High On Poker

I woke up the next morning with a spring in my step. Wifey Kim and I were officially up about $150. I had gotten to bed at 2am, but at 7am, I couldn’t help but wake up. The dreams were many that night, and the anticipation for more degeneracy was foremost in my mind. Wifey Kim, however, was still in sleep mode. I forced myself to put my head back down, but what little sleep I had was interrupted.

When we first arrived at the casino a half day before, Roose and I discussed gambling strategy as we made our way to the check-in desk. “We are not playing in the morning, no matter what,” Roose insisted. He was right, too. We never win in the morning. But I wasn’t going to allow myself to be boxed it by superstition (ignore the fact that I wore my lucky Superman shirt to the poker room the night before). “Okay. But I’m not making any promises.”

This conversation flashed into my head at 9am when my cell phone beeped. A voice message from Roose read: “U Up? Lets Play Poker.” Um…um…okay. I called him back to tell him I could play in a few. Wifey Kim was finally stirring and I was figuring out timing issues. Fortunately, unlike Roose and I, wifey Kim insisted on showering and doing her hair. I took the advantage and headed down with Roose.

We were placed on different tables, but I couldn’t complain. My table was short-handed and the players looked weak. On my left was an old fogie and a foreign greasy player. On my right was a nerdy looking chick and a young upstart. There may’ve been more but they came and went. This was the core. A 4-handed game. I thought this would be key to my success. I likee the short handed.

Unfortunately, it didn’t likee me back. The greasy foreigner and I played a bunch of pots together. I checked in the SB with 34o, and he checked in the BB. The flop was 256. Check-check. 3 check-check. T. Bet-fold. No action.

A little while later, I held 26o in the SB against the greasy foreigner. The flop was 346. Check-check. Turn was a blank. Check-check. River was a 5. I bet 10. He re-raised to 20. I called. He had the 7 for the better straight.

Now, somewhere in there, I had this disaster of a hand. I was on the button with 88. The young upstart was in the BB. His fat, hairy buddy was sitting next to him and attempting to be funny and vulgar. He was definitely vulgar, but funny… Anyway, the upstart raises from 2 to 15. I call with 88. If he had checked, I would’ve raised. I was planning to do so. But here I was facing a bet. Mind you that this was actually before the two hands I mentioned already. The table was still somewhat new to me. I saw the upstart betting fairly aggressively, but I didn’t have more than that and his attitude (and goofy friend) as a read.

With just upstart and I in the hand, the flop came off K73, with two spades. Upstart bet $45. Now, this was an overbet. Easily the biggest bet I saw all morning. I was watching him, and I felt, from his attitude and his big bet, that he was trying to steal the pot after he missed the flop. I couldn’t help but put him on AQ or TT. TT had me beat, so I had something in mind. “I’m all-in.” There must’ve been $120 more in front of me. “I call.” He flipped over AA. And that was how I lost my initial $200 buy-in.

Skip ahead an hour and I am back to $100 (my re-buy after the $200 loss). Most of my work from the previous night was down the drain. Up $72, I had to justify the loss to my dad and wife by saying that I was playing with profits. I sincerely believe that with enough time I would’ve won it all back. I had grinded back some of the money, but right before walking away, I was brought back down to my $100 and decided that enough was enough.

Roose, Allison, wifey Kim and I headed over to the Fantasea Buffet. The food was adequate. Like most buffet meals, I ate until I was satisfied. I then got a second and third plate. When we left, I was ready to pull into a food-induced coma. However, Clam Dave and Andrea had joined the group.

Clam Andrea hadn’t been to AC before and had never been to the Boardwalk. Harrah’s was off of the Boardwalk, so we hopped in our cars and headed out. First, we made a stop at Borgata. I foolishly lead the caravan into the employee parking lot, and we were walking out when an employee was kind enough to point out the errs of our ways. After moving the cars (thus saving us from a ridiculous walk), we hit the casino and pulled a walkthrough. Wifey Kim dabbled at Roulette, the only affordable game in the place. It was packed, as usual. Roose was impressed by the size of the poker room, but not the wait times. We gathered up the group and headed out.

