Could be The End.

The SWAT team was there, with M-16s and MP-5s. Machine guns & kevlar vests, folks - probably football helmets and knee pads, too. For people playing cards. People I probably know. None of whom are a menace to society, all of whom are there of their own free will. Yeesh — it could have very easily have been me.

Meanwhile, the Shriners can pull off a cash tournament unmolested. Double standard? Don’t be ridiculous. Of course, there’s a double standard. Skeevy degenerates like me make for good cable teevee fodder…judges and top cops and community leaders, not so much.

Let’s hope that a bad-ass Doberman Pinscher lawyer was busted in the raid. That’s truly the best hope for poker in all of Texas — somebody who will stand on some toes and won’t get off them. Just think about it for two nanoseconds — would the SWAT team have been called in to take down a game of cards, if they weren’t getting paid off by the A&E channel, someone who’s looking for naught but ratings? Would the DPD brass have green-lighted the raid if it wasn’t for A&E? It’s sickening to consider the idea of a Hollywood producer driving public policy in Dallas, TX. But it’s sure as hell a valid question, and I hope someone asks it, to the point of subpoenaing the shit out of the DPD/A&E relationship.

Meantime, I say we need to start working on a legal defense fund of some kind. Dan says that at least one Rounder Club dealer was busted. I know most of those good folks, and I’m quite sure that dealing wasn’t a hobby they use to relax from the stresses of staying on top of their trust fund investments. Think about donating some of what you would have raked in a normal week, if the opportunity comes up.

More Professors Ban Laptops in Class - Yahoo! News

As the professor lectured on the law, the student wore a poker face. But that was probably because, under the guise of taking notes on his laptop, the student actually was playing poker — online, using the school’s wireless Internet connection.

Heh, heh. Pay attention to your professor, kid…there’s a lot more money in law than poker.

I’m quite broken-hearted that I’m not going to Las Vegas for the 3rd WPBT get-together. My card-playing peeps are all arriving over the next 48 hours, and some of them are already there. I’m going to miss meeting Mean Gene, a top poker blogger and the man who invented the idea of wearing a welder’s helmet to the final table.

Stupid holidays, stupid work, stupid being poor.

In personal poker news, after a week off, I finally got out to play last night and was totally cold-decked all night long. Appropriately so, since we got the proverbial “arctic blast with wintry mix” last night (which, of course, had the teevee weather geeks in a lather.) The last hand of the night involved a guy sucking out a straight on the river, while my two pair went down in flames, and me making pot-sized bets on the flop and the turn trying to push him out. I almost cried at the end, as that one hand took me from plus territory to minus for the night, and I don’t like that. I know in my head that I love these guys. He was actually working on his thrid buy-in, stuck for $700, when he hit that straight. But I hate it that not a single one of those seven hundred blues was in my stack. Well, back to the salt mines tonight for a $60 tournament, and the never-ending battle at the cash table.

I played in a little $33+5 super-sattelite tonight, trying to win my way into a WPT satellite. Out of 14, I finished…seventh. Or maybe eighth. Ninth??? I know what I did wrong in the hand, and it’s just this simple: not stopping and thinking through the betting before calling an all-in. I was UTG+1 at a with AQo. UTG had called for 300, and I popped it to 1500. When UTG called, I should have heard sirens ringing in my head. Flop comes Q8x, UTG pushes, and I, of course, instacall with top pair, top kicker. Boom — set of 8s. I thought my big-ass bet would have pushed the little pairs out, but it didn’t. Oh, well.

Next time, stop & think. It could have just as easily been a set of Qs. But all I could see was the flop hitting my hand hard, and thinking I needed to play this super-strong to stack up. So there’s the lesson…stop and take a minute.

*SIGH* Once more, it was a top 20 finish, without cashing. This time, I popped in an early 3xBB raise in from UTG while holding AQo, got re-raised all-in two seats away, and like the durn fool that I am, I called. The guy I called is one of those hyper-aggressive dudes who can turn over any two cards, so I guess it’s just my bad luck that the man was holding bullets at that point in time. I seriously thought it was a steal-reraise, and that my hand looked pretty good. Except I really and truly know better after thinking about it — it was such a smooth raise and he was a big stack at our table. Folding would have hurt, but not as much as going out.

