light4u: raises 275 to 425 and is all-in
turmoil1020: folds
bastinptc: raises 125 to 550 and is all-in
mR_pokeR576: folds
byork15: folds
hawfinch: folds
Uncalled bet (125) returned to bastinptc
*** FLOP *** [7h 4c 7c]
*** TURN *** [7h 4c 7c] [3h]
*** RIVER *** [7h 4c 7c 3h] [2s]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
light4u: shows [7d As] (three of a kind, Sevens)
bastinptc: shows [Ks Kh] (two pair, Kings and Sevens)
Addendum: This was from the first of four Stars Double or Nothing SnGs. Hey, shit happens, right?
Went on to money in the three others I played, all fairly short-stacked.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Perfect, right?
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Scrambling
It was so cold today that two duck eggs were affixed to the birds’ watering station. I had to pry them off, and, of course, they broke.
I have been holed up in the basement for the better part of three days. It is the warmest place in the house. I go upstairs to feed the cats and myself, potty, tend the wood stove and sleep. The cold is gaining on the stove’s ability to keep the place tolerable, so the electric furnace has been called to duty. I cannot imagine a worse form of heat than forced air, expensive and inefficient.
Seeing how I was spending my days in the dungeon, I played a fair amount of poker, both at PA and Stars. I can’t say I had a very good time, especially when Sis showed up to play penny PLO and managed to outdraw me several times. Sometimes losing $5.00 feels like dropping $5K, and that was certainly the case last night.
I am going away tomorrow for a week, hooking up with the Dear Wife, my son and his wife, and my daughter in Chicago. Then onto my Dear Mom’s for a few days downstate. No poker, except for a scheduled game with a couple nephews and their dad. I need a break anyway.
In fact, I am thinking about curtailing for a bit, or at least limiting my play to a few hours a week instead of several hours every evening. I don’t really have the time to explain, or even well-thought-out reasons why, plus I have a lot to do before I leave, but I will say that it is not because of one night's bad run, and leave it by saying that I’m beginning to miss the pre-poker me. By stating it now, I am more or less promising myself that I will be working it out while away and write about what I determine from the navel-gazing.
Word is that the weather in the Midwest is worse than out here. Even though my mother doesn’t have a basement for me to retire to, DW has her ‘puter with her, and I’m taking my camera, so you might be hearing from me over the next week. If not, please come back after Christmas.
May yours be merry.
I have been holed up in the basement for the better part of three days. It is the warmest place in the house. I go upstairs to feed the cats and myself, potty, tend the wood stove and sleep. The cold is gaining on the stove’s ability to keep the place tolerable, so the electric furnace has been called to duty. I cannot imagine a worse form of heat than forced air, expensive and inefficient.
Seeing how I was spending my days in the dungeon, I played a fair amount of poker, both at PA and Stars. I can’t say I had a very good time, especially when Sis showed up to play penny PLO and managed to outdraw me several times. Sometimes losing $5.00 feels like dropping $5K, and that was certainly the case last night.
I am going away tomorrow for a week, hooking up with the Dear Wife, my son and his wife, and my daughter in Chicago. Then onto my Dear Mom’s for a few days downstate. No poker, except for a scheduled game with a couple nephews and their dad. I need a break anyway.
In fact, I am thinking about curtailing for a bit, or at least limiting my play to a few hours a week instead of several hours every evening. I don’t really have the time to explain, or even well-thought-out reasons why, plus I have a lot to do before I leave, but I will say that it is not because of one night's bad run, and leave it by saying that I’m beginning to miss the pre-poker me. By stating it now, I am more or less promising myself that I will be working it out while away and write about what I determine from the navel-gazing.
Word is that the weather in the Midwest is worse than out here. Even though my mother doesn’t have a basement for me to retire to, DW has her ‘puter with her, and I’m taking my camera, so you might be hearing from me over the next week. If not, please come back after Christmas.
May yours be merry.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Waiting It Out
Every year about this time we get one helluva storm. It is here.