At the Boardwalk, we started at the Showboat because of the free parking for card members. We played a variety of table games, with wifey Kim losing at Roulette, and me losing at 3- card poker. We moved onto Trump Taj, next door, because the weather was horrible outside. God bless interior corridors between casinos.

Wifey Kim and I were already hungry, so we went with Allison and Roose to the Stage Deli for some grilled cheeses, the official gambling meal of High On Poker. While we were waiting, I introduced Roose and the girls to prop bets, bets based on propositions. I proposed that Roose’s chopped liver sandwich would be placed on the table before my grilled cheese. The bet was on, and I won, putting my prop bets at 1-0. We then guessed the bill size, and I won again, with a mere 1$ difference. 2-0.

After the meal, we all felt like it was time to head back to Harrah’s. When we arrived, Roose had spoken to Robbie Hole. Hole was on the annual trip last year, but had not returned because his girlfriend, Joyful, was a gentile. However, Joy had to work on Monday, so he arranged to drive down on Saturday night.

When Rob arrived, we were at the Fantasea Buffet again, this time having dinner with the whole familys (Roose and High). Wifey Kim and I weren’t particularly hungry, but we ate nonetheless. Before this, we had been farting around the casino, playing craps, roulette and even slot machines. Specifically, we were like flies to a bug zapper whenever we saw Wheel of Fortune. According to my father (who passed this news along last night), it is the tightest of the slots. But damn is it fun spinning that wheel. I walked passed Pai Gow a couple of times and watched a few hands, but I couldn’t get the balls to actually play. Besides, no one else wanted to play anyway.

With Rob around, the urge for poker hit a new peak. But wifey Kim and Allison were not poker players. Instead, the 5 of us went to Roose’s room for some wine. It was relaxing, but Allison was dozing off and Roose was itching to play. He and Hole headed out, and wifey Kim and I went to play more slots and table games.

I’d eventually go upstairs with Kim, down $355 for the trip. It was about 10:30pm when she began dozing off. She gave me my cue. You can head down now. Have fun. I took the opportunity and off I went.

What happened? That’s for another time. BUT I can promise you this. I did not leave the trip down $355! Stay tuned.

AND if you haven’t done it yet, do it now! Sign up for the Donkeys Always Draw Invitational Tournament hosted by yours truly, on Wednesday at 9pm. And for the record, I get nothing out of this at all besides a chance to play with some readers/bloggers/friends. Check out the link for details on bounties, buy-in and start time.

Happy Holidays! Man, I almost want to skip the trip report. After 2 nights and three days in my own wonderland, Atlantic City, I almost don’t want to do anything. But, for the sake of completeness, I’ll do my best.

This was one of my best trips to AC. It had a wonderful balance of family, friends, gambling for pleasure and gambling for profit.

The trip started out on Saturday morning at around 11 am. An hour before, I woke my little brother, Clam David and his girlfriend, Clam Andrea, up. I was gitty with anticipation. Even though AC was 3 hrs and 200 miles away, I could hear the shuffle of chips and the ringing of slot machines. I must have been particularly overbearing (Clam Dave is a notoriously heavy sleeper), as Clam Andrea asked if I was a Dad. “What do you mean?” “Only a Dad could be that annoying.” Mission accomplished. We hit the road and started down to AC.

The ride was uneventful. Along the way, I kept in cell phone contact with Dave Roose and his girlfriend Allison. I also spoke on and off with the parents High and parents Roose, who were driving down as well. On the way down, I entered my first prop bet between Clam Dave, Clam Andrea, Wifey Kim and I, to see who could predict our time of arrival. The prop bet was voided, however, when the parents and Dave Roose stopped by Smithville a “Ye Olde Shoppe” time of place near AC. I mean, every freaking store was “Shoppe”. Old Fashioned Candy Shoppe. Wifey Kim’s favorite Candle Shoppe. Ye Olde Fashion Internet Shoppe. It wasn’t a bad place per se, but I could still hear the distant calls of nearby gambling.

