Las Vegas!

T-minus 17 hours to touchdown.  Don't have a lot planned for this trip.  Play some blackjack, maybe a little craps, the IGT headsup machine, maybe get some poker in at Bellagio if they can get an 80/160 or 100/200 game going, a least one massage, some fine gourmet meals, and probably a visit or two to the petting zoo.  Might try and hookup with Harborlaw387 while I am out there.  But we have never met in real life, so that might be a little difficult to do, but we'll see.

I need to drop my girls off at school in the morning, then get back home, pack my things, and then pick up my buddy and we're off for the airport.

Depending on how I feel, I may or may not be doing nightly (or more likely early morning) updates chronicling my adventures in Las Vegas.

Poker Hiatus

Won't get much poker in here over the next couple of weeks.  At least not locally.  I'm headed off to Vegas until Saturday, and then my wife is headed out for her Caribbean adventure the week after next and I will be at home watching the kids.  My wife turns 40 this year, and she has always wanted to go on a cruise.  I, however, hate boats with a passion.  I get motion sick relatively easy, and it seems every time I have been on a boat, I have fed the fishes stuff I didn't even know that I ate.

In any case, for my wife's birthday, I offered to send her, her 3 sisters and her mom on a cruise.  I paid for their cruises, they just needed to get to Miami on their own.  They are all pretty excited about it.  My wife just today asked me about what I think she should pack.  I told her to just google it.  In return and in part for my birthday that I just had my wife said I could go to Las Vegas for a few days, so I jumped at the offer and I'm T-minus 23 hours from splashdown at McCarran International Airport.

Birthday

Bounty off for my birthday.

Semi-Retirement

It's official.  I am no longer employed.  I am officially in semi-retirement.  Lots of reasons why, but primarily I've decided that I have gotten out of engineering what I wanted and it was time to move on and find something else to do.  Fortunately, I am in a financial position where I can afford to make this move now.  I've decided to attend law school and pursue intellectual property law, with the intent of becoming a patent attorney.  With my technical background in engineering I believe that patent law makes the most sense, although I will go into law school with an open mind and if some other area of law strikes me as particularly interesting I will consider it.

With that being said, I am currently studying for the LSAT.  Or more accurately, I guess I should say I will begin studying for the LSAT.  My wife has been gracious enough to give me one month of being a bum, and I don't really have to do anything other than help out with the kids and be a stay at home dad for a while.

I do plan on playing poker and blackjack to supplement the income, but that's not really needed.  More of just another small little cushion.  Although with that being said, I've been on a huge downswing to start off 2013, so that's not looking so good, but I'm sure it will turn around.

Part of the downswing occurred last Friday, where I went on mega-tilt and blew through a 20/40 bankroll in the span of 20 hours.  Given that I plan on playing for actual money now, I will have to make some adjustments to my mindset and playing style, but they are probably for the better anyways.

So that's it for now.  I plan on being back in the workforce sometime in 2016 or 2017, just in time for my eldest daughter to be nearing high school, so I will have enough time to make up for my unemployed status.

I do have a Las Vegas trip planned for my birthday this year, so I am looking forward to that as well.  We'll see if I can get back some of the money that Aria owes.  Hope I run well.

Bounty off!

Beer bounty is off for today since I'm celebrating a significant life event.

Riding the Wave

Interesting session yesterday.  After it was all said and done I finished down exactly $300, so basically that's like breaking even in a 40/80 game.  The game started short, filled up, stayed full most of the day, and then started to get short later in the evening and into the early morning hours.  I eventually got to put in an extended heads up session against Cecil.  I ran pretty good against Cecil and I could tell that he was getting a little frustrated particularly since it seemed like I flopped a pair or a draw like almost every time, and whenever I needed to would bink the 3 outer no problem.

I finished the heads up match with 23 and 1/2 stacks for a cashout of $4700.  Now I can't totally recall what I started with when we started our heads up match, it was either 11 stacks or 6 stacks.  I think it was 11, but I'm not totally sure.  I just recall Helen running hotter than the wind as usual, particularly when were playing 3-handed with Cecil and I.  Some more Helen delights, 3-betting me with KTs out of the SB when I had AK.  Don't worry she binks a T on the turn.  QJo against my 88, where she held a singleton diamond against my 8 of diamond.  Board runs out pretty bad for me and she gets the maximum as the way the hand played out, she's never supposed to have an unpaired hand there on the river when the 4th diamond hits, but apparently when Helen tilts she literally have any two sometimes.  She got another guy really good with T6 suited for a big pot too.  Playing 3-handed she pulled off an animal raise with 22 on a 6555 board.  I opened the button with AK, she 3-bet the SB, Cecil folded and I 4-bet.  She check called the 655 flop, and then check raised the 5 turn.  I am really regretting not 3 betting her on the turn, in any case I called.  River was a 2 and she fired, and I snap called.  Cecil and I both think, that she thought she was bluffing on the turn, and that the river card "improved" her hand, when in reality her hand could not improve further after the turn.  I had 7 outs for the win and 3 outs for a chop.

In full ring play I got up as much as 2 racks or so, but then went on mini-tilt or as I like to call it raiseitis, and started raising a few too many hands.  I eventually got cured of that but ran into some cold decks.  KQ versus AQ on a queen high flop, turn Q.  I opened preflop, got 3 bet by the button, check/raised/called a 3 bet on the flop, and then bet/3bet the queen turn, and fired the river only to get looked up by AQ of course.  I even announced AQ good after getting called on the river so quickly.

I got to check raise Cecil with A4 against his AQ on the river on a like a a 87284 board.  I opened short handed he correctly 3-bet, I called.  I check called both his flop and turn bets.  Then I check/raised the river and he snap called, and then I wasn't sure that my hand was good.  At the time I thought I had a good value check/raise until he called so fast, but my hand was still good.