The prognosticators have been prepping us for days, keeping their viewer ratings up with promises of a foot or more of snow, followed by an arctic blast that would be felt all of the way to Southern California. The snow was just a smattering, just enough to build “leavesmen” stuck together with a melting slush. Slush that by tomorrow morning will be solid ice.
The cold is not the worst of it. The wind is reaching speeds that will take down the shallow-rooted Douglas Firs, or at least shear some tops off. It is dark outside right now. The wind is rattling our windows, making the cats especially jumpy. Schools and businesses have already told students and employees to stay home tomorrow. First morning light should be interesting.
Our power has gone out twice this evening, just long enough for me to utter, “Oh shit,” and then the lights come back on. Those same big firs take out power lines with regularity. They also can take apart a house. I am thinking of the three 90-feet tall ones just to the southwest of our house.
We are on the tail end of the power lines for our area. We cannot be re-routed Anything that knocks out power between here and the source, knocks us out for sure and for good until the whole system is working again. I have a flashlight within reach, the generator is full of gas with an extra five-gallons of gas next to it. Extension cords are rolled and ready. If we make it through the next 24 hours, we’ll be golden.
Two years ago, our Christmas plans were cancelled because of this same type of storm. As now, the Dear Wife was already in Chicago visiting friends while I tended to the farm for a few extra days. A huge branch broke off of our Big Leaf Maple, providing us with about a half-cord of firewood. One of our smaller firs took out a neighbor’s fence, right at the corner post. The power was out for five days. Our generator kept the freezers, fridges and fan on the wood stove going. We also found out that the battery backup for the sump pump in the basement was dead.
Fun times.
Update: Woke to a bit of a breeze, sunshine and electricity. Some places seem to be more effected than us. Aside from it being colder than what we're used to, everything is fine.
The prognosticators have been prepping us for days, keeping their viewer ratings up with promises of a foot or more of snow, followed by an arctic blast that would be felt all of the way to Southern California. The snow was just a smattering, just enough to build “leavesmen” stuck together with a melting slush. Slush that by tomorrow morning will be solid ice.
The cold is not the worst of it. The wind is reaching speeds that will take down the shallow-rooted Douglas Firs, or at least shear some tops off. It is dark outside right now. The wind is rattling our windows, making the cats especially jumpy. Schools and businesses have already told students and employees to stay home tomorrow. First morning light should be interesting.
Our power has gone out twice this evening, just long enough for me to utter, “Oh shit,” and then the lights come back on. Those same big firs take out power lines with regularity. They also can take apart a house. I am thinking of the three 90-feet tall ones just to the southwest of our house.
We are on the tail end of the power lines for our area. We cannot be re-routed Anything that knocks out power between here and the source, knocks us out for sure and for good until the whole system is working again. I have a flashlight within reach, the generator is full of gas with an extra five-gallons of gas next to it. Extension cords are rolled and ready. If we make it through the next 24 hours, we’ll be golden.
Two years ago, our Christmas plans were cancelled because of this same type of storm. As now, the Dear Wife was already in Chicago visiting friends while I tended to the farm for a few extra days. A huge branch broke off of our Big Leaf Maple, providing us with about a half-cord of firewood. One of our smaller firs took out a neighbor’s fence, right at the corner post. The power was out for five days. Our generator kept the freezers, fridges and fan on the wood stove going. We also found out that the battery backup for the sump pump in the basement was dead.
Fun times.
Update: Woke to a bit of a breeze, sunshine and electricity. Some places seem to be more effected than us. Aside from it being colder than what we're used to, everything is fine.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Men and Film
Before the Dear Wife left on her trip, we received the movie, “Bourne Ultimatum” in the mail. With her blessings, I watched it alone tonight. It was your standard contemporary hyper action flick with spills and chills that would leave a mere mortal in a body cast or bag. Yet, because we want to root for the hero instead of sending get well or sympathy cards, we suspend disbelief and run with it.