When we finally got out of there, I drove like a bat out of hell to our hotel, Harrah’s, one of the few casinos off of the Boardwalk. We stayed there because I had a free room at Showboat or Harrah’s (same ownership) AND Harrah’s was significantly cheaper for the night I had to pay for. As a result, prior to tax, the room would only cost $85. After taxes (on both nights) and a snack put on the room bill, it came out to about $120. Beautiful. The hotel was great. The buffet did its job well and the take-out style restaurant was convenient and reasonably priced. The table games were mostly $10 minimums for the first night, Xmas Eve. Late night, they had $5 craps. On the second day, the minimums moved to $15 for the most part. I like my table games cheap, and those rates didn’t go down even well into the night. But at that point I had my fill of -EV games.

The poker room, which we will get to in depth later, was not small, but not large. There were probably 25 tables, with only 10-15 in play for the most part. The hotel was nicely decorated, lighted and clean, and the poker room was no exception. They didn’t have a cage at the poker room and the drink girls took there sweet ass time, but aside from that, I liked the players , which were rumored to be solid, but were anything but. More on that later.

When I arrived at the check-in counter, I began my attempt at a room upgrade. At Tropicana in AC, a room upgrade at the front desk costs $50/night. I didn’t know what to expect at Harrah’s. I was happy to hear from the less-than-enthused desk girl that upgrades were not charged. I was unhappy when she told me that none were left. I was downright annoyed when, after getting my room, I listed to Roose, about 2 steps to my left, getting a room upgrade from HIS counter girl. Well fuck me! As soon as he was done, I moved over and smiled wide. “Any way you can get me an upgrade? I promise to lose a lot of money.” “I’m going to get fired for this, but it is Christmas.” I didn’t see the need to point out that her Christmas spirit was used on a Jew. A couple of hours later, even Clam David was able to upgrade.

The rooms were nice. We were in a smoking jr. suite, but fortunately, the smell of cigarettes was near non-existent. The suite had a decent bathroom, but regular tub. Call me picky, but when I hear jr suite, I expect a jacuzzi tub. The living room area was a nice addition, especially when I stumbled into the room at 4AM on the last night, high on poker and in need of some time zoning out with the TV while wifey Kim slept in the nearby bedroom. Our view was of the water, and it was a beautiful sight. I don’t really get the point of a “room with a view”. I mean, how long are you going to be standing staring out the window. But, that said, this was a room with a view and it was fantastic.

It didn’t take long before I was rushing to the tables. If I never played table games, I’d be a lot richer, but sometimes you have to enjoy yourself. I couldn’t remember specifics if I tried, but I can tell you this. I played some Roulette with wifey Kim, and we both lost about 20$ each before quitting. I switched to craps and lost about $120 or so. I saw Roose over at 3-card poker and decided to watch him lose some money. Out of all of the games, I consider table poker games to be the worst, but somehow Dave was holding his own. I gave in and joined him. As a result, I won over $100, after hitting a straight and flush consecutively when good luck charm Papa High stopped by. After playing that game for the first (and hopefully last) time, I really felt like it was easy to win. We all know better though, don’t we.

Odd as it is, I like when my father watches me gamble. It feels like having him at my little league games as a kid, except I’m not an embarrassment. Yep. I sucked at little league and I still throw like a girl. But when it comes to gambling, I like to think I can hold my own.

