Thursday night out

Rushed home to get a bunch of shit together for a woman who was buying some exercise equipment from me via Craigslist. Got it all loaded on the back porch, and she doesnt show. C U Next Tuesday!!!

So I picked up Tina and we went to see No Country for Old Men. I just finished the book about a week ago, so I had to see it. Good flick, but they did skip a few parts from the book. And the ending was still kinda strange.

Stopped by Lil Fag's to drop off some money we owed to Felix and Paoli, then headed to Backstage where Tina's sister works. (we both really wanted to sit and play though) They have the best jukebox I've ever seen. All live music. Good selection too. We hung out and played video poker and other shit on the machine at the bar, and I took her home. I contemplated heading back to LF's to jump in the game and even called him, but I was tired and they were down to a single table.

Went home, slept like shit, and here I am. Just had a big lunch and ready for a nap. Aw Bob Saget!!

Hiphop's Tourney

Damn man! I played almost 3 hours after nearly being down to the felt and came in 2nd vs. Dennis Graham, Brian Wilson's idiot brother. I just couldnt get him to put chips into the pots where I had him beat. It was as if he could see my cards. He raises me preflop to like $1200 when the blinds are 200-400, and I re-raise him to $3600...FOLD. WTF? I had him outchipped 4-1 when we got heads-up. We went back and forth with the chip lead about 5 times, and by the time the blinds got to be 1000-2000, I was at around 8500 and couldnt catch a hand. He won 90% of all showdowns as well. Oh well, it was fun and I made a few bucks. Not bad for a 25-man tourney. The VE were 3 of the final 4 at the table, so that was sweet.

Oh the hangover!

I've got a friend in town from Arkansas that I haven't seen in a couple years. His grandma is on her deathbed and he's here for a few days, so we went out and got tanked Monday night. I sucked down High Life's like they were going out of style, and we did a few shots of Jack. Ouch. We stopped by my cousin's and pounded on his door sometime after 2am. No answer. Made it back to my place and we each took a couch to crash on. We woke up to some serious snow. I got him home and decided I was in no shape to go in to work. I felt like my insides wanted to be on the outside. Slept most of the day away. The snow never stopped. I have some shoveling to do. Aww Bob Saget!!

A dog's life

My dog has it rough, as you can tell from some of these pics...

Another Dave's Saturday Night

Father Time won the tourney...nice going Joe. I busted about midway through and didn't last long in the cash game either. I'm just off lately. Need to change stakes, take a break, or something. Have to string some wins together.

Friday night drinkup

The good times continue. We started at Southside to watch the Cavs game and grab a bite. Hacker even graced us with his presence. Cavs won a nail-biter with only 6 players. Amon Ones had a career night. I bet he cant wait to play some cards. Dohar also showed up. He's going to do his best to come to Vegas with us. I hope so. No one else can stay awake with me. Sleep is for pussies.

After a couple hours at SS, we decided we needed someplace seedier. We tried the Tap House but it was packed, and hardly seedy enough for my tastes, so we headed down the road to Hoopples. Decent place in the flats. We played some darts, and I lied to E-Rock that Glenn Schwartz was playing, although I dont think he really bought it, but he and Greg stopped in for a few. It seems that if you have Coleman as your dart partner, you will lose. Hmm...

Everyone rode with me, so I did a bit of off-roading right after leaving the bar just to liven things up. Dropped everyone off at their cars about 1am, and decided after getting back to Elyria that it was too early to go home, so I went to a place around the corner and had a few more. Last Call!!! I hadn't heard those words in a while.

Thursday night 2/21

Nothing to report. Went home, made dinner, read a book, went to bed early. No $$ to play Lil Fag's game. One of these days I'll sell my house(s) and have money to do things again.

Tradesman 2/20

Special guest...Felix!

Good times. We watched the lunar eclipse from the comfort of our bar stools. We did shots. Big ones. I had a $94 bar bill with no food. A couple of girls came and sat with us after ragging on my High Lifes. I asked what they were drinking. Bud Light. WTF? Whores. Young and cute, but still whores.