Perhaps what I found more interesting than the movie was the choice of trailers that preceded it: “American Pie: Beta House” and “Bring It On: In It to Win It,” both out on DVD, or if one prefers six times the resolution of standard DVD (that’s the claim, and I believe it), HD/DVD. Two T&A films hawked with the action flick…I can see it, and the image I call up in my mind, a quart of cola, a big bag of some corn-based snack food, a roll of paper towels… you get the idea.
Speaking of films, or rather, videos, I took the leap today and uploaded some of my work onto YouTube. I just checked to see if any of the seven pieces were available, and so far there is one. I’d link it, yet it might be better just to search for bastinptc and see what comes up. Very few of these pieces have been seen by the public, perhaps for good reason, but more so because I just haven’t taken the time to get them out there. Yet, as I’ve mentioned before, it’s time.
If you like the videos, do me a favor and tell others. Thanks.
Oh, and if anyone can give this luddite very specific instructions on how to load YouTube vids into my blog, I would be eternally grateful.
Perhaps what I found more interesting than the movie was the choice of trailers that preceded it: “American Pie: Beta House” and “Bring It On: In It to Win It,” both out on DVD, or if one prefers six times the resolution of standard DVD (that’s the claim, and I believe it), HD/DVD. Two T&A films hawked with the action flick…I can see it, and the image I call up in my mind, a quart of cola, a big bag of some corn-based snack food, a roll of paper towels… you get the idea.
Speaking of films, or rather, videos, I took the leap today and uploaded some of my work onto YouTube. I just checked to see if any of the seven pieces were available, and so far there is one. I’d link it, yet it might be better just to search for bastinptc and see what comes up. Very few of these pieces have been seen by the public, perhaps for good reason, but more so because I just haven’t taken the time to get them out there. Yet, as I’ve mentioned before, it’s time.
If you like the videos, do me a favor and tell others. Thanks.
Oh, and if anyone can give this luddite very specific instructions on how to load YouTube vids into my blog, I would be eternally grateful.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Alone again, naturally
As I write this, there is a group of poker bloggers having a rip-roaring time in Las Vegas. From what I have gleaned, they are veteran bloggers, which means they have been at it for more than 3 years, some for 5. While some have pretty much quit writing about poker unless hired to do so, and others in attendance may not have written much about poker at all, when social circles collide, I’m certain a love for the written word provides the glue to keep it all together, and you just have to wrap your arms around each other in a group hug.
And some of these people can turn a phrase, let me tell you! I’d mention names, but I’m sure I’d leave some notables out as I don’t read them all. Lord knows I don’t have the time.
Time. Right now it’s late, or early, depending on how one wants to look at it. I’ve wrapped up a rather successful evening of poker. I’ve talked to the Dear Wife in Chicago twice, and I’m about ready to go to bed. The only thing keeping me up is music. I’m listening to WFMU out of Jersey City. The DJ has played Joy Division, Gang of Four, Shrimp Boat, Suicide, and a lot of other music I know well. I just got off of the phone with him. I was telling him about the time I saw Shrimp Boat at the Czar Bar in Chicago. Now, that was a band! And it was a sad day when they called it quits. He told me about a band called Evergreen, a spin-off. He drives from Philly once a week to do his show, and it was clear that he was excited by his work.
Life out here in the country is paced in such a manner that the conversation I just had constitutes excitement. Now he is playing some old-timey fiddle music, “Richmond Square” by The Highlanders. This is my world. Now, “Amazing Grace,” sung by the Liberty Baptist Church Choir. This is my world.
Ask the Dear Wife. She will confirm that I always listen to music. Ask my poker buddies who I Skype with as we play. Music bleeds though the headset’s mic. I often think in lyrics. It is an old habit, a passion, a comfort, a distraction. As a youngster I found myself in trouble more often than not; and punishment was typically being grounded to the house, or to my yard, and not just for a week or two. Bad grades meant six weeks until the next report card, shoplifting candy meant months, perhaps a whole summer. I listened to the radio to pass the time, to connect to something outside. I slept with the radio on, listening to the early days of FM radio, underground radio. The soundtrack for the counterculture sent me in a direction that would form the person I have become. DW and I first bonded over music, and when our passion’s flames were too hot for either of us to touch, music salved and brought us closer.
