Xmas? Humbug! Just gimme your chips.
December 19, 2006
So far the “barren”ness is continuing so this blog is probably going to be a bit of a ramble…Played a couple of League games and they were as about exciting as sitting here counting the pixels on my screen whilst trying to think of what to write about on the blog.
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| I promised myself to not get involved with the Christmas thing regarding the blog, no matter what the ‘wimmin’ say about the word shopping and shopping related terms being an erotic phrase for them. (see comments on last post)As a confirmed ‘humbug’ I don’t generally do Christmas, sure I send the kiddy winky’s money and if some giddy drunk gal wants to wiggle her mistletoe at me I’ll reluctantly allow the ‘spirit’ of Christmas in for a moment. Yah gotta take what yah can at my age after all. ;)I don’t send Christmas cards and my family and friends know it, so I don’t receive many, if any. I do receive one card every year from some couple called Barbera & Larry addressed to the people that lived in this house 14 years ago!The first couple of years there was a ten pound note in the card, of course not having any way to return the money I would pretend Santa sent it and tuck it away in the beer money jar for New Year celebrations. I rather like the ironic fact that my total Christmas decorations are usually one single card from an anonymous sender, which I display on my mantle with cynical smugness.An example of how geeky forgetful I am of Christmas, last Christmas day morning I prepared all my veggies and baked some stuff (I like cooking btw) and then realised I had forgot to buy any meat! I had a large plate of lovely roasted veggies and a steam pudding to follow ..
Ok so the poker stuff…. Played a league game last night which as I already mentioned was akin to watching paint dry. I find that with the league the play is generally so predictably tight that unless you get the cards dealt to you that allow you to inject some action and make some moves the game plods and plods. Early on I made little flurries of moves and then switched down gears again. It was ok, I twice took 5 pots in succession, but, all small pots. Then the final table came up, a few hands in caught pocket rockets on the BB, raised the SB who was slightly shorter stacked, he came with me, flop came Rag-Jack- Ten, I bet he went all in, called, he had KQ and a Nine came on the turn. He was right to chance it at the flop as he also had a flush draw as well as the up and down straight. I was getting doubly irritated by some Tom Turnip character in the chat room who was constantly fog horning every flipping hand he won. The fact he was a bit of a Mr Stupid Lucky and didn’t realise he was just Stupid Lucking out most of the time grated even more. Now short stacked the chance for making moves on pots was rather more limited, after another 20 minutes of watching the paint dry, got caught with my hand in the cookie jar by a big pocket pair. Then waited to the BB and pushed them all in on a coin toss and not unhappily strolled off to play some sit and go’s elsewhere. My first game at sit and go was probably the worst run of cards I have experienced at a sit and go, so bad that I went back got the hand history to check over after the game. Out of 46 hands dealt to me I had 1 playable hand, a KQ on hand 27, the rest and I am not kidding you here, were all rags! Anyone want the list only got to ask just look here. see if you can pick out the playable hands. Of course Lardog was sitting there chugging beers on the other side of the pond with another of his buddies, Casey, chatting away and making the odd little suggestion. During the week I had played a few sit and go’s with Lardog and had incredibly managed to shirk off his mind control ray (without my tinfoil beanie this time) and point blank refused to accept his suggested play at the time and man it felt good when I won the game. It was like a poker baptism I was cleansed and fresh and free again! Free until the next time we played together of course. Yanno I shouldn’t denigrate the Dog so much because if anything he has really studied the game and continues to do so avidly, his calls and suggestions are usually spot on logistically and his analysis of players and table positions are pretty cute. It is just as the night wears on and the beer and stuff are kicking in, there is a slight cavalier (link ref; Nos. 5, 6, 9, and 10 lol) element that creeps into his mindset and by this time the beer I have chugged has made me more susceptible to the suggestions. It’s something like that scenario back at school, Yanno where the foot taller guy calls you out, Yanno yah gonna get a whoopin’, but yah buddy is there all “yah can take him, go low, these big guys are slow to cover up, you are faster Blag go on man etc” and suddenly for a brief moment yah believe it, you step forward and promptly fall straight back into yah buddy’s arms with a new face make up applied, usually leaning toward the red shades… So… Lardog I can’t believe yah made me call with that K8 on the bubble last night! Wait till Pinkdog finds out he’s gonna be mad at both of us! Ok that’s about all I got in me right now folks, my football team Arsenal are playing the Liverpool tonight (that is Football as in what the rest of the world plays and not that line up the two teams of Water Buffaloes with crash helmets on you Muricans call football) and it is on the TV just about now… As the owner of the league, Rich, supports Liverpool there is a an added element to the game. Good luck with the shopping trips folks, it’s a mad world out there in the stores right now. (had to mention the word shopping just to give the gals a little warm feeling before I signed off.. infact that is a shoe shopping link, they should be orgasmic at that one.. ) So until the next time… Oh go on then.. sheesh.. ……..happy christmas….. |
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5 Responses to “Xmas? Humbug! Just gimme your chips.”
