Keg's Almost Kicked, But I Made It To The Party

Yesterday was the first Riverchasers TOC of 2009. Making these it not all that hard. In fact, 400 donkeys are invited for each one, in each region. So having qualified for each and every one since I started playing in Riggs' little sandbox a little over 3 years ago is, to me, really no big deal. In fact, during one cycle, I was able to qualify in both regions. Unfortunately, back then, both tournaments were held on the same day, so i was SOL.

The bigger accomplishment is that around 225 of the 400 show up each time around and I have been heads up at the end of the last 2, having won the last. Previously though, the final tables in each region would reconvene at the Borgata for a 2 table freeze out, with the winner grabbing a buyin to a major tournament there. This time, there is a TOC day 2 involved where each day 1 is played down to 30 and stopped. Then, those 60 players combine to finish off the tournament with whatever stacks they had remaining. Essentially, the individual regions no longer have their own TOC, but each make up a day 1.

Anyway, it was a super deepstack, slow (for riverchasers) structure that held the potential for a lot of play. Everyone started with T400, level 1 was 1/2 (no antes at any point), and 30 minute levels. I generally played my tight game, but called a few more raises in position with speculative cards. I won't go through the entire 6 hours of play, but will note a few of the key hands that I was involved in.

I called a raise from LP with 44 against a known LAG and flopped a set. When he bet out, I min raised on the rainbow flop as I was only mildly concerned about a possible straight draw and wanted to build the pot a little. I raised bigger against the same opponent earlier with a flopped set and he folded. Lo and behold, the case 4 comes on the turn and he leads again which I call. The straight card comes on the river and he fires a 3rd bullet. I honestly thought he was stronger than he was and massively overbet to which he folds 66 unimproved face up. Damn.

Later I called another raise with 7c5c in position that I knew would also get flatted by the pre-raise limpers. Flop is AQ7 with 2 crubs and I knew I wasn't going anywhere. Yet. Limpers checked as did the raiser who I observed as one who tries to slow play big hands, so I took the free card and hit my flush. After another pair of checks, he fires T100 (pot-sized) and I call. I'm not thrilled with a 7 high flush, but I can't put him on a made flush unless he raised with something like KJc or KTc. The other players get out of the way and the flop pairs the 7. I'm less than thrilled, but call the second 100 chip bet. He tables AQ for a flopped two pair and says show me two clubs in quite the condescending manner. So I do. He mutters about 75 suited for the next 15 minutes until JJ cracks his AA and is gone.

Soon after that, millerd33 gets moved to my table directly on my right and all hell breaks loose. He is already short stacked, and starts open shoving with alternately air and big cards. He has most of the entire table on tilt but I just laugh about it with him. Right up until he forgot that the BB will defend with almost any 2 cards and shoved with 6 high and couldn't catch up to KJo.

Right before miller's exit, I open-raised with AhQh from the SB and got flatted by a notoriously tight BB. Flop was jack high with 2 hearts and I check raised her for the rest of her stack, but she had the one hand in her range I didn't want to see, JJ. I really thought that my A was still live when she bet out (I had her on KK or QQ at that point) and that I was about 50/50 and willing to race. Oops. Down from T1300 back to a starting stack.

Doubled with QTo through the same guy who busted miller when I four flushed his KQ. Then I got a little revenge on JJ when I completed from the SB with T7o with a few limpers already along for the ride. I bet the T74 rainbow flop and BB called. Limpers got out of the way. A 6 came on the turn and I shipped the rest of it and she called with 55 for an OESD and 4th pair. After fading the 3, 5, and 8, I was up to around T2600 and there were under 40 left in the room.

