DADI, Challenge Points, and Pictures (finally)

Yup, I did make it to the DADI last night. I played it safe, doubled up kinda early and never had to rebuy, so after the addon, I was into the tourney for $10. Not too bad. I busted 17th when I played my hand as bad as I probably could have. I called a raise with A8d in the BB and the flop was no help to me. I check, he checked. The turn was an A. We got it all in the middle and he had flopped a set. Well played. Nice hand, sah. Not sure of the name. It was someone I didn't recognize. I think I should have either pushed or folded on that one but I don't think I had enough chips to make him fold anyway.

In any event, I had fun. Update: Oops, got the winner wrong...Congrats to brdweb for taking it all down and to Weak for coming in second. It was a nice 1st prize with all of the rebuy money. Well done. I have to say, I was pulling for Smokkee down the stretch. He had a huge stack, but alas, it wasn't meant to be. The love elf was trying to work the stack, but, apparently it was no help.

Stoopidly, I decided I hadn't had enough, even though it was closing in on Midnight. I jumped into a 45 SNG with Mookie and SLB and it lasted until about 1:30am I guess. I got 5th. I again made some deadly mistakes at the end that cost me some points. I was still happy with making some additional progress in the chase of Johnny Mac in the challenge though. Thanks for railing to him and to Mookie. I ended up railing Mookie, who had joined another one, until about 2:15am or so (yes, I am a moron. shut up.) as he got his first points toward the challenge. He ended up going out 5th in that one.

That's all the poker news. I picked up my new truck yesterday and the coolest feature for me, which I didn't even know it had, is the power sliding rear window. The whole window slides down into the body of the truck and lets the air in. Feels almost like a Jeep or something. Yeah, whatever.

Anyway, I am finally posting some pictures, Hoy and Carmen style, of the rooms that we finished on the third floor. Enjoy and have a great weekend. I am out of here at 2pm this afternoon, on my way up to New Hampshire for the weekend.


The corner with the stuffed chair and the sky light




The corner with a dresser and trophies




The corner with the bat bed




The other new room with the heavy ass queen sleeper




And last but not least, the truck and the non $10 minivan

A few more points

I finally got to play another 45 SNG last night and I came in 4th. I picked up 5 points in the Challenge, which I needed desperately. There are a lot of points going up on the board in the challenge and I need to keep pace.

The tourney was a real roller coaster ride for me as I played a little bit looser than normal once I got a few chips. I ended up losing one big hand about midway through when I had a chance to bust 2 with an OESD on the flop but it didn't come for me and I lost about half or more of my stack.

The biggest gaffe came with only 4 of us left. There was one person sitting out and he was to my left, so I had the benefit of grabbing some free blinds often. With the blinds at 600/1200, it was huge when I could take those blinds uncontested of course. I had the feeling that the guy to my right was getting sick of it as he would raise about every 5 or 6 hands when the blind would be taken by me.

After a couple of times giving it up, I had Q4o in the SB and he raised it to 3000. I thought for a second and bumped it to 7000. He thought and then pushed, which should have gotten me to fold. Especially after reading Eric's post yesterday, I should have given it up, but I had priced myself into calling his last 4000 by mistake. I called, which left me with about 4000. He had pocket 5s. The flop came 345, turn was a 4, and the river was a 3 giving him the bigger boat, as it should have been.

That was my downfall hand as I didn't make it past the sitting out person to take 3rd place. He had a really big stack when he sat out and we had been chipping away at him, but my mistake cost me before we could get him out.

I am looking up a steep list of players in the challenge right now but there is still a lot of poker to be played so we'll see how it goes.

I signed my life away for the truck last night and I pick it up today. I was actually hoping that I could put it off until after the weekend because we are going up to New Hampshire for the weekend. A quick 3 night summer vacation to Storyland. I will probably play a little golf with my older 2 kids and we will get closer to nature in the rivers and streams up there. We decided last night that we would leave tomorrow night rather than Friday morning so we could have a couple full days up there. I am really looking forward to it. It would have been nice to rack up the 500 or 600 miles on my trade in rather than on our leased minivan, but not a big deal really.

I hope to make the DADI tourney tonight, that is if I get home in time. If not, good luck to all and I will be in a 45 SNG at some point I am sure as I get ready to say goodbye to the internet for a few days.

Oh, also, I won't be able to update the challenge leaderboard until Sunday night, after I do it tomorrow morning...

I guess I lied

Yeah, I lied. No poker last night...again.

I ended up at the car dealership for 3 hours pounding out a deal on a new Tundra. It was worth it though because I love it and I think I got a pretty reasonable deal overall. Hoff left me some good advice in yesterday's post, but alas, I had already sealed the deal. I like the current body type on the double cab Tundra's anyway, so it's all good.

