Paradise City

Let the live blogging commence! I've been meaning to write a post about the Special $10 Re-Buy on Paradise (known officially as Palmtree, appearing nightly at 8 p.m. PDT). Instead of a boring summation of the good and the bad, I figured a drunken, tangental journey through the Short Bus waters of this event might be more entertaining. I said MIGHT.

Shall we?

8:01: It's not 8:01. My computer clock is several minutes ahead. I'm not gonna do math all night to figure out the correct time.

8:01: Let's start the evening off right. Dialing...
It's Robert K. Bracelet's 30th birthday. Shots are in order. Oh, but I get the Heisman from Bobby, who promises restitution when he gets to the bar.

8:04: I have SoCo. I also have a refrigerator full of misfit beers, the single remnants of the gallons and gallons of alcohol I've used as self-medication over the last six weeks. So tonight will be a potpourri. First up is a Grolsch.

8:05: Cards are in the air. The tourney is a $15K Guranteed, but it's gone over $20K each time I've played it. In addition, it allows late registration for the first (12-minute) level, so the number of runners will not be available until then.

8:08: I dump some chips with A7s (perfect re-buy hand). A99 flop looks good for a limping hand and I call a 1/2 pot bet. Big bet on the J turn and I drop believing in AJ. I'm 80% sure I'm right and, if not, I'm splitting at best.

8:12: My early strategy in these is no different from the usual re-buy tack. I will see plenty of flops with big drawing-type hands (like the 1600 I just won with Td9d) and even two big (KJ for instance), hoping flop nasty. I will also over-bet my Group One hands, especially with a bunch of limpers pre-flop. Limp-calling is an epidemic in this tourney.

8:22: T3620. Good enough for 119 and 1K over par. 683 runners total and 30 out already. That's one of the lures of this. You have a lot of people who buy-in for $10, try to get lucky and, failing that, take a walk. Par is less than 3K, which means many people don't re-buy right off the top.

8:24: 133-107-120 and 74-97-86. I'll give you five minutes to figure out what those numbers mean and that's because I'm embarassed to tell you.

8:29 Those are mine and AJ's bowling scores from today. Yes, he almost beat me in Game Two. In fact, he led the whole way until a clutch spare by me in the 9th frame. My skillz are myriad, but bowling is not one of them. It's the first time he's been and he had a blast, ultimately perfecting his overhand throw of the 7 lb. ball and getting the hang of the slippery terrain. But the best was him jumping up and down as his ball made its slow journey down the lane, often bumpering three or four times on the way. Oh yeah, I rolled one strike total, mostly because I hit the head pin about 20% of the time. AJ had two strikes in Game Two.

8:29: Doing a lot of folding. Raised once with AJo, but dropped to a big re-raise behind. Just beginning Level Three (25/50).

8:31: We have a Grolsch down! Now batting, Smithwick's Ale.

8:34: Things to look forward to tomorrow: A wicked hangover, more non-smoking tilt (mornings are the hardest for me, surprisingly. A cig paired with strong coffee is more alluring than one paired with beer, at least according to my physiological reaction, which includes shaking and sweating), cleaning up the house in preparation for an Open House, a task which will include X. Yippee!

I plan on spending most of my cleanup outside, with my iPod in and a blindfold on.

8:38: Hands I don't like to play in re-buy periods are off-suit Ace-rag, though I just won a small pot with ATo. Not really going anywhere yet. T3620 is a par stack.

8:40: In my experience, tables in this thing during the re-buy are homogenous. You either get 9 other lunatics or 9 rocks. I've got rocks today. To wit: I'm the chip leader at my table.

8:48: With only a level and a quarter left in the re-buy, it's time to gamble. I've had nothing remotely playable for some time, including the KQo that I called a 3x raise with only to see all undercards. I am, however, the king of the unsuited four-gappers. T3150 has me almost at the starting stack. I'll risk all of 'em if the opportunity presents itself.

8:56: Poker is funny. I drag a huge pot with 53s, calling a 3x raise from the SB and flopping trips. I got be-rated by the guy who made a position push with unimproved A9o for "playing that gutter %##$." Good times. I got 6-1 on my call and clearly, my implied "You're an idiot" odds were through the roof.

