High On Poker

What a day. It’s been a bit odd here at the office this week. As you may recall, not too long ago I was on my deathbed thanks to GERD, while working my ass off at the office, preparing and assisting with a trial, and gearing up for two more trials. At that time, it felt like the pressure of it all would never end. I think I’m good under pressure. I’m probably more efficient at the very least. Well, as it turned out, both of the upcoming trials were put off for a month or more, so I found myself with an interesting new predicament…I have everything under control.

I have motions out on several cases, and frankly, when a motion is out, the case is essentially put on hold until the motion is heard in front of the Court (we lawyers capitalize the word Court so that we show some sort of respect or something). I believe that is the case for about 4 of my 12 cases. One just resolved (to the tune of $500,000 verdict for our client), two are ready for trial but pushed back, and the other ones are sort of in stasis.

End result, I’ve been keeping buys keeping busy today. But I don’t need to stay as late as usual (my guilty conscience probably will anyway) and I’m finding pockets in the day where I can actually relax. It’s rather nice…and unnerving.

So the WPBT Summer Classic is coming together. Unfortunately, its scheduled on July 7th, while I’ll be in Jamaica with wifey Kim. Truth be told, I don’t know how so many bloggers are able to afford all of the trips. If I win the DADI 5 for the WSOP seat, I’m going to have to do a bit of shuffling to pay for airfare and hotel. But lets be honest, if I win, IF I win, I’ll make it work.

With that in mind, let me encourage people to sign up for the DADI 5 even ASAP. This is for a few reasons. First, it is a bit pricier than our usual $10+1 stakes, so it might help to lock in your dough now, so down the line you don’t even have to think about it. Also, we NEED 54 people to sign up to send someone to the WSOP. So, it would do me and Trip a lot of good to know in advance that we are close. Finally, when people start to sign up, it seems to be like one of them snowballs in the cartoons rolling downhill. It starts the momentum and usually crushes Wile E. Coyote (albeit, he’s in the desert, but I’m running out of obscure references).

With the weekend fast approaching, I’m also gearing up for some poker goodness. I started a reload promo at Titan. I figured I could work it off while playing their Rio 6-person Jackpot SNGs (big $ for 1st place, 5 times in a row, decent $ for 1st or 2nd 5 times in a row). Last night I lost one of them, after losing a $20 SNG on FullTilt. I’m not 100% comfortable with these $20 SNGs yet (except for Rios because 3 out of 6 seats pay), but I want to move up, even if my bankroll is now just shy of $800 thanks to a $200 withdrawal.

I don’t know what to expect, poker-wise, this weekend. I have to give a huge thank you and sorry to wifey Kim, because I’ve noticed my poker addiction, cough cough, um hobby, has been a bit ever-present lately. The urge to play is nary constant and unstoppable. But, as I’ve always said, it isn’t an addiction if you are winning.

For tonight, I hope to play some with GCox late at night when wifey Kim has passed out. (Didn’t I just say something about playing too much?) It feels odd, but I haven’t seen the guy online for a while, mostly because of our different timing and commitments. Bottom line is, I like playing with our Poker Degenerate crew, and I’ve probably played more with GCox than with any other blogger. Hopefully, we’ll be hitting up UB later. Don’t know why UB. Maybe its nostalgia from the SNG Challenge.

Other than that, wifey Kim and I have a mostly commitment-free weekend. Saturday will be spent walking around the city. Wifey Kim has her eye on a dress she wants to buy, and I wanted to pick something up for the namesake. Saturday night is free, but probably poker-free if we find anything worthwhile to do.

Sunday will be spent with wifey Kim’s grandfather, who is recovering from a recent hospital stay. This has been his third trip to the hospital in about 6 mos, and his 2nd in about 3 weeks, so its a real shame. They can’t pin down what is wrong, but I personally fear its merely old age, something that there is not a cure for. Its disheartening, especially because he is a good man and I respect him and feel that we are family (beyond just in-laws). It’s funny. I don’t think I’ve ever said these things aloud, but I’m willing to type it to you strangers. Love that Internet anonymity.

So, basically, I guess it won’t be a very pokery weekend. But, in the distance, I have a free night Wednesday coming up, which will probably end at Robbie Hole’s homegame. The Straddle Club got busted, so no return trip there.

