CARDRUNNERS

had a very meh sunday. if not for a couple satellite wins it would have been terrible. my heart wasn't in it, as i was cheering really hard for the jets. GOOOOOOO JETS!!! jets v. vikings would be so sick but jed tells me it's a pipe dream. i wish i'd bet on the vikings, i didn't think for a second dallas was going to win, but i'm not much of a sports bettor.

i wasn't gonna play poker tonight, but then i read on 2p2 that it's turbo night. very excited for turbo midnight madness. :)

a guy on one of my forums put together our results for 2008 and 2009. 2009 was horrible for me, and the year ended with -3% roi. that's mostly b/c of my big score in the 200k, and it would have been a sick bad year otherwise. in contrast my roi in 2008 was 35%. my avg bi went down from $47 to $31, and i'm on track for it to go down a lot more in 2010. hopefully i can get back to the 35% roi, which would be very nice.

the ?/ key on my keyboard is stuck down, as of right now i'm still able to type those symbols but it's not looking good. i'm also having mad pute problems. when i type on facebook and some other sites (not CR, thankfully) there's about a 10-15 second delay. HEM is also not opening about 50% of the time, and skype crashed on my earlier today. wtf!!!! i have to call dell, but first i must psych myself up, b/c calling dell is an exercise in frustration, and it's not like i have something specific i can tell them is wrong, it's just that my computer is slow and buggy.

inspired by david's latest blog post about translating greek i'm re-reading an old favorite novel called secret history by donna tartt. it's holding up, and i'm getting into it all over again. it's about a small group of students studying greek at a college in vermont (based on bennington) and she sort of tells you the ending in the beginning, while the narrator winds his way through the story. i remember for years i would go into bookstores and ask when her next book was coming out, but i don't think she released her second novel until at least 10 years later, and ironically i still haven't read it.

next up is girl who played with fire. i loved girl w the dragon tattoo and had i realized that his (steig larsson) second book wasn't avail in paperback in the US i would have bought it in london, but sadly i only realized that it was "new" when i got home. b/c i'm not baller i checked it out of the local library. :) my mom is a (retired) librarian, and i practically lived there growing up. i have met tons of people who prefer to buy books and ~ look down on me for "renting" but most books i read i'll never pick up again. when i was in london i traded books w/ doyle's asst. and read a great book on the ride home (name and author forgotten) that i never would have otherwise read. now that i'm thinking about it i should add donna tartt's second book to my hold list.

i had to run to target today to return a broken lamp and ended up impulse purchasing seasons 2-4 of how i met your mother. we have about 2 eps left of season 1, but since bfriend is out of town this week i may finish w/o him and start s2 or else start season 1 of the shield. i am terrible at netflix queueing and big love will not be arriving later this week as i'd hoped. checking out in the loop which was recced in the CR forums, and paranormal activity is apparently no longer "long wait" so that's on its way.

Verneer is organizing donations for Haiti here and has already raised over 6k, and FTP is also doing a bunch of tournaments and fake tournaments and matching 100%. Timex organized a 20+20 super turbo this Sunday at 1:35 pm. The tourney ID is 132657628.

Cribbed from Brian's blog:

1.     Aid For Haiti tournaments: Starting tonight and running through Sunday, there will be a number of “Aid For Haiti” tournaments at a range of buyins for players to participate in. The first one is at 2PM ET (under an hour) and it’s a $5 + $5 ($5 from every entry will be donated).

2.     Aid For Haiti “no-play” tournaments: These are “fake” tournaments that won’t run. For anyone that wants to make a direct donation, they can enter one of the 10 different tournaments (all “scheduled” for Sunday at 6pm ET, 3pm PT) and not worry about playing a tournament.

3.     An “Aid For Haiti” user has been set up for direct P2P transfers. Anyone can transfer any amount greater than $5 to that player ID.

All money raised will be matched by Full Tilt Poker and sent to various charities, so for every dollar you donate, an additional dollar from FTP will be directed toward helping the cause. Personally I will be making a direct donation, as well as possibly playing in some of the tournaments.  I urge anyone who can help, even a little, to do so as well.