Gail brought me a donut box from the place across the street. :)

Greektown pt3 ...the ride home

With me busted out and Meats lying around puking, Tina put in a final revolution at her table (she won a couple hundo) and we got ready to roll. We walked outside to wait for the valet, and Tina was counting her money. Some big fat guy comes over and gives her back the C-note she dropped on the ground. The guy then asked for a reward, and Tina obliged by handing this bastard $20. I was like, "why did you give that guy $20 just for doing the right thing?" I understand, and it was a nice thing to do, but I also added that $10 would have been OK. It's not like the guy took our order and brought us food. What's even worse is that he asked for it. Oh well, no big deal.

So we'd been on the road about half an hour when I hear something strange coming from the back seat. Meats is puking into one of the bags we picked up for him at the gas station just in case. He puked and whimpered about 6 times, filling the bag about 1/3 full. I pulled over and he chucked the bag. No video unfortunately.

He was OK for the rest of the trip. We stopped at a service plaza and me and Tina played some instant scratch-offs. I never win shit on those. Tina won like $11 for her $15 investment.

I dropped everyone off and made it home in time to watch a little TV. I love poker.

Vegas baby, Vegas!!

TK got me booked for LV yesterday. We'll be leaving around 11am on Friday the 25th of April and coming back the following Monday in the early evening. My liver is already shaking in its boots.

So far it's me, TK, AK, and Slacks. We're working on Dohar and Jase1. Hiphop, where you at bitch? Get on board.

I'm not gonna play 16 hrs of poker every day this time. This is a party trip. Bring it!

Greektown pt2 ...the poker

We checked in around 12:45-ish and got a seat immediately at a $1-2, $100-max. That was my first mistake. (I'll post on the CPMG board about this sometime soon...how you just cant win with a table full of inexperienced players.) They opened a new table and sat me, Tina, Colin, and Matt G at the same table. Matt went and found himself another seat somewhere else.

As soon as I sit down, I cant miss. I'm flopping sets, straights, boats, and within an hour I'm up well over $200. I'm making big raises with decent cards, narrowing the field, and generally playing well. Then comes the cooler. Someone to my right makes it $7 to go, it folds to me, and I make it $20 even with 10-10. Guy to my left calls, original raiser folds. Flop comes 9-4-2 rainbow. I make a pot-sized bet and the caller min-raises. I look at his stack, see that he's got about $55 left, and push, putting him on A-9. He calls and flips over 9-4 off for top 2...I dont catch, NH sir. I ask him why he called $20 cold with the 9-4. His reply: "It's my daughter's birthday". Unreal. I hope his daughter gets cancer. I did have to ask him though...April 9th, or Sept 4th? It was Sept.

There was another guy that moved from across the table that moved next to me and started talking my ear off. You know the guy, there's 1 in every crowd. Wants to talk about every single hand, including the hands he folded that would have been monsters. I make a raise preflop with KK, he whines that I'm making him fold "his favorite junk hand". Flop was 10-7-2, so I bet and take it down. The guy next to me is going nuts. "I folded 7-2!! Waaahhh!!" That's your favorite junk hand? WTF? What kind of moron are you?

So then I get my top 2 cracked against a flopped straight, call an all-in when I knew the guy caught his hand, and chased a few hands with a shitload of outs, none of which were any good. Final damage: down $240 after getting over $100 back in blackjack. So ends my string of luck at Greektown. One thing I have promised myself, after losing at the lowest stakes in a casino for like 4 straight visits...I'll never play the lowest stake in a casino again. There are simply too many donks.

Poker word of the week: Predation

Noun	1.	predation - an act of plundering and pillaging and marauding depredation pillaging, plundering, pillage - the act of stealing valuable things from a place; "the plundering of the Parthenon"; "his plundering of the great authors"
	2.	predation - the act of preying by a predator who kills and eats the prey LEARN IT...LIVE IT...LOVE IT. BITCHES!

Send me your links

If you'd like a link posted here, please add it as a comment on this thread. As long as it's fairly poker-related, I'll add it.

I highly recommend Hacker's blog, Low Limit Junkie, where he goes by the pen name Poker Jones. Hacker makes his living as a writer (What's your favorite book? Whatever it is, Hacker's literary style and prowess kick it in the balls), so he does a great job. He hasn't updated very often in recent months due to his schedule and the fact that he has a life, but browse through his archives for some entertaining stories and decent poker strategy/discussion. Too bad he doesn't drink more, I think we'd be pretty good friends.