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That chart of the hands you were dealt is unreal. You played the game like a pro and Action Dan Harrington would be very proud of you. Folding is not a large part of some of our league players repertoire and the fact that you have the discipline to fold crappy-ass hands tells me your ready for the next level of competition. Another fact that completely astonishes me is that you were able to defeat the Dog’s mind-control-ray. I never really bought your aluminum foil beanie theory, We all know that lead was the only substance that would shield superman from kryptonite, and lead was the only thing superman couldn’t see through, so aluminum foil couldn’t have stopped “The Dog.” I believe you have had the power to override any and all mind-control-rays and you may even have a little of the “Shining,” lol and I know you know what I mean. Don’t listen to anybody and play your hand the way you see fit, Blagger has Arrivied! Beware of Blagger!
Its funny. I to was kind of doing the same thing. I am in a little bit of a slump lately so in an effort to help me learn what I am doing wrong, I wrote down all of the hands I played at the sng’s. When I looked back at them the next day, I realized I was getting pretty crappy hands. In the first one, I played for about an hour. I think I got involved in a total of 10 hands and 8 of those had the bb (big blind) or sb (small blind) next to it which meant I was either checking or calling the small blind when there wasn’t a raise. I ended up going all in on PP Q’s and got taken out by a A rag when the A hit.
I did this for a few sng’s. Last night (I always miss the league games because of the starting times) I played at a 45 ppl sng at Full Tilt. Again, not too many callable hands and was out in 21st. Then went to Abs and played a $5 sng.
When I played at Abs, I stopped writing down the hands I was playing because I just didn’t feel like it. I found myself paying more attention to the table and its players instead of trying to write stuff down. Guess what, I got 2nd.
I think part of what got me a second had more to do with playing the player instead playing the cards.
One hand I remember was I was in the BB with KJ suited. The guy on the button starts by raising about 4X the blind. Everyone folded around to me. I had been watching this guy and I put him on a medium PP because of the way he bet. I still had a pretty good stack so I called. Flop came A rag rag. I was first to act. I bet. He hesitated ( I think he was considering chasing) then folded.
I guess my point/opinion is that you can do very well playing just the cards, odds, etc. I think also that sometimes, you get an extra edge or a critical pot when you also play the players.
Everyone reading this is probably saying “no kidding” but it is something I have experienced which is quite different than reading or hearing about.
As far as the League Games, I agree they can get boring. It typically is a raise, fold,fold, fold, fold thing where one raise get almost everyone out.
Top calling hands are usually the only ones played and if you hit the flop and bet usually everyone folds.
I think that is why the loose players can be successfull (for a little while anyway) against us. You never know what hand they are on and post flop if they bet hard when they hit their 6 2 and beat the A K chaser thats when the trash talk starts.
The main thing I like at the League Games is Mr. Stupid Lucky isn’t invited and he usually never shows up.
I need to play some sng’s with you and Lar so I can get back on my game.
Right now, I have to back to work but when I get some time, I will have to tell you about the adventure of the 12 Bars of Christmas last Sat.
Dave, you got to tell us about the 12 days of Christmas, well, at least what you can remember. lol
Come play, I promise I won’t give you advice, not aloud anyway.lol
Merry X-mas All
PinkDog.. Yanno I think yah right about the “shining” I do have it sometimes, it’s like a warm glow comes over me and the decision making is so easy, ..bang “raise the pot”..bang “all-in”..
Yeah it’s the ’shining’ all right, all 5.5% proof golden nectar “shining”, that comes in tubes of “shiney” aluminium..
Dave, you don’t have to write down your games as you are playing, yah ninny!
On several sites you can request your hand history via email.
Also when you finish a game, don’t close the table window and use the hand history or hand replay button to read back through all your hands for that game.
You are right about how surprising it is when you do make the effort to write them down and read back through them. Of course the majority of your hands are gonna be cack, but it can also be reassuring. When you find that your hands really were as cack as you thought at the time and realise there wasn’t much you could do about the outcome.
As they say, if you don’t get the cards, don’t matter who you are, you ain’t gonna win much..