Yet, as it was in my youth, music primarily remains a solitary experience. I listen in the basement while reading, writing and playing poker. Three mostly solitary ventures. Mostly, but not entirely. Reading certainly has solitary aspects, communing with another writer, but only through their written words. Writing is less so, as much of it, as with this blog, becomes a correspondence of sorts, And, while most of my poker play is on the computer, as I mentioned above, I do occasionally chat with online buddies. And when I do venture forth, for instance to my home game, R has on an oldies station, and at the pub tourney I endure yet feed a jukebox with a meager selection of artists I enjoy.
I will listen to nearly any music genre, yet that does not mean I appreciate every composition, artist or group. Some music is painful to hear. I admit it: I dislike most pop music from the eighties onward, which seems to be a favorite for most of my pub opponents. Play Boston or Britney Spears or George Strait and I sink back into isolation right before your very eyes. It is then I long for my iPod.
Ah, my iPod. I don’t listen to it much. There’s no need, really, except when I mow, or play poker in a casino, when the hours of acres or orbits seem to drag. I dance and sing in both the tractor seat and casino chair; just a little movement, and enough of a whisper to carry a tune. I look to enjoy myself, and at the poker table, distract others.
I associate my iPod with my annual trip to Vegas. I go once a year with my own special group of online friends from Poker Academy. (We have a great time, although I suspect we don’t drink nearly as hard as the bloggers, as we are there primarily to play serious, serious poker.) Two years ago, DW put a special selection of LV, gambling and card-related tunes on the thing just for the trip, and it has not been deleted. I hope that I am able to go again this year, economy notwithstanding, and, as last year, when someone from the group asks me what I am listening to on my little white box that somehow holds so much music, in a gesture of supreme friendship and generosity, I will hand it over to them for a couple hours. bastin without his precious music!? I would become ungrounded were it not for the distant siren song of the chiming slots.
But that’s another story, and I need to sleep.
And some of these people can turn a phrase, let me tell you! I’d mention names, but I’m sure I’d leave some notables out as I don’t read them all. Lord knows I don’t have the time.
Time. Right now it’s late, or early, depending on how one wants to look at it. I’ve wrapped up a rather successful evening of poker. I’ve talked to the Dear Wife in Chicago twice, and I’m about ready to go to bed. The only thing keeping me up is music. I’m listening to WFMU out of Jersey City. The DJ has played Joy Division, Gang of Four, Shrimp Boat, Suicide, and a lot of other music I know well. I just got off of the phone with him. I was telling him about the time I saw Shrimp Boat at the Czar Bar in Chicago. Now, that was a band! And it was a sad day when they called it quits. He told me about a band called Evergreen, a spin-off. He drives from Philly once a week to do his show, and it was clear that he was excited by his work.
Life out here in the country is paced in such a manner that the conversation I just had constitutes excitement. Now he is playing some old-timey fiddle music, “Richmond Square” by The Highlanders. This is my world. Now, “Amazing Grace,” sung by the Liberty Baptist Church Choir. This is my world.
Ask the Dear Wife. She will confirm that I always listen to music. Ask my poker buddies who I Skype with as we play. Music bleeds though the headset’s mic. I often think in lyrics. It is an old habit, a passion, a comfort, a distraction. As a youngster I found myself in trouble more often than not; and punishment was typically being grounded to the house, or to my yard, and not just for a week or two. Bad grades meant six weeks until the next report card, shoplifting candy meant months, perhaps a whole summer. I listened to the radio to pass the time, to connect to something outside. I slept with the radio on, listening to the early days of FM radio, underground radio. The soundtrack for the counterculture sent me in a direction that would form the person I have become. DW and I first bonded over music, and when our passion’s flames were too hot for either of us to touch, music salved and brought us closer.