Rather than go right home after that, I ended up meeting my buddy down at the bar we play poker at and I didn't even play there. There are 7pm and 10pm sessions and I got there at about 9pm. I had to eat and after that, and a couple beers (Brahma, ever have that? Good stuff), I just felt like having a couple more beers and watching the Sox kick some A'ss.

I figured a couple more and get home at a reasonable hour. Didn't happen as we closed the place and started playing Keno; pure evil. Me, my buddy, the waitress and the bartender each were picking one number and playing as a team.

Anyway, all fun, but no poker content, so I am keeping this short. That plus the fact that I have been updating repetitive sql statements with report id numbers and I am ready to pass out. Ridonkulous.

Hope to get out there into pokerland tonight after I go and get my XM radio taken out of my current car and signing the paperwork at the dealership. No promises. I don't like to lie.

Can't think of a catchy title

Why is it that Monday’s always come so fast? I was pretty busy at work on Friday so I didn’t get to post. I guess I didn’t have much to talk about from Thursday anyway. I talked a guy about a job on Friday because the role that I currently play is driving me nuts. I am busy, but I really should be even busier if I really was doing what I should be. I really have to find something I like better than this. Anyway…

Was a pretty low key weekend. We were just sitting around on Saturday so I decided to take my oldest out for a while by himself. We hadn’t spent any time, just us, in a long time so we went and did a couple errands, saw a movie and went to dinner. We saw Monster House. I fell asleep in the matinee. Enough said. We went to Sports Authority to pick up some football stuff. We ended up getting an extra pair of practice pants, new pads, and a poker table (oops, hey, it was originally $299 and on clearance for $80, plus they had a 25% off 1 item coupon. How could I pass that up??) We then went and picked up the rest of his equipment at the field and got his initial weight in over with. He is all set and they start next Tuesday night. 2 and a half hours a night, 5 days a week. Ah, the joys of summer. He really loved it, and was doing very well at the end of last season so it should be a fun season.

Yesterday, my mother in law took the older 2 to a pool party so we just did a few errands. One thing that I am doing right now is looking for a car. A truck actually. Toyota has a great lease deal on the double cab Tundra running right now so I am looking into that. I don’t drive long distances at all and have missed having a truck for a couple years now. Hopefully I can find one and get an ok deal. I hate the process of getting a new car, but if the math is right in my mind, I might even be able to save a few bucks each month if I can find the right truck.

My weekend did include a little bit of poker. I ended up having a small game at my house on Friday night. I had made the mistake of asking my wife, in front of my poker buddies last week, about going to Johnny Mac’s game. Since she likes to play too, she suggested having one at the house, and they jumped on the idea. Basically, we ended up having a small game of 6 people and had a great time. I finished second in the first one, which won me double my buyin. So basically, that covered my wife and me. IN the second game, I came in third. My wife didn’t cash in either, but played well and got her chips in ahead. She likes playing and continues to get better, although she will never be an addict like me (and you).

I played a bunch of $25 NL and some ½ limit on Pokeroom to clear a deposit bonus that I earned last month. It was getting read expire so I had to finish it up this weekend. I played ok and the cards fell my way as I ran my balance up at the end. Always nice to have a little bit of success at the cash tables for me.

I didn’t get any 45 SNGs in over the weekend. I updated the scoreboard this morning and it looks like it will be a tight race until the end. I hope to get one in tonight, but I have been saying that for a few days now. Last night I got sidetracked because my mother brought over a big box of old sports cards that she got at an auction up in Maine last month. She paid like $18 for the box and there were a bunch of late 80’s and early 90s cards. I pulled out anything I thought might be worth anything and checked out ebay. Haven’t found anything overwhelming yet but my son is really into the cards and was jumping around when we found a couple guys like Carl Yastrzemski and Ted Williams (reprints of older cards but still). We also found a couple of mid 90’s Michael Jordan and Shaq cards. I have a bunch of baseball and football cards that I pulled out and I have to check out on ebay still.

That’s it for me today. Not enough poker so I will give it a shot tonight.

Poker is not always nice; more blogger meetups?

Poker was not my friend last night. Not that I lost a lot or anything, but the game was unkind. I started my night off at the bar league. I played fine, pushed a guy when I had him covered by about 3 times when the flop was all clubs, he bet out 1K and I have the Ac in my hand. He thought for a second before called with his made flush Q high. I made my flush on the river to put him out. Hmm, I guess poker didn’t really hate me until it counted actually.

We were down to about 18 players left from the original 64 and I had been card dead for the last half hour. The blinds were at 1k/2k and I had 4k left. I got A5o at a 5 person table and pushed in MP and was insta-called by the big blind who had K6s. Now, I know he pretty much had to call so I can’t complain too much that he spiked his K and my 60-40 favorite when bye bye, as did I. He was just a little too cocky about his big K and that put me off a little but not a big deal.