I then give it all back and more with QQ on the next hand, pushing over an over-raise (55) and call and losing to KTs who flopped the flush. T2801

9:21: Hi. I got side-tracked by another intarweb task (and that promised dial-a-shot from Bobby). Don't worry, you haven't missed a thing. I added-on. The only action in the last 20 minutes. The "bad" about this tourney is that at Level 8 (one level from now), the antes kick in and from there, the blinds go haywire (400/800/80 straight to 600/1200/120 a good example). I have an M of 8 right now and am about half par. Not good.

9:27: The "good" is that we've lost nearly half the field. This is by the second level after the re-buy. Silly. The pool is $22250 ($5K to the winner)and with only 400 players left, I'm still getting a good deal on my $30, despite my crappy stack.

9:29: Hey! I won a pot! Limp-call UTG with KQs. Bet on king-high flop takes it down. T5051. M of 9 with blinds/antes at 100/200/25.

9:37: I just got my second pokcet pair of the tourney. TT UTG+1. UTG pushed his last 950 and I re-raised to isolate. It worked. And A6 beat me. If you're scoring at home, that's 4K lost with QQ and 950 lost with TT. T4760 (I'd picked up the blinds and antes on the previous hand with KJo. Yes, I have a good table image)

9:39: Another "bad" in this tourney is the ridiculously slow play. It might be a software issue as there's some lag on my end, but that can't possibly be the reason for all of it.

9:41: Liverpool 2 Chelsea 1 in the FA Cup semi. Lovely. Good to see Morinho be a jackass post-game again, not shaking Rafa's hand and bitching in the press. Reading between the lines, what he really meant to say was, "I didn't start Cole, Robben or Duff and my team had no width in the first half and I'm an idiot."

As a quick aside, I'm wearing my officially licensed Liverpool thong underwear (mesh) right now.

9:43: Half the field gone two levels after the end of the re-buy. Yet, you're still not playing this tournament. Shame on all of you.

9:48: I have two huge stacks to my left. One will call a shortie with any two, including 43o on the last hand and JTo on the previous. Not that I have any real choice with T3600.

9:50: That same big stack just called another biggie to the river on a drawless board and mucked, unable to beat third pair. Can I get a hand please?

9:53: No, I can't. 52o 74o and T2o in succession. And a 42s in the BB.

9:53: The new plan is to push within the next 7 minutes and go play the $9K on Full Tilt.

9:55: Suited Jackhammer on the button. Will its magic continue? Let's find out. A triple up is at stake.

9:56: No. Flopped four to the flush, turned a gutter, but no love. You people are bad luck.

<------Beats a hasty retreat to Full Tilt.

9:57: We're coming to you LIVE from the Lobby at Full Tilt Poker, the world's fastest growing online poker room. Tonight's bonus installement of live bloggery is brought to you by Angry Monkey Peppermint Lotion, available at your finest drugstores and back alley sex emporiums.

10:00: Cyber-shuffle up and virtually deal. 447 runners. Prize pool of $10,728. $2,682 to first. It appears I am the only blogger with not enough life to be playing poker all night Saturday night. Congratulations to me.

10:04: Good omen? Dealt "The Shocker" on the first hand in the SB. and though I do not win with it, I laugh hysterically at "The Shocker."

10:08: This is upsetting. I can't make my monkey angry. I can't make him anything other than pliant.

10:10: Ah, there we go. A brief disturbance in the FT force.

10:13: I hesitate to mention this because everyone's been there and whining isn't my thing (mostly), but HOW is it possible I'm card dead on every bleeping site I play and have been for pretty much four months? The only card rush I've see in in Aught-Six was at Excal in March. That I had a winning March (thanks largely to my $1K near miss in the WSOP satellite and that Excal session) and am even for April must be a testament to my hawseomeness. Or a simple case of well-placed suckoutery.

10:17: Can I call it or what? KK in the BB. 900 push from CO. AQ is good. Of course it's good. So that's three big pocket pairs tonight. Total of 5800 chips lost on them.

10:19: That was fun. JJ two hands later gets out-run by AK.

Some people might be tempted to throw things at this point of the evening. Not me. There's nothing in the house to throw.