I've been writing furiously the past few days. I'm under a deadline for the Poker Hacks book with Double As. I'm writing five chapters/hacks/articles and I'm done with 2.5 of them. The 3rd is currently being edited and I've written the first drafts of the last two Hacks inside my head already, so it's just a matter of me putting them down into a Word Document. Yesterday, I also squeezed in writing two freelance articles (one on John Juanda and the other on advantages of playing satellite tournaments). And I published a new issue of Truckin'.I took a needed break from writing and headed to Green Valley Ranch... a mere five minute ride from chez Grubby or the Hippie Hacienda, which he just nicknamed. Grubby and I ate at Sushi & Sake for their $29 All-U-Can-East sushi. The waitresses are hot Japanese women with tight black dresses and black leather boots that go up to their knees. We decided to keep track of how much everything would have cost if we bought them during regular hours... we would have run up almost a $200 sushi tab. Yikes. The All-U-Can-Eat promotion was seriously -EV for Green Valley Ranch and extremely +EV for Grubby and myself. I posted pictures and blogged what we ate over at the Tao of Pauly.
Since we were at Green Valley, we headed over to the poker room. We both signed up for $1/$2 NL. I heard the $3/$5 NL tables are super juicy where guys with barbed wire tatoos and sunglasses bet $40 preflop on every hand. Anyway, I watched the MLB World Series go into extra innings while I played at a $1/2 blinds $200 NL table. There were one or two tourists sitting there sipping Bud Light's and the rest were locals.
During my session, Charlie Shoten popped in looking for a copy of Poker Player Newspaper. He lives nearby and we spoke for a while. He made the final two tables at the Wynn tournament earlier in the day and he really ejoyed my review of his book No Limit Life. A few of the players at the table were impressed that I knew an actual pro. That's when I let it slip out that I wrote for Fox Sports and covered the WSOP for them. Too bad I went card dead, or I could have run over the table. I got K-K tiwce early and it onl held up one time. One of the regulars folded J-J and showed it after I popped him for a reraise preflop with K-K.
One guy sitting in the far corner had two racks of red $5 chips or well over $1000. He ran up his buy-in by bluffing at a lot of pots, chasing gutshots and hitting them, and playing any King or Ace. He bragged about losing $8K playing blackjack over the weekend and I knew he was an action junkie. He started to bleed away his stack when his over-aggressiveness began to catch up with him. I finally had a chance to play in a pot with him, and then I precced to put the guy on mega-tilt. I'm such an asshole trying to get locals on tilt.
I was in the big blind with X-X. (Keep reading to find out my hand.) The blackjack guy raised the pot to $10. I called along with 5 other players. $70 in the pot.
The flop: Kh-2h-7c.
Perfect flop for the Hammer, eh? I checked, he bet $25 and I dunno why I didn't raise, but I just called. We were three way when a 7 fell on the turn. The pot was about $150 at that point. I checked, he bet $75, another player folded and I watched the blackjack guy show his cards to the old guy sitting next to him. I put him on a weak King or a flush draw since he had been playing crap all night, so I moved all in for about $250. A look of "What the fuck did you just do?" fell over his face. He thought for several minutes holding his cards up. Usually that meant he was going to muck, but he kept counting out chips and talking to himself. I refused to make eye contact and focused on the baseball game that went into extra innings.
He eventually folded on a board of Kh-7c-2h-7s.
"You got trip 7s and I'm folding this," he said as he flipped K-Q face up.
As the dealer pushed me the pot, I flipped over... Kc-Jc. I know you thought I had the Hammer, but I didn't. If he called with K-Q, I would have been properly fucked and sheepishly digging into my pocket for a rebuy. Of course, I finally got someone to fold a better hand, which was a miracle since he was a calling station. Just like Devilfish said to Fossilman, "Never bluff a calling station."
When I told Grubby about the hand, he was shocked that a guy who had been playing that loose did not call. Yeah, I got lucky that he didn't call. He must have put me on A-K or trips. Again, I put him on a weaker hand that he had and I got super lucky and he slowly slipped off into the deep end of the tilt pool.
One of the old guys at the table said, "That's the best move I saw someone make all week!"
The old regular quickly tossed me a $5 chip out of his stack. I think he was pissed that the blackjack guy was sucking out on him all night. I gave the $5 chip to the dealer and for the next 15 minutes the blackjack guy was steaming. He tried to stare me down and intimidate me while muttering under his breath. For a few minutes I actually thought he might try to start a fight with me. I wanted to leave since I doubled up but stayed just in case I could get in another pot with him and get the rest of his chips. He settled down a bit but he was still on full-blown mega-tilt. He donked off about $200 more during that time.