I made enough in the cash game to make up for it, so it’s not all rainclouds here. Still, I want to tune up my tournament game, and I feel pretty stupid sometimes. Grrr…

ALMOST TOO SOON AFTER POSTING TO MAKE NOTE OF UPDATE: And it’s GDMFing hard to play poker with your left thumb in a bandage that makes your left thumb as big as three of your left thumbs. Maybe I’ll post a picture later.

FUN, FUN UPDATE:

The silly part of the whole thing? I was reading a poker book in the emergency room, and the doc (a kid, barely shaving) noticed it and started talking about cards. After putting the magical foam that stops the bleeding* on my half-a-thumb, and everyone had cleared out, he snuck back in for names & numbers of my favorite legally-questionable rooms. Hopefully, that is one dr. bill that will make it’s way back into my pocketbook.

* And why isn’t THAT available to the general public? I never would have bothered with an EMERGENCY room if I’d had some in the first aid kit. It was hardly an emergency, despite the fact that it looked like I’d slaughtered a hog in the bathroom.

I got a win in the Rounder Club tournament. Motherscratcher, that was long: 1930 to 0100. An even 80 players. We made ‘em bring out the $5000 chips, as the house got tired of watching us push around teetering stacks of $1000s, when the blinds are $10K/20K. Having a win under my belt, I can tell you that there is a shocking amount of luck involved in a tournament cash-out. At least when I’m involved, there is. So much so that I wasn’t interested in pressing it in the cash game, which is pretty much poker heresy.

Anyhoo, it’s a good enough win that I’ll go fire at the Tuesday tournament. And I think I might be even, RC-wise, now. Heh heh.

My main Dallas Poker Man, DanM. and his weekly strip-club freeroll tournament, is prominently featured in Bob Ciaffone’s recent Card Player column.

My tournament play is starting to depress me. I’m lasting longer than I was a year ago, making some final tables, and some final 20s. But I’m still making panicky brain-freeze moves that knock me out. Yesterday was a perfect example. We’re in the middle-levels, where I have about 10-15 BBs in my stack. I catch AQo in middle position, and see an all-in raise from a (good) player in a similar situation, stack-wise. E-Z laydown, right? Noop. Call. Didn’t even think hard about it. Just pushed and prayed. Saw her AKs flush out. Of course. Now I did cash last month, in a tournament that featured less talented players, and I’ve doubled that win up in cash games. I’m not really sweating it, but I would like to see some improvement. I guess if I studied a little bit, it would help, but it’s hard finding time to do that. Maybe stay in some evening, and read? Maybe?

And miss all those delicious cash games??? The classic quandary, in boom poker times, too.

It looks like I’m headed to San Jose next week, and fortunately for the Silicon Valley sharks, I’m going to have a little bit of unstructured time on my hands. Initial plans are to mosey over to Bay 101 as time allows. Does anyone out there have any tips on the games, or the room itself? It looks like Limit is all they spread there, and I’ll likely sit the 2/4 or 3/6. I’ve been in there a couple of times, but it’s been years and everything has probably changed. Or maybe another card room that you’d like to recommend, perhaps one that spreads NLHE?

Or should I just stay in my hotel room and play Full Tilt in my boxers? OK, sorry for the visual…

It looks like we gots us a regular weekly game here at El Rancho. Got 10 in here tonight, and everyone said they had at least one more friend who was interested or couldn’t make it. There was even talk of opening up for Friday nights. Hell, I’d play two nights in a row. My ass sure hates sitting for six hours, though.

I did marginally better with my own play. Didn’t lose any this time, but, didn’t make a big pile, either. Better’n losing, to be sure. Anyone know the odds of hitting that damn open-ended straight draw? I can tell you that I didn’t make it AT LEAST five times tonight.

The other cool thing? One of the regulars is a gunsmith. He’s gonna hook me up with tritiums for my Springfield 1911 at cost. Sweet.

