The Better Half

It's both exhilarating and disconcerting to receive a phone call from your wife informing you that she just won a $5 SnG on Party Poker. Exhilarating because she was so damn excited and proud of herself. Disconcerting because I wasn't there to help her.

I keeed, of course. Considering her poker background consists entirely of watching me (and the WPT), winning is a bit of a long-shot. I perused the hand history of the game and she really did play quite well. Won a medium-sized pot with a stone bluff on the river. Dragged some calling stations along for a ride when she held the nuts. And tore second-place a new one when heads up. Her only real issue was allowing some players to stay in hands too long, opening herself up to a river suckout, by weak-betting with the best of it. Luckily, she escaped.

I guess my Party account is now mostly hers, due to my attention to Stars.

Also on the dear and patient wife front, I'm taking her and a friend out to the local indian casino next Saturday. Poker and designated driving for me, blackjack, nightclubbing and drunken revelry for her and her pal. Finally get back on the live play horse. It's a part of my game I really want to develop. Live play offers that edge of adversarial action that is missing from online play. It's something I need to work at to become more comfortable, considering my non-confrontational personality. I think I'm probably going to try some NL action this time out, which will be my first live experience with that structure. Or I may wuss out and stick to limit. I'll keep you posted. By the way, if any LA area bloggers are interested in trying out the new poker room at the Casino Morongo a week from tomorrow, let me know. Why one would voluntarily drive out my way is a mystery, but more peculiar things have happened.

Played no poker last night, absorbed as I was in March Madness and playing "I Caught a Monkey" with The Boy. It's a thoroughly hilarious game of our own design. Hilarious to him, for some unknown reason. Hilarious to me, because it's hilarious to him. He's been sick lately (in fact, we devised the game waiting in the doctor's office on Wednesday), not just with the flu, but with pink-eye as well. As such, his self-esteem has probably suffered as Mommy and Daddy insist he not touch us with his infectious hands.

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For inquiring minds, the CDs I purchased as self-congratulation for my final table finish last week are the following:

Shadows Fall -- The Art of Balance (For me. Excellent)
Various Artists -- "Garden State" soundtrack (For the Mrs., though it contains a couple songs from The Shins, whom I like)
Kings of Leon -- Aha Shake Heartbreak (For both and a little disappointing. Mellower and lacking the Allman Brothers-esque boogie of the first release)

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This weekend could go either way: A lot of poker or a lot of painting. Either way, I'll try to get drunk and post something funny...er, stupid.