It was time to pack it up, so I went upstairs with wifey Kim and prepared for an annual tradition, dinner at Rafici’s. Rafici’s is a local Italian restaurant. There wasn’t much poker at the restaurant, but there was a whole lot of food. Too much actually. When wifey Kim and I got back to the hotel, we decided to hang out in the room for a bit and relax. The sleep sniped must’ve been across the way, because wifey Kim was taken out at about 10:30. Roose, a couple of floors down, was experiencing the same thing with Allison. He and I remained in contact via text messages. When both of us were ready, we met at the elevator lobby…and off to poker…

The room was pretty dead. It was Xmas Eve, and there was only about 4 tables going. The list for 1/2 NL was fairly long, so I put my name on it, as well as 3/6 limit and 1-5 spread Stud. Fortunately, a new table was started. I took the 1s. When possible, I like to be next to the dealer so that I can raise my cards a little higher without fear of flashing them to a player. I also find that it provides a decent view of most players, except for the 2 guys on the other side of the dealer. I told Roose beforehand that I didn’t want to sit next to him. It’s fine chatting, but truth be told, you play most of your hands against the guys to your left and right AND I wanted to pretend like we didn’t know eachother.

The table was almost full when a fat bald guy with arm tattoos and a long goatee sat down. “So, are we all Jews at this table or what?” A guy with a yamika replied, “I’m not.” The rest of the table chuckled. One player read my mind. “We need an Asian over here.” I added, “preferably with glasses.” The Asian dealer looked unimpressed.

That was how the table went. It was a fun group. A bunch of Jewish white males (for the most part) playing poker on a Christian holiday. Halfway through the game, a large woman sat at the far end of the table. She made some god-aweful plays and some of the guys were quietly critiquing her. One of the more boisterous (read: drunk) guys at our side remained quiet. Finally he said, guys, that’s my mom. We all laughed for about .5 seconds, until we realized he was serious. At least it started a new round of jokes. “Dude, you are going to bluff your mom?” “I’m folding, because I don’t like to get in the middle of family issues.”

But let’s get to some hands. I always like to play the first hand. I don’t know why. I guess if they see me play a shitty hand, then that’ll loosen them up. If I take it down without showing, I look powerful. If I limp and fold, there is no real loss.

I started off with 88. I raised it up from 2 to 7. I was in MP and the little guy to my left called. I believe we had one other caller. The flop wasn’t pretty. QT3. I could do better. I thought for a moment and bet 15. The guy on my left called. The turn was a Ace. I was probably in trouble. BUT, this was the first hand. Let’s flex some muscle. I bet 20. He looked at the board. He was clearly upset at the Ace and finally folded. A loudmouth who thought he was a poker genius said, “He pushed you off the hand with nothing.” I grinned large but didn’t say a word. Yeah, he was right, but I wasn’t concerned. When the next hand was dealt I whispered to my dimunitive neighbor, “IF you were ahead before the turn, you were behind after it,” thereby implying AT. Let the games begin.

In general, I just kept on folding. I did a lot of talking and a little bit of limping. I got my stack up a small amount through grinding, maybe 30$, but then had it drop back down. Roose, meanwhile, was getting screwed. His AJ hit a J high flop only to go against JJ. There was another crappy situation that I can’t recall. Long story short, Roose eventually busted, and was sent to the rail. He returned 10-15 minutes later. I was down about 40 or 50$ (from an initial max buy-in of $200). I was tired, and Roose was hanging around looking bored, but I had to lay it out for him. “Dude,” I whispered behind my hand, “I can break this table. I just know it.” I agreed to one or two more orbits and that was it. As soon as I was done talking I looked down to KK. Now, I was card dead for a long while. I didn’t even think I remembered how to play KK at this point. I was UTG+1 and decided to bump it up big to try to keep one or two players in, at most. I raised to 20, if memory serves correct. The table folded around. Now, even though I had been card dead, I remained chatty at the table, so I don’t think people saw me as tight. Fortunately, the player UTG, who limped in before me, called. I had been watching him and he was recklessly aggressive post-flop. The flop was all undercards, with two cards to a diamond flush. BB bet out $40. I thought for a moment and raised $50 on top. He almost instantaneously pushed all-in. I knew what was happening. He was trying to be uber-aggressive and win the pot right away. I called. He showed AdJd for a nut-flush draw. The turn and river did nothing to help him and I doubled up. BOOYA!!!!

