"Victory is Sweet"

This Saturday night I went to a "guys night out party". The party consisted of alcohol, food, music, and poker. We had nine players start a $20 buy-in NL Holdem tournament. I had to scramble to get there on time. We had a 2 hour baseball practice. After practice we had to rake the field. I rushed home, but I did manage to fly into HEB for some tecate and pretzels. I took a very fast shower and out the door I went. I was a little on tilt. When I arrived there was a friend of mine there that I knew in Houston. I ate a slice a pizza and chugged a tecate. I was ready to go.

Early in the tournament I had TJo and the flop came TTJ. I checked. The other player checked. On the turn there was a flush and straight potential so I checked again. I set the trap for the other player to catch a hand. I led out with a modest bet and he raised me. I made another raise of $2K. He called and I took a third of his stack.

I bluffed more than usual with some reasonable sized bets. I built a reasonable chip stack. I did call an all-in once and lost, but the person was short stacked.

We were down to the final three and all were in the money. I got AKo. The host went all-in. I had to call. He had a medium pocket pair. The turn brought an ace and I took him out. I was heads up against a solid opponent. We battled for along time. I was not going to make a mistake. He would call my big blind and I would just check. Everytime he hit his straight I would fold or check it down. So I never lost a large sum of money. He thought I was psychic. Then came the final hand where I had the opportunity to give him a taste of his own medicine.

I looked at my cards in the small blind and saw AA. I just called the big blind to slow play the aces. He raised, so I popped back the magic words "All-in". He immediately called. He called with Q5o, so I think he thought I was trying to buy the pot. A queen did come on the flop giving me a scare, but I did win pocketing a nice c-note.

There was a cash game going on and I was feeling no pain. We were listening to a DVD of Rush live in Germany for their 30th reunion. I have not been a huge rush fan, but that DVD rocked. I held my own for several hours. It was 3:15 AM when the host and I were playing a hand heads up. I was holding pocket tens in the small blind. I made a small raise. The big blind called me. The flop came 548. I bet out. The big blind goes all-in for about $15 dollars. It was the host of the party. My beer infected brain could not put him on the correct hand. I ended up calling. He turned over 45o for two pair. I did not feel bad since the money was going to the host. The lesson here is to take my time and think about what potential hads the opponent may have. I did not think about it at all.

Any rate I had an awesome time and a net profit of $60.

I am going to miss the next installment of the race for the bracelet. Oh well! Baseball and the kids come first. Perhaps I will show up late and jump into a cash game.

Play on!

"Living on Prayer"

This Monday I played in a nice tournament with 27 players. I made the final table when I experienced the Bon Jovi song "Living on a Prayer". I am sure every poker player has heard or song this tune during a tournament. We were down to 4 people, so I was in the money. Of course I like that. To my left was a huge stack of chips. I was in the small blind with 89 of diamonds. The blinds were 500/1000. I raised it to $3K. The big blind (chip leader) calls. The flop comes ten of diamonds, jack of diamonds, and jack of spades. I bet $2K. The chip leader raises it another $2K. I immediately go all-in. I mean seriously I have an open ended straight flush draw, a possible straight, and a flush. The chip leader immediate calls me and turns over JT for the insta-boat. Crap I am praying for the straight flush. The prayer was not answered. Thanks a lot Bon Jovi.

It was a fun tournament. Everyone was bitching about the amount of starting chips and the blinds structure. Hell I loved it because you played cards and could not gamble aggressively with chips. We started with $1600. To me it played exactly like most SNG's I have played on-line. I was patient. I played aggressive when I need folks to drop their drawing hands. I played sly when I had the nut, maximizing my chips. I managed two bluffs and both worked. I think I made one mistake where I limped in at the final table in early position. Of course I was raised and I basically donated money. I ahd one lay down which I will never know if it was good or not. I had a straight, but the board showed 4 spades. I had the 9 of spades. There were three better spades available and the player to my right popped a pretty good raise. Upon review I think he stole the pot from me, but it was to early in the tournament to risk half my chips.