In addition, I’m planning a trip to Atlantic City from late Thursday night, April 27, through Saturday, April 29. I’ll be staying at the Showboat on Thursday (free) and the Tropicana on Friday ($119 poker rate, requiring that I, humorously, play 4 hrs of poker). I’ve already checked the local tournament schedules online in anticipation. Right now, the frontrunner is the $60+15 Friday 2pm tournament. I’ll probably get in on some of the juicy action at Taj Mahal. If anyone has suggestions, I’m open. Interestingly, the usual crew of Roose and Hole may be unavailable. If necessary, I’ll go solo, because I’ll roll like that. But it occurs to me that there may be some of you out in the blogosphere interested in playing in AC. If so, you know when I’ll be going, so let me know if you are interested. I can’t promise anything but a shit load of poker, but something tells me that if you are reading this, we have something in common there.

That’s all for now. Stay tuned tomorrow for my pathetic attempt at an April Fool’s joke. Come on, you knew it was coming.

The Winner Receives:
$1500 WSOP Seat for Every 54 Players (Travel Accomodations Not Included)
Naming Rights to the Next WWdn Tournament
A Free Seat in the WWdn Tournament of Champions

Along with the following special prizes for 2nd through 4th, any remaining prize pool after the WSOP seat(s) are secured will be paid out in increments of $100. Example: If prize pool is $2100, payout will be 1st/WSOP Seat, 2nd through 7th/$100 each.

2nd Place Receives:
An iPod Shuffle, compliments of PokerOnAMac.com.

3rd Place Receives:
10,000 PSO Points, compliments of PokerSourceOnline.com.*

4th Place Receives:
5,000 PSO Points, compliments of PokerSourceOnline.com.*

*PSO Points redeemable at PokerSourceOnline.com at the PSO Points Store.

WPBT Player Of The Year Points will be awarded for this tournament!

In addition, for this week only, DADI has joined forces with the WWdn, thus there will be no WWdn on Tuesday, April 25th. We hope all WWdn regulars will play in DADI 5 to support sending another player to the WSoP through a blogger event.

“Keep you cards covered!”, I’d say while looking in the other direction and holding a hand to the side of my face. Blinders. It’s the only way not to cheat when your neighbor is flaunting his cards like they were a new car on full display. Let’s face it though. This scene could only happen in one place, a home game. Preferably with low stakes. Anywhere else, and my mouth is shut and my eyes are wandering. Sure I’ll intervene when I’m in a card room and it is so obvious that others will notice and get involved. But otherwise, I can’t help but let my eyes wander when I see a flash of white and a black King or a red Ace. Show me!

But I’m not a cheater. Hell, I have to put up the blinder in the home game merely because I don’t want to cheat. You know what I mean.

Have you ever been answering a crossword puzzle, or filling out one of those fun Maxim connect the ass to the chick games, or studying with a practice test when you have the key on the next page! Even worse, stick that key on the bottom of the same page. Hell, make it upside down. It don’t make a difference. If my eye wanders, it’ll take .001 seconds for it to notice that picture 1 is actually Tara Reid’s butt crack and not Rue McClanahan. The truth is, the eye sees it for .001 seconds, but my mind keeps working even when I tell it not to. It processes for a second or more after I saw the answer. I didn’t mean to see it in the first place, but once the cat is out of the bag, my brain can’t help but take the shortcut.

That is the reality of it, isn’t it. Our minds want to take the shortcut. And as much as we try to punish them for their bad ways by killing them with booze and assorted pharmacueticals, the brain will always betray us by seeing that flash of white and knowing instantly that our neighbor does not have a face card.

Cheating, my friends, is impulsive. And its easy. You’ve done it before too. Intentionally even! Maybe you copied off a friend’s homework or test in class. Maybe you played a bit with the tax man (not me though, with my whopping $7 tax return). How about a quick game of just the tip when your girlfriend is out of town and the town bicycle (because everyone has had a ride) comes by?

Hobbes had it right (the philospher, you fool, not the tiger). People without a ruling body are despicable creatures. We will cheat.