You aren't going to find a ton of hand histories or extended discussion here. For me, this blog is more about the out-of-control life I've been living since the split with my wife. I've been living a sort of Fight Club/Leaving Las Vegas/Animal House/Fear & Loathing kind of existence lately, LOL. I even had to quit smoking just to keep up with it.

Greektown pt. 1 ...getting there

We started at Bob Evans in Elyria...me, Meats, Matt G, Colin, and Tina. These guys get out of the car talking politics. Of course I had to jump in a bit on the economic issues, like the federal income tax. Meats seems to beleive that the government cant survive without it. I think we did OK without it until 1913, when the 16th amendment really wasnt even ratified. But I digress.

We ate and chatted. I had the pot roast hash. Good stuff. Be sure they add scallions, it really makes the dish. Eggs over medium. Wheat toast. Just water to drink. I haven't had a cup of coffee since I quit smoking around Thanksgiving. (going on 90 days now BTW)

Jumped on the TPK and headed west. ABout an hour later, Meats wants to stop at the service plaza to poop. I hurry in first to get the best stall while Meats waddles, huffs, puffs, and strains his way to the door, about 80 ft from the car. Colin and Matt G, who drove separately, pulled up to the pumps to get gas. So I do the nasty, wash my hands and walk out, and Meats is just now walking in. He tells me I can get another look at his breakfast outside next to the entrance if I want. I took this as a perfect photo opportunity and got Tina to do the dirty work. (see photo)

We get back on the road after picking up some plastic bags just in case Meats need them. He also grabbed some expensive Pepto-Bismol chewables. (see photo) He layed around in the back seat the rest of the way, (see photo) but not before telling us how, as he's sitting in the stall doing the nasty, he gets a txt message from Slacks that reads: BBAAARRRFFF!!! Meats is like, "WTF? I just puked like 3 minutes ago." The news had already gone viral thanks to the wonderful world of technology.

Just as I-275 merges with I-75 in Toledo, traffic comes to a total stop. We sat for 45 minutes waiting to move, and then finally started inching along. Turned out a garbage truck slammed a wall about a mile ahead (it was snowing pretty good but wasnt sticking) and was perpendicular to the roadway, taking up a few lanes. Traffic was down to a single lane. I found the article here. Had to be some diabolical attempt by Twitch to slow us down. NH sir.

We finally started moving again just as we began talk of backing up down the onramp and taking another route.

We called ahead and got our names on the board for $1-2, or $50-100 as they like to call it in Motown. No wonder it's the murder capital of the USA.

...to be continued

Coming up: Greektown pt.2 ...the poker

Followed by Greektown pt. 3 ...the ride home with Meats puking into a bag. Sorry, no video, or you would have seen it already.

Dave's Saturday night

Not much to report. I won 2 small pots in the tourney and busted after 90 min. Flopped my weekly royal flush in the cash game, but failed to stack anyone. No river call. That's a first. Lost $180 in the cash game. JJ and QQ beat by higher pairs.

There was one guy there that had no clue what was going on, but managed to win a $300 pot  by calling $70 preflop (this is a $.50-1.00 game remember) with 66 and busting 3 other players with better hands.

Friday night dealer's choice

What a blast. Slacks brought the Fleur De Cana and diet Pepsi. And a blueberry pie. Cigars were smoked. Poker was played. Stupid poker. Jacks or better. Screw your neighbor. Acey-deucey. Fish won all the big pots. The jambalaya was awesome. We sprayed Meats in the face with Redi Whip. I still have a case of beer left. Time for another party.

Valentine's Day

Hit the town with Tina...we ate at a Mexican place downtown. Ehhh, not bad, but it didn't knock my socks off either. My socks were still on when we left. We went to see Jumper at Tower City. A tad above average. Socks remained on during the whole flick. Great concept that could have been a bit more creative.

After the movie we went west to Kamm's Corner to a nice little place called Backstage where Tina's sister works. One of the 15 places she bartends, lol. We had a few more drinks (I had about 6...on top of the hangover from tradesman) and played trivia and card games. We played a NLHE tourney on it also, and kicked ass. A great night overall.