Absolutely a great time! I did not take enough beer! At the final table I definitely wanted one more. Another funny thing was the table thought they picked up a tell on me because I looked down at my chips three times in a row after a nice flop. It may have been a tell, but I won the pot. I then continued to use that movement even when I had a weak hand. I definitely need to work on making sure I have no tells.

Well sports season is about to kick in, so poker will be taking a back seat. Hopefully I can skip baseball practice once per month and continue to play in the Cedar Park series. I would like to win the bracelet. Hee Hee!

I will continue playing freerolls when I can. Finished a few spots out of the money last night.

Play on!

"Opening the door for Casino's in Texas"

I heard on the radio today that one big concern about Perry privatizing the Lotto is that it would bring Casino gambling to Texas. Unfortunately I did not get to here them elaborate, but my thought was Bull Shit sensationalism. Casino gambling in texas will require a vote! Privitization of the Lotto will not cut it. It would solve a bunch of problems in Texas, but it is no happening soon.

I have been playing a little on-line. I took a couple bad bad beats today with pocket jacks and pocket kings. Other than that I am grinding. I could not play in the local game this week because of the sports field lottery. I did get the fields we needed. Sports are definitely going to get in the way of poker for the next couple of months. I am hoping to play in a big tournament on February 12th in Cedar Park. This tournament will have about 20 - 30 persons. Part of the money goes to a six month prize pool. If you accumulate the most points during the six months you win the pool. It should be a ton of fun. I may only get to play in February so hopefully I will win! hee hee!

Next I am going to post the lyrics to a poem that I believe Tex Ritter made into a song. I thought the concept of using a deck of cards to pray was cool. This may need to be on my other blog, but it is a deck of cards.

Deck of Cards

A young soldier was in his bunkhouse all alone one Sunday morning over in Afghanistan. It was quiet that day, the guns and the mortars, and land mines for some reason hadn't made a noise. The young soldier knew it was Sunday, the holiest day of the week. As he was sitting there, he got out an old deck of cards and laid them out across his bunk.

Just then an army sergeant came in and said, "Why aren't you with the rest of the platoon?"

The soldier replied, "I thought I would stay behind and spend some time with the Lord."

The sergeant said, "Looks like you're going to play cards."

The soldier said, "No sir, you see, since we are not allowed to have Bibles or other spiritual books in this country, I've decided to talk to the Lord by studying this deck of cards."

The sergeant asked in disbelief, "How will you do that?"

"You see the Ace, Sergeant, it reminds that there is only one God.
The Two represents the two parts of the Bible, Old and New Testaments.
The Three represents the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
The Four stands for the Four Apostles: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
The Five is for the five virgins that were ten but only five of them were glorified.
The Six is for the six days it took God to create the Heavens and Earth.
Seven is for the day God rested after working the six days.
The Eight is for the family of Noah and his wife, their three sons and their wives, in which God saved the eight people from the flood that destroyed the earth for the first time.
The Nine is for the lepers that Jesus cleansed of leprosy. He cleansed ten but nine never thanked Him.
Ten represents the Ten Commandments that God handed down to Moses on tablets made of stone.
The Jack is a reminder of Satan. One of God's first angels, but he got kicked out of heaven for his sly and wicked ways and is now the joker of eternal hell.
The Queen stands for the Virgin Mary.
The King stands for Jesus, for he is the King of all kings.

When I count the dots on all the cards, I come up with 365 total, one for every day of the year. There are a total of 52 cards in a deck, each is a week, 52 weeks in a year.

The four suits represents the four seasons: Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter. Each suit has thirteen cards, there are exactly thirteen weeks in a quarter.

So when I want to talk to God and thank Him, I just pull out this old deck of cards and they remind me of all that I have to be thankful for."

The sergeant just stood there and after a minute, with tears in his eyes and pain in his heart, he said, "Soldier, can I borrow that deck of cards?"

Play on!