So, Jordan, what is this diatribe on Impulsive Cheating all about? Its about reality and the ZeeJustin drama. ZeeJustin, in case you are new to the world of poker blogging (because everyone else and their momma have commented thus far) had several accounts on a poker site and played them simultaneously in the same MTT. He was finally discovered and his online money was confiscated. Meanwhile, his name is now right up there on the list of untouchables in the poker world, and probably will be for life.

Did ZeeJustin deserve the harsh reality that is falling around him, when all he did was follow the natural human impulse to take the easy way out.

HELL YEAH! Burn baby burn!

Look, we are all inclined to cheat, especially when its easy and everyone else is doing it. We need that ruling body to say, hey fucktard, stop cheating or we’ll take your money and ban you. We need outrage and indignation and a symbol like ZeeJustin for us all to rally around and burn in an orgy of self-regulation and effigy.

So, thank you ZeeJustin for getting outted and getting bitch slapped and giving us someone to point to and say, “See! See what happens when you cheat! It isn’t easy! It isn’t safe! Not everyone is doing it!”

Of course, we are all human beings. So, the cheaters will still cheat. Until they get outted though, we’ll keep ragging on ZeeJustin, our own personal whipping boy. Fucking cheater.

Well, as you can see, I can post again. Three or so days without posting was actually like a little vacation. But, I strive to post daily (with weekends off for good behavior) and I’m going to try to live up to that goal.

The blog is still going through some repairs. Most notably a lot of the sidebar is being revamped. Hopefully, we’ll be up and running in the next day or so, with a new banner and possibly a whole new revamped template, but Blogosophus, the god of Blogging, has yet to decide. All hail Blogosophus! May he bring bloggery goodness to us all!

Meanwhile, Gamblor, god of gambling, has been good to me, overall. I had a break even night two nights ago after getting myself in a hole with a 45-p SNG loss (check out the 45-person SNG Challenge blog to see the leaderboard) and some Limit losses. Then I decided to play some Rio SNGs on Titan/Noble and placed 1st, 3rd, and 2nd, to make all of my money back exactly.

Last night, I played at Robbie Hole’s home game. Cute story. This morning, wifey Kim and I were chatting while lying in bed. She was asking me about all of the guys at the game. How is Roose doing? Is Hole doing well? That’s when I looked at her and said, “You’ve been reading my blog!” “Not really,” she replied, but then I laid it out. I only call Roose by Roose and Hole by Hole on the blog (primarily). Next thing I know, she’ll be saying stuff like, “Honey, I’m all done shopping. IGHN!”

Second funny part of the story. All of my answers were “I don’t know.” I mean, I spent hours with the guys, but we never discussed their respective women, weddings, or anything else significant the entire time. Wifey Kim asked, “What did you talk about?” The answer: “Poker.”

I won the 1st 6-person tourney at Hole’s home game for a $45 profit (15 buy-in, 60/30 for 1st/2nd). I lost the second one due to escalating blinds followed by a re-suckout. I was all-in with A8 v. A4 v. AK. The flop is x84. The turn is a 4. On that note, the guy with A4, wifey Kim’s brother and my bro-in-law Marc, was all-in too. Lucky bastich.

I then lost $9 playing .25/.50 cash games. Nothing really exciting to report. I made a good laydown with TP2ndTK, vs someone’s two-pair. I didn’t have much time, but if I did, I was confident that I would have ultimately profitted.

I got kicked in the junk last night on Titan in a .25/.50 NL game. One guy was raising a lot. He raised from .50 to $3 in EP in a 6p table. He got one caller. I was the BB or SB and pushed for about $50 with KK. He folded, as I knew would. The other guy called. The turn was a Jack, and I knew that I had lost. I said to myself, he had a JJ. Sure enough, I was dead right. In total, I lost about $20 on that hand (I had him covered). In the end, I wasn’t upset. I knew I’d get a caller, and I even knew what he had before showdown. Maybe I shouldn’t have pushed pre-flop, but I wanted any Ax hand to pay to play. Oh well oh well.

DADI is shaping up nicely, and expect the big announcement tomorrow, if all goes well.

That’s it for now. This site will be back in shape in no time. Until then, make mine Poker.

