Archive for June, 2007

I’m building a new page with a link over to the right there under “Pages” where I can list weekly online donkfests tournaments. Help me out and give me any and all tournies you are aware of and I’ll get them listed over there.

I have a selfish reason for doing this - I consistently miss most of the weekly gatherings, so having a list at my fingertips would be of great help (and potentially lucrative for everyone else because I’m such a poker tourney donkette).

Thanks in advance!

I just snagged this from BG - pal Pauly’s in the money in Event #38 ($1500 NLHE) at the WSOP!!!! How great is that?? He will start the day with T27300 and will need to outlast only 161 players to reach the final table. He’s already outlasted 2,608 so this should be a cakewalk! Hah!

Well done, my friend, well done!

I was snug in the little car, safely tucked at the side of my father. The seat-belt was fastened and the big padded bar lowered to our laps. I’d made a dash for the first car the second the attendant said I’d passed the height test.

My first ride - finally I was tall enough. My heart pounding, I grinned at the attendant as he grasped the big red lever. He hadn’t noticed how I’d stretched ever-so-slightly up on my toes as I stood next to the height sign. Unconcerned with me, he pulled the lever and the little car jolted forward, as did all the little cars connected to it from behind.

The cars slowly crept up and up and up and up. At the top, the track disappeared for a second, then reappeared as we plunged straight down the first dip. That was just a tease. An hors d’oeuvre. The entree, the monster, was coming - the Big Dip loomed ominously ahead above the trees.

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“Well, I’ve had enough. I need to go smoke.”

That’s what one “player” said before pushing all in. A pink make-up tote had, moments before, been dropped into the middle of the table as a “pot sweetner.” The winner of the pot, a rather, um, masculinesque woman offered me the tote. I turned it down. When not in a hand and oblivious to the action around her, the little blonde in the four seat mouthed sweet nothings to her boyfriend/husband/fiance/sugar daddy on the rail.

This is just a sample of my experience in the ladies tournament during the WSOP Circuit events last January in Tunica. After that, I decided no more “ladies” only events for me.

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Friday is my poker night. I zip out to the Riverwind right from work, or as soon there-after as possible. I’ve learned to phone ahead to get on the list, due to the rush hour traffic slow-up at the I-35, Hwy 9 junction. It can sometimes take five to ten minutes just to get across the river.

I look forward to these sessions