Short field in the LivePokerRadio game last night. I almost unregistered. But then figured WTF, I'll pretend its a pushfest and go all-in every hand.
But then I didn't. For some reason I just couldn't bring myself to do it. So instead, I played loose passive early. Why I have a problem with just pushing every hand when I'm not really interested in playing, but playing loose passive is ok, is beyond me. It seems like I would stand a much better chance just pushing.
After a bit of this, I decided to adapt a new strategy. WWLJD - What would LJ do. LJ brings in major MTT dollars, so I figured I'd pretend I was her, and see what happened. In reality, I played like a caricature of LJ. I think there was one series where I raised pre-flop 8 times in a row. You know what? I won all of them. Mostly pre-flop. But one or two post-flop with air.
Long story short, playing like a cartoon version of LJ netted me 1st place against a small field of bloggers. If I dial back the looseness a bit, but keep up the aggro and flop texture reading, I may start to see better MTT results as well.
It really makes me wonder if FT rewards loose play though - instead of on the receiving end of sick suck-outs, I was giving them last night. I'm sure its just variance, but it sure felt weird.
It appears that my esteemed colleague Julius Goat has declared himself the Pokerblogger Party nominee for the upcoming presidential election.
This is a move that could result in disastrous consequences for our country. Luckily, the PNC has not yet commenced, and many super-delegates are still up for grabs. I urge all Poker Bloggers to carefully consider the ramifications of a Goat Nation. I certainly do not want 8 more years of the Goat/Bush agenda, do you?
Lets take a look at the platform of the supposed candidate, Julius Goat.
1. His "unquenchable thirst for power" is not what it seems. This is a veiled attempt to pander to to his biggest soft money contributor : All-In Energy Drink. Many of us who attended the 2008 WSOP can attest to the vile nature of the All-In Energy drink and this has been well documented throughout the blogosphere. If an evil corporation like All-In has endorsed the Goat, you can be sure he is up to no good.
2. Negative campaigning will be staple of the Goats run. Attacking Scotty Ngyuen is not cool, baby. Not cool. The man put in his time, drank lots of booze, and won the 50K HORSE event. What are you saying Goat? That we shouldn't drink beer? You can't win elections on negative campaigning. Look at Bush in 04', do you think he won because of the constant assault on John Kerry's flip flopping and swiftboating? No - he won with push polls. Like this -
----------------------------------------
Ring Ring Ring
"Hello?"
"Hi, this is VinNay calling from Right to Drink coalition and I just like to ask a few questions of you today, it will only take a few seconds of your time, and could have a direct impact on who is elected this fall."
"Ummmm...ok"
"Our records say you are a poker blogger, is this correct?"
"Yes."
"Ok, good. Would you vote for Goat if you found out that he wanted to ban all poker bloggers from drinking alcohol at Winter Gatherings?"
"WHAT?!?!?! He wants to ban alcohol?"
"What would you do if it was found out that the Goat is anti-Pai Gow?"
"Fuck that, I gotta go blog about this....." Click.
Now a look at his VP choice. LJ. Clever pick my friend, but an obvious appeal to the women bloggers out there. Yeah, LJ might have results, but are those the results we are willing to live with? Do you want the baggage of Lucko tagging along in the white house? Does LJ have any idea at all of how many 4-figure cashes she's had? I bet most of you know how many you have. She just can't relate to the common blogger.
While Waffles may have experience running the World of Warcraft, three months of break even play is not where I want my country going. I want to ensure that despite the falling dollar and mountains of federal debt, our country can continue to provide us with access to cheap consumer goods, like Full Tilt deposits.
The Goat is nothing more than a pandering flip flopper like so many of those before him. One one hand, he offers up the Education job to Astin, a canadian, but on the other hand he slaps our closest neighbor and ally Canada in the face by committing to shave everyday. Two words Goat - Playoff Beard.
Having Blinders and Hoy share an office will not result in fine fertilizer. It will result in the poisoning of our land from the nuclear fallout resulting from a critical mass of ego occupying the same room and fusing together into the NYC Uber-Ego. And let me tell ya, FEMA is not going to clean up that mess.