I’m hoping this blog continues to work. I recently got approached by a potential advertiser and once I copied and pasted their banner, all hell broke loose. Essentially, the code in Blogger.com is all messed up. I tried copying and pasting the code from the website’s source code, since the site is loading up fine, but when I re-published the blog, nothing happened. Maybe you’ll see this, maybe you won’t.

So, I won’t even try to leave one of my usual thought-provoking posts. I lost $20 last night, but that’s fine too. Poker for everybody!

Before I say anything, let me suggest that you head over to Quest of a Closet Poker Player, a blog that I have not read before today, to read a very interest series of posts on Relationships (the kind involving the opposite sex) and Poker. From what I’ve read, I may have to add CC to my list of blogs.

I lost about $25 yesterday, losing another 45-person SNG (but at least reaching the final table), and the WPBT POY event (I played horribly). I did, however, win some dough playing .25/.50 NLHE on Titan, where I plan on working off their new Reload Bonus. I like Titan. The players seem crappy and I’m comfortable with the software. I don’t think that they support Poker Tracker, and for that, I am glad. I never could get the swing of using that damn thing, and in the end, I guess I am more of a feel-player than I’d like to admit. Poker Tracker definitely is an edge, but it isn’t one that I have been able to utilize effectively.

Cash games seem to be a new distraction for me. I finished my promo at Doyle’s Room, but have yet to receive my Rake Back. I’m not sure how that works, but I’ll be keeping an eye out for it. If you want rake back, I suggest you use my link, and mention HighOnPoker as your referral when you send the email to their customer support to arrange your account.

The return to cash games has been interesting so far. With my $1k bankroll (not anymore, but I’ll get to that), I feel more comforable losing a $50 buy-in. I still don’t love it, but my drop from 800 to 200 or so several months ago followed by my resurgence has given me perspective when it comes to variance. I scheduled a trip to AC for the last weekend of April too, which will help solidify my desire to play more often and higher stakes. I’m damn excited.

So, lets get back to relationship building. Wifey Kim means the world to me. She is my #1 love. But mistress poker is a tempting bitch, and I have to admit that I’ve been splitting my attention a lot lately. One contributing factor is the plethora (of pinatas) of blogger events that have distracted me. I’m going to have to re-evaluate my participation in the coming weeks. I won’t avoid them all, but I can’t play more than one blogger event per week. Aside from that, when I’m in a funk like I have been, its easy to poor my free time into poker, where my endorphines are fed by adrenaline and my mind is free of its usual distractions. In the end though, wifey Kim deserves better, and while she has not outright complained, she has dropped subtle hints.

So, tonight I hope to avoid the poker machine. Hope is a key word. At least it shall wait until the wifey is in Slumberland. She usually beats me there by an hour or two.

For months, I’ve noticed that our bed has been sagging in the middle. I haven’t done anything about it because of cost, but this weekend, wifey Kim and I swapped spots. She noticed it for the first time. One day later, we purchased a mattress and box-spring set (to be delivered today) for about $500. Its probably one of the cheaper sets, but we are on a budget that quite frankly can’t afford the $500. So, $200 is being withdrawn from my poker funds.

$1000 bankroll is now at $800. Christ almighty! At least it wasn’t a bad beat.

Cost of a Mattress and Box Spring: $500
Drain from Online Poker Bankroll: $200
Satisfaction on sleeping on something paid for by gambling: Priceless

Some things money can’t buy. For the rest, there’s Poker.

Let me take a moment to pimp for a friend of mine. You may have hear me speak of David Roose before. He’s a buddy, but more like a brother for me. So I’m extremely proud to see that his band Giant Step has been having some success as of late. They were entered into a battle-of-the-bands against about 20 other acts and won, based on an independent panel. As a result, they will be appearing at a Battle of the Bands on Sirius Radio’s Jim Bruer Show on May 1st. Check them out, and if you like what your hear, check out their live shows at I.C.U. Bar in NYC on May 13, and Kenny’s Castaways on May 27. I’ll be there too. For more info, check out their MySpace page HERE. They have music up, so you can get a bit of a sampling. Think Incubus/Coldplay/Dave Matthews, but only loosely, because, quite frankly, its damn impossible to really reference one band with another, unless they are a rip off band. I should also mention that my good buddy Justin is in the band, along with his brother and cousin, so maybe it’s a little bit of Partridge Family too. But just a little bit.