Not two hands later, I get AQo UTG. I raised it to $12. I got two callers, a nerdy looking Jew and a player who was relatively new to the table and seemed overall outclassed and uncomfortable at a real casino. He was anxious to play, and anxious to put on a play. The flop was JK3. It was hardly what I had hoped for. I checked, and the nerdy guy bet 10. Anxious called. I wanted to fold, but I had odds so I called. The turn was a Queen. I checked. Nerd checked too. Anxious bet 10. I had to call. Nerdy called as well. The river was a T. I rivered a straight. Even better, the turn had made a flush draw, which didn’t hit. I had the nuts. Now, let’s see who I am splitting it with. I bet $25. Nerd folded. Anxious called. He had J3, for two pair on the flop. He slow-played himself to death. The river bet was a bit low by me, but I figured I was chopping anyway. I got mine and immediately stood up. The Nerd looked shocked. “You are leaving after that?” “Yep. I promised my bud that this was my last orbit.” I didn’t look back. I was up $272…but I wouldn’t be up that much for long.

That’s it for tonight. Keep an eye out for part 2, which will include my 2nd round of morning poker. Good night!

Last night, I sucked at the tables. Some .20/.40 PL Omaha H/L with Veneno and GCox cost me about $8. In 2/4 on Gaming Club (earning my PSO promotion) I was up $50 and then down $50. At Noble, I played the $10 SNG and was doing well. But a suckout followed by a cointoss spelled disaster. All in all though, I did make a whopping $4 or so from the HU SNG Step Challenge created at O-Poker. The shortcoming of the HU Step Challenge is that you only make significant profits when you got on a big winning streak. Meanwhile, you can consistently lose (at least lose the fee), which all in all makes for a sticky proposition. The good part is, if you think of it like an MTT (where you won’t hit every time but when you do, you will hit big) it isn’t so bad. And it’s downright interesting.

So, there it is. A poor night at the tables. One of those nights where you go to bed thinking “why didn’t I quit when I was ahead!” Well I’m not going to let that get me too down, even though I have a sour taste in my mouth. Fortunately, I’ve also got some good news, which I will get to in my 2nd post of the day. I plan on separating the posts to emphasize the announcement, so bear with me. Hell, it’s probably already up, by the time you read this.

Atlantic City, here I come! T-minus 28 hours before I reach Atlantic City. It’ll be interesting resolving poker and time with Wifey Kim. I’m a degenerate, true enough, but I know where my priorities are, and if it came down to it, I wouldn’t play a lick of poker all weekend if Wifey Kim so desires. Partner in crime Dave Roose will be joining, and if I know him he’ll find a way to fit poker in. Lucky for me, Wifey Kim is cool as ice, and I’m sure Roose and I won’t have to try too hard to play poker.

Look for the announcement in about…5 minutes.

“Flush me, beautiful.”
“What did you say?”
“Flush me, beautiful.”
[girl laughs]
“Friends call me maker, as in Money Maker.”
“That’s pathetic.”
“Jeez, you don’t have to laugh at me.”

Because I am very lethargic today (lack of sleep and big holiday luncheon be damned!) I’m going to quickly post some announcements.

First, the Subway strike is over! Hallelujah! I’m going to LI tomorrow and then to AC on Saturday morning, so at least traffic will be a little lighter.

Second, I think we have enough consensus for a blogger/reader SNG on Wednesday next week. Start time will be 9PM EST at PokerStars. Trip, I’m going to ask you to create a private room. If we need a password, let me know what you choose.

The format will be $10 SNG, NLHE, single table. I don’t know what happens if we can’t fill the table. I need some verification from people on how that works.

I’m thinking about creating a bounty for taking me out or giving a prize to the winner, such as a deck of Copag cards I have lying around. As a matter of fact, hell yeah. Let’s make that happen. Copag are top quality cards, so if you win the tourney, on top of everything I’ll mail you the deck of cards. AND if you knock me out of the tournament (I’m stealing this from DoubleAs), you get to rename my blog for a week. I’ll even make a new banner for it!