I left the bar and was afraid I might miss the registration for the Mookie. I really wanted to play in it too. So pathetically that I even called MiamiDon and told him that I might need him to log in for me and get me registered. My wife had come down to the bar to check it out and as we were getting ready to leave, 2 of our friends came in. This, of course, led to much chatter as I checked my watch about every 3 or 4 seconds because I knew the Mookie hour was approaching. Anyway, I made it just in time, with 1 minute to spare I think, and off I went.

I played fine for a stretch, even took all of pastamancer’s chips when we got it all in on a 7 high flop after pasta bet out and I pushed with my pocket Qs. I took a big hit against bthecloser69 when I refused to believe that he had flopped the straight with A4o and the flop was 5 3 2 and I was holding K5 in the BB. I bet out and he called the flop, we checked the turn and he lead out a big bet on the end. I paid him off when I made a bad read that he had missed his draw and was trying to take it away. Oops.

At that point we were down to the mid 20’s left from the original 50 and I had to tighten it up and steal where I could. I didn’t have much luck chipping up, but managed to keep my stack even as the blinds came and went. Then, the poker gods decided to smack to down once again when I got my chips in ahead. Shadowtwin had limped UTG and it folded to me on the button and I had AQh. I didn’t want to see a flop and figured I was probably a coin flip if he had a hand, but more than likely, I could take the chips on the table. I pushed my last 1400 or so and the blinds folded, leaving Shadowtwin with a decision to call off about a third or more of his stack after investing 150 with the limp. He thought for a while and then called with The Donkey. KJd. He spiked the K, I didn’t improve, IGHN, and I pout a little, lol. Not sure who went on to take it, I haven’t read up much yet this morning. Tripjax was out to a big stack though. I think Shadow was in second after our hand.

By that time it was about 11:30pm and I decided I had had enough of poker for the night. I didn’t get any 45 SNGs in, but I should be able to tonight.

Oh yeah, I had another blogger meeting yesterday. Johnny Mac and I grabbed lunch since we found out we worked so close, and I needed to get a good look at this guy that is kicking us around in the 45 SNG Challenge. He is a great guy and we have a lot in common as we talked about the rugrats, the daily grind of suburban commuter life, and of course, pokah. He even was crazy enough to invite me to his Friday night home game this week with his buddies. Not sure I can make it this time (so the boss says), but I hope to make one of his future monthly games. I am sure they are a great group to sling chips with.

On the subject of blogger meetups, we may have one brewing for November at Foxwoods. Foxwoods hosts the “World Poker Finals” series from October 28th-November 16th. They have a schedule of all their events on their website. Bone Daddy has already said that he is shooting to play in the event on Saturday, November 4th, which is a NLHE, $1200 event. It is limited to 1,000 entrants and I am hoping that there are some online satellites offered over the next couple months. Either way, I am going to go down there to at least meet and rail Eric, but my hope is to get in myself. I probably won’t be able to finish 7th or better like him, but I would love to take a shot. The direct buy-in is above my bankroll at this point, but if I can find some satellite action, I will be on it. I know others have expressed some interest in going that weekend as well. If you are in the area, or can be, start planning. I have already cleared it with the calendar keeper at my house so hopefully others can make it too.

That’s all there is today folks. If you see me on yahoo, say hi.

Are you playing too I hope?

Mac Poker

On the board and meeting a blogger

I was able to get in one 45 SNG last night toward the challenge and I am happy to say I am on the board. I ended up taking second when I got really impatient for some reason heads up, after only a couple hands. I went over the top hoping to get the villain lay down his hand after a raise but he called with A6 vs my Q2 (hee haw, hee haw). He had me covered but I could have easily gotten back into it if I was more patient. I guess the 2 hour tourney was getting to me or something, even though I had to use a lot of patience to get there in the first place. I don’t remember much, and I can say I don’t at all remember any suckouts, so I was happy with the results. The best hand for me was dropping the hammer when the blinds were 600/1200 and there were about 5 left. I was on the button and raised to 3600 and the big blind called right away. I bet another 3600 on the flop and he folded. Pres Dave was railing and we got a chuckle out of it. Actually, you would have thought this was a WSOP sat or something by the fact that I had up to 4 railers with Dave, Guin, Gilain, and jjok at varying times shouting out encouragement and insults. This, of course, was more important than a WSOP sat,. It was a $1 45 SNG, but toward the challenge. You can’t top that. I won $10. Vegas, here I come.

I didn’t get started with poker until around 9pm last night because when I got home, I had the new power supply that I needed for the pc that had died last week. I cracked open the case, pulled out the old one, put in the new one, connected 3 of the 4 plugs and as I was plugging in the main plug on the motherboard, I noticed it was only a 16 pin plug, not a 20 pin plug. Hmmm. Not being nearly geeky enough apparently, I called tech support to make sure that if I turned it on, it would catch on fire or anything. After much searching by my overseas friend, I was told it was fine and that it was just a different model power supply. It seems that it is a 250W supply as opposed to the 300W that was originally in it. Does that matter at all? Looked like the only difference was that there were extra expansion cables off the old supply that I doubt I would ever use anyway. Alas, I am up and running and after downloading a new driver for the USB Wireless adapter I had for that machine, I am all set up in the new room. Crap, I still need to get those pictures. Grr.