On the poker front, I’ve been slaughtering them. Omaha PL (hi/lo or just hi) has been my recent game of choice. I find that changing things up a bit helps. My Limit Hold Em game was it the shitter, but I still wanted to finish my bonus at Doyle’s Room, so I switched to PLO8 and PLO. Last night in a PLO Hi only game, I held AAxx and flopped A38. I bet the pot. He bets the pot. I push. He calls with 88xx, so he only has one out, an 8. He hit it on the river. I laughed. What can you do? At least I bought in short for $20 in a .25/.50 game. I find that it makes the most sense, considering my style of play. Once I lost, I gave up there, because a loss like that will make all the players lose their respect for your raises, even if you do have the nuts at the time.

It was all good. I played a 27-p SNG and a 45-p SNG and bombed out of both. I was thinking that it wasn’t my night, but I started a 9-p SNG on Doyle’s for a $20 buyin. I’ve been a $10 guy for a while, but I think it is time to move up. Case in point, I won the damn thing, making it a winning evening to the tune of just short of $30. Not a lot, but a nice addition to the bankroll.

This morning, I finished the Doyle’s Room promo with some PLO8, and a $6 profit. I’ll take it! The bonus is $75, so that’s a nice cherry on top, although overall I think I lost money there. I also played a $20 10-p SNG on UB, spreading the wealth around to various sites where I have minimal dough. I have my money spread around so that I can get into conveniently timed MTTs or join a random blogger. Well, I felt like a change of scenery, and I couldn’t be happier, because I took 1st in that $20 SNG too, for a $78 profit.

Overall, the roll is up to over $1000, and I’ve withdrawn a couple of hundred this year already. Wifey Kim heard about the $1k and suggested a withdrawal. I have $200 earmarked to be withdrawn, but only when there is a need, such as our Jamaican vacation in July or the new mattress/box spring we desperately need.

I’m feeling good about my game. I guess that’s the point of this post.

Tonight, I’ll be on LI at wifey Kim’s friends’ place. Her husband is good people, so I’m looking forward to it. Tomorrow is another busy day, so poker will be light until Sunday. I can’t wait.

Oh, and Atlantic City on April 28-30 (Thurs and Fri night). I had a free room on Thursday and I qualified for a special Poker room rate at Trop on Friday. All I have to do is play there for 4 hrs. Like I wasn’t going to do that anyway!

Big DADI news, and I mean HUGE! But you’ll have to wait…

Have a great weekend! I sure am!

I have to admit, I’m a petty, petty man. Growing up, I was always a smart kid. I never worked hard, it just came easily. But not too easily. I was able to make it into the Advanced program in grade school by the skin of my teeth in 6th grade, on a revolving door status (i.e., if I sucked, they’d keep spinning me until I walked out that revolving door).

In junior high, I was in all advanced classes, but found myself to be the only one in class doodling while the rest were paying attention. My homework would be done late, or half-assed, or not at all. My studying was practically non-existent. Hell, I can’t even remember studying.

High School was more of the same. The majority of my friends were not in advanced classes, so I saw them at lunch and here and there, but they weren’t with me all day. Instead, I’d be in a class with the ‘smart kids’ and I didn’t really fit in, mostly because of my slacker ways. But I liked those classes. Hell, school and tests were always easy for me, and even though I wasn’t the academic star in the advanced classes, my grades were high, and amongst my friends, I was the smart one.

I never thought myself competitive, though. Athletically speaking, I’ve always been sub par. I mean sub sub par. Basically, if I wasn’t picked last, it was because someone else was an amputee, obese or blind. Plain and simple, I suck at sports. I still do. In Little League, I was in the outfield, and I’d pray that no one would hit it to me. Pitches hit me more than I hit them. My basketball skills were adequate, but I’d only play with friends. I never wanted to seriously compete.

But I guess I am competitive. My mother helped me realize this. When friends had their successes growing up, I couldn’t help but feel the need to one-up them. When others were showered with attention, I guess I subconsciously marked them in my head as competition, no matter the situation or consequences. I guess I am competitive, and worse, I’m petty. I gave up on sports because I was never any good. I had no confidence. But poker is like my sport. I’m actually pretty good, and I want to be great. I’m getting there too, and when I can keep my head straight and focus, I think I AM great.