We broke down to 4 9-handed tables and I decided that it was time to try to accumulate some chips for day 2. The shorties were desparately trying to hang on (why I have no idea as this wasn't a satellite) and the big stacks at my table we generally willing to coast. After a few hands, I picked up AhQh again in MP and raised 3x BB to T600. The tournament chip leader who had just been moved to our table was in the BB and had a tad over 6000. She had seemed willing to coast, but when she looked at her cards, shrugged, called, and bet 1/2 pot on an A75 flop. I called, hoping to solicit a turn check where I could take the pot, but instead she put me all in when the turn brought a K. At this point, we are on the day 2 bubble, and I'm down to T1400 so I tank for a good 2 minutes. Eventually I come to the conclusion that she really is strong and fold. She flips A7o for the flopped top 2. FAWK.

The bubble bursts at another table during our next hand, so I made day 2, but not in the position I was hoping to be in. 214 showed up to play in the Eastern day 1, so about 86,000 chips are moving on for an average stack size of a little under T3000 and the chip leader with around 8 or 9k. The blinds were stopped at 100/200 when we got down to 35, so hopefully we play level 1 starting from there. If we pick back up at 200/400, even the chip leaders will have less than 20 BB to start and that will make for some sub-optimal poker to say the least. Personally, I'm hoping for a 50/100 start so that chip leaders will be rewarded with approximately a standard riverchasers starting stack (usually 100BB) and the rest of us, while (much) shorter will still have some hope. I know multi-day tournaments generally don't work that way, but this is all new for RPT and they are pretty good at finding and implementing creative solutions to less than ideal circumstances.

fawking AQ. I call it Al Qaeda for a reason. It always blows up in your face making playing it a suicide mission.

And there go another 5 minutes of your life you're not getting back...

Happy Memorial Day!

Take a moment to reflect on the sacrifice made by current and past generations to sustain a level of freedom where you can do this with your free time:



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Indoctrination... Complete

Saturday was my older daughter's first communion. I'm not Catholic. I wasn't raised under any form of Christianity whatsoever. And today, honestly, I can't say I'm really anything of that nature. My wife, however, is. So I went along with the program. Let my daughter develop the same level of cynicism that I have on her own.

That morning really reinforced my feelings, though, toward organized religion of any sort. Stand up, sit down, kneel, sing this song, lather, rinse, repeat.

I was a little saddened, actually, by the sheepishness of it all. I don't mean to offend either of you who read this drivel, and if you take solace in your weekly spiritual rejuvenation that way, I'm glad it works for you. Me? I just see a 2,000 year old global enterprise, with generationally instilled brand loyalty, brainwashing its customer base on a weekly basis under the guise of a reward program that they will never have to provide. All this for only 10% per annum.

That's just the church. I don't doubt that the premise and goal are the same across the board, just the methodology and specific script are different. Sad. And now my daughter is officially in the fold. Hopefully she will come to her senses over time, but I won't do or say anything to encourage/discourage her ultimate decision.

I think I prefer the gospel according to the Wyld Stallyns. Two simple commandments. Be excellent to each other. Party on. Fathers Preston and Logan nailed that one.

Anyway, I'm looking for some other 40ish year old musicians to start a basement band. I want to call it "Mid-Life Crisis". Suburban Philly area. People with day jobs. Maybe pick up a gig every once in a blue moon. Just for the fawk of it. Know anyone? Leave it in the comments.

Wow, that was post #100? Pretty anticlimactic.

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Tax Day

On this, the holiest day of the redistributionist calendar, I can only reflect on what is, and what should be...

Nothing is given to man on earth except a potential and the material on which to actualize it. The potential is a superlative machine: his consciousness; but it is a machine without a spark plug, a machine of which his will must be the spark plug, the self-starter and the driver; he has to discover how to use it and he has to keep it in constant action. The material is the whole of the universe, with no limits set to the knowledge he can acquire and to the enjoyment of life he can achieve. But everything he needs or desires has to be learned, discovered or produced by him––by his own choice; by his own effort; by his own mind. - The Objectivist Ethics

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Sageness of the Boomtown Rats

I don't like Mondays. And the Monday after L.O.A.D.? Ooomph.

It's been years since I could physically handle the cabin for an entire weekend. Eventually, the body just can't handle that kind of abuse. Evidently, 12 hours is my rapidly approaching breaking point.

