Quest of a Closet Poker Player

Sweetie let me orchestrate All-In’s 9th birthday party, so Friday was all about him.

The normal approach to pre-teen Suburbia birthday parties is to benchmark previous locations then invite 8-12 boys (or girls if it’s a girl’s birthday) to haul them to for some new revenue generation program.  Laser Tag, Bowling, Sports Academy, the list goes on and on for the outsourcing of fun.  We’ve done these in the past, and they are fine, but they sort of miss out on the simplicity of fun.  So Sweetie let me and All-In figure out the party, and I sold him on two concepts:  boys and girls at the party, and SurvivOlympics.

Inviting girls to the party was, in effect, simply for me.  I have a special (healthy) fondness for the girls in his class, as I used to coach several of them on his soccer team.  We never have girls here, so it’s something I miss.  All-In is a ladies man that is pretty unassuming I think, so he didn’t seem to mind.  SurvivOlympics was centered around the following:  can we spend <$10/kid and still have a great time?  I went to Target and Home Depot with almost no plan other than finding cheap things in quantities of 14 that could be turned into challenges.  Two types of handkerchiefs became buffs, and started collecting a bunch of stuff in the $1 or less range to create the challenges.  We ended up with five challenges:

• Birdseed Relay:  With a reg workers rag, teams had to transfer birdseed from one rag to the next person’s, until they reached the last member of the team who then filled whatever made it there into big plastic stadium cups.  First team to fill up two cups wins.
• Leprechaun Hats:  Like musical chairs, everyone runs to grab a hat (one or two more players than hats).  Last one standing wins.
• Closest to the Pin:  Each player had some little piece of plastic plumbing (little ring) with their name on it.  They took turns throwing it at three Frisbees on the ground to see who could get the closest.
• Feather Duster/WordSearch:  First, a feather duster relay where a player had to hold it with his/her elbows (run out to a cone and back).  Once everyone was done, team had to come up with 25 words using the letters in SurvivOlympics.
• Tug of War

They also had camps in the yard, got hot dogs to eat on the ground along with water bottles, lots of fun.  Then cake and opening presents (All-In got another six Nerf Guns, which are the current hot things if you don’t know).  All-In wanted to watch Howl’s Moving Castle, so I sat up my projector that I use on sales calls and we projected it in the basement.  I made 11″ x 17″ posters of all the photos from the party (4 pages per kid) to finish it off.

Sweetie and I also confirmed how I can cure my insomnia:  what we term doing it.  Some refer to it with other words which include intercourse, sex, and making love.  We do it, I fall asleep in our bed.  A couple minutes of bliss is so much better than an hour flopping around in the bed.  That didn’t exactly come out right, but whatever.  It works.

Soccer meeting for coaches this week, and it looks like All-In’s team has run into a bit of a train wreck.  Each team plays 8 players, and our team has progressively expanded as the boys are really into it and love playing.  Most teams have a dozen players, but we reached 18 in the fall (which if you do the quick math means some players can’t play half the game if we have everyone there).  The coordinator called me Friday, and it’s gotten worse:  23 boys in 3rd grade want to be on our team (in a 3rd-4th grade league).  He said he’s never had this problem, and we aren’t a dominant team as far as winning record, so it’s not like we’re some juggernaut that everyone wants to get involved with.  This is a rec league, so I’m always very focused on playing time, as well as getting the lesser boys to play up.  I’ll find out how many we have tonight, but we’ll probably be splitting into an A and B team with one mega-practice.  I haven’t heard about the Big Guy, but it looks like I’ll have to coach his team as well.  Coaches meeting tonight, so I’ll probably miss the MATH.
I only played a bit this weekend and ended up with a net +$145 weekend after going down $154 on Saturday in a brutal NLHE run that should have ended up alot worse.  Queens running into Kings and Aces, getting aces three times only to pick up the blinds.  I’m really enjoying playing three tables of NLHE as it is pushing me through some of the weaknesses of my NLHE game, making some of the decisions that I am hesitant with or plain wrong with much easier to execute.

If you haven’t been keeping up with the LA Poker Classic, here’s a quick summary for you.  791 players, the largest $10k field in the history of the WPT, works out to a $2.43mil first prize and 54 cashes.  Day 2 ended early this morning, and JC Tran’s strong run in the last six months continues as he’s the big chip leader with 543k in chips.  Other big-time players in the Top 15 include Chau Giang, Joe Tehan, CK Hua, and none other than Duke class-skipper Jason Strasser.  Others looming back in the pack include Prahlad Friedman, Paul Wasicka, Barry Greenstein, Kristy Gazes, Nam Le, Ted Forrest, Quinn Do, Steve Danneman, Daniel Alaei, Erik Seidel…and one Crispin Leyser.  Fresh from his WSOP settlement with Jamie Gold, he’s still pluggin along heading into Day 3.  I’ll be pulling for a final table of Jason, Prahlad Friedman, Joe Tehan, CK Hua, Kristy, and either Daniel Alaei or JC Tran.

No time to give you my take on the Oscars, although I did watch every minute of it.  I’ll late change give her take hopefully, although I would have liked to see Eddie Murphy win vs. Alan Arkin.  Have a good day, and gl on the felt.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 26th, 2007 at 11:39 am and is filed under Uncategorized.