Today I have plans to meet another blogger for lunch. Johnny Mac is part of the challenge and although Don installed him as the dark horse, he is currently in the lead and kicking some butt. I had first talked to John during one of the freerolls. I think it was the pokersource online freeroll but I am not sure. Anyway, last week, when I missed my train and put up a blackberry post about sitting in Clark’s after missing my train, he realized that we work about 2 blocks away from each other. We decided to meet up for lunch today so if I disappear, let my wife know I was last seen at Deli One on Arch street ok? Kidding Johnny.

I have had the pleasure of my NYC blogger homegame and also my Vegas friends meetups with bloggers so far. I was bummed out to miss the WPBT event this month but am looking forward to meeting John today and a possible Foxwoods tourney meeting up in November with Eric, aka Bone Daddy and possibly others.

Good times people.

A little poker and a little kid story

Well, the 45 SNG Challenge is in full swing now. Almost everyone has played at least one and the high finishes just keep rolling in. Last night I got home late so rather than play, I ended up just organizing some of the registrations and results through email and then I railed both presdlee and macdaknife in their SNGs. Mac won his and pres should have won his but the donkey he was facing got LLL and sucked out in the end when they were evenly stacked and got it all in preflop with pres holding A10o and the donkey holding J7o. The donkey play can be frustrating after such a great run but another high finish. So far, these 2 guys are fighting for the lead.

I played live last night in the bar league. I haven’t been getting out to the APL tourneys as much lately but did make the money once last month when I did go so I qualified for the monthly tourney which was last night. Since it was the monthly tourney for June, and the winners of the monthly tourneys from Jan-June make the semi-annual tourney, one of the guys put a bounty on my head, since I had already won a monthly. It was in fun since it is the guy I went to St. Louis with in April for the Nationals. I also got into the weekly, on the downlow, last longer side bet. In the se APL tourneys there is no money allowed but someone is always working an angle each week.

Anyway, I had a pretty good run. I think we started with about 45 people. When I got the final table, I was the big stack with 40k in chips, but like I have whined about before, it usually doesn’t matter at that point because the blinds are out of control. You need to get cards to finish it off. The blinds were at 5k/10k and I was the big stack with 40k?? Almost everyone else at the table had either 1 or 2 BBs left so someone was all in every hand. There was no stealing opportunities so it really isn’t poker at that point.

It obviously goes fast and I thought I was in good shape when someone pushed his 15k in ahead of my SB when I had JJ. I called only to find he has QQ. No help and JJ is not ok. A couple hands later I go out with a winper when I had only 10k left and A7o. I ran into a pair of 10s and IGHN in 5th. Frustrating but still a good time.

I should be able to get a couple 45s in tonight. If you are on yahoo, look for me (drewspoppoker) and hit me up. I think I might try the donkilicious $1 SNGs tonight for strategy purposes. Jordan mentioned doing the same because the play there is just horrendous. I need to get on the board after donking out in my first 2 attempts.

Ok, last thing is a quick kid story. My wife calls me last night while I was on the train to tell me that she had another one for “the book”. We always say we should write a book of things our sons have said over the years. Of course every parent would have the same type quotes come up, but this was a doozy.

The 5 yr old says, “Mom, every time I see people kissing on TV my penis gets bigger and fatter and feels weird. The same thing happens to drew.”

My wife just about fell off her chair. He just said it so innocently and matter of fact. She, and I, of course wondered about their conversation that must have taken place. The 9 yr old and 5 yr old sitting there and something comes on where someone is kissing. Something like, “Yo, my penis is acting weird?” “Yeah, nine too, whatever”

I mean what the hell?

Good luck at the tables all.

Weekend then some poker

Hopefully everyone had a good weekend and managed to stay cool. Up here in New England it is hot as hell, like most of the country right now I guess. We went to a friend’s house Friday night and swam in their pool. I had a production move at work that I had to do a short checkout for, but ended up leaving a little early so I could do the checkout at their house. By 6pm I was into my second beer and nice and refreshed from the pool. My kids are all fish so they naturally loved it. They had been at the house since 11:30am and were all prunes by the time we dragged them out to eat dinner. Good times.

Saturday we ended up doing a little furniture shopping. I still want to get some pictures of the finished room up for everyone to check out. Not that anyone cares but my son loves his house and we are liking our new room also. We went to a big furniture store that also has a “clearance” room that is basically special order items that customers reject or return or things that don’t sell I guess. Since this is an extra room, we wanted to get something kinda nice that was a sleeper, but not break the bank either. When you hit the clearance room it is totally hit or miss and if you find something, you basically need to sit on it until a salesperson comes to you and seals the deal. You also have to haul whatever you buy out of there within 24 hours. They don’t deliver.

