Showing Up

Ah, nothing like starting the Work Week on an exceptionally annoying note. I missed my train this morning, in part because I got held up by a train. Oh irony, you motherfucker. And I didn't only miss my train, I JUST missed my train, as in pulling into the lot, seeing it sitting there, doors open wide and inviting. I leapt from my car and closed the 40 yards of asphalt in Reggie Bush-ian time, only to see the doors close in my face.

Unleash tirade of F-words. Loud, maniacal, repeating F-words.

The particular line I ride has no train after that one until 90 minutes later, so waiting there is not an option. I had to drive to another station, which has trains running every half hour. In fact, that particular station is about 15 blocks closer to AJ's day care. But I don't have a monthly pass for that line. I would have made their 7 a.m. train easily, but it costs me $15 to ride there. But I ended up having to pay and ride there nonetheless and still got to be a half hour late for work.

Unleash tirade of F-words. Again. Internally, though, since I'm at work.

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Thankfully, poker did not inspire similar feelings this weekend. In fact, she was downright cuddly, after starting out in her typical-of-late nastiness.

Friday night saw me in the $8K Guaranteed on Full Tilt where I doubled up early with 43o because I love calling min. raises in the BB. The Q33 flop ensured KQ was gonna give me all his chips. Soon after, I raised another min. raise (and call) to 4x with pocket 10s. The min. raiser called and checked the A98 flop. Sensing weakness, I bet 3/4 of the pot and he took a long time to call. That made me sad, since my 3/4 bet pot committed him. I was certain he didn't have an ace, but I was also fairly certain he had me beat with at least JJ. He dutifully (and correctly) check-called my turn bet and showed his KK.

I wasn't hurting too badly though, with 1200 still at Level 3 and with JJ in the SB, I pushed over the top of a 5x raise and call. Only the button called and showed AJ. Sweet.

When you're a 70-30 favorite pre-flop, you feel pretty good. Of course, when you're drawing dead to a split by the turn, those numbers don't look so attractive. AKQA board? Yup. Thanks for that. I did exchange 5% with Absinthe who made the final table, so I got a 40% rebate on my buy-in. Nice goin' dude.

The thing is, since I was out in the first hour and still had some money riding on the thing, I figured I had better play some more. I no longer have the bankroll at FT to play the SnG levels I like, so I dropped into a $5+.50 MTT with 150 other douchebags. Three-and-a-half hours later, I went out in fourth for a nice 15x my buy-in payout. I was pleasantly surprised at the play. It was, well, not exactly solid, a little too passive to be called that, but I've seen much worse play in considerably higher buy-in events. If I had to formulate a theory, I'd say it was a group of fairly beginning players, with some base knowledge of starting hands, etc. that was still in weak-tight poker mode. I was able to take advantage of that somewhat, stealing liberally when the antes kicked in. No big hands really come to mind. It was just a steady stack growth.

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I have identified a leak in my tourney game, which I won't disclose here, partially because every bleeping time I sit down in a blogger tournament I feel like everybody knows exactly what I'm gonna do. Suffice to say, I've been overplaying certain hands and they've been pure death to me with the online company I've been keeping. Too much clever, too much wishful, not enough result.

Armed with that, and the $5 tourney score, I thought I'd play a few more events at below my usual level. I don't think it's going to improve my play, but my game could certainly use some tightening and I also wanted to try to stem this leak. First up was an MPS token SnG, which I've not played before. Color me one for one, even if I did run QQ into KK on the bubble, a move which left me an M of less than 1. But I doubled on the next two hands, which were thankfully QQ and AK (I owe fhwrdh some whiskey for that one) to put myself back into it. From there, it was just superior skill that snagged the token. Or maybe it was two idiots going to war on a ten-high board. I don't remember which.

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I spent the rest of Saturday afternoon/early evening dying Easter eggs with AJ. I managed not to smear the countertops with myriad fluorescent colors, as I did in the Great Pasta Necklace Making Debacle of '05. I think I'm really coming into my own as a Dad. Of course, there's that whole, "keeping an eye on AJ at all times" thing that I sometimes struggle with, and this time it resulted in him getting the wire egg dipper caught between two of his front teeth. How he managed that, I just don't know, but it was wedged in there pretty good. Because of the shape of the dipper and its positioning, it was a delicate operation to remove it. I couldn't just yank it back up. I had to thread it back out, a process made more difficult by a) the screaming b) the crying c) the snot running down his face and d) his inability to keep his tongue from my sight line. This last approximated a horse trying to rid his mouth of peanut butter. Kid could NOT keep it still, let alone out of my way.

I did finally extract it and my calmness during the operation gave way to a stern talking to about "putting things in your mouth," a conversation and admonition that is not foreign in our house. Methinks perhaps he learned the lesson this time.

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We woke from our nap (followed by dinner and bath) a little too late for the $19K Guaranteed on FT, so I jumped into the $10 Special Re-Buy on Paradise. I'm gonna write about this event more (again!) because it's just such a beautiful thing. I picked up my fourth cash in five attempts, finishing 30th for another solid payday. I was on the precipice of going deeper, with a possible double in my hands, which would have given me a par stack for the first time in two hours. I guess it was pretty obvious I was protecting my top pair-no kicker when I pushed my 55K stack into a 40K pot from the BB. The SB, who had checked, called with an over and the OESD for 11 outs twice and mathematically, he's okay by calling there. Calling off 3/4 of his stack? Maybe not so much. But he hit his straight on the turn and IGHN.

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Sunday brought the standard Easter fare: Egg hunt in the morning, church, egg hunt at grandma's, Easter dinner and enough ham to feed a small village, the A's blowing a game, a nap and...what?...a poker tournament? On Easter?

I played at my Mom's, who surprisingly, when pressed, said that gambling wasn't a sin. Interesting. But it was for charity (and POY points), so either way, I don't think Christ is gonna be an Indian giver about that whole "dying for my sins" thing. I didn't play particularly well, making at least one bad call (though my memory persists there was another one) and totally lacking the ability to suckout with my ATs v. JJ. I finished 19th and am apparently one of those guys who gets rewarded for being consistently mediocre as I rose 9 places in the POY standings to 13th.

What did Woody Allen say about "showing up?"