Crap Happens

I need a new floor in the kitchen because of the water that fell on it. Hardwood floors seem to attract water and thus the floor is starting to do things that it isn't suppose to do. I have no idea how much this will cost but but insurance should cover it. It would be nice if they just gave me the check and I could leave it un fixed.

I have nothing much to say about poker other then there are many bad players playing at the higher levels. I can't believe the ridiculous play of some of these idiot...me included. I'm not sure how many draw my opponents hit but I lost count after a while. I tried to stay off tilt but it started to creep in near the end as I had my 2457Q vs. xx5TQ beat by his T when I paired twice on at the end. This was a microcosm of my night and when you are playing 3/6...you lose money quick.

One last thing is the friggin weather. I wind was blowing about 40 MPH last night with wind chills at -25 degrees. I'm in for the night but my daughter wants me to take her to friends house to help with her friends home work. Sorry...call he on the phone because I'm not going outside. I can't believe the way the temperature is going up and down and all around. Maybe there is something to this global warming thing I've read about.

It's Raining, It's Pouring

I'll start off with a little poker today though there isn't much to say. I played a qualifier to the FTOPS Razz event on Friday night and bubbled the cash. I had a nice stack going but couldn't get the hand I needed to get me over the hump. The sucky part was not having a token to buy in with so I spent $75 and got no return for it. I also played the 2K Razz and cashed on the final table bubble. It would have been nice to go deep there to make up the lose but it won't to be. I finished the night grinding back my losses to end the evening at even.

Saturday night I played both events again with another bubble finish in the qualifier. This time I had a token on hand after playing a token frenzy earlier in the day so net loss was only $15. The 2K went well but I didn't catch when I needed to and got knocked out a little short of the cash. I tried to win it back playing cash but it didn't work out well as I lost with a nut 7 and also lost with a 6. Those two hands cost me a bunch and I ended the evening down.

As far as life goes, I walked into the bathroom yesterday morning...the one attached to my bedroom...and heard water running. Water was splashing on the floor as the faucet ran with the drain plugged. I turned it off and we spent the next bit of time cleaning up the mess that was left on the floor.

Later in the day, I heard a crash in the kitchen. As I got up from the chair I see the light fixture from above the island, laying on the floor and water everywhere. It seems that some of the water found a hole and filled up the fixture. Nobody got hurt but I can see the drywall tap starting to come loose. A call to the insurance company will be made today.

I did get the tire fixed on Saturday...you know, the one that went flat when it was below zero the other day.

Some times it rains and some times it pours...thats all I can say.

Travel Sucks

It was a long week of travel and with well below average internet availability, I didn't get to post anything.

I started the trip on Sunday when I headed to San Francisco for a Monday morning meeting. The boss, sales engineer and I met with a couple of guys from our Japan site for dinner and ended the evening early. This was the only night with any real internet access so I watched a little bit of the action as a couple of Razz players from BTN went deep in some tourneys. That may have been Monday but I can't be sure because everything ran together with all the travel.

On Monday we had our meeting and flew to LA for another meeting on Tuesday. Our flight was delayed so we ended up getting to our hotel somewhere around midnight. The highlight of the trip was going to Gyu-Kaku for dinner. Great food and 99 cent kirin beer on tap.

Tuesday went well at our meeting and we headed to the airport to fly to New Mexico for a Wednesday meeting. By the time we were done with dinner it was 10:30 or so and thus another night of some tv watching before going to bed. This may also have been the night when someone from BTN went deep...I just can't remember.

Wednesday was good and we got to the airport in plenty of time for our flight to Philly. The sales engineer spilled a power aid on my bag and I got a book for the long flight. We had a short layover of a couple hours in Cincinnati. After getting to Philly we drove the 45 minutes to our crappy hotel and I watched tennis until I fell asleep.