Got a game together down here at El Rancho FINALLY. Looks like it will be a regular Saturday night thing. Tonight was 5/10 NLHE. Yes, I said 5/10. I’ve never played at those kinds of limits. I did what the pros say they do — ignored the dollar value and just played the chips. I don’t know how they do it, frankly. It was nerve-wracking looking at $100 pots. Finished down $15…last hand of the night killed a decent night yet again. Didn’t see the flush*, called a big-ass bet with two pair. Oh, well…at least now I’ve got a loose image. Har-dee-har-har. Anyhoo, a nice home game is good to have to get through the winter.

I know one thing — I’ve gotta get a regulation table. I can’t play on these fold-out pieces of junk. Someone out there making tables??? Drop me a line, we’ll work a swap.

* Upon further review, I’m less sanguine about this. It was the last hand of the night, and everybody was talking and cracking jokes and I was right there in the big middle of the table chatter. So there I was betting into a made hand with my puny two pair, and then calling the huge raise, even after going into the tank for a couple of minutes. For the rest of my life, I’m folding these “last hand of the night” hands.

Blinky-blinky linky-linky…

I have registered to play in the
Online Poker Blogger Championship!

This event is powered by PokerStars.

Registration code: 8170199

I’ll be interested to see how many poker blogger OGs sign up. I blush to think I was once a poker blogger…I hardly ever get to play anymore, so I have nothing to talk about. Fairly booooooooooring. I did play the other night in a (short-handed) Lawyer Game at the Frenchman’s. Played tight, had a good night, was up more than double. Then the pre-determined last hand came. Since it was close to the end of the game, I had had a couple of beers to start winding down. Mistake. I made the loosest, gambliest, dumbest call of my life (holding top pair, crappy kicker, with a paired board of fives — it was a hideous read on one of my opponents — and they each had the third and fourth 5, so I was staring at a two-outer) and lost everything. I just stood up and walked out without saying a word, except Buh-Bye. I think I even left a stack of reds sitting there. I still hate myself for quite literally throwing money away. I was so pleased with myself for not gambling it up in a short-handed, loosie-goosie game, too. Still a long way to go before I can call myself a card player…

Nothing big to report, just nice to play in two live tournaments two nights in a row. One was a freeroll, one was $30 and it included food. Both were well attended and both offered good competition. Never saw nothing worth a crap, so I went nowhere. But it’s still good to get out and keep working on the game…try to move out of this tight-ass rut I’m stuck in. I still can’t get my motor revving early, so I find myself short at crunch time, making desperation moves that don’t pay off. AKs on Sunday, pocket fours today.

I’ve got to learn how to build the stack early…Tight Like TJ ain’t doing it for me.

Heh. There, the requirments have been met to still consider this a poker blog.

Not here, not in some time, anyway. I did play some 2/4 No Foldem Holdem at the Gila River/Wild Horse last night, and got murdered with soul-destroying suckouts. I just know you’re dying to hear my bad beats. Like the Splash Pot (casino adds $100 to the pot) where my TPTK goes down to a rivered trips. Or the two Q5o hands that beat my pocket pokes and my pocket 10s.

Well, never mind. Since Poker hates me, I hate Poker.

Tournament poker is so damn frustrating. Four hours of maintaining an average stack, picking up a few chips here and there by showing a hand, getting blinded off while hoping to pick up a hand, folding the one I should have pushed with, then getting rivered by a flush to get knocked out one hand before the second break.

OK, it was my first one in a loooooooong time. I think I made it to the top third…big whoop. But still…I have got to figure out a way to start the game in top gear. You just can’t try to fit into the flow. I’m horrible at grabbing control and playing the game I want to play. The only answer is more play.

One funny note from the night: the final hand? Loser pushed all-in against a monster chip lead with The Hammer. heh

This is truly a Holy Fucking Shit! moment. I hope you’ll pardon me the vulgarity and the lame Onion call-back, but the freaking Online Journalism Review at the freaking Walter Annenberg School of freaking Journalism at freaking USC has written an article about poker bloggers. That’s just kind of wow!

It also raises the fear for me that there’s a shark just ahead that must be jumped. Once the modern journo starts in on something, that’s typically the end of the usefulness of a medium. And I’ve learned so damn much from the poker bloggers, I would hate to see it end. OK, that’s probably crazy talk…I’m Mr. Is that a dark cloud inside the silver lining? lately.

No, I’m not in it…I’m hardly a blogger anymore, and I completely suck at poker.