Tradesman

LOL...what a night. The tacos sucked. Twitch brought a game that shocks the shit out of you if you're too slow to press your button after a light goes off on this thing. It was pretty funny. TK got us all holding on and gritting our teeth through it. Hilarious.

Sometime during the night I came up with the brilliant idea of Permalube underwear. Fill it with some Astraglide and it keeps the ladies ready to throw down at the drop of a hat. I have no idea how I got there.

So Twitch left at 9 and we bought TK another drink or 2 after he said he was leaving, but at 10:30-ish it's down to me and Slacks. Coleman had just finished dinner at Hyde Park in Westlake so we talked him into joining us. So we had a few more. I had 13 High Life's on my tab before the end of the evening. On a week night. What else is new.

So, we're about to leave and we see some people going into the donut shop across the street, and I get Slacks to look up the number. I call and order 300 donuts for the bar and they tell me we can pick them up at 5 am. $157 or something like that. Sweet. They then call me back a few min later, and I nervously hit the "ignore" button on the call. Then the barmaid comes over and tells me that they called the bar and they cant make our order. Bad news man.

We leave, and I get a txt from Slacks saying JC had just been pulled over. Apparently he whipped out a get out of jail free card and was promptly released. NH sir. He did, however, shit his pants. No Wednesdays out for him for a while.

Overall, last night night was totally worth the hangover I have today. I need a nap. :)

Back to work

After 6 straight days off work, including 3 days in Columbus, 2 sick days, and 1 snow day, it's back to the office. Of course, I'm totally swamped and my boss wants it all done this week. RIIGGHHTT... how the hell can I do all that and still get new posts onto my blog?

Dave's Saturday Tourney

Pocket pairs like crazy for me. I had AA twice, JJ twice, QQ, KK, a set of 6's. I flopped a couple nut straights. Too bad this wasn't a bounty tourney. I busted like 6-7 people. Got lucky a couple times, but that's how it goes. I ended up 4th overall. Should have been a little better. 

Then...I gave it all away in the cash game. Nothing seemed to hold up. I'll get it back this week. 

Friday night dealer's choice game

I have nearly 2 cases of beer left from the chili tourney, and I want to have a small dealer's choice game, invite-only, low stakes, where it's more of a drinking party than a poker game. We should probably make it all limit games so there are no serious injuries to anyone's bankroll, but we can still have a good time. I'm thinking Friday 2/15.

My list of potential invitees: TK, Slacks, Hiphop, JC, AK, Vinnie, Con, Felix, e-Rock, and possibly a couple of others. No girlfriends/spouses. This will be a boys night. Since it's only gonna be 1 table, I'll allow smoking. Thoughts? Ideas? 

I'll probably whip up some chow to show off my killer kitchen skillz. Jambalaya? It's always a winner. 

Lil Fag's Thursday night madness

Went to Matt's Thursday night game last night. Small place, but there was a ton of money on the 
table. Charlie was pretty deep. I got into
a hole pretty early, which sucked.  I managed to get about $110 back, but the damage was done. There was a new guy (Asian) named Chris 
that seemed pretty cool. I had him read 
like a book last
night. Hope to see him again soon. He's also interested in a higher stakes game. $2-5 anyone?

Felix was there, which was cool. We'll definitely have to get together to get tanked sometime soon. I still have a bunch of beer left over from last weekend, so I may need to throw another party in the
near future.

Chili Cookoff/Tourney

A good time was had by all. You can read some comments here. Pics are also available on the CPMG
website here. 
TK left this camera at my place and I'm sure he'll 
post pics ASAP. I won over $1k in the cash game somehow.
Beats me, I was freaking wasted. Slacks won the cookoff,
but it was only the 2 of us. Mine was certainly prettier. 
Great color, and the taste was dead-on. Slacks' was also
excellent. His had a nice smokey flavor.

I had to go to Columbus Sunday-Wednesday for work. Had a decent time. Nothing all that new tech-wise. I keep telling the boss we need to go to CES in 
Vegas to see the good stuff. I'll keep trying.