Later on in the evening playing I think 5 or 6 handed I pulled off a masterful river check raise.  Lam open-limped UTG, I over limped with 87dd, Helen limped, Cecil raised the button, can't quite recall if one of the blinds called or not.  In any case flop comes Q79 one diamond.  Checked to Cecil who oddly checks behind.  Turn is an 8.  Lam now bets, I call, Helen folds, Cecil calls.  River is a king.  Lam now checks, I check, Cecil ponders for an unusually long time for him and then bets.  Lam calls, I raise, Cecil frowns and calls, Lam hates it and folds.

Also, someone tried to buy me a beer and I had to respectfully decline otherwise Cecil would have pounced and collected his free $50.

White Christmas

Back from the very cold weather in Minnesota.  Had a nice visit with my mother-in-law, sister-in-law, brother-in-law, and my two nephews who live out there.  I am amazed every time I go there, how many people actually live in the Minneapolis area.  Apparently quite a few.  In fact more than in the San Diego metropolitan region, but not by a whole lot.  The Minneapolis metro region area wise is 6,364.12 square miles, while San Diego metro region is much smaller at 4,199.89 square miles.  In any case, there's a lot of people who for some reason voluntarily live in the cold weather!

Got out to Canterbury Park for a total of 5 days in my 11 day trip to Minnesota.  Overall finished up enough to cover my family's plane tickets costs plus a little extra.  Had a couple of brutal sessions where I dropped 10 racks combined, but then also had two very good sessions where I won almost 15 racks combined, and everything else was just meh.  The two sessions where I got killed, I also got very inebriated, celebrating the holidays.  Which brings me to my next point, I think for the year 2013, I plan on playing poker without drinking.  I did this before for a while, and then kind of fell back into drinking again without really thinking about it.  But here lately it seems like every time I drink and play poker, I just can't seem to hold it together.  So from here on out I will be offering a $50 bounty, collectable only once per night per person, if you see me drinking in a 20/40 limit or 5/5 no limit or 2/5 PLO game or higher game payable on the spot and you mention that you saw the bounty posted here.  8/16 and lower games do not count, also if I decide to have a beer at the bar that does not count either.  You must physically spot me at the table drinking an alcoholic beverage of any sort and discretely notify me of such.  Bounty is open, unless I officially call it off publicly here.

Hooked up with Urkel while I was in Minnesota.  Urkel, his cousin, and I caught the week 17 matchup between the Minnesota Vikings and the Green Bay Packers at the Hooters in the Mall of America.  Urkel got very very smashed and was hitting on everything with two legs and breasts.  It was a funny sight to behold, but Urkel was very gracious and welcomed me with great hospitality to his home state and I had a great time with him at the restaurant.  I sweated his bet on the money line (he took the Vikings of course, even though they were getting 3.5 points at home), and I told him and his cousin even though the Vikings looked very good early, that the game was going to come down to a field goal, and I was right.  I tried to pick up the tab for two young Army guys I saw in uniform at the restaurant anonymously, but Urkel made a big scene when the waitress came over to drop off their bill thinking it was ours.  They were gracious about it and came over to thank me and shake my hand.

Some gripes about Canterbury and some positives as well about the place.  First, the card room itself is pretty well-run.  I didn't see any major disasters, card throwing, fisticuffs, or anything major like that.  So I think they run a pretty clean place and don't put up with a lot of bull crap there and dealers for the most part are pretty good.  Complaints, first the food is expensive and not comped for the bigger games, and isn't that good.  This is partially made up for by giving back cash comps to the players.  $1 an hour for games below 20/40 and $1.50 an hour for bigger games.  Also if you play at least 1200 hours a year, they will give you a GOLD member card that gets you 50% off of food.  The action is great there, and they consistently had at least one 20/40 game going whenever I was there or checked on Bravo Poker Live, and it was accurate.  I really wish Oceans-11 would get on that system.  Most of the time there was also a 40/80 half holdem half Omaha 8 or better running.  One night they kicked up the mixed game to 50/100.  I am not an Omaha specialist, particularly not at high-low split, but do know how to play the game.  I have spent much more time playing PLO and prefer that.  Minnesota recently changed the law which enabled CP to spread bigger games.  The max bet allowed by law used to be 60, so that's why the spread 15/30 and 30/60.  Now it's a 100, so now they regularly spread 20/40 and 40/80, with the occasional 50/100 thrown in.  They also have pseudo no-limit cash games disguised as mini sit and go tournaments to get around the no no-limit law in Minnesota.  The place appears to have a thriving poker economy and CP doesn't employ any proposition players.  Other complaints valet parking isn't free.  It's normally 6 dollars, but is 3 dollars if you have an MVP card, and you can use your comp dollars for that.  That's what I did each time I went out there.  You are supposedly only allowed one alcoholic beverage every 30 minutes, but that is pretty loosely enforced and pretty easy to get around even if someone calls you on it.  They don't sell Red Bull.  Beer was expensive $4.25 for a bottle of Coors Light.  Jackpot was up to like $105,000 or so.  Takes quads over quads to hit, both hole cards for both players must play.  There was actually a hand where quads over quads happened on my table, but unfortunately the kicker didn't play.  It was 99 versus 75 on 99555 board and quad nines checked the river in position?!?  Other odd complaint, if you have broken game status but sit in another (smaller) game you lose your broken game status.  Wish they would have told me that before I sat and played an orbit in 8/16 only to discover that I had to post when I got called for the 20/40 main game!

Well I think that about wraps it up for this update.  I did many other things with my family while I was in Minnesota, but outside the scope of my poker playing and I figure those sorts of mundane things are probably not of great interest to my readers, so I won't bore you all with the details.

Run good in 2013!
Happy New Year!