Thursday morning was spent on a conference call and with a customer. Our flight home was on time and we touched down at 5:11 pm. I pick up my bag and hit the parking tram and figure to be home by7 for sure. As I walk to my car in the frigid air I see 4 inches of snow and ice sitting on it and start the car. I started to scrap off the snow and ice but the scrapper broke and thus I had to wait for it to warm up enough to allow me to use the wipers. Did I say that it was -1 out side? Anyway, I head down the road and I notice the car running weird and I pull over at the toll gate a few miles down the road. My back left tire is flat so I grab the portable air compressor and fill it back up. But it is leaking so I head to te oasis and buy a can of fix a flat that doesn't work so I have to change the tire. It is now -3 degrees. In the end I get the tire on and head down the road on to run into the remnants of an accident and sit in one spot for about 20 minutes. I finally pull in the driveway at around 8:25 and my week of travel is over.

How was you week.

The New KORD Champion

Go to Brickin The Nutz for more details.

Emergency and Tonight's KORD

I had a crazy day yesterday as I went through what should have been a typical day of work.

Everything started well but it came to a panic point when the Customer Service Manager came into a meeting I was in and said the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency had just shown up and there was no top management in the building. It seems that the General Manager was at a class and wouldn’t be back for about an hour and the President had just left for the hospital because he was having chest pains. The Accounting Manager had taken the president so we have to take care of this. I jumped up and met the guy in the front office and found out what he needed and proceeded on a plant tour. We also took care of finding the paper work he needed and sent him on his way.

I read an interesting post over at highonpoker that got me thinking a little bit about the skills involved in Razz. One of the comments that Jordan made was that Razz isn’t really a tournament game and that the variance involved makes it difficult to be profitable. He also talked about Razz cash games being where the money should be made because solid decision making will earn you a profit over time. And finally he said that the skills needed for Razz are not as deep as the skills needed for other forms of poker.

For the most part, I agree with what he says. I think Cash games can be exploited…especially at the lower levels and I do agree that some of the skills needed for Razz pale in comparison to other games. But I do think that you can earn a profit playing Razz tourneys. The key is, and I’ve written about it before is identifying the bad players and using there flaws to get you in position for success. Yes, when you get deep, everyone is at a critical point in the tourney and one mistake leaves you out of the money. And yes, you don’t have as much control over your destiny but it is about making the right decisions. I may write some more on this at Brickin The Nutz

Go read the post…I was well written and well thought out.



Tonight is the KORD. It is an event that I started a while ago and is really just an extension of my enjoyment of playing a donkey game like Razz. Check out the banner for details.

Also, Kat’s Donkament is tonight at 8 central. The password is donkarama.

Razz Skills and the KORD this Friday

After a long day of work I was ready to play the skills game last night. It was Razz which is one of my favorites to play but I had one problem...I wasn't going to be home at the start of the tourney. So, I signed up anyway knowing that I would arrive after the start of the tournament. Finally, around 40 minutes after the start I showed up with a playable hand ready to go. Who knows how many winning hands I gave up but I still had a nice stack and moved it up over starting stack in a short time.

I didn't do much for the rest of the hour but hit a big hand a bit later and moved into the top three spots. I had one hand in the second hour that was really the defining moment in my tournament. I'm posting it at Brickin The Nutz if you would like to see it. Anyway, I made it into the final 20 spots but couldn't catch the hands I needed to get me over the hump. It was good fun regardless of my finish.


Also, Friday night is the KORD. This months version is called SLB's Umbilical KORD named after last months winner. He put a bounty on his head for a buy-in if I remember right and there will be a random bounty placed on another player yet to be determined. The tourney takes place on Full Tilt on Friday the 18th at 9:00 central time with a buy-in of 7.70. It is a knockout tourney with $2 being the bounty on each player. The winner will also get a banner created in their honor placed on both Brickin The Nutz and here on this site so come one and all and enjoy the fun. The password is "pokere".

Have a great day.

Finally a final Table in the 2K Razz

I had my company holiday party on Friday night. We have had this party in January each of the last two years so I must now assume this is normal. Anyway, we had a good time and I won some free booze so all is good.

Saturday was the usual stuff with taking kids here and there. I finally had the chance to play at some point that night and got knocked out a little short of the money again in the 2K Razz. I am so close to taking this down. I also had a nice run going in the $5 PLO deepstack but came up a little short of the money. The best part of that tourney was flopping quads and having an early position guy raise and another guy re-raise. I call like the donkey I am and the other two guys end up getting all there chips into a pot they cannot win.

