"Lessons learned - NOT!"

OK after two trips to the crowded grocery store I am back and a bit more calmed down. Perhaps I will learn some lessons. The first is to turn off the feakin mouse pad so that when I am typing on this notebook I do not accidently do something I will regret. That is done! Second lesson is to always type your create words into another editor then copy and paste into Blogger. Unfortunately since our infamous hard drive crash I do not have Microsoft Office installed yet. But oh I will very soon.

Lets see if I can recapture my thoughts.

On December 17th I was invited to play poker at D's house. It was a $30 buy-in NL Holdem tournament with $30 in chips. The table was pretty quiet, so I started enjoying my Guinness (Iggy potion) and starting miscellaneous conversations. It was still an extremely quiet table. Mr. B did tell us about his father's X-mas present, which was a t-shirt with famous words - "But they were suited!". There are three hands that I can still vividly recall. By the way I had only played poker with 4 of the 16 players before, so I did not have previous tells to go by.

Pockets Jacks - I was the small blind with pocket hooks and I decided to just call the Big Blind. The flop comes 235. UTG I make a $2 raise (blinds were still .25/.50). I glance around the table and the guy directly across the street had a sparkle in his eye. He raised it up to $5. I knew he had just hit the wheel. Although it was extremely hard the hooks went into the muck! I was right he had A4o. He did manage to grab some callers and now he was the big stack. Lesson learned here is to pay attention to the "sparkle in the eye"!

Pocket Nines - After folding a zillion hands I found pocket 9s as the button. Everyone limps in! The flop was 544 and the player UTG (Dad - that means Under the Gun or first to bet) checks. Everyone checks around to me. I decide I had better isolate the good hands to I raise $5. The player UTG goes all-in. Hmmm! Did he flop a set or pocket Queens. I mucked my pair of nines. It was a good houdini move because he had flopped a boat. Yikes! A little later I gave him a new nickname. I started calling him the Slow Playing MFkr. Everyone got a chuckle out of the nickname.

Well I managed to get blinded away, limping in a couple of times, down to a large stack of $6. UTG I had A9s, so I went all-in. I thought I was eliminated, but caught the flush on the river. I noticed just in time before someone else raked the entire pot. The very next hand I caught another flush on the turn and raised all-in. I got one caller so I doubled up again. A few hands later I caught a third flush on the river to build up a healthy stack.

There were 7 of us left and they were paying the top four (4th got their money back). I was the button and I dealt myself AT. The player UTG raised it $20. I put him on AJ or AQ. The player to his left called then it was to me. I decided to call the $20, which was about half my stack. Board comes out with AJQ. I now have an inside straight draw and top pair with a low kicker. I felt I was pot committed so I moved all-in. The raiser goes over the top of me all-in for $110. The other player after much debate calls. We turn over our cards AJ, A9, and AT. My king does not arrive to save the day, so I am out 7th. It was a bummer, but if I pulled off that miracle hand I most likely would have won the tournament. I started calling the guy who won MFkr and everyone got another good laugh.

Unfortunately my "Obsession" will remain incomplete, but another lesson learned is when editing in Blogger save to draft often. Ready! Saved!

I believe my obsession story concluded something like this. I now have only $51 left in by Check N Raise Account. I am still chasing the bonus money and I need another 91 Check points to get $25. I am obsessed with winning that bonus money, but I am losing my entire bankroll in doing so. I should have just taken my $170 and started whoring other sites for sign up bonuses. Oh well perhaps in my next blog I will be writing that I am $100 + and on my way to getting all of my bonuses. The good news is that I did qualify for the $10,000 tournament on Sunday. Hopefully I have earned enough bachelor points to play in the 12:30 PM tournament.

Well I want to wish my family and friends a blessed and safe holiday. I would also like to wish anyone else ready this blog a blessed Holiday season and a profitable 2005. As usual I get a little Bah Humbug with all of the commercialism, but it is part of the season. I am pretty energetic in that I do not have to cook anything. My wife has made a beautiful chocolate cake and two pumpkin cheesecake pies. I just finished making the colored egg wash so she can cover the pies with autumn colored maple leaves. Perhaps I will post a picture!

Well before I lost the original post. I did manage to win $9 playing $.10/.20 Holdem at Paradise Poker. I owned the table. I got pocket Aces twice within 30 minutes. Man I like that algorithm!

Play on!