When I had a good session at Foxwoods, I always treated myself to a slice of cheesecake at the deli area. Last night, I walked over to the 24 hour Fatburger in the food court area of Green Valley Ranch. I got a large chocolate shake and I think I like those better than In & Out shakes and Sonic's shakes.
When I got home, I wrote some more and played an SNG on Poker Stars. I took 3rd and cracked K-K with the Hilton Sisters.
*****
And now, the pimpin' begins.
Grubby is having a Hammer contest... sort of. Take a peek and guess at "Hammer can you hear me?"
HDouble has a kick ass post called Shoulders of Giants: Top 10 Poker Reads.
If you are a horse racing fan, check out BG's Breeder's Cup posts.
The Poker Prof has been busy working on a 2005 WSOP Stats and Information Page.
Speaking of the WSOP, the schedule for the 2006 WSOP has been published. You know where I'm gonna be.
Double As also has a contest going on his blog. If you win, you get to rename his blog for a week!
*****
Radio Free Pauly
Due to Sean's hectic schedule, we were unable to tape an interview this week for the Lord Admiral Card Club Radio Show and Podcast. However, I sent in a clip featuring myself and BJ from Card Player Magazine, which I recorded at the Bellagio after the WPT event ended last Friday. Check it out.If you don't know by now, Card Club the best and longest running podcast dedicated to poker in the universe, and I'm honored that those guys let me be a part! I'm no Joey Jeremiah, but over the last several months, I've become a huge cult figure in Canada thanks to Cinci Sean & Brent Stacks. As always, I'm happy to be a part of their amazing show. Sean and Brent are working hard every week in Toronto to get their podcast done (for free) so stop by and show your support.
My clip begins at 7:00 of the podcast. Columbo also features one of his One Minute Mysteries.
You can download the MP3 of this week's show... Episode 49: Here. (Right Click and Save As)If you want to catch up and listen to previous episodes, please visit their archives over at Brainscat. Stop by Card Club at Lord Admiral Radio and check them out. Thanks again to Sean and Stacks and Mark for having me on.
You can download the MP3 of last week's show... Episode 48: Here. (Right Click and Save As)
*****
Top 15 Referrals
Thanks to everyone who sent me traffic in the past two weeks (not including Google).
1. Las Vegas and Poker Blog*****
2. Wil Wheaton
3. Iggy
4. Up for Poker
5. Poker Stars Blog
6. Blogger Championship Blog
7. Card Squad
8. Tao of Pauly
9. Aaron Gleeman
10. Bill Rini
11. The Cards Speak
12. Double As
13. Grubby
14. AlCantHang
15. Jaxia
Truckin' - October 2005, Vol. 4, Issue 10
If you get bored at work, check out issue of Truckin', my literary blogzine. This issue features several new writers (HighonPoker, T-Money, Vinnie the Fish, and Gary Moore) who are readers and fans of Truckin'. Let's hope they will all return sometime in the future. BG is back with another installment of his Langston Saga. And I return with a story about some of my favorite characters... Baby and Winky.
1. Baby and Winky Reprise by Tenzin McGrupp
Baby wiped away the remainder of her tears and slid the gun underneath the passenger's seat. Just a few minutes earlier she had stood barefoot on a cold linoleum kitchen floor and kept firing... More
2. Langston Alone by BG
I let her go with everything I had left, which is to say, it took next-to-nothing to let her go. It was a moment that was dry, devoid of subtext and utterly clinical - at least on my end... More
3. Toy Box by Gary Moore
This toy box would only hold his best toys, the ones he wanted to take special care of. Anything he wanted to protect, anything he wanted to save, anything he wanted to keep from being destroyed, would go in this box... More
4. The Miracle John by T-Money
Problem was is that I was on a stretch of 131N where there is nothing. No gas stations off the side of the road. No party store. Hell, not even a fruit stand... More
5. Message in a Bottle by HighonPoker
Nine to five in an office environment is supposed to be hell for a cubicle monkey. But I'm not a cubicle monkey. I'm a junior executive. I should know better. And somehow, I do... More
6. The Chase by Vinnie the Fish
I wanted to thank you once again for helping us put a criminal in jail," were the parting remarks from the police officer before we ended our conversation... More
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