So, let me know who is in. Hopefully we can get a full 9.

In the Zone

I had a lovely evening last night. Wifey Kim, aka Trooper Kim, has been getting up at around 5am to get to work thanks to those MTA duesche bags. As a result, the sleep sniper took her out at about 9:45 last night. With the Mrs. out, I decided to sit down for some pokah!

I was hoping to see some of my blogger compadres online, but the only folks were DP and Kipper. DP was watching a live feed from the Bike in CA, in which Phil Laak and Jean Roberte Bellande were going at it. I checked it out for a few, but I wanted to play more than watch. Besides, I had the Borgata Open WPT event on the TV, and was enjoying the final table of all-stars, including Ivey, Negreaneu, Williams, Arieh and some random old skool shlub. Kip was tearing it up at the Party Poker satellites. So, with no SNG partners, the logical choice was to play some 2/4 limit at Gaming Club in pursuit of GC and PSO‘s promotions.

For the first time in a long while, I was in the zone. I can’t even say that I had great cards. It was more that my timing was superb, my hand selection was fantastic and I made the right value bets and folds. When it comes to limit, it is all about getting and saving those extra bets. As a result of my hard work, consisting of playing two 2/4 tables (one 10-person and one 6-person), I ran my GC bankroll from about $150 to $210.

I could feel the cards turn bad and my patience waning, so I closed GC at about 11:15. I still had an itch to play, so I decided to go back to Noble Poker and see if I can run the $4.15 left out of the free $10 they gave me. My strategy was to play using O-Poker’ s step-HU challenge, in which, if you win 2 HU matches, you move up to the next $$ amount. I started with a $2 HU and plainly dominated my opponent.

Upon completion, I moved up to a $5 HU because the last time I played on Noble I had played and won a $2 HU (constituting my 2 $2 wins, before moving up to $5). This one started back and forth, but once I got up in chips I never looked back. His loss came when he was all-in with ATo against my ATo preflop. By the river, my Td filled a four-card flush. Somehow when the flop came off with 2 diamonds I already knew that I had this one in the bag.

With a good feeling, I started my 2nd $5 HU SNG. The player was reacting very slow and timed out a couple of times. I was getting annoyed, but when he timed out for longer than a hand, I started auto-raising and stealing his blinds. I normally don’t see anything wrong with this, since it was his fault that he was playing with a shitty connection. However, I did feel bad when he started chatting with me: “What the hell is wrong with this room?” “It’s working fine for me.” “This sucks.” It’s one thing to steal the blinds of an absentee player. It’s a whole other thing to do it while he is frozen and can watch it all happen and even chat. To his credit, he never gave me any shit for blind stealing. To my credit, I kept doing it whenever I could. It went off and on for a while, during which I stole as much as I could. I finally said to the guy, “Trust me when I say that I’d rather be playing poker.” I meant it too. Give me a choice between playing poker and hitting the Bet button for 10 minutes, and I’ll choose poker…at least at the $5 stakes. For $10 or $20, I’ll take the button. Every man has his price, and mine is apparently $10!

I finally put the fucker out of his misery and decided to call it a night. It was about midnight. I wanted to play more, but I also wanted to leave the night on a high note. I am looking forward to playing a $10 HU SNG later. This will constitute my 3rd Step.

Out of the Zone

It’s time for everyone’s favorite segment. Jordan’s F-bomb laden Subway Rant. Today’s topic is the NYC Zones. The Zones have been created for taxis to determine how much to charge. If they went by the meter, we’d be spending $10 every block because of traffic wait times. Instead, I’ve been paying $10 flat for a fare that would normally cost $15 (but take 15 min instead of an hour). Today I found out that I should have been paying $15 a fare according to the chart, so I’ve been earning a bigger discount from cabs than I got from the MT-fucking-A’s dollar off discount.

Now, here is where the F-bombs come in. I get in a cab and tell him to go to 58th Street for work. We take the FDR, a highway that wraps around the city. We get to the 60th Street exit and…it’s FUCKING CLOSED! Why? Because of a minor fender-bender! No big deal, right?

