I like nights like that.
Oceans-11 was dead last night. I rolled in around 10pm and got into a short-handed 20/40 game that broke 45 minutes later. I stuck around for a little bit because I knew a player was on the way that would play me heads up.
We play heads up for a while, pick up a straggler here and there, before two drunk guys show up. And then an off-duty dealer sits down. Let's just say I massacred everybody last night, except the guy I started off playing heads up with, since he's actually a competent player.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Monday, January 24, 2011
Semi successful weekend?
Sort of. I got crushed on Friday for 3 racks in the 40/80 game. Then I played all day Sunday, because Oceans 11 was giving away all the football money. I got back half of it in the 20/40 game.
So overall, I had a losing weekend, but finally broke my losing session streak. It was overall not a too stressful session, and I never got down more than a couple hundred before I started steadily chipping up.
I do have a couple of hands that I think I misplayed that I would like to replay.
So overall, I had a losing weekend, but finally broke my losing session streak. It was overall not a too stressful session, and I never got down more than a couple hundred before I started steadily chipping up.
I do have a couple of hands that I think I misplayed that I would like to replay.
Friday, January 21, 2011
Real life Doom Switch Activated
So after reporting a resounding good start to the beginning of 2011, the real life doom switch has been activated. I played 7 sessions since then and only booked one winning session, a smallish win in the 8-16 game. Joy.
I hope my complaining about it will turn it around tonight.
I hope my complaining about it will turn it around tonight.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Poker Interrupted
So, I was planning on going out to play last night. But I got interrupted by a book instead, Kitchen Confidential and didn't get off the couch. I downloaded it on my iPad over the weekend, but didn't get a chance to start reading it until my evening dinner around 8pm. I got through 75% of it or so, when before I realized it was already midnight.
My other hobby, other than poker, is cooking. I like to cook and try new techniques, ingredients, and other dishes. With our kitchen remodel done, and my new kitchen gadgets including a stand mixer, new blender, and other goodies I have been doing a lot of cooking these days, specifically baking.
Also, as a teenager in high school I actually worked as a line cook for a national restaurant chain, and a lot of what Anthony Bourdain describes in his book brought back a lot of memories of that job. Sometimes I wonder, if my true calling was be to an executive chef at some high-end restaurant. But then I remember that as soon as your hobby turns into a job, it's rarely as fun as you think it would be.
My other hobby, other than poker, is cooking. I like to cook and try new techniques, ingredients, and other dishes. With our kitchen remodel done, and my new kitchen gadgets including a stand mixer, new blender, and other goodies I have been doing a lot of cooking these days, specifically baking.
Also, as a teenager in high school I actually worked as a line cook for a national restaurant chain, and a lot of what Anthony Bourdain describes in his book brought back a lot of memories of that job. Sometimes I wonder, if my true calling was be to an executive chef at some high-end restaurant. But then I remember that as soon as your hobby turns into a job, it's rarely as fun as you think it would be.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Poker in the New Year
I have resolved to make 2011 my best year ever in terms of always playing my A game. Here's what I resolve to do:
a) Don't drink and play
b) Pick up when the game gets short and it's no longer good
c) Stop mindlessly triple-barreling
d) Stop putting people on hands that I can beat, just so I can call
e) Value-bet relentlessly
f) bet-fold more and raise-fold as opposed to bet/call and raise/call
g) Give players, particularly the fish, respect for the hand that they are representing. Yes, sometimes no matter how ludicrous the pre-flop and flop play is, they actually did flop a full house on a 9 2 2 board when they capped preflop with 92s.
h) Limit my sessions to no more than 8 hours in a day
So far I have been doing good on all of these, and I hope to keep it up throughout the year. For once, I finally have plans for the money I make while playing poker. For quite a while, and I still do, play poker just as a hobby, I never really bought or did anything with the money that I won. But now I am saving up for something.