Anyway, we got lucky and found a nice queen sleeper sofa that would fit nicely into the room. It was a pretty good deal so we grabbed it. We also found a cool stuffed chair and ottoman for my son’s room. He wanted a beanbag chair or something and this was even better and cheap. Just as I paid for those 2 things, my wife started calling me over for something else. Just as I thought I was going to out of this thing relatively cheap, she found something she had been looking for. They had just brought out one of those square cocktail table/ottoman/leather top tables and it was like half the price it normally would have been. Super. Ah well, it is more comfortable putting my feet up on that now when pokering with the laptop. We took the stuffed chair thingy and the table and off we went. I would need to come back for the sleeper.

When I got home I tried to set up the kid’s desktop up in the new room. It was working fine when it was in their room and had been moved up to the new room and just put on the floor by my wife after the carpet was put in. I got everything set up, hid as many wires as I could, etc. then plugged her in and…no power whatsoever. Nada, nothing. Hmm. I opened the case and checked each of the connections that my limited knowledge would lead me to check. Still nothing. I called support and they had me check a couple more things. Power supply fried. New one in the mail.

Went and picked up the new sofa on Sunday morning and new I was in trouble when it took 4 guys to load it into the mommy van. I had taken all the seats out and it just fit in perfect. I got it home and called my buddy for some help. My wife and I decided so try and get it out of the car, just to see how heavy it was. Yup, sure as shit, it was fuggin heavy. My neighbor saw us struggling with it and volunteered her husband for duty. Luckily, shortly after, my buddy came over too. We hauled it to the front door and it looked like it wouldn’t fit. It was like 35 inches across at the shortest way and the door was the same basically. Heave, ho, heave, ho. We got it into the front door, maneuvering around the staircase. Then we had to get it up the first flight by getting it up off the ground, but not too high because the railing was in the way. At the top of the stairs, we had to literally stand it up on it end to get it around the corner. Once we got it to the second set of stairs, it was the same fit up that set. What a pain in the ass. If we sell this house, the sleeper goes with it. That thing ain’t ever coming down with my help, unless a chainsaw is involved. I was sweating more than 2 rat’s bumpin in a wool sock. I am sure the neighbor was real happy he got involved in that whole mess. Anyway, a couple of scratches on the wall and we are good.

Ok, now for some poker. The 45 SNG Challenge got kicked off yesterday and what a field we have. Not to knock the first field at all but what a start to this one. After the first day we already have one 1st place, 3 2nd places and a 3rd place. I donked out of my first one in 8th place, the bubble boy. It severely pissed me off at the time, but actually, not sure what the hell I was thinking in the hand that put me out. Here it is (sorry, dollar in the mail, blah, blah, blah).

I am a middle stack with 8 left and the top 7 cash and get points for the challenge. I am looking good unless I get stupid. I get dealt pocket 4’s in late position and decide to limp in for 600. The button or BB is a short stack and pushes and it is like 2K to call. The big stack, who had limped before me called. I should have folded right there but I called. The flop was all ragged and low cards giving me a gutshot. Since it is just the 2 of us against the all in, I expect to check it down. Instead, the big stack min bets. For some reason, I took this as the guy being a donkey and not know how this works, but not having anything so I call (yeah, I know, second mistake). The turn is a blank and he does the same damn thing so I call again (third mistake). That leaves me with about 3.5K when the river gives me a straight with my card at the bottom of the straight. It also puts a flush on the board. I actually did think of all of this as I see him push and I, being an idiot and already pissed off at this hand, call (final mistake, bubbye). I couldn’t put him on the flush since he was betting after the flop which was rainbow. I also didn’t put him on the straight for the same reason. He flips over K5 soooted for a runner runner runner flush and IGHN on the bubble like a complete moron. He had hit bottom pair with his 5 on the flop and started betting. If he had checked it down to the river and then pushed fine, no doubt I would have folded in a flash. I was pissed off and even taunted the donkey in the chatbox, which is something I don’t do ever. I was just so damn pissed.

Ok, that’s the end of my bitching. Now to pimp a few things. Remember the MATH tonight. I don’t think I am going to be able to make it but always a good time. Next is the Pokersavvy free cash offer with Mansion. Well basically free cash that is. I explained it here. They extended the $90 neteller deal for the Mansion Promo through the end of July so if you are a low limit grinder or just like a free bankroll boost, sign up here. The Mookie is Wednesday night and I won’t miss that one. Great times to be had by all. Lastly, check out the 45 SNG Challenge to see the action. It is full following others to the final tables in these things. I got railed before I donked out and it is a lot of fun.

That’s it for me today. Have a good one and stay cool.