So we head to the 96th Street exit, the next one available. I resign myself to the fact that a trip from 96 to 58 will be another 45 minutes. But when we get to 96th, the cabbie starts heading uptown! I’m thinking, what the fuck man. But then I see that he is looping around to go to the FDR South. We get to the entrance and more po-po are there. Now we are told that you can’t get onto the FDR without 4 fucking passengers! Fine then, local streets it is, right?

So we get to 96th and Lexington (the street I want to take downtown) and there are more 5-0! Now they tell us that we can’t go South on Lex but we can go to 5th Avenue. Fine then, fucker.

We get to 5th Avenue and guess who are there? The ever present police. “You can’t enter Manhattan without 4 passengers in the car!” What? What?? WHAT??? I’m stuck at 96th street because of a fucking closed exit ramp and sent outside of the Manhattan Zone!!!! No getting in with more passengers!

It’s a good thing I’m a resourceful motherfucker. “Let me out here, cabbie!” I get out pissed. I stomp my way two blocks, from 96th to 94th, and I get into another cab. A cab that’s already IN the Manhattan Zone. And I’m off to work. One hour and a fucking half! Fuck the MTA! Fuck the Transit Workers! Fuck the Police (for this at least)! Fuck em all!

“Ortisha? Where you at? I can’t hardly see!”
“Orlando? Orlando!”
“Damn baby, what’d you do to yo cards?
“Orlando, you like it? It’s “nut straight.”"

Damn it! When writing a comment to my last post, I had a thought. I need to play in an SNG with a shit load of bloggers very soon. So, I’m throwing it out there to discuss. I’m busy this weekend (in AC), but maybe we can find a weeknight next week to have a blogger get together. I would suggest PokerStars because of their larger SNGs, but its near impossible to get that coordinated unless we go for a 45 person SNG.

Now, I know that the WWDN tourneys have all bloggers, but I’m talking about something I can definitely commit to and would involve the people I know from this here blog. Non-bloggers are welcome. For some of the newer bloggers, like RiverRun, this might be a fun time to see some mass hijinx.

So, here is my questions, which I EXPECT you to answer in a comment below. Let’s see if we can get this going. I’ll answer my own questions in RED.

1. Are you interested in playing in a tourney with Bloggers? YES.
2. What site would you prefer? POKERSTARS, UB or FULLTILT
3. What limit would you prefer? $10 to $20
4. What day and time? ANY DAY, as long as there is advanced notice. 9 PM EST start time.
5. Would a nightly MTT do with a much larger field or would you prefer an SNG? MTT will do, because we’ll all know which one to enter. In this regard, TITAN or any other site will do.
6. If we do an SNG, how large of a table would you prefer? 20-45 players

Hopefully, a bunch of the HU Challengers will join. I emplore you all to get in on some of this merriment. Off-hand my suggestion is for a freezeout MTT at Titan or another small sight on Wed. Dec. 28th, 2005 at 9pm.

Let’s start with an interesting topic in online (or even live) poker. I was chatting yesterday with Veneno and Sir Waffle about live poker. The three of us also played an SNG in which Sir Waffle went the furthest but bubbled out. Sir W has a great track record on these things when I play with him. I have to say that I am duly impressed. But let’s get to the thick of it.

I play a psychological game. It works even better live, but I can get it going online too. Last night, Waffle and I were leaning pretty hard on a player named Mr. David. The guy had his pic up as his avatar, something I highly discourage. I started calling him frat boy (ironically, I was a frat boy in my day) and Waffle joined in. I don’t remember much in the way of specifics. I just remember that by the time we were done, he was in a defensive mode verbally (verbally = in the chat box) and was clearly annoyed/pissed. We let him stay pissed and moved onto the next guy.

After a while, Mr. David won a big hand off of me. My response: nice hand. He paused a bit and then responded “ty”. It’s a minor gesture, thanking me. Frankly, saying nice hand is a minor gesture as well. But after that, I could feel the friendliness.