Please people, go to the PNC, and cast your vote. Just don't do it for the Goat guy. Doesn't Satan have a cloven hoof too?
Vote for this guy - the first Dwarf president. That's right - the man himself.
What? Did you think I was going to run? Nah, I wouldn't stand a chance. Better to latch on to the coat-tails of someone who does. Even if he has no idea he is running. Or that I made myself his VP.
This message has been brought to you by the Right to Drink Coalition.
***Edit - We reserve the right to change comments to a more Iggy/VinNay platform friendly message.
Am I dreaming? I read somewhere that you can't read in your dreams. I'm not sure I believe that, but I seem to be able to write, and therefore read - so yesterday must not have been a dream.
1. The Bills looked great. Trent was poised, the defense tore the Seahawks apart, Lynch looked good, the O-Line was solid, and special teams was phenomenal as always. I expected the Bills to be better this year, and I know it was only one game, but damn, they looked good.
2. Of course it takes more than being good to be able to compete in the AFC east. You have to be great if you want to compete with the Pats. Queue torn ACL. BOOOOOM!!! Looks like maybe just being good might be good enough for the Bills. AFC title in play bitches.
3. I run goot in fantasy sports. Dominated my yahoo fantasy league, advanced in both Miami Don's pick em' leagues, and crushed Pauly's ESPN pick em.
4. Didn't even have to use my AK.
I did miss the Blogger Fantasy Sports Live event for week 1, but have been running some numbers on a new and improved algorithm for beating this system. I'll most likely be there for the weeks going forward. I think I'll be putting up a post with some actual strategy for beating these types of games soon, something I've been meaning to do since last year.
As for poker, ran deep in the 30k last night but bubbled, ditto the 15k rebuy. Adopting a new strategy of semi-loose, hyper aggressive play for MTT's- a-la my WWLJD post - seems to be pretty effective so far. I need to do some fine tuning, but essentially it is similar to what Hoy has been posting about chip utility.
In the summer of 1987, Animal Chin went missing and I discovered skateboarding. I had just turned 13, and for my birthday I got a board with four wheels that came with strict instructions to stop playing "that Mario game" and get out of the house and exercise.
Reluctantly, I obeyed, and my teen years were forever changed. As soon as I stepped on that board and pushed a few steps, the world seemed a little different. There was a freedom to being on that board that I can't explain. I could go anywhere, though, at the time, "anywhere" meant my working class blue-collar neighborhood and some close surrounding suburbs. But, at 13, that was the world.
It didn’t take long to find others that shared my passion for the pavement. During one of my early skate sessions, a few of us took a food break at my friend Darin’s house. He popped in a skate video while we devoured cold pizza. OMFG. The Bones Brigade blew me away, and sealed my fate for the next 5 years. Everyday from 13 to 18 I skated. On school days I skated from 3pm to curfew (and often times past), and weekend days were 12-hour skatefests with the crew.
Our crew of skaters was pretty large. There were probably at least 30 of us in a loose organization of skate punk brotherhood, but we each had a smaller crew that we typically hung with. My small crew changed from time to time, grew and shrunk, but there were a few constants throughout the years - Wayne, Darin, and Fathead - the mainstays. I could name others, but when I think back to those times, these three guys stick out to me.
It’s hard to believe that was over twenty years ago. I had my whole life in front of me and could have never imagined that choices and friends I made then would have such an impact on who I am now.
The Skaters always stuck together, so in a way, it was a little social clique that distinguished us from other groups. We were skaters - they were Preps. We were Punks – they were Heads. Looking back now I see it a bit differently. The skating may have bonded us together as a group, but there was a huge disparity of other interests among us, and a true tolerance for those individualities.
As individuals, we all had our own thing. I was the nerd. Darin was the bowler. Wayne was the straight-edge kid. And Fathead was.... well, Fathead. There were many others, and the differences really enriched us as a group in a way that I never thought about at the time, while the similarities and love for skating served to hold us together.
