Really Cool

Stacie and I watched the space shuttle / ISS cross over Atlanta early Thursday evening. I had heard on the news that it would be visible coming out of the SW around 6:10 PM. The sky was clear, so we braved the cold and went out on the back deck to look for it. Stacie asked me how would would know if we were really seeing it. I told her, "you'll know." We spotted a bright light coming towards us with no blinking lights and thought that was it, but as it got closer, we could see the green and red lights. A few moments later they became visible. What we saw was about twice the size as Venus and pretty bright. It tracked across the sky and we headed to the front yard to watch it as it passed over our fair city. It was really cool to see. It was the first time I have ever seen anything in space that was man made. Atlanta is especially proud of this mission since three of the astronauts have degrees from Ga Tech. The pilot is from the next town over from ours. I found a good link for observing dates in the future at http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/cities/skywatch.cgi?country=United+States. It looks like we should be able to see it again tomorrow a little before 6PM.

Oooof!

I don't think I have ever run so bad in a tournament before tonight's Bodonkey. Geez it was ugly. I'm not talking losing coin flips bad, I mean Aces cracked by K,X offsuit, and splitting pots when I'm all in with AQ, AK, and AA. wvwolfie and the Bodog variety donkette were the villians for almost all of my bullshit lack of wins. Shortly after the first break, wvwolfie finally finished me off when he hit his straight on the river against my pocket 5s. I knew he had nothing by the turn, but I let him catch the gutter ball to knock me out. Very frustrating. Well on the bright side, I should have a shitload of suckouts coming my way. I think I will go for the positive side of variance on the cash tables a little later.

Neighborhood Omadraw

We had game 1 in the neighborhood holiday series last week. To break the monotony of NL hold’em we tried an Omaha tournament. 10 brave souls came out for our first attempt and it went pretty well. The biggest change we will need to make in future games is to increase the length of the blind levels. We had them way too short to allow 10 players ample time to bullshit and catch up while playing a game with 4 hole cards. In what I guess to be a traditional Omaha style home game, we had very few preflop raises and it wasn’t uncommon to see at least 6 to the flop. Every now and then Andrew would min raise from the small blind when there were already 6 people in the pot. Hilarious.

I would say Surflexus and David are the most seasoned Omaha players among us. The rest of us at least know how to play and that helped to keep the game from coming to a grinding halt when we were sorting out the winning hand. That part will get interesting when we hit Hi-lo in a few weeks.

I think I played a pretty good game and don’t remember making any big mistakes. I made a good call for most of my stack on the river when Andrew pushed. I had 3 queens and put him on nothing but his pocket Aces. This gave me a nice chip stack to nurse so I folded for a while. I might have finally broken the suckout curse that Lee has had over me for the past year and made it to the final three after a good lay down against Matt. I had pocket Aces double suited and raised from the small blind enough to pretty much put Andy all in. Andy did call the raise and bet the rest of his chips. Matt, the chip leader, called my raise and the rest of Andy’s raise. I completed and we went to the flop. The flop came out King high and Matt bet out at it. After this bet, I really felt Matt had pocket Kings in his hand because Matt had called a preflop raise and slight reraise and wasn’t scared of the board at all. Since I didn’t connect with the flop at all, I laid down my pair and was waiting for him to knock out Andy. Unfortunately for both of us, Andy makes a straight and triples up. A few hands later, I again have pocket aces double suited. I raise and Andy pushes all in again. I make the call and he catches a flush on the river. Boooooooo. Now Andy’s the chip leader and I’m the short stack. Within a few hands, I catch a huge break when Andy knocks out Matt with a higher straight. Weeeeeee, I finally cash for more than my buyin. Heads up didn’t last too long but I was happy to win enough to almost break even for the week after failing at Kajagugu’s earlier.

Poker and Nick's

Stacie and I took Monday off for a little break from work. I started off my long weekend with a game in Kajagugu’s neighborhood. We had a good turnout for the 1st game with 14 people. I never could get much going and I misplayed 2 hands against Surflexus. I still won both hands, but I shorted myself a bounty and some chips. I flamed out shortly after we merged to 1 table.

During the second game, I caught a bit of the limpitus that was at our table. In early position with Q,10 I complete the blind during the second or third level. We get a few other limpers and we see a flop. The flop is Q,J,Q with 2 spades. I’m thinking that was about as good as I could ask for with my hand. It was also a great board to bluff at so I took a shot with a bet. When I got 2 callers, I started to worry a bit about the flush and straight draws. I checked the harmless off suit 3 on the turn with the intention of a check raise. After losing value on hands in the earlier game, I am trying to be less fearful of draws every time, but this one had too many possibilities. Bobby called, Kaj called and then I raised a little over 3X Bobby’s bet. He dropped and Kaj looked at his chip stack before raising the rest of his chips. It didn’t even constitute a min raise, but I knew I was most likely beat but I had to call for a possible chop. Kaj flips over Q,J suited for the flopped boat and I was drawing for one of the remaining 2 Jacks. The river gave us a second 3 but my baby boat couldn’t float the win. This left me with a little over 5 big blinds so on the next hand, I push in first position with pocket tens. Chris calls behind me with A rag and hits his A to send me home.

I have really turned in to a donor this year so maybe I can get a little back with our neighborhood holiday series. We are doing 4 games over the next 8-10 weeks. We will do Omaha tonight, then Hi-Low, no limit, and then finish with a mixed game.

For our off day, I took Stacie to Nick’s, a hole in the wall Greek take-out place that J introduced me to. It is a little cinder block building with lovely graffiti on it. They have a kickin’ lamb gyro. I get it without the sauce of course ‘cuz I don’t do the condiments. We enjoyed a little picnic lunch in the back of the Maxima and it still smelled like Greek food yesterday morning. After lunch we went roller blading on the Silver Comet Trail in Austell. My neighbor told me the hardest part of roller blading was telling my Dad that I’m gay. So yes, I’m sthuper, thanks for asking!

4:1 Favorite Is No Goot For The Bodonkey

Now that I successfully got a deposit on to Bodog, I can continue to play for 2 hours and bust out in the middle of the pack. Good times. I'll try again next week.

I never gave or received any bad beats, but they were flying left and right. I saw Lightning36 lose with his AA limp then call to Smokkee's JJ preflop push from the small blind. Later, Bayne and Smokkee both were sent to the rail holding KK while their opponents had under pairs. Luckily for L36, he was able to rearrange the horseshoe up his ass and create a vortex of suckouts that would make Stephen Hawking proud. It's good to see a talented guy get the luck he needs after getting crippled early. Congrats to another ATL blogger, APOSEC72, for taking this one. You would think with the talent / luckboxery around here, I could get a little better. Oh well, I keep trying at our live games. I hopefully have 2 scheduled over the next week.