Richard Hammond Is Back on Top Gear

Good news, Richard Hammond is back on the air after his horrible crash with a jet powered car. Here is the segment that includes the 2 successful earlier attempts. He managed to hit over 320 MPH!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/check/topgear/hammond?size=16x9&bgc=AFD8D0&nbram=1&bbram=1

It really sucks that I can't watch this show on TV anymore (HELLO.....Discovery Channel, bring it back!) It's just too good for trying to watch on the computer on a regular basis.

Mookie Final Table

I made it to the final table, but got knocked out in 9th (2 from the money) out of 55. I'll let Mook do the replay:

11:29 … AK for Brain and AQ for photojenn….A4K flop…lookin’ good for Brain…Queen on the turn…uh oh…Queen on the river…dirty, sick, nasty. Brain is left with crumbs.
11:30 … Brain pushes his scraps in and Maudie moves all in over the top…AJ for Brain and QQ for Maudie. All baby cards on the board and Brain is out in 9th.

Unfortunately these times are Central, so there's nothing like staying up 'til 12:30 and get killed with runner runner for the full house with nadda to show for it. I also got busted out in the freeroll shortly before the money again. Maybe the live game this weekend will go better.

Dear Imaginary Internet Friends in Canada (IIFIC)

I am a very rich and successful business man in need of your help. I am in a foreign country and my government is currently in upheaval and may be overthrown any moment. The warlords have strong armed our banks and I am challenged with getting my vast fortune ($25 on Neteller) in to my usual high yield investments (Full Tilt for future Mookies). I have a contact that will allow me to move my controlling interest to you in exchange for your cooperation in funding me in future endevours. Please contact me and we can make arrangements that will allow us to help each other.

How do you crack Aces?

Well the Royal Flush helps. This is from Wil's game tonight, and yes the money went in preflop.













Pocket Aces showed up at my tables 5 times tonight and they usually went up against another great hand. Wil not only lost with his, but got knocked out by them later while he had KK. I had them once and won and then got knocked out in 11th to them when I pushed preflop. It was looking promising for me because I had trips on the turn, but justice prevailed and he rivered an A for his full boat. I was trying to be patient and pick my hands but as the blinds increased my range of starting hands did as well. It was just unfortunate to have the BB wake up with that hand. Other than that, I was happy with my play for the night. At least I outlasted Maigrey. We had a nice short stack contest going there for a while.

Now What?

Poker has been going well this week. Since I can't cash out to Neteller, I decided to just "play off" my 25 bucks at VIP. I had just deposited the money the night before "the change" and couldn't get it back to my account. They have some .90+.10 10 person SNGs so this worked with my bankroll. I liked this setup because even though is was a small buy-in, the tourney fee was close percentage wise with the higher buyins. I have seen other sites that charge .25 for a 1.00 tournament. Even with the low buy-in, the play was still fun and didn't seem donkarific. I have had early success with these. I played in (3) 10 person SNGs and (1) 20 person 5 handed tourney. I got 2 firsts and a 3 third in the SNGs and mid pack in the short handed tourney. Short handed is obviously not my thing, but I had a good time with the 10 man SNGs. It's funny how I'm increasing my bankroll on a site where there are no bloggers tournaments to use the money later.

No Freerollin' Love

I entered the PokerSavvy VIP.com freeroll and got bounced 12th out of 24. evilch1ck3n crushed me with one brutal hand. In the BB, I had 10, 5 and we had 5 limpers to me so I checked. The flop comes 10, 10, 5 so I'm sitting pretty. I check and call the raise. 1 big better on the turn and I min raise it back to him. He pushes and I call. He shows 10, 8 for trips and we watch the river pair his 8 for the bigger boat. That's twice in a week that I have been out boated on the river. Maybe I'm just playing them wrong, but I'm trying to start maximizing profits from my good hands. I was able to get my stack off of life support because I won a race and was dealt some good cards right after this. I guess people thought I was on tilt and paid me off, but the blinds were about to become a problem. I took my shot and evilch1ck3n finished me off about 10 minutes later when I pushed preflop from the SB with A,8 against his button raise. No winning the race for me as his pocket 4s hold even with a K,Q,J flop to give me more outs. I realized I did misplay this hand but good news is I got to go to bed at around my normal time. Right now, I'd rather have ZZZZZs than $$$$$. Well maybe not $$$$$, but definitely more than $.