Fathead really did have a fat head. A short stocky dude with a head the size of a watermelon. He often wore a light blue North Carolina cap that could easily hold a basketball in it. Fathead got me into team sports. One day he said, “I’m going to play lacrosse, and so are you.” I spent my early years without a father, and then later years with a stepdad that I didn’t really get along with until much, much later, so team sports were never on my radar. I told Fathead that I wasn’t really interested, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer. His persistence won out, and I joined up with him.
I was never the fastest, or most agile, or strongest player on the field, but I loved it. What started as effort to get Fathead to stop pestering me turned in to a love for playing lacrosse, and then baseball, and then hockey. My passion for watching sports grew out of that. It’s hard to believe that I can pinpoint the exact moment I became a sports fan - standing in a parking lot on South Park Ave acquiescing to Fathead’s insistence.
Wayne’s house was the get together place. I don’t know how his parents put up with scores of skaters always hanging around in the house or on the half-pipe in their yard, but g-d bless them. Wayne was straight-edge, which meant no drugs, no cigarettes, and no alcohol.
I wasn’t much of a drinker at 16 or 17 myself, but Wayne was seriously committed to abstinence. He wasn’t in your face about it, and was always the first to take care of the drunk guy and make sure he was ok and got home safely. Some people gave him shit for his philosophy, but he stood tall and walked his own path. As a teenager, that’s a pretty tough thing to do.
After my first semester of college in VT, I was kicked out of school. I just wasn’t ready, and spent my time partying like it was 1999, though it was only 1992. I took the news pretty badly, and had a rough night in January of 93’ after finding out the news. Alcohol and/or LSD may have been involved. I was in a bad state and I’ll never forget how Wayne took care of me.
At 18, Wayne was a principled, stand up guy. At 34, there are still times I wish I could be more like that.
Darin was the life of the group. The man had unending energy. Always a smile on his face, always kidding around, and always getting people moving. I spent a lot of nights a Darin’s house. I'd tell my parents that I was sleeping over Darin’s and we would tip-toe out and skate until all hours of the night, eventually landing back in his room surrounded by Iron Maiden posters (which kind of gave me nightmares at the time), bowling awards, and his artwork.
We would sneak around closed buildings and find great spots to skate, clandestinely pick up his slightly underage girlfriend Carrie, and get into all sorts of harmless trouble. Darin wasn’t just fun and games though. When I was kicked out of school, it was Darin who drove me back to VT to get my things.
I spent the next semester much the same as my first, only at a local college. That summer, Darin and I were skating when the topic of school came up. I told him I blew off most of my coursework, but I didn’t really care. His normal smiley demeanor was replaced with a seriousness I had rarely seen from him. He then proceeded to give me the Gordie Lachance treatment, ala Chris Chambers in Stand By Me.
“You’re wasting your life,” he told me. “You have so much more to offer to the world and yourself, and I don’t want to see you working some shitty job living around here in 20 years. I want you to get out of here and not come back.”
Those words stung me. I was more shocked than anything at first, but he got through to some part of me that responded – “ok.”
Coming from my parents, those words just didn’t mean that much, but coming from Darin, it really hit home and woke me up to reality. I spent the next year working hard at school and was re-admitted to my original college in VT. The rest of my education followed, and I never did go back to South Buffalo.
Maybe I would have straightened myself out later or maybe I wouldn’t have. When I think about the past 20 years, I wonder if things are half chance and if choices we make have small or large impacts on the rest of our lives. I don’t know the answer to that question, but looking back at the 18 year old me with 16 years of perspective under my belt I feel confident in saying that Darin’s comments to me that day are the single most defining reason I am where I am today.
On July 28th, 2008, Darin C. Tesmer was killed in a motorcycle accident. He was driving in wet conditions on Route 5 in Lackawanna, NY, when he lost control of his bike and struck a sign post.
For the second time in my life, Darin managed to shock me. I wasn't even sure how to feel, and I felt guilty about not knowing how to feel. It had just been so long since I had seen him, it wasn't really registering yet. I treaded back to the old neighborhood a few days later to attend the wake. I drove around for a while, checking out the stomping grounds that I had been largely absent from for well over a decade.