It’s like breaking in a new pair of shoes. No, it’s like dating. Treat the girl bad, and then when you show the glimmer of kindness, they are all over you. And that’s how it is at the tables. Act like an asshole. Attack, attack, attack. And then switch it up. Say, “Just kidding” or just a simple “nh”. Enemy becomes friend. He stops playing back at you hard. He starts softening up. You have succeeded. You control the table and the players. Congratulations.

Now, typing this, I think I’ve made a similar post before. So let’s go a step further. This is a great strategy to control players at the table. It works well online, but it works especially well live. Most loyal readers will see a pattern in my casino write-ups. I start off with an enemy at the table, and then we become friends by the end of the session. I think it works for me because at first my loud personality can set some people off. If that player plays better when fired up, I switch it so that suddenly we are compadres insulting a new player or laughing off our past differences. People want to be liked. People want to have a good time. I won’t say that I give them that good time, but I do try to keep things entertaining. When people like you at the table you can get away with a lot more. Sometimes, getting them to hate you is the first and quickest step to getting them to love.

So, now that I got some poker stuff out of the way, let’s talk about Subway Strike Day 2. It took me over an hour yesterday to get home by cab. The ride usually takes 15 minutes. This morning, I got in a cab, which already held 3 customers, only to discover that the cabbie was going to be all over the city before he gets to my stop. The result, I get out of the cab 16 blocks from my destination. I could use the exercise.

It’s about time I sound off on why the MTA has pissed me off so much. Last year, the MTA insisted that they needed to raise fares from $1.50 to $2 per ride in order to cover a budget deficit. They were permitted to raise prices, but afterward there was rumblings of accounting errors that created the deficit. There was no way they were going to roll back the fares, as people had finally, begrudgingly gotten used to it.

Fast forward one year. The MTA is facing a surplus of a billion plus that they MUST SPEND!! Now here is where I get pissed off. FIRST, why the fuck do they have a surplus!!! It’ s because I have to spend more money to take the fucking subway. SECOND, why don’t they give it to the city? Because their budget next year will be cut if they don’t spend the surplus. THIRD, what should they spend it on? I’m bracing myself because I’m ready to kick in the monitor just thinking about the MTA’s response.

They spend the fucking surplus on CHEAPER FARES FOR THE FUCKING HOLIDAYS!!! Every weekend since Thanksgiving, the fares have dropped to $1. For Xmas week they drop to $1 for the whole week. Whoop-dee-fucking-doo! I’ve saved $6!! Meanwhile, the subways are fucking disgusting. They are cutting the token booth jobs thus making it less safe at quieter subway stations AND leaving tourists to fend for themselves. They are instructing token booth clerks to sweep and clean up instead of hiring more staff to keep the subways sanitary. They are refusing wage increases and consequently CAUSING THE FUCKING STRIKE!! I blame the MTA workers too, but the surplus should have been spent on them.

So, my final question is, who benefits from the reduced fares provided by the MTA? The answer: NOONE! Locals get a minor benefit, free or cheaper rides. However, this is short-lived and quite frankly not worth the difficulties we are presently facing due to the subway strike. The tourists, both from far away and from the suburbs, don’t get squat either, really. See, the people from out of the area don’t realize that fare is usually $2. They just think it’s $1 because that’s all they know. And if they do know that they are saving $1, who fucking cares. They aren’t going to show any extra good will to the MTA or NYC because of a buck! People from nearby but outside of the city are also reaping the benefit of the discount, since the non-commuters are mostly in the city on weekends and holidays to see the fucking tree at Rockefeller Center or do their Xmas shopping!

So, to recap: MTA has tons of money. MTA spends tons of money on short-term goodwill from customers who don’t realize they are even saving money. MTA workers get jobs and benefit cuts and more responsibilities but no raises. MTA workers strike. I get pissed.

Killian, you have what you want. Give the people the flop!