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For those who don't want to use poker monies you can donate directly through Red Cross here.

Pokerstars is matching donations. Info on their blog.

You can text from your mobile phone. Text “Haiti” to 90999 and your phone will be auto billed for $10 and go directly to help efforts. (note, haven't tried this, but it seems legit)

i think i have about five drafts of blog posts that i started, but then got sidetracked and never completed. unfortunately updating this usually falls to the bottom of my to do list, but i've resolved to finish this post and update more regularly about my extremely mundane life.

i'll start with poker seeing as this blog is on CR. been playing a lot of smaller buy-in tournaments and had a nice run a few weeks ago w/ deep finishes and a handful of final tables. there are a few spots that i have some trouble with, so at some point i'll prob ask a friend or two for some input or post on the forums. i have about 20 hands saved in my gmail drafts that i haven't gotten around to converting yet. i'm still keeping it to small stakes, but mixing in a $26 or $50 every so often.  my biggest online score was 18k in a $50, so hard not to give it another shot.

i haven't been playing as much cash. after ~ 5k hands of .05/.10 i'm down 6 buy-ins, but my $ev is positive about a buy-in, which i think means i'm not running very well. :( still way too small of a sample size to judge anything, so am trying to work some cash vids into my rotation (i've mainly been watching tournament vids) and get back to that every so often.  i def make mistakes and have a ton of leaks, but i think that learning cash will make me a better tournament player over all.

now i'll try to start where i left off. ok, so part 2 of that vegas trip is clearly never going to happen. overall it was a fun, winning trip. i went back to vegas in december and stayed at caesars for the first time. it was nice, but i hated not having a window in my room, and it took forever to walk anywhere in the hotel. spent one night at the IP and ashamed to admit i liked it better there. lol.

the december trip was not a winning one, as i played a bunch of tournaments only to make it ~ deep but fall short of the money, or go out really early. in a caesars $100 i turned the second nut flush v. the nuts and lost some chips, then at the end shoved about 18 bbs w/ JJ on the button v. an utg raiser and lost to his KK. i'd played with the player before in ny home games, and honestly he's one of the few players i'd consider folding to, but i figured 88-TT along w/ AQ/AK were in his raising range, and he's NEVER folding those to me, even though he's a tight player. i mostly had fun w/ a bunch of friends who were in town, ate at my fave vegas restaurant musashi, and played poker.

i went directly from there to chicago for some work stuff, where my fave restaurant in chicago, el nuevo mexicano, bitterly disappointed me. my fave chicago friends the maloneys met me there one night after work, and i actually had to ask if they got a new cook (answer was no, which perplexed me). i am still recommending it to people, and i'll give it one more shot, but i was sad.

i finally returned home where i had my long-awaited per se dinner. i went w/ some friends from my old law firm, and the food was outstanding. we did the extended tasting menu along with some wine pairings. if i go back i will def abstain from drinking, except maybe a very inexpensive bottle of wine. the mark up is insane, and the price of the meal def caused me to enjoy it slightly less. that prob means i shouldn't have gone, and i thought about bailing, but in the end i didn't want to miss out. i'm so not baller. here are a couple pics: our tour of the kitchen, white truffle oil-infused custard with a ragout of black winter truffles, scottish langoustines a la plancha. (credit to JAM)


wow, this whole entry is about food. that's one of the reasons i'm currently in the market for an elliptical. i've never bought home exercise equipment and have no clue, but i've searched a little online and my next step is to hit a few local stores to see if anything looks good. not sure that i can find all the brands i saw online in stores, so if not i may just take a chance on one that got good reviews. i'm not sure anyone even reads this, but if you have any ideas, pls let me know. i should prob also post in the fitness section of the forums.

finished watching season 5 of lost for the third/fourthish time this past weekend, and i CAN'T WAIT until feb 2nd!!! was freaked out by the fringe ep last night where a dude who died earlier in the season appeared, but apparently the network just never aired this non-essential ep. fringe is very much like x-files, where some eps are totally stand alone, and others move a bigger story forward. this was one of the filler eps.

