.  so i google it, hoping to find a direct link to an inside page.  and i do - yay! but there’s no navigation on it - boo!

then i realize it doesn’t matter, my machine would probably bog down and not be able to run it anyway.  meh.

i also realize that i haven’t pushed for any sweats or reviews because my machine is limping along as is, and Skype/Mikogo actually running would be more than she can handle. 

so, i’m sitting here with half my bankroll in cyberspace, a computer that just isn’t getting it done, and no quality system set up for playing at Stars, or even Tilt. 

ack.  the time to upgrade probably came and went 15 months ago.  maybe a trip to tigerDirect has been long overdue.

Had a session last night where i dropped $100 at a mix of $25/$50NL.  one was AA<QQ aipf.  that’s life.

another hand came here, and as this one was going on i’m thinking “this is going to make for bad tv”, or some semblence of that.  i think i just butchered it.

Hand 1:

maybe the PF raise is a bit small.  the flop bet is a too small.  on the turn, i’m not comfortable getting it in.  so i checked.  when he checked behind i figure, “that’s nice, turns out i priced the FD in on the flop.”

he has a riverAgg of 13, so i’m thinking i can check and he’ll bet with anything, whether or not it beats me.  it does. 

as played i’m not beating myself up on the river call, because i was so weak i think he’d have done it with air.  but i’m not happy in how i got there.

Hand 2: (same Villan)

i don’t know, once i land the TP/TK against an SS, it wasn’t in my nature to lay it down.  i’m not doing this for 100bb, but for like 40, apparently i’ll stack off here against this fellow.  maybe i shouldn’t be?  what hands does he shove that turn with?  sets/AK/FD(?)

the other loser that makes the chart is AKs<A7s aipf for 25bb.  the rest of them were things like TT<ATo, AK<A3 (spiked 2pair on river) - just things that happen. 

oh, heh, the point?  i failed to get all pissed off and toss off a 100bb stack for no good reason.  so, that’s my silver lining.