45 SNG is underway, look out

The bloggers are storming the 45 SNGs on Stars. Check out Guin...

*Update* Yes, all the chips went in pre-flop...



I bubbled in my first one. This is a tough group. We already have a 1st place, 2 2nd places and a 3rd place and it is the first night!

The Challenge is set, let's light this candle - Update

Update: We needed to turn to the first alternate. Kat decided she was way to afraid (yeah right) so Don is taking her place. Not sure on what odds he has placed on himself.

So we have all 20 people for the second 45 SNG Challenge. I will be updating the 45 SNG Challenge Blog with updates on the challenge from here forward. If you are in the challenge, please see that space for more information as we get started tomorrow. The Don should have his vegas lines ready shortly and they will be posted for your fun and enjoyment.

Not much going on this weekend, for once. It will be good to be able to get a few things done around the house without too much rush. It is going to be hot as hell here so I am sure some type of water activities will be found.

I need to do some small finishing items in the new rooms like get some outlet covers and switch plates on, the doorknob on my son's door, etc. I also have to get those pictures up.

Last thing in my boring space for today is my iPod situation. Maybe someone can help me. My old laptop died so I don't have access to my old iTunes library. I want to cover the music off of my iPod and onto the new computer so the files can be added to the iTunes library on this machine. Any advice out there? I connected the iPod and my machine recognizes it as a "hard drive" as well as iPod, so I thought I could just transfer the music files myself. When I go into Windows explorer or My Computer, it doesn't show those files, hence I can't transfer them. Anyone have some advice?

Ok, that's it, if you are part of the challenge, check out that site to get kicked off. If you didn't get in this time, hopefully you can join us next time.

45 SNG Challenge - Field is set

Update:

Ok, it looks like I have 20 runners. The following are the brave souls that have signed on:

CarmenSinCity
Mookie99
Grinditout
Highonpoker
Gilain
Katitude
23skidoo
JJok
WillWonka
Drizz
Presdavelee
Drewspop
Mowenumdown
Guin
Surflexus
Tripjax
Johnny Mac
Darval
CC
Sowbug

Please send the following info to me via email or post it to the 45sngc blog so that everyone will have the info. I need you to post or send me your Stars screenname, Yahoo screenname, and email address if you haven't already. Also, please send your entry fee to me (drewspop (Plymouth)). You can start anytime on Sunday that you want, and I will be on Sunday night kicking off my run to glory so I will look for others on the girly chat.

A New Challenge; want to join?

Ok people, I am able to post this tonight since I just got bounced from the Mookie when my JJ ran into, umm, QJ when I pushed preflop. Yeah, I was down to about 900 chips but still. Anyway, he hit his straight so IGHN.

Anyway, I need some focus so a new challenge is at hand. Back in March/April, I participated in the 45 SNG Challenge that Jordan and Trip set up. It was a good time and made me focus some on my game. I have been given the reigns to start it up again so here it is. Jordan and Trip are in, along with myself so far. I will post the details here and also over at the 45 SNG Challenge blog that Jordan started back then.

Here they are (snipped pretty much from the old site):

You are required to play 15 45-person SNGs on PokerStars (regular or turbo) between July 16th and August 20th. You can play any level of 45 SNG you and your bankroll are comfortable with. In each SNG, you will be required to email me with the tourney number when you register and then take a screen shot of your resulting position. You must count every 45-person SNG that you play, and only the first 15 such SNGs. If you do not follow any of the given rules, you will be disqualified.
Points will be kept as follows, for each SNG you play, based on where you finish:

1st / 10 points
2nd / 8 points
3rd / 7 points
4th / 5 points
5th / 4 points
6th / 2 points
7th / 1 point
8th - 45th / 0 points (out of the money positions)

Total up your points at the end and whoever has the highest point total wins. Number of payout spots is still pending. The cost of the challenge will be $25 per person. Once we know payouts, if there is a tie for a payout position, those players will enter a "playoff" 45Player SNG together and the person who finishes higher will win the payout spot.

For further clarification, lets say there are 2 payout spots and two people tie for 1st place. The eventual winner of "playoff" will take 1st place money and the other player will take 2nd place money.

I will update the 45 SNG Challenge blog with the results that I receive each day, once a day. I will try to update it each morning.

This is an honor system, so we must have a limit to the competitors. If you are interested in joining the challenge, please contact me by leaving a comment here or at my blog. You may also reach me by email at nocurse@hotmail.com. Once you are in, I will collect email addresses and yahoo ids like we did the last time so you can hit people up and try to get into the same one as others in the challenge. You will also need to transfer the entry fee to me on Stars before the challenge starts on Sunday. If I don't get enough response by Saturday, I will push the start back a week.

I think that is it. If you have any questions and/or want to participate, leave me a comment or send me an email and I will get back to you.

Missed my train

Been real busy at work and didn't even get to post today.

