Sloe Times

So yesterdays blogger tournament was good times, despite smacking myself in the head with The Hammer vs the nut straight and ultimetly finishing 57th out of 78. I wonder if I should just go back to playing NL full time because I made some plays that would have been good in a limit game that upon reflection were very questionable in a NL game. This question will require some soul searching. I think to make the transition back to NL ring I'll probably invest some time at the SNG tables to limit the re-learning curve losses.

posted by Andres Silva  # 4/25/2005 10:15:00 AM

This Sunday will see #35 of 37 super-satellite events for the College Poker Championships. I won my seat to the satellite so long ago that Royal Vegas has been sending me we miss you and want you back letters. I'm sort of anxious about the fact that in 4 weeks I'm going to be in a fairly sizable tournament that would definetly make getting through school much easier. To that end it's time to start getting back into the groove again so I'm planning to start hitting the tables again this week. Just got to wait for that silly deposit to go through.

I've been a bad reader. Basicly I check in on BG about once a week or so, and haven't been keeping up with anyone else really :( Being a bad reader hasn't seemed to affect being read though. Seriously, something must be wrong. When I was at it daily I got maybe 20-30 hits a day. I just happened to look a few minutes ago and my daily hits are in the mid 100s. WTF!? I hit 10k unique visits and I'm wondering if somehow StatCounter has lost its mind.

I'm sure you're curious how I've been filling my time away from the tables. Mostly Working (40+ hrs a week doesn't leave much time after sleeping), The boy is growing like a weed and is more fun than ever to play with, Everquest 2 (got to have some gaming in there), and oh yeah there's the wife. ;)

I've got some aprehension about getting back into playing again. I think it's safe to say that I'm a good card player, but not a great one. The funny thing is, aspiring to greatness can be a slippery slope for me. I can see now that I am/was very results focused. Granted to be able to track progress and identify good and bad trends you have to pay attention to your results, but perhaps being obsessed about them is going a little too far. If only somehow I could live the dream and replace my six figure slaving for the man salary with a six figure income from playing cards. Too old and too many responsibilities to just say fuck it and try to make it or break it playing poker and golf. Somehow, somewhere I'm going to own a golf course with a poker room in the club house. That's the end game right there ladies and gentleman. Step to work out the plan to get there.

posted by Andres Silva  # 4/21/2005 01:11:00 PM

I don't watch the local news for a relatively short list of reasons the top one being that in general they follow the philosophy that if it bleeds, it leads. However, when you're listening to the national news over dinner, sometimes it's a little slow to break from dinner just to switch to the music station or off. Anyway, yesterdays news story was about a 3 year old boy who was killed by a gun he found and played with in his home.
The police are calling it an "accidental shooting" and I'm thinking bullshit. Not because I believe something sinister happened or that the kid didn't find the loaded gun and kill himself while playing with it. No, I call bullshit on "accidental" because if you're going to be a gun owner, you are responsible for your guns. End of story. I probably won't get to own a gun again until I'm around 50. Mostly because the wife and I don't see eye to eye on the subject and since we live in a relatively safe place safety isn't a significant concern and I can always go to a range to cure the itch. However, the reason the wife and I don't see eye to eye on the subject is because of stories like this.

Maybe I'm a hardass but I'm thinking an Involuntary Manslaughter charge against the parents is appropriate here. Sure, they're going through what amounts to the worst time in their life right now, but a message has to be sent. If you're going to own a gun, own it responsibly. You child-proof cabinets and drawers to keep kids out of the drano and the rat poison, where the hell were you on storing your weapons? I've got a kid and at almost a year and a half he's into EVERYTHING and that's ok because that's how you learn about things when you're young. However, the really important stuff is way out of his reach or secured in some way. That doesn't keep him from finding inventive ways to damage himself but I can at least relax knowing that I haven't directly or indirectly created opportunities to put him in harms way.

Stuff like this is just sad, more fuel for the anti-gun zealots and a family destroyed. I think it mostly pisses me off because it's crap like this that give the policy-makers something to pander to while removing my abilities to choose and act responsibly as a citizen. By and large I still think events like these serve an evolutionary purpose, but I'm more aware now than when I was younger about the indrect impact these things have on me personally.

posted by Andres Silva  # 4/21/2005 08:11:00 AM

You ever have one of those moments where one second you're dead to the world and the next your wide awake. No transition from sleepiness to your wakeful state, only a sudden surge of adrenaline and the hint that something is wrong.
I suspect that for those of you who have a hint of what I am talking about, this usually occurs in the middle of the night, or sometime in the morning, usually well after the alarm clock should have waken you. Imagine though that this event were to occur while you thought you were already awake. Playing mathmatically correct poker is boring to the point of being mind numbing. Sure you can try to multi-table and keep the action rolling but at some point that numbness has to set in. Is it the numbness of thinking that you're finally immune to fuming about having your made hand cracked by the one-outer? The serene feeling of knowing that the last 4 hours have just been part of that never ending session where you're going to be up more than you're going to be down? Perhaps instead you've just become comfortably numb to the fact that play after play the bets are slipping away because instead of playing the table, you're playing the cards.

The first sign is the cold sweat that just seems to have appeared on your body. Is it hot in here or is it just me? What time is it? It's 2am and I'm up 2bb/hr since 7pm when I dragged my ass in from the office and blew off the family to work down that bonus. Funny, the seats haven't changed much at this table but the folks I started with are up a heck of a lot more than me. I'm playing the perfect game, how is it that slick over there is playing a lot more hands than he should and taking it down? My hands never seem to pay off like the others but I'm consistantly up so that's ok. Maybe I'll make a few different plays to change things up a bit.

Then it hits you like a frieght train and you're awake. Your stack is gone and you're down now and trying to remember where it turned against you. What mistake did you make, you were playing perfect. Staying away from the junk, getting out of pots where you got outdrawn, and pushing your good hands. Just where did you go wrong? It slowly comes to you, you sat down at the table 8 hours ago.

posted by Andres Silva  # 4/05/2005 11:30:00 PM