just watched little children, a movie from 2006 that i somehow missed. i really enjoyed it but not an uplifting movie. next on the queue is the reader, another kate winslet movie, that i know from the book is gonna be a big downer also. apparently it's kate winslet boobie week in my neck of the woods. really looking forward to hurt locker which comes out soon, and also have idiocracy ready to watch based on a rec from someone in the CR forums.

boyfriend refuses to see up in the air, so i'll head off on my own to see that soon, and then tomorrow night or thursday night we're going to check out avatar in our local imax theater. i hate crowds, especially in the movie theater, so we tried to hold off and figured how many people can there be on a random weeknight one month after it's release. i heard in the city people still have to get tix a few days in advance. nuts!

hope everyone had a happy holiday season, and is off to a fantastic start in the new year.

got sick/jet lagged at the end of trip, been working a lot, and couldn't motivate to do this until now.

first things first -- tv wise i'm loving glee, fringe, and survivor, liking dexter (it's getting better) and biggest loser and finally watched first two eps of how i met your mother. enjoyed it, gonna continue, prob slowly. tried to get boyfriend to watch happy go lucky (it was b/w that,  frozen river, and i've loved you so long) but no dice so we watched die hard instead. i can watch that movie over and over and over. i also finally saw braveheart. it was good, but i'm def impacted by mel gibson's RL persona (i'll call it the tom cruise effect). looking forward to my yearly tradition of watching elf 10-20 times during the holiday season.

i made the finals of a hu tourney i played w/ some forum friends so gonna play that sometime this weekend, but apart from that i'm on an online hiatus till mini ftops on december 9th. i've been pretty disgusted w/ my tournament game so i'm taking time off to watch vids, hand histories, etc. may also try some low-stakes cash and watch some six-max and hu cash vids. boyfriend has been playing a ton of six-max cash lately so i'm a bit intrigued, but i've always sucked whenever i tried playing.

watched mlagoo's first vid he made for CR last night and am going to re-watch them all, even the ones i've seen. i saw aaron been's 1k vids a year or two ago and loved them, so may rewatch, along w/ some timex and muckducks vids. if anyone has other recs pls send along.  a few guys on my forums have sent me hand histories and i'm gonna go over them too.  congrats to panda aka ryan franklin on his final table at ept vilamoura, dude is 19, he's crushing online, and final tables his first ever live event. sicko. one of the most random things about getting into poker that i never expected is having friends of all ages.

planning to play live in AC december 3-5 in WSOP circuit events which is doubling as a forum meet up. pretty psyched, staying at harrahs and gonna play me some more live donkaments. if the players are even close to as bad as vegas it's gonna be AWESOME!

ff i am in good contention for a playoff bye in one league, out of contention in another (slight exception if i win next three games, maybe), and on the playoff cusp in the last. my other three that i have a stake of all shit the bed. :(

trip report:

my friend ck very graciously picked me up from the airport and offered me lodging for the first couple nights of my trip. i was super tired so we chilled at her sick house and caught up, and then i passed out the second my head hit the pillow.

hit up pancake house for breakfast and then headed to the rio for the wsop final table.  there were no seats but we settled in on the stairs just below the media. i occasionally popped into an empty wsop media chair when he was out on the floor, and ck ended up getting a seat in begleiter's section. i took a break for lunch w/ my friend lizzy. i left right after akenhead hit his river w/ KQ to triple up (they played for awhile before anyone busted), but got back after he busted and schaffel's AA < KK.

watched awhile more but my back was hurting so i left to play some 1/3 at the rio poker room. lost some when a guy called my huge flop 3 bet w/ a flush draw and got there on turn. won most of it back when i missed a fd but called a big river bet w/ middle pair and was good. lol at how bad i am at cash. played the midnight tournament and busted running 88 into JJ. was stunned at how awesomely bad people played. that was a recurring theme of my live tournament experiences.