After work, I went out for a couple beers intending to get the 6:20 train
home. Umm, I guess it is the 6:15 train now. That kinda sucks since I got
to the station at 6:17 huh. Bubbye train, bubbye.

Now I am sitting at the bar at Clark's in South Station waiting for the
7:29 train. Yup, 7:29. I better be punctual or I will miss the Mookie
tonight.

Life has been busy and poker has taken a backseat lately. I don't mind
really, but I do look forward to the blogger tourneys each week. We
finished my son's room and it does look kickass after my wife dropped some
more coin yesterday on framed Red Sox player pictures for the 2 oldest. I
will post those pictures soon. My son slept in his new room last night for
the first time and he loves it. The whole new floor looks great and
hopefully will ad to the value of the house down the road. It can't hurt
at least.

Went out for drinks last night with my old boss. Resume has been updated
and forwarded to him so you never know. One thing I do know is that I have
to make the blogger get together in December. Sounds like it was a great
time had by all and I don't want to miss the next one for sure.

Last of the random thoughts for today. Anyone interested in starting
another 45 SNG Challenge? Jordan worked hard to keep everything straight
last time but it was great. I don't want to steal it or anything but would
love to do it again. Anyone interested?

See you at the Mookie tonight (I hope!)

Tuesday Blues Braindump

Well this will be short and sweet since work is sucking today. I had a great weekend in Maine. Did a lot of fishing, tubing, swimming, and jetskiing. The kids loved it and I think we will be making another trip up during August sometime. It is a long drive but worth it.

We decided to drive home Sunday night so that the kids could sleep on the way and 3 hours into the 4 hour drive I got a call on my cell from Kat. She was calling from Vegas with a "nannynannybooboo" call to rub it in that I was missing the action. Thanks Kat, I appreciated that. I was already jealous enough and after that call, some of the various posts I have read, and some of the pictures I have seen, I won't be able to miss December.

I kinda played in the Hoy last night and got beat down. I have been playing and running bad lately. I will miss the WWdN tonight because I am going out for a couple after work with some friends. If I get home early enough I will be on the girly chat so maybe I will catch up with you.

I noticed quite a few of you have signed up through me at Pokersavvy. Thanks! Have you completed the Mansion requirements yet? Was it super easy like I promised? I hope so.

My son's room got finished and the carpet was installed yesterday. The furniture comes today. It looks great and I will probably post a couple pictures when I have time.

Lastly if this ridonkulous post, I think I mentioned something about the sprint triathalon I was going to do up in Maine. Well, it came and went. My sister did it but my wife and I bailed. Boy did we feel like slugs while my sister was working her ass off! So with that, I am signing up today for one in Hyannis, on Cape Cod, for September 9th. It is even wimpier than the one in Maine was but it is a start. 1/4 mile swim, 10 mile bike, and 3.5 mile run. Make sure you harrass me if I don't mention it for long stretches because sometimes I need the motivation.

That's it. I should have warned it would be a ramble. Have a good one.

Cashing in the Mookie and Vacation awaits

So I finally cashed again in a blogger tourney. It has been a long time since that happened for me. With the summer, baseball, and the work on finishing the attic, I haven’t been able to play much lately, which if fine. Real life takes precedent. Anyway, I was glad to get home in time to sing up for the best weekly blogger event out there. The Mookie.

I was able to get some nice cards early and was pretty much chip leader or in the top 2 for the whole thing until we got to the final table. I made it past the bubble but got a little too aggressive a couple of times when it was folded around to me and I raised into better hands. I got real low until Iak gave me some luck in the girly chat box by saying I was getting ready to go on a tear. I doubled up a couple times to put me even with everyone else. Unfortunately that was when I got too aggressive and gave them back. I don’t remember too many specifics other than getting really lucky a couple times even though I was slightly ahead when the chips went in. I went for a steal with A2 and was called by somelike think K7 and the 7 came on the flop with a 2. I lucked out though when another 2 hit the turn. I think it was Gscottw that said that the Pokerstars software download must have included some changes to their “suck, resuck” code. There was a lot of that going around. Anyway, I finished in 5th, the last cash spot. Congrats to everyone at the final table and congrats to hacker59 for taking it down in the end when he got heads up with mowenumdown. Well played gentlemen. Also thanks for the cheers Iak, it helped me escape the bubble.

I am hoping to play a little bit tonight because it will be my last chance until Monday at least. Me and family are headed up to Maine tomorrow morning to my mom’s lake house. It is about 4 hours away and we are looking forward to a long weekend of fishing, tubing, baseball, and maybe some golf. The highlight may be the hickville derby (no offense to anyone of course). My mom’s place is in Unity Maine on Lake Winnecook. Other than the lake, there isn’t much to do. Except on Saturday nights that is. On Saturday nights, all the locals are at Unity Raceway. Check it out boys and girls, cause that is where I will be with the boys this weekend. Good times at the car races, yeehaw.