Rolled into the lodge around 2 P.M. Saturday afternoon and, after a badly needed trip to the bathroom and some brief greetings to those already gathered, went directly to one side of the improvised outdoor beer pong table. I was lights out in game 1, taking out 7 of the 10 cups on our way to a 3 cup victory. Game 2 was a more team based triumph, going down to the final cups. The knock out blow was self-inflicted as an opponent miscue sent the terminal volley directly into his team's final cup. Never seen it before, might not ever see it again. A win is a win.

Thus concluded beer pong. No more takers. Obviously our karma was entirely too strong for anyone else to want to try to test.

There might have been a tales game break out after that. Remaining details of the night are sketchy at best.

Hey, poker content!!! Micro poker, but still...

We played 2 5-man SNGs. I went gigli in both. In the first, I ran with a semi-bluff one street too many into a guy who I later realized was going to showdown if he was in the hand. Every time. Card death plus drunken luckboxy calling station (DLCS) never shows good results. Finally ran presto into AK and, since I am actually J.D. McDuffie, lost the race and was gone. Tried to play much tighter in the second one, but of course ran 77 into DLCS's KK and stacked myself. Even morons have a hand sometimes. Even morons have a hand sometimes. Of course, he didn't win either game.

Being quite frustrated, I tried to transition the game into a cash table. 3 handed. Me, DLCS, and one other unfortunate soul. .10/.20 NLHE. Huge stakes, I know, but the average pot was actually around $15. DLCS was raising 2 of every 3 hands to $3.00 pre-flop. Usually blind. We each bought in for 200 BBs so, theoretically, we should have been able to play some good deep stack poker. Should have been. I dropped 85% of my buy-in, most of which came in two hands that DLCS rivered a winner. 30 minutes later, the game ended and I cashed out +25 BBs.

Finally, the table was usurped for Whales Tales. L.O.A.D. is generally the one place where you will find a professional grade game of Tales and this was no exception. And if that wasn't enough, one of the older guys threw in a new rule as a challenge. Between that, the frequent golden chairs, and the bottle of Sambuca on the table to supplement all the malted goodness, my destiny was just about set. The intermittent hiccups were the final straw.

I finally gave in around 1:00 AM, tried one last time to banish the diaphragmatic contractions and, unable to do so, curled up on the floor in the side bedroom. The problem was that the terminal point in the day's digestive process wound up being the northernmost egress. Not good. But the kick in the junk? DLCS was the only one in the room who managed to sleep through the yacking. One last one-outer and he didn't even know it.

And there go another 5 minutes of your life you're not getting back...

Leave Your Voter Registration Card At The Door

Seriously? Who are these 24% and why do they still have a say in things that effect me and my family?

From the raw data of a recent Opinion Dynamics pool...

12. In thinking about funding the federal government, which of the following
statements do you believe?

1. The federal government has plenty of money of its own without using
taxpayer dollars, or
2. The federal government is entirely funded by taxes and
taxpayer dollars
3. (Neither)
4. (Don't know)

              Government    Government funded
              has own money by taxpayers       (Neither) (Don’t know)
3-4 Mar 09        24%              65              8          3
Democrats         26%              62              8          3
Republicans       21%              68              7          4
Independents      24%              67              6          3

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On The Origin Of Species

Sharks and other smaller fish. They existed happily in the same seas for a long time obeying the natural predator/prey relationships.

In a fluke accident, an asteroid, the Moneymaker, collided with the known world setting off a chain of events eventually known as the Binion-Harrah (B-H) Boundary. The seas boiled and many areas of land were uncovered, previously barren of life. In these areas, huge numbers of braying quadrupeds emerged, evidently mesmerized by the aftereffects of the asteroid strike.

The sharks found themselves competing with these wild, unpredictable creatures for sustenance and many could never overcome the typically irrational behavior exhibited by the newcomers. Only time will tell whether this will lead to a mass extinction event, but certainly there have already been many deaths...

Happy 200th Chuck!

And there go another 5 minutes of your life you're not getting back...