More of the same on Sunday with the running around. The highlight of the day ways having one of the girls at Softball E's practice set off the fire alarm on accident. Cool stuff. Anyway, I played the 2K Razz and actually made it to the final table. I had a super donkey at my table that would lose a hand to me and then beat someone else out of a hand to get his chips back. This happened three times with the third one tripling me up. I eventually got knocked out when I had A6442 on 5th street lose to a made T9852. I rock.

Remember that the KORD runs on Friday at 9:00 I think. I'll post it later this week.

Have a great day.

MDIT Radio and Some of the Talk About Top Bloggers

It was a lot of fun listening to the MiamiDon/InstantTragedy radio show brought to you by BuddyDank Radio. A lot of funny stuff but it brought a question to my mind in respect to what is success as far as poker goes for us as a blogging community. But, before I go into what I consider being successful I think we need to categorize the different types of players there are in the blogging world.

First of all there are the on-line professionals. These are the players who grind out win after win playing at levels that most of us dream about. they grind at 10/20 NL and turn nice profits during a given year and have bankrolls that equal my yearly pay. These players are actually players who also blog.

We also have writers who actually play poker. They describe their lives in ways many of us wish we could and either grind a profit or play for enjoyment. This category of player is wide spread and cannot be lumped together because they have different purposes for playing the game. Can you compare a recreational player who reloads all the time to someone trying build a bankroll. It isn't a good comparison.

Another group of players want to become big money players and take shots at the bigger pay days. This is where many of the blogger community sit and toil in the doldrums of the on-line poker world. Success comes and goes. Many reload and withdraw frequently and others work to grind up their bankroll. This group also has a stratification to it that should be separated by what they are trying to accomplish.

The last group for discussion is the social group. They play to hang out and be with others who have the same interests. This could have some cross over with the previous group so you have another issue with setting up groups.

So with the discussion going on last night. Chad and Don were trying to get waffles to list his top 5 bloggers success wise. I think the only real way to measure success of a player is to understand the goals they have as a player. So I will use my self as an example so I don't piss anyone off.

Success to me is advancing towards whatever it is you have set your mind to do. In my case I want to build up my bankroll through sound management skills and to take some shots at bigger games. So, did I achieve success? I took two big shots at large buy-in tourneys last year. My focus was on MTTs and only played cash to kill time or mess around a little. I made $1 during last year playing MTTs on Full Tilt and $450 on Ultimate Bet. In my mind I had a solid year. My bankroll management allowed me to play some higher tourneys and I paid a ton of Juice to the sites I played. I had a very solid year.

Now can you compare me to lets say Fuel. He sits down with more money at a table playing 5/10 nl than I currently have in my bankroll. Is it fair to compare Fuel and I as to success? Apples and oranges are not the same fruit for a reason. They taste different.

So how can we say we respect players based on success from a tourney result. Does one big score really mean that player A is better than player B. It means that player A has resources that player B doesn't have but does it make him a better player.

I understand completely what Don was saying about most of us are hobby players. I certainly don't play this game to put bread on the table. I guess we all have are own place in this world of poker.

I played the Dookie last night because turbo Razz is the nutz. I also played some other Razz and you can read about it at Brickin The Nutz.

Playing The Skillz

I had a meeting after work that lasted for about two hours but I arrived home in time to play the skill game. I have found a new love in the game of Pot Limit Omaha and was hoping for a nice showing. I chipped up a little by taking some unwanted pots and finally hit a nice hand when I flopped the nut straight and river the flush. The flush may have cost me some money because my opponent seemed willing to call before the last spade hit giving me the flush. A little while later I was involved in a hand that saw me flop the 3rd highest flush and an opened ended straight flush draw. I was careful at first but led out on the turn and I was re-raise a little. I had my opponent we covered so I pushed it up higher to represent a slow played nut flush. If he has the nut I still have outs to the straight flush. If he has the king he might fold so I really though this was the right play. He eventually went all-in for a few hundred more and turned over the K high flush. It was a tough call for him but a good one.