But this is about me being petty. Petty about seeing other people’s success and wanting that for me. In poker, in blogging, in social settings. It’s who I am, and I don’t mean to be a prick or an envious bastard, but sometimes that is my default. Schaudenfreude.

I’m trying hard Ringo, I’m trying real hard to be that guy who is happy when others succeed. In fact, a good 95% of me relishes when members of the blogging community and any of my compadres do well. It’s that other 5% that kills me. It’s the part that says, what about me? What about Jordan?

I guess I’m just a bit antsy. Things have been weird lately for me. When I went to play at Hole’s house a couple of days ago, I was like a junky walking into a crackhouse. I was excited, overly eager, and pushing to get right to the action. It’s no joke that I get high on poker. I love the game on a visceral level. I feel that it is my way to compete without feeling guilt, at least while it occurs. Last night during the HU match with Veneno and the HORSE SNG, I was acting pretty obnoxious. In the heat of the moment, I can get mean at the table (moreso online than live, where I get chatty and maybe slyly mean, but not outright). I can talk shit and act like I am the best thing that has happened to the game. During HORSE, I called some players Omatards, after my less-than-great hand held up. It wasn’t smart for my game, and it wasn’t right.

Poker is my sport. I can compete with anyone. It’s also my escape, from holding back my inner-petty self. I can be free at that table. I can’t get up right now and leave the office, saying, “I’m done for the day”. I have obligations, and moreso, I have people with expectations of me. With poker, there is none of that. I’m my own boss. I make my own expectations. I’m free.

I just want to be free. I want to be able to play poker all of the time at the drop of a hat. I want to have a live game on tap that I can afford and that is safe. I want to be able to play games where I can win hundreds if not thousands of dollars. I want to be able to play on a whim. I want the respect and the success that I feel like I deserve, but know that I might not. I want my freedom from all of this. I want a lot of things.

I guess I’m just petty that way.

No surprise here. As predicted, I went out of the HUC3 in the first round. I took out Veneno first, and then faced the Suckout L’Artiste in the 2nd match of Round 1. I dominated for most of the game, but I eventually got sloppy and called a re-raise all-in with an inside striaght draw and overcards. He had two pair, so there goes my overcard outs, and I fail to hit my straight.

The good news is, I get to rename Veneno’s Blog as her bounty. I’m still thinking, but I have some ideas:

• High On Veneno
• I’ve Been Owned
• All Praise Jordan
• Go To High On Poker NOW
• YoSoyPerdidor

I have to admit that I like “All Praise Jordan”. I think there is something catchy to the over-the-top conceit. High On Veneno is catchy though. But thanks to this brainstorming session, I think I’ve come up with a compromise. Veneno, you are on notice. Your blog shall be called:

High On Veneno, part of the High On Poker family of blogs

Yes, it’s a bit long, but it has that catchy HoV, and I get to name drop my own blog. Yep, I’m a self-promoting whore, but remember that I do it for you.

In the meanwhile, I played another 45-person SNG last night and played terribly, eventually bluffing with the hammer post-flop to someone who flopped the Ace. I had NO OUTS, and it was a pathetic move by me. I knew I wasn’t playing my best, and I should have just passed on it outright. I have only placed once in 9 tries in 45-person SNGs, so I really need to reevaluate my play. Suffice it to say that the last 6 SNGs in the 45 SNG Challenge will be played under different conditions.

I had the pleasure of playing a $10 HORSE SNG on Full Tilt. I’ve been on fire there lately, placing in my last three SNGs in a row. It was only a 3rd place finish, but money is money. Boobie Lover also placed in the money, but I don’t know if he took down 1st or 2nd. These HORSE tourneys are great for me, because my fundamentals are solid. I just fall short when it comes to making sudden stupid plays which cost me my whole stack. But in the HORSE tourneys, which are, by there nature, limit, my blow-up hands are usually survivable.

That’s it for now. Have a great day and a greater weekend. I’ll be spending mine on LI with wifey Kim’s good friends. Tonight is just wifey Kim and I, and we hope to go to our new potential favorite bar/restaurant, a whole-in-the-wall with good food and a private atmosphere. Have a great one!