Yet, as it was in my youth, music primarily remains a solitary experience. I listen in the basement while reading, writing and playing poker. Three mostly solitary ventures. Mostly, but not entirely. Reading certainly has solitary aspects, communing with another writer, but only through their written words. Writing is less so, as much of it, as with this blog, becomes a correspondence of sorts, And, while most of my poker play is on the computer, as I mentioned above, I do occasionally chat with online buddies. And when I do venture forth, for instance to my home game, R has on an oldies station, and at the pub tourney I endure yet feed a jukebox with a meager selection of artists I enjoy.
I will listen to nearly any music genre, yet that does not mean I appreciate every composition, artist or group. Some music is painful to hear. I admit it: I dislike most pop music from the eighties onward, which seems to be a favorite for most of my pub opponents. Play Boston or Britney Spears or George Strait and I sink back into isolation right before your very eyes. It is then I long for my iPod.
Ah, my iPod. I don’t listen to it much. There’s no need, really, except when I mow, or play poker in a casino, when the hours of acres or orbits seem to drag. I dance and sing in both the tractor seat and casino chair; just a little movement, and enough of a whisper to carry a tune. I look to enjoy myself, and at the poker table, distract others.
I associate my iPod with my annual trip to Vegas. I go once a year with my own special group of online friends from Poker Academy. (We have a great time, although I suspect we don’t drink nearly as hard as the bloggers, as we are there primarily to play serious, serious poker.) Two years ago, DW put a special selection of LV, gambling and card-related tunes on the thing just for the trip, and it has not been deleted. I hope that I am able to go again this year, economy notwithstanding, and, as last year, when someone from the group asks me what I am listening to on my little white box that somehow holds so much music, in a gesture of supreme friendship and generosity, I will hand it over to them for a couple hours. bastin without his precious music!? I would become ungrounded were it not for the distant siren song of the chiming slots.
But that’s another story, and I need to sleep.
Friday, December 12, 2008
Last minute
I can hear Dear Wife running around upstairs, her sturdy-but-comfortable clogs pounding the way. She is in the kitchen. Now, the living room, rounds the corner to the stairs, and takes them two at a time. Her luggage is in the guest bedroom. An hour from now I will be driving the Dear Wife to a shuttle that will take her away for many days. I will be left to my own devices, to care for the cats and birds, to terribly miss her. When this separation happens, as in the past, I usually pace around the house for a few hours, reorienting to the silence, avoiding its precipice.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Missing something?
I wanted to share my Poker Academy stats, more to get some comparative feedback with other PAO players than to toot my tricycle horn. Granted, this is a small sampling and the information very basic. These numbers also only represent play since April 1, 2008. The "bastin" nick has approximately $40K total for about 140K hands, and was my primary nick for the first 2 years of play.
The stats below represent playing only $200NL and $400NL, and would be a lot worse were it not for today's $400NL game. Although I was down a full buy-in, I fought my way back to a $550 profit. Still, I have lost $1500 more over the last couple weeks, which seems to happen a lot when I reach new heights in PAX (the name for the PA currency) accumulation.
Ring Games: 210
Hands Played: 18589
$/Hand: $0.19
Small Bets/Hand: 0.05
Raked: $2,350.77
Net Won: $3,550.09
Now, let's compare my stats for the nick, "ubu roi".
The majority of games were $50NL and $100NL, with a couple mis-spent sessions in the upper rooms (an $800 downswing in just a few sessions), and a few sessions in lower rooms ($20NL) as well, and dates back to April 1. I have also been experiencing somewhat of a downturn for this nick, hovering at about $4K, but recently up to $4.3K, with about 28K hands played in total.
Ring Games: 244
Hands Played: 21867
$/Hand: $0.10
Small Bets/Hand: 0.19 What is this? I believe this may accurately summarize how my game stacks up against the better players at PAO. I perform considerably more efficiently with less in the lower rooms.