Seriously though, we are all looking forward to the weekend away. My whole family is going up and it should be a great time. We don’t get back until Monday so no posts and no poker, unless we play some live poker that is. Maybe I will have a family home game recap to put everyone to sleep on Monday.

I think that is all I have. If you want to, check out the short story on my cousin’s fight from last Friday night. My cousin is “The Hornet”, lol.

Have a good weekend everyone and have a great time in Vegas if you are going. I am severely jealous and can’t wait to read all the trip reports.

Back to work

Well, the long weekend is over. Man, was that fast or what? We had a great time at the parade and then went over some friends’ house for the day. It was hot and humid all day and they have a pool, so it was a great day. I think my stomach is happy I am back in work though. Unfortunately, I counted up the number of burgers I have had since Saturday and it was an astoundingly gluttonous 7. That’s right, 9 burgers on top of sausage, steak tips, chicken wings and assorted salads.

My boss is out so the two days that I am working this week should be pretty quiet right? Wrong. It is never a good thing when your boss’s new boss sends you an email first thing after a long weekend to call him right away about a problem. He’s a good guy though and I talked to him already. Although there will be more to talk about, it could have been worse.

I played a little bit of poker this weekend, but not too much really. I did get my $90 from PokerSavvy. Seriously, if you want to score a quick and easy $90+, sign up through them for Mansion and bet your $50 worth. Like I said before, I made minimum $1 Blackjack bets until I reached $50 worth in bets. That is about 15 minutes time. I ended with $45 of my original $50 and PokerSavvy got me my $90 deposited into my Neteller account right away once I got the 900 points and emailed support to show me the money. Couldn’t have been easier to make some cash. I ended up playing some NL on Mansion with the $45 and made about $15 more on Monday afternoon.

Monday night I played in a home game in the neighborhood. We ended up with 14 players with the top 3 getting paid. I went out 7th. It was a frustrating game because the guy that won it was drunk and playing complete donkey poker and catching everything. It was terrible. He got some chips at the final table by luck and then started raising every hand 4xBB. The blinds were at 500/1000 I think and I had an average stack of about 5k. He was to my immediate right so I was just waiting for a hand to get it all in against him. He showed down K6o, which he won a big hand with when he caught a second pair on the river with a K, after one of his raises so I knew he wasn’t playing good cards. Anyway, I finally get AQ soooted and he puts in the standard 4xBB raise that he had for the last 5 hands. I push and he calls and has pocket 5s. His 5s hold up and I am out and bitchy. He went on to knock out another guy when he did his standard raise and the guy pushed on him with just J8c. The drunk called him with…J3o. When the 3 came on the river to knock out the other guy, everyone was just disgusted but that’s poker. It was a frustrating game but a good night out. My wife actually played too and she had fun so it was all good.

I also finished my William Hill blackjack bonus whoring. I had signed up for the original $80 match and was in the middle of clearing it when the monthly $40 bonus kicked in also for some reason, even though I didn’t make a new deposit. That just made the grinding a little longer because of the increased wagering requirements. To be honest, I almost tilted it all away. I was grinding away pretty well but losing a little at a time. My original $80 plus match being $160 when I started, I was down to $100 and thinking that it might not happen for me again. I went on a ridiculous run where they were turning 21 on 2 out of 3 hands for about 10 minutes. It was awful and I was down to about $75 when I made the cardinal sin of blackjack bonus whoring. Rather than withdraw what I had left (which William Hill let’s you do I guess) I bet big. With $75 left, I bet $5, then $10, etc. I was down to $50 in a flash when I really got the awwfukkits. I made a tiltworthy bet of $25. But I won. I then went back to $5 for a couple and before I knew it, I was back to $90. I went back to grinding from there and caught some fire. I got up to about $130 when that additional $40 bonus was deposited for me. I finished last night with $232. What a rollercoaster ride it was. All done and cash withdrawn. Not sure I have the makeup for the blackjack bonus whoring. I lose that $25 and I am pretty much busted. Oh well, I have to decide if I go forward with it or not.

That’s all for me today. I hope to make the Mookie tonight.

Happy Independence Day and PokerSavvy Instructions for the cash

This is a real quick update because we are getting ready for a busy day. I just wanted to post about PokerSavvy real quick. A few of you have signed up and I wanted to let you know how they are converting the 900 points into the Neteller cash. Basically, just email support@pokersavvy.com and let them know you want to get the cash, once you have received your points. They will do it manually for you. I got my cash so get yours now! I also played a little cash game on Mansion with the cash I had there and made a few more bucks.

My cousin won his fight on Friday night also. He had a 3rd round knockout. It was great because he fought someone that was ready to fight and he kicked ass. I guess the next fight might be in November at either the Roxy in Boston or Mohegan Sun casino in Connecticut. I am hoping for that of course.

Enjoy the day everyone.