Big Hurt, Medium Hurt, All the Little Meridians

I'm exhausted right now. In the last 10 hours I've scrubbed toilets, been kicked in the head, make several 50-yard tracking runs and threw batting practice to AJ until the sun went down. Did I mention it was 97 degrees today? I can't even sit down for fear of simply passing out. It's 7:15.

But I'm here to talk poker. Okay, not really. No analysis outside of the simple fact that I've been playing better, which for me means playing with more confidence. I don't have much time to play these days, maxing out at one or two tourneys a week. But I've felt increasingly more solid and though my ledger hadn't yet illustratee that fact, I felt it was time to dive in a bit more. So I played four multis this week (one a Stars 180). And I final tabled two of them, finishing 9th in the Special Re-Buy on Paradise and chopping the first and second money in the 180.

Yay me.

I also had a nice run in the Stars re-buy on Wednesday, pushing deep into the third hour mainly on steals and re-raises. Had nothing of import in the pocket a huge percentage of the time, but had a weak-tight group and stole enough orphans to stay alive. Until AQ lost to KQ.

About that...I'm 0-my-last-4 with AQ v. KQ. The very same hand knocked me out of the $9K on Friday night. But, I'll let it go. Because, for once, I did get lucky. In the 180, with 6 left, the chip stacks were almost equal. I held a nice chip lead when the money kicked in, but each of my raises--some with actual holdings--ran into re-raises for like half an hour. I was getting awfully sick of it. So when a guy pushed over my AQ raise, I called partly out of frustration, partly because that was the only play the guy had made for 90 minutes. Of course he had QQ. And I spiked my ace on the river.

Down to two, it was nearly 3 in the ayem (this morning) and we both had Ms over 30, so I immediately suggested the 50/50 chop. He readily agreed and hello $900. Coupled with the 'dise finish (where, to be honest, I picked a wrong time to make a play and donked my way right out of it), I feel like I have an online bankroll again. It's not anywhere near where it was when I withdrew everything for mortgage payments, but it's at its high water mark since. Picking four-team parlays helps, too.

I made no bets on the NFL this week. I had some games in mind, but was too tired to do them last night. Figured I'd lock 'em in this morning. Too bad the power was out. Even fucked up my TiVo of Arsenal-ManU. So AJ and I cleaned the house, with nothing better--or able--to do. Smells like bleach in here. Which is better than socks.

The head-kicking occured in my soccer game, the primary component of my tiredness. Still have me playing on the wing and all that running is...quite simply...bullshit. Anyway, I rose to meet a corner with the net gaping and right before I put forehead to ball, "Don't knock it over!" screamed into my mind. I suppose I over-compensated since I drove it almost straight into the ground from 6-yards out, it bouncing up and hitting the underside of the crossbar. It was still loose, so I stabbed at it, only to have my leg hooked from behind, knocking me forward into a scrum. How the ball didn't go in, sitting there longingly on the goal line, I have no idea, perhaps due to the couple minutes of blurred vision and inability to do basic math.

Because of AJ's love for Frank Thomas (and really, which A's fan in the universe doesn't have a huge man-crush on the Big Hurt right now), I kept calling him Little Hurt as he sprayed line drives all over the park. He didn't like it, because he doesn't want to be thought of as "little." So, if you see my boy about, please refer to him as "Medium Hurt."

That settled, he wanted to know what he should call me. How 'bout "Old Hurt?"