Raked: $1,537.82 The rake really starts to establish a frightening ratio to my profit when on a losing streak. Inescapable, it taunts and mocks me, even as I try to widen the gap between it and my winnings.
Net Won: $2,294.49
So, let's take this in another direction. We'll round off the number* of hands played since April to 40,000. In that time I have accumulated around $5,700 in PAX. If we follow a standard online hands/hour of about 50/hr, I have played for 800 hours in the last 7.5 months. And I have "made" about $7.125/hr. And, just because the tongue always goes to the sore tooth, if we add that which I have paid in rake, another $3,800, then my gross wages would equal about $9,500, or $11.87/hr. I did better than that working behind-the-counter sales at a print shop in 1987, plus that paid the bills!
To be a bit more thorough and break down bastin vs ubu, bastin played for about 370 hours and made about $9.60/hr after rake. Ubu played about 440 hours and made about $5.10/hr after rake. Even with the better efficiency of ubu's sb/hand, bastin did better overall, just by playing up.
There are several conclusions one can draw from this:
1) I should quit playing at Poker Academy so much!
2) Small stakes poker with a win rate like mine would be a crappy way to make ends meet.
3) Small stakes poker with a win rate like mine would still pay better than the farm did.
4) All of this is meaningless: it's fake money!
5) Don't quit my day job.
*Exactitude has never been my strong suit. In fact, I can't vouch for my math either.
The stats below represent playing only $200NL and $400NL, and would be a lot worse were it not for today's $400NL game. Although I was down a full buy-in, I fought my way back to a $550 profit. Still, I have lost $1500 more over the last couple weeks, which seems to happen a lot when I reach new heights in PAX (the name for the PA currency) accumulation.
Ring Games: 210
Hands Played: 18589
$/Hand: $0.19
Small Bets/Hand: 0.05
Raked: $2,350.77
Net Won: $3,550.09
Now, let's compare my stats for the nick, "ubu roi".
The majority of games were $50NL and $100NL, with a couple mis-spent sessions in the upper rooms (an $800 downswing in just a few sessions), and a few sessions in lower rooms ($20NL) as well, and dates back to April 1. I have also been experiencing somewhat of a downturn for this nick, hovering at about $4K, but recently up to $4.3K, with about 28K hands played in total.
Ring Games: 244
Hands Played: 21867
$/Hand: $0.10
Small Bets/Hand: 0.19 What is this? I believe this may accurately summarize how my game stacks up against the better players at PAO. I perform considerably more efficiently with less in the lower rooms.
Raked: $1,537.82 The rake really starts to establish a frightening ratio to my profit when on a losing streak. Inescapable, it taunts and mocks me, even as I try to widen the gap between it and my winnings.
Net Won: $2,294.49
So, let's take this in another direction. We'll round off the number* of hands played since April to 40,000. In that time I have accumulated around $5,700 in PAX. If we follow a standard online hands/hour of about 50/hr, I have played for 800 hours in the last 7.5 months. And I have "made" about $7.125/hr. And, just because the tongue always goes to the sore tooth, if we add that which I have paid in rake, another $3,800, then my gross wages would equal about $9,500, or $11.87/hr. I did better than that working behind-the-counter sales at a print shop in 1987, plus that paid the bills!
To be a bit more thorough and break down bastin vs ubu, bastin played for about 370 hours and made about $9.60/hr after rake. Ubu played about 440 hours and made about $5.10/hr after rake. Even with the better efficiency of ubu's sb/hand, bastin did better overall, just by playing up.
There are several conclusions one can draw from this:
1) I should quit playing at Poker Academy so much!
2) Small stakes poker with a win rate like mine would be a crappy way to make ends meet.
3) Small stakes poker with a win rate like mine would still pay better than the farm did.
4) All of this is meaningless: it's fake money!
5) Don't quit my day job.
*Exactitude has never been my strong suit. In fact, I can't vouch for my math either.
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