So far in three 20/40 sessions since 2011, I have done extremely well and am up 4k in 9 hours of play. I haven't run particularly hot or cold either, just about normal so that makes me feel pretty good about the results so far.
a) Don't drink and play
b) Pick up when the game gets short and it's no longer good
c) Stop mindlessly triple-barreling
d) Stop putting people on hands that I can beat, just so I can call
e) Value-bet relentlessly
f) bet-fold more and raise-fold as opposed to bet/call and raise/call
g) Give players, particularly the fish, respect for the hand that they are representing. Yes, sometimes no matter how ludicrous the pre-flop and flop play is, they actually did flop a full house on a 9 2 2 board when they capped preflop with 92s.
h) Limit my sessions to no more than 8 hours in a day
So far I have been doing good on all of these, and I hope to keep it up throughout the year. For once, I finally have plans for the money I make while playing poker. For quite a while, and I still do, play poker just as a hobby, I never really bought or did anything with the money that I won. But now I am saving up for something.
So far in three 20/40 sessions since 2011, I have done extremely well and am up 4k in 9 hours of play. I haven't run particularly hot or cold either, just about normal so that makes me feel pretty good about the results so far.
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Vegas Recap
So my buddy and I headed out to Vegas on Sunday, leaving San Diego around 9:45pm. We arrived in Las Vegas a little after 2am. Checked into our hotel at the Aria, and hit the tables. I pretty much played craps and a little blackjack this trip. My buddy who I play poker with at Oceans-11 pretty regularly, is a blackjack player and a heavy sports bettor.
My first craps session, I lost a little over $500, and then I made a quick stop at the blackjack tables, played one shuffle in a double deck game, and made $500. Then it was off to the petting zoo.
Fast forward 4 hours later, my friend and I make the walk of shame, coming out of the club into bright morning daylight. We cab it back to Aria and he crashes in the hotel room, while I play a quick craps session and lose 1k very quickly. I head back up to the room to "crash". Now I can never sleep in strange beds very well, no matter how tired I am. This hotel was no different. After getting into bed a little after 9am, I was up at noon.
My buddy was still sawing logs, so I showered quickly and left the room for him to sleep. I hit the craps table, and finally went on a nice run and won 1k. My buddy finally is stirring and we hoof it over to Planet Hollywood, because he wants to bet the ATL-NO game and the line at the Aria is ATL - 3, and he wants to get a better a number. At Planet Hollywood he gets the game at ATL - 2.5.
At this point we are both starving and I am dead tired. We head back to the hotel room and order room service. It takes them forever to deliver our food. It wasn't bad, I just got a club sandwich and some french onion soup.
I then crash hard. I wake up in time to catch the last 11 minutes of the MNF, and get to see NO come back and win the game. I head back down to the casino, put in a craps session and finally go on a long heater and win 3k. We head out to Mastros for dinner in Crystals.
Our appetizers were good, we got a selection of oysters (which I don't eat), mussels, and tuna tartare. The mussels were good, the tartare - eh, I didn't like the mayonnaise based sauce they used. Then the waiter screwed up our entrees. I order 12 oz filet, medium-rare, no butter, no parsley, with a pepper corn sauce, and sauteed asparagus. My buddy order some fish, no oil, and a twice baked potato.
What shows up? A 12 oz bone-in filet, with butter and parsley, sauteed spinach, fish with oil. The only thing right, the twice baked potato. We send everything back, and 15 minutes later our correct order shows up, but they gave us the same potato. They must have just put it under the warmer, and sent it right back out to us. Horrible. When we got our check, we made sure they took it off the bill, even though everything was going to be comped anyways. Just the principle of things.
After dinner, we play some blackjack, I win $700, and then head out to the petting zoo again. In the taxi line, we get a rookie driver, who we find out later that this is his first night on the job, that won't take us there for free. For those who don't know, at most places if you arrive by cab, there's a twenty dollar cover per person, that gets kicked back to the driver. Every cabbie in the city, will normally take you for free since the kickback covers the fare plus some. The idiot driver must not have known how it works, since he refused to take us there for free, so we got out of his cab, and got into the cab behind him. He knew how to play the game and we got a free ride to the club.
Many hours later, we our doing our second walk of shame. We crash, and this time my buddy snores like a frickin' wildebeest, and I get like two hours of sleep before I can't stand it anymore and take off. I play some craps, get some lunch at Julian Serrano's. Lunch was not bad, I got the Spanish tortilla and the seared Ahi salad. The tortilla was a little salty, and the Ahi salad had way too many Spanish olives.
I also decide to get a massage at the Aria spa. Not bad, very relaxing, but my massage therapist was ahem can we say plus sized?