Now I'm back to a little below starting numbers and stay tight for a while. I eventually opened up my game when the blinds were useful and chipped back up to a manageable stack. As we approached the final table I find AAxx and a nice raise in front of me so I get all my chips in the pot. I get called by KKTT and go home a few short of the final table after he hits a K. I was very frustrated by that considering I would have been almost assured a money spot if I win vs. those 4 outs.

After that I went to the Razz tables to play for a while. You can check that out at Brickin The Nutz.

Prolly no Mookie tonight but you all should play. Check out the banner on the right for all you will need to play against a bunch of push monkeys and over players.

You Do the Math

Some times it is simple math. Stick with me as I get some of the back ground out of the way.

The town I live in has a park and recreation department. What that means is they have a budget that is determined by the city and isn't a taxing body like a part district would be. They have budget concerns but have obligations to provide services to the people of the city.

Now the baseball/softball organization that I am a board member of has been told by the parks department that we will have to pay $10 per player to help cover the costs of maintaining the fields. The total cost is around 65K to do this work so the 11K portion they are asking us to pay is not that big. They problem is that we have already put out budget together for the year and adding more cost to the structure can't really be passed on at this point.

The real key to this is that we do everything else in running the baseball/softball program for the city. We have numerous volunteers doing the coaching, finding sponsors, maintaining inventory of equipment for 100 teams, and scheduling all the events that last all summer long. Now they are asking for 11K but if they had to do this work they would be required to have at least one full time person doing this job. So lets do the math a little. Our budget, as it stands is 140K. If you add the cost of doing the field maintenance into the picture you are looking at 205K. What if the parks department had to do it? You still have the same 205K plus you have to hire one person to take care of everything a group of 20 volunteers does. Even if you pay some one 30K a year, with benefits you will have to pay something like 50K for that person. You now have a cost of 255K to run the same program. It is actually a better deal for them to eat the 11K than it would be for them to run the program. Sure, they can pass the cost of the new employee on to the consumer...our kids...but that increases the cost by $45 per player. You now create an issue where people will find cheaper things to do and thus the program fails over time. You will still have teams but participation will drop and the idea is to give every child that wants a chance to play to have that chance.

We may be giving them the chance to hang them selves. It may not be the right thing to do but we already give the highest value of all the outside organizations running programs. More kids play ball than anything else they provide...by far. Do they really want the headache of trying to run something like this? They have a hard enough time doing smaller programs like soccer. Every year soccer is a cluster fuck of messed up rosters and mixed up schedules. Now more than double the teams and see what happens.

Check out Brickin The Nutz

Christmas is Over

Why does it seem that weekends go by faster than the other days of the week? I think we need to have a 3rd day added to the weekend for relaxation purposes.
fight that
Saturday I woke up around 9:00 which is much later than normal but had to get ready for a trip to Softball E's pitching practice. After returning home we spent the day packing up Christmas decorations. The weather was perfect with a temperature in the high 40s but the melting snow was a bit tough to deal with. The ladder held very well but I kept waiting for it to slid out from under me. I also had the chance to show my son how to make snow balls and had an impromptu fight. It is really fun having a snowball fight knowing that you are not going to get hit with anything painful. Anyway, I beat him and finished pulling down the numerous lights that surrounded my house earlier that day.

After the outside stuff was finished, we went to dinner with the in-laws. It was my father-in-laws's birthday and so we always go to dinner at Applebee's because the kids like going there so much. I had a couple of mucho margaritas with my dinner and headed home for the night. I fired up the $5 razz mtt which you can read about here and and played the PLO deepstack to a virtual bubble spot.

This PLO tourney was about as card dead as yo can be in Omaha. Yes I said card dead in Omaha. I stayed near my starting stack for much of the early going and doubled up at some point when I tried to steal vs. someone elses AAxx. I had KQJ9 double suited and flopped a straight that held up. I run good some times. Anyway, I stayed out of peoples way with a few steals here and there until I tripled up when I flopped a straight draw/flush draw and hit pay dirt again. I couldn't get lucky though in the end as I ran into the powerful AT88. My KK55 was no good vs. his quad aces and I went home just short of the money.

Sunday, being the day of rest, was spent driving my daughter to practice, coming home and watching a little football, and going to a meeting that didn't want to end. It was a long evening and I may write about it a little later but it will take some effort so we will see.