couldn't speak by 3am b/c i was so damn tired, so i took a cab back to ck's house and had the cab driver concerned for my safety even as i was leaving the cab in front of her house. i think i was so incoherent and pathetic looking that he was genuinely worried about me. slept beautifully but missed most of the morning nfl games. we drove to naked fish for lunch only to discover it was closed, along with two other restaurants (musashi and lotus of siam) so we ended up at a random vietnamese place to cheer on the giants.

checked into gold coast, discovered i couldn't get internet (a recurring, unsolved problem from my trip despite a room upgrade), and hung out at the GC hooker bar w/ pauly, change, al, big mike, otis, katkin and a few others. had nice dinner at palms mexican restaurant. good times.

al and michael craig had some kind of wager that resulted in a bunch of people playing poker at the golden nugget 1am tournament. i grabbed a ride w/ benjo and registered for the tournament. $60 with one-time $45 add-on. played a couple of orbits of cash and won a flip for stacks w/ AK v. 88 to double my buy-in.

i played fairly tight early in the tournament*, a 3-table SNG. guy to my right was boyfriend of woman i met in london, but i chose not to mention connection and tried to play the role of table donkey (not hard for me, obv). he was shoving and playing really LAG and i picked up a hand and stacked him. he re-bought and when he busted we begged the TD to allow him to rebuy but no luck.

there was a woman at the other end of the table all dark sunglasses and acrylic nails who i immediately assumed was terrible. i three-bet her early (she opened a decent amount but had only shown down good hands) after a shortie had moved all in, she four-bet shoved, and i had to fold my shitty AJ soooooted. she had TT and held v. the shortie. i had a lot of chips at that point so i could afford to raise/fold, but it wasn't great.

maintained my stack, picked up a big pot against someone, and then promptly moved tables. i had been fairly quiet at my old table and was bored/tired but something snapped when i got moved to change/pauly/benjo/dan/jen's table and i could not stop babbling. blinds were getting big and i didn't have a lot of room to play. apart from raising 72o and showing, i can't recall any hands from the table. pathetic. i may have bluff shoved once. or twice. or three times.

switched tables and again could not shut up to save my life. made some buddies, talked about truly free poker training, and won a few pots. i sucked out w/ A9 v AQ when i made a marginal call to a three bet shove, and no doubt a few other times. made it to the final table as an average stack, but felt i had an advantage cause it was about to turn into pushbotting and people play soooooo weak live. pauly and change were at the final table which increased the difficulty, and change and i made it three-handed w/ the sunglasses/acrylic nails woman. pauly was the bubble boy iirc. :(

during the early final table play i kept trying to talk to the other woman, asking her her name, etc. and she would not respond. it created a somewhat tension filled atmosphere. when we were three-handed she told us some crackpot story about pauly trying to steal her button on a dealer change or something like that. so weird. i remember shoving T high into change's broadway hand and doubling her up, but then she lost to the other chick. first hand of heads up acrylic chick shoved her sb (shoving was something she did not start doing until the very end of the tournament, i think maybe she picked it up after watching me shove and pick up chips over and over and over) into my bb. i looked down at A4hh and called with maybe 10-15 bbs. she had KQ, hit a K and i got second. i also won some $ in a last longer. w00t! nice start to the trip imo. i think i won ~ $500 from the tournament plus another hundo from the last longer. not a great ROI, but great fun!

ok, this is taking longer than i thought, i'll break into parts. part 2 will include my caesar's 3pm win and two ill-fated efforts at the Venetian.  in the first V deep stack i played a 54k pot all in on the flop at 100/200 b/c i'm a complete aggro monkey who won't fold when i have a read (got in as 65/35 but lost on the river, sigh). i also watched the wsop main event heads up live, mostly from the bluff production room, and visited the high stakes poker set.  will try to download some pics from my camera for next post.

* i will never be a great poker player b/c i am terrible at remembering hands from tournaments. my friend shawn aka sprstoner told me a story a few months ago about how he randomly shared a cab w/ elky in LA this past year and elky remembered a totally random hand they'd played in a tournament over three years earlier when shawn looked completely different. sick. two days after i won the caesar's tournament i could barely recall final table hands for boyfriend. :(