Santa Sucks!

Circa 36 hours until wheels up and my airborne steel tube of death whisks me off to tropical Malvern, PA for the annual Bash at the Boathouse. It's my first time. Be gentle. I've been doing some research and am looking forward to such Philly-area traditions as city fountains flowing with beer, the traditional handing out of free cheesesteaks and, of course, booing Santa Claus.

I'm taking the red-eye tomorrow night, four hours to Atlanta, then two more up to Philly. I hope to sleep during all of it with the aid of my foam neck pillow which served me so well during my trip across The Pond this summer. Not one to put all my eggs in one basket, I also bought a portable DVD player yesterday. If sleep doesn't come, I'll have Vic Mackey to keep me company. I just finised Episode 4 of Season 3 last night (not a good one for Tavon) and was struck by the realization I only have 22 more episodes left (Season 5 has no release date that I can find). I'm already anticipating the withdrawl.

It brings to mind a time during the mid-90s when my roommate, Paddy Dynamics, and I would faithfully watch NYPD Blue re-runs every night on FX (midnight on the west coast; check your local listings). They were running them in order, which was a boon to me, since I'd only been a sporadic viewer the first two seasons. The first season is still the finest cop show ever. While Mackey may be able to hang with Sipowicz, he doesn't have a Det. Johnny Kelley on his staff.

I'll be among the first to arrive in PHI and hopefully I'll be somewhat rested, 'cause I'm meeting up with Trip and gracie (and Sweet, Sweet Pablo) at, (where else?) the airport bar, roughly 8 a.m. body clock time. We're not going to be having OJ and Eggs Florentine, I'm guessing. I'm fully prepared for my internal organs to take a massive hit this weekend, but I want them to be able to function in high gear for as long as possible. I wanna be coherent to see Derek puke and rally, to watch F-Train drink twice his body weight in SoCo, to wager on which inanimate object Blood will use to skull somebody, to draft off The Rooster and, finally, to raise drizz off a better hand (theoretically speaking).

I'm also hoping my good friend, loyal American and long-time drinking buddy Primetime will be able to make the trek down from New England on Saturday to join in the festivities. He says it's only a 5-hour drive, but that's assuming the freeways aren't cluttered with Red Sox fans leaping to their deaths from freeway overpasses. The self-proclaimed Idiots are staying home this fall, which tickles me to no end, what with their bloated payroll of suck and saving the rest of the Free World from Joe Buck soiling his trousers then smearing the Yanks-Sawx overhype all over his body, though Boston fans take heart, you'll still be the lead story on Sportscenter every night.

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Not much else going on. AJ takes up a lot of time with homework and twenty minutes of nightly reading (that's HIM reading, not me reading TO him). He's pretty strong with the words and I couldn't be more proud. He gets frustrated ("Just like you used to!" says my Mom) when he doesn't know a word immediately, but he also has this satisfying look when he figures it out. I did play a $50+5 90-seat SnG on Stars last night after he went to bed and made it to the final threee tables before losing a 60-40. The only hand of note was one where I tried to isolate a short-stack push with AQ from the BB, got called by a limper. Flop was KTx and I check-folded to the limper's bet. Guess what he had? That's right, KQ. That's five in a row. I believe that's known as an outlier. It's the poker equivalent of the Dodgers' 9th inning on Monday. The lesson, as always, AQ is a filthy whore.

I like morons. I especially like them when they call me one. The other night, when I final tabled the Paradise Re-buy, I was somewhat short nearing the bubble. As my loyal readers know, this is one of the places in a tourney where I turn up the aggressiveness, a tactic I especially employ in the 'dise tourney because the blinds escalate so quickly. I had 22K, which was good for an M of 5+. We were 15 or so from the money bubble. With AJ in the CO, I pushed over two limpers, both of them similarly stacked. By the time it got to me, there was already 6K in the pot. That's free money. If one of the limpers was dumb enough to limp with a hand that dominated mine, so be it.

Anyway, everyone folded and I gave myself a little breathing room. The funny part was being chastised by the BB, who said that I must be "retarded" for pushing at that point of the tourney. My read was that he had a playable hand, but folded it because of the bubble (I, of course, made no return comment). Which is EXACTLY why it (usually) pays to be aggressive there. If people are trying to fold to the money, you can take the blinds and antes with any two, as you will only get called with 5 hands or so, making it a statistically +EV play. Have I bubbled dong this sort of thing? Sure. But I've also made deeep runs because I was able to fatten my stack at that juncture.

The key is to attack the small-to-medium stacks. Big stacks will call you with all kinds of shit. I know. I've done it.

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Happy Birthday to the illustrious Dr Pauly, my patron, my hero, my friend. Can't wait to see him, and the rest of you degenerates, this weekend.