That's it for today...Have a great day.

If you like this blog, check out my other one here.

The Next KORD and Other Stuff.

The Next KORD is coming up on the 18th so don't forget to come play.

Not much today other than I final tabled my favorite Razz tourney last night. Check out Brickin The Nutz to see what happened. I also have some informationn about starting a weekly Razz cash game. It is something I'm doing for my other blog but should be fun if you like Razz. We should have the other writers from Brickin playing so check it out.

I'll be trying to play Kat's Donkament tonight. I'm not sure if I'll be home in time but I'll Give it a shot.

Have a great weekend.

And the New Poker Year Starts

The new year has started and I got my first real day of poker in on January 2nd. I started the night with a hold'em tourney and got a nice double up early when I limed in and hit a set on the flop. I stayed even from there until I raised AK from middle position and got called by the next player. The SB pushed and I made the decision to fold with a caller behind me and the push. This may have been my first mistake of the year because the other player called with KQ and the pusher turned over AQ. My hand would have held up but instead of having 9000 chip, I have 2500. I tried to maintain my position and was looking for a double but I ran into a hand that I fail to remember and finish about 60 from the money.

While the hold'em tourney was going on I jumped onto my favorite razz tourney. For more on that go to Brickin The Nutz. It is my Razz blog and I will have something posted about the tourney later today.

I also played the PLO deep stack and made it semi deep but short of the money when I hit a boat and lost to a better boat. I truly didn't see him having pocket aces for aces over sevens because I had A7 in my hand and the 77A flop looked so good to me. Not sure I can get away from this hand yet but he played it well and I didn't see him telling me that I was beat.

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Trying to become a better husband, I handed my bonus check over to my wife last night. It will go into the bank and eventually pay for some bill instead of being wasted on something trivial. I would have liked to have kept it but that is truly the wrong thing to do.

Softball E. had a hitting camp over the holidays. It was a three day event where instructors video tape her hitting and then break it down to find areas for improvement. They work on these areas and repeat the process. After the clinic was over they gave her the tape so I took a look at the result. Now she was already an almost .500 hitter but I know that the things they taught her will make her a better hitter. She was driving the ball with more regularity and can now drive the ball to all fields.

Speedy E. continues to be boy crazy. I'm really going to have my hands full with her. Anyway, she is going to a dance with her boyfriend this Friday so I have to try and figure out a way to sneak in and keep an eye on them. Not really but it is a little scary for me.

Baseball E starts basketball next week. He is in a little guys league at the YMCA and I think they use 8 foot baskets. It should be a lot of fun to watch.

2007 and 2008

The year in review was a bit of an eye opener. Overall, I think it was a good year in that I made money as a full time MTT player. My skills at bingo are goot. Anyway, I only had one really bad month, November, which seems to be a trend for that month. In the end I had a return of about 10% for the year in about 500 tournaments. I cashed in 24 % of the tourneys I played, including sngs with 18 or more players. For the record, I didn’t play many multi table sngs but I did play a few. In the end I final tabled about 11% of the tourneys I played. This number is skewed a bit by about a dozen or so token frenzies I played.

I big change has been how I play the game. I have a much better understanding of game play in the middle stages of tournaments and my bubble game has improve a lot in my opinion. I have changed my game up a little but I’m still working on opening up my game some more. I need to play some more connecting hands with position and have had a little success with in over the last month or so. The biggest thing I did this year was take a couple of shots at bigger events. I played the FTOP Razz event for $300+ which is by far the most I have paid to play in a tournament. I also played the Poker Stars Razz event for $200+. This is also shows how well the year went overall because I could never justify playing those kind of events in the past. If I don’t play those tourneys I have a better year overall based on ROI.

My poker plans for 2008 or simple.

1) Play a couple of FTOP events.
2) Play 500 MTTs.
3) Work at improving all of the games I play.
4) Play 100 Razz tourneys.
5) Try and make a blogger event.

I’m not placing any financial goals because success will come with solid play. It is really a matter of putting in the time.

My life goals for 2008 are also simple.

1) Be a better husband.
2) Be a better dad.
3) Lose weight.
4) Work on creating the business I’ve been thinking about.

So there you have.