Although I have not been able to cash in forever in the PokerSavvy freerolls, I can't pass up a once a week opportunity to try. I'll hit it again next week and see how that goes. I hope to jump back in to the Mookie soon. Speaking of blogger tournaments, where have the original gangstas of Wil's game gone? I see a few familiar faces (RicoM, Weak, Transfish, ISS Spock, STB) , but not much of FishyMcDonK, Waffles, Smokkee, Slimeface, JJOK, Kat, Surf (or any of his work crew), Don, Carmen, Ike, Mow, or Ski. I did happen to see someone (Kajagugu) in my town that was playing and found out we live about 3 miles from each other. I'll have to see about getting him in the next ATL bloggers game.

Zippo in the Neighborhood League

I played 10 hours of live poker at my neighbor's house this weekend and had nothing but $35 in losses and a big smile to show for it. We played 1 big game, a couple of SNGs, and a .10/.20 cash game. Stacie was out of town and my neighbor wasn't kicking anybody out of the house, so we just kept playing. It was our first stop in our neighborhood Poker League. Mookie helped me with some info and I added a couple of my own touches. If it works out right, we should have a nice prize pool for about 12 eligible players.

Since I didn't get enough poker time this weekend and I didn't care to watch the Golden Globes, I jumped in to a Stars SNG. I'm still low stakes, but it keeps me with enough money for the weekly Wheaties. I slow played some draws that luckily hit and was able to get great cards at the end to either steal the blinds, or win the pot outright. When we were down to 3, I got AA on the button and limped. I expected one of the others to push, but they didn't and we saw a flop. I checked it, SB bet out, BB called. For a moment I wondered if I had screwed myself with the slowplay. I had them both covered, so I pushed and I really got worried when they both called. I guess it really helped that I was pounding them preflop early and they must have thought I was doing it again with my over bet. My AA didn't get cracked and I was able to knock them both out without any head's up battle. A good start to 2007 online play.

Poker After Dark – The 2 Week Review

I have given the show 2 full weeks. After an irritating start, I have really started looking forward to each episode of this show. It definitely gets better as the blinds increase and you see a little more creativity from the players. I love the fact that it is on every day so you can get the benefit of the multiple hand format versus the heavy editing that is normally done. I think this is a great show for new players to see the importance of starting hands, position, evaluating the play of your opponent, and realizing when you’re beat. I’m not so upset about the Shana part now, but the announcer changed his format for week 2 and it’s not for the better.

Pizza and Patience

I just read Ryan's post and I had a similar thought Thursday night. I was returning an incorrectly made pizza after just driving up to the Hut to pick it up since the delivery time was 1.5 hours. I had asked for extra sauce, but it was entered as "no sauce." I didn't notice the lack of sauce until I returned home and Stacie picked up her first piece. Of course this really aggrevated me (partly because I should have checked better before I left the store) and I drove back up to get a corrected one. On the way, I tried to call in my corrected order so maybe the wait wouldn't be as long. By the time someone answered, I was only about 3 minutes away and got disconnected when they transferred me to the manager. So now, I'm on my second trip for
the night and have been hung up on when trying to speed up things. I walked in and told the manager that it was made incorrectly and gave him my ticket and explained how I would like them made. He of course apologized and asked me to wait 20 minutes for our 2 new ones. I gave my father a call while I was waiting, so it went by quick. They gave me my 2 new pizzas and I opened the box to verify it. I looked at them and they were made the exact same way - no sauce! I asked the manager where the sauce was and he said he thought it was originally made with extra sauce and I came back to ask for no sauce like the ticket said. Now we're pushing past 8PM and he's asking me to wait 20 more minutes and he's crediting my account $20 bucks. I know I have grown up and am becoming more patient because in the old days I probably would have become some ass clown that makes people nervous. I calmly told him "no big deal" and called Stacie while I waited for the pizzas again. I told her to grab a snack and I'd be home in 25 minutes. The new pizzas were made and let me tell you, they now had tons of extra sauce and were damn tasty.

I am trying to put things in perspective more and realize how great I have it on a daily basis. Of course there is no guarantee that I won't have days or games that make me go apeshit. So, here's to keeping yourself off of tilt. Oh, and for the record, I will now be placing my pizza orders online.

So Close......

I played in the Pokersavvy $250 freeroll tonight. I was playing my ass off and it didn't hurt to get smacked with cards at times. I made it to the chip lead in the first hour, but got spanked really bad and dropped back to last. I clawed my way back to first and thought I had a good shot of cashing with my chip stack when there were 5 left with 3 slots paying. Unfortunately, my last 2 hands were pocket pairs that ran up against buzzsaw44's back to back pocket Aces and I go home on the bubble. Arggggggghhhh! Very disappointing to say the least. I might have been able to avoid the first pair, but then I'm pretty sure I would have lost my stack against his second hand anyway. Oh well, I'll try again next week.