After the massage, I am very relaxed, but for some reason can't sleep. So I end up playing craps and losing 4k after like 3.5 hours of playing. Plus I loan my buddy 4k for some sports betting. I then end up crashing in the room around 9pm. I wake up the next morning around 6am to find out that my buddy has self-destructed in a big way. So with both of us cash poor, we get the hell out of dodge and are on the road before 7am. We hit bad rainy weather and the drive takes us almost 5 hours to get home. That's it, I haven't been to Vegas in over like 2 years or so. It was fun, but I think next time I need to take it a little easier, I am not a young man anymore, and my body can't handle 24+ hour benders anymore.
My first craps session, I lost a little over $500, and then I made a quick stop at the blackjack tables, played one shuffle in a double deck game, and made $500. Then it was off to the petting zoo.
Fast forward 4 hours later, my friend and I make the walk of shame, coming out of the club into bright morning daylight. We cab it back to Aria and he crashes in the hotel room, while I play a quick craps session and lose 1k very quickly. I head back up to the room to "crash". Now I can never sleep in strange beds very well, no matter how tired I am. This hotel was no different. After getting into bed a little after 9am, I was up at noon.
My buddy was still sawing logs, so I showered quickly and left the room for him to sleep. I hit the craps table, and finally went on a nice run and won 1k. My buddy finally is stirring and we hoof it over to Planet Hollywood, because he wants to bet the ATL-NO game and the line at the Aria is ATL - 3, and he wants to get a better a number. At Planet Hollywood he gets the game at ATL - 2.5.
At this point we are both starving and I am dead tired. We head back to the hotel room and order room service. It takes them forever to deliver our food. It wasn't bad, I just got a club sandwich and some french onion soup.
I then crash hard. I wake up in time to catch the last 11 minutes of the MNF, and get to see NO come back and win the game. I head back down to the casino, put in a craps session and finally go on a long heater and win 3k. We head out to Mastros for dinner in Crystals.
Our appetizers were good, we got a selection of oysters (which I don't eat), mussels, and tuna tartare. The mussels were good, the tartare - eh, I didn't like the mayonnaise based sauce they used. Then the waiter screwed up our entrees. I order 12 oz filet, medium-rare, no butter, no parsley, with a pepper corn sauce, and sauteed asparagus. My buddy order some fish, no oil, and a twice baked potato.
What shows up? A 12 oz bone-in filet, with butter and parsley, sauteed spinach, fish with oil. The only thing right, the twice baked potato. We send everything back, and 15 minutes later our correct order shows up, but they gave us the same potato. They must have just put it under the warmer, and sent it right back out to us. Horrible. When we got our check, we made sure they took it off the bill, even though everything was going to be comped anyways. Just the principle of things.
After dinner, we play some blackjack, I win $700, and then head out to the petting zoo again. In the taxi line, we get a rookie driver, who we find out later that this is his first night on the job, that won't take us there for free. For those who don't know, at most places if you arrive by cab, there's a twenty dollar cover per person, that gets kicked back to the driver. Every cabbie in the city, will normally take you for free since the kickback covers the fare plus some. The idiot driver must not have known how it works, since he refused to take us there for free, so we got out of his cab, and got into the cab behind him. He knew how to play the game and we got a free ride to the club.
Many hours later, we our doing our second walk of shame. We crash, and this time my buddy snores like a frickin' wildebeest, and I get like two hours of sleep before I can't stand it anymore and take off. I play some craps, get some lunch at Julian Serrano's. Lunch was not bad, I got the Spanish tortilla and the seared Ahi salad. The tortilla was a little salty, and the Ahi salad had way too many Spanish olives.
I also decide to get a massage at the Aria spa. Not bad, very relaxing, but my massage therapist was ahem can we say plus sized?
After the massage, I am very relaxed, but for some reason can't sleep. So I end up playing craps and losing 4k after like 3.5 hours of playing. Plus I loan my buddy 4k for some sports betting. I then end up crashing in the room around 9pm. I wake up the next morning around 6am to find out that my buddy has self-destructed in a big way. So with both of us cash poor, we get the hell out of dodge and are on the road before 7am. We hit bad rainy weather and the drive takes us almost 5 hours to get home. That's it, I haven't been to Vegas in over like 2 years or so. It was fun, but I think next time I need to take it a little easier, I am not a young man anymore, and my body can't handle 24+ hour benders anymore.
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