I parked and approached a very crowded funeral home, as is typical when someone is taken from us well before their time. I saw many familiar faces, but I had been away for so long, no one recognized me. I didn't want to intrude on anyone, so I entered to pay my respects.
Carrie, the same girl Darin was dating way back when was greeting people in the foyer. She knew who I was, and we exchanged the kind of nonsense that one does when you just don't know what to say. I payed my respects, and talked to his mother for a few minutes, again - idle chit chat coming from an emptiness in my throat.
When I left, I saw Carrie in the crowded parking lot and advanced to say goodbye. We fumbled with handshaking that morphed into a hug. She told me how glad Darin would have been knowing that I came to his wake, and that's when it hit me. The full force of what his death and what his friendship meant to me.
Some people will remember Darin as a skateboarder, some will remember him as a bowler, an artist, a golfer, a biker. I'll remember him as a friend who I never had the chance to thank. Thank you Darin, you'll be missed forever.
I don't know where to begin, so I'll give a quick run-down of events leading up to the actual Bash itself.
1. Picked up Friday at around noon by Astin and Kat. A few smoke/stretch breaks along the way and we make it to Phoenixville just in time for the tourney.
Lessons learned - I hate waiting in line. Astin's music collection is eclectic, but good. He also makes a very good peach/apricot bread.
2. Donked around during the rebuy period of the tourney. I think I sunk in about $100-120. Once rebuy was over, big stack Falstaff was moved to our table. I raise with A-rag, he calls. Flop comes 77x. I bet, he raises. I think. (During my first live blogger game in winter 06' he stacked me with the hammer). I think some more. I push with Ace high. He calls. Open ended straight flush draw. He pairs on the turn, and straight flushes on the river. IGTCGN (I go to cash game now). I get up 2-3 buyins on cash game. CK joins and takes most of my profits, with a turned straight that I did not see. I think I was pretty drunk by that point. Leave the game plus-35 instead of plus-300.
Lessons learned - I suck at poker.
3. Met a bunch of great people I hadn't met before including Jordan, Recess, Otis, Carson and Don K, BadBlood, Mary, Evy, and long haired hippy dude. Sorry if I left anyone out, I'm still kind of drunk on Soco.
Lessons learned - I actually met long haired hippy dude before. It was Spaceman. I did not recognize him with hair and beard. It's amazing how many new people I meet every time I go to one of the things.
3-1/2. Saw a bunch of great people I had met before including Bam & Pebs, Riggs, Kat, Astin, Al, Dawn, CK, Buddy, Drizz, Bobby Bracelet, Dr Chaco and Wife, shit, there are more, but I can't think and will fix later with actual links.
4. Team Al rocked the Pub Olympics. I was drafted into pinball and Irish Car Bomb relay race. Luckily they had Sopranos pinball. Unluckily, I lost my first two balls quickly. Luckily I had a great 3rd ball and managed to pull out the win. Team Al was up 5 events to 2 going into the final event of the Car Bomb relay. We had it locked up and were free-rolling at that point, but there was pride on the line. Team Otis had Big Mike anchoring the relay, and from what I had heard, he was a machine and would single handedly crush us. I assured Al that I had some skill and wasn't ready to write in a loss. Al put me in the leadoff spot. I dropped the shot in the glass and downed the drink before the shot glass even hit the bottom of the beer glass. I looked over at Falstaff (Team Otis leadoff man) and he was only 1/3 done. The crowd was stunned at my quickness. There was shock and awe and I think I heard gasps. We walked in the rest of the relay to an easy victory.
Lesson learned - I am the Michael Phelps of Irish Car Bomb relays.
5. The Creperie in town was great. I had 3 crepes there. On Saturday morning I had The Sicilian - Turkey, Mozzerella, Tomato, Zucchini, and Basil. After pizza on saturday night, I want back for a banana and nutella dessert crepe. Sunday morning was La Finale - Banana in rum sauce, with strawberry, and chocolate, and vanilla ice cream on top.
Lessons learned - I like crepes, but still hate the french.