Poker After Dark

I have been looking forward to this show. It was encouraging to see that they are going to show more hands with less editing than other poker shows. I am 1 and a half episodes in to the new series and will give it a full 2 weeks before I make a decision to commit it to the rotation. I am not going to base it solely on this week's group. Stacie was watching episode 2 with me last night but she couldn't take very much of it. She normally likes to watch poker with me, especially when Gus Hanson is playing, but she didn't enjoy this show at all. I agree with her compaint about the show. There is too much side talk while the play is in action. It becomes distracting and the attention doesn't seem to be focused on the players that are still in the hand. I don't mind banter between hands, good natured ribbing, or discussions between players that are currently in the hand. I was hoping for some more poker related discussions, not scheduling tee
times, Hellmuth and Sheiky bad mouthing each other, or the fact that Annie was previously married for 11 years.

Most of the players didn't really seem to want to be there. Annie kept talking about the plane she had to catch. You could tell some of the others would rather be at a cash game. It's like they
were only playing to fulfill their duties to their endorsements. The Full Tilt angle is very obvious with the intro and most of the players. I thought it was funny how Annie and Phil were talking up a blackjack show on CBS while they are playing poker on NBC. Sheiky was the only one that correctly pointed out where they were and Phil's response indicated he didn't believe this show would even make the air anyway.

The play was fun to watch. It was odd to see Phil (obviously channelling Smokkee) with the preflop steals and Gus laying down Ax in late position. I guess Gus was trying something new, but this didn't allow him to get paid as much as I think he would normally get when he did hit the board hard. It will be interesting to see how this plays out as the blinds get larger since this is winner take all game.

I still don't know why WPT was trying to prevent Shana Hiatt from doing this show. I mean she was super hot back in her nudie days, but she adds nothing to these shows. There is not much commentary. This can be good, although I do like it on High Stakes Poker. Mr. Kotter does a great job on HSP because he is knowledgeable and it's done in real time, not scripted.

I Still Love Poker

I am glad that even after playing online for a year now, I still get very excited to play in Wil's Tuesday night game. It is something that I really look forward to each week and I'm ready to play again when it's done. It is fun to meet up with familiar players and Wil is a gracious host. Last night was no exception. I lasted quite a while despite being second to last at the first break. During the night, I made some great reads (including folding QQ to Wil's KK after the flop), some horrible reads that got lucky (sorry XKM), a few suckouts (sorry Decker), and at times, good cards. After the second break, I had scratched my way up to 4th with 15 left. I had enough chips to fold to the final table, but I didn't let up on my aggression. I should have let up a bit because after two beats (not bad mind you) in a row, I went to bed with no moolah. I am still bothered about this today and that's when I realized how much I value playing this game and try to do my best. It is the same in the Mookie, but the late starting time is what hurts me the most.

Speaking of Wil as the host, I'm sure last night was the least fun for him. Since he has been doing the PokerStars freerolls it seems to bring some crazy railbirds to his weekly online "home game." The upside for the regulars is the increased prize pool to shoot for with hopefully some dead money.

Happy New Year

Over the holidays, we caught up on some movie watching:

Ice Age - This is the first one, yeah we're a little behind. We really enjoyed it and look forward to Netflix sending me the sequel.

World Trade Center - This was a very good movie. I especially liked the way Oliver Stone told a familiar story from an unfamiliar perspective. Sadly, we have all seen the planes crashing and the towers falling, but to "live" it from the perspective of those on and under the ground. It showed the initial confusion during the tragedy and the 24 hours that followed for some of the first responding victims / heroes trapped when the towers fell.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly - I am trying to catch up on some famous classics and this one certainly fit the the bill. There were some long moments, but I really enjoyed this one.
Invincible - This was a very pleasant surprise. I don't really remember this movie when it hit the theater, but Stacie wanted to see it when it made it on DVD. As usual, I had to look up the "real" person to see more of what happened. Pretty cool story either way.

Talladega Nights - Absolutely ridiculous! Tons of laugh out loud moments, but a silly movie overall. Some of the scenes ran a little too long and I think it could have been funnier if it was about 10 select minutes shorter.

Pirates - Dead Man's Chest - Just trying to keep up with the story. I enjoyed it but Stacie thought it was too gross and wasn't as interested. I will give the third a shot, but I doubt Stacie will. I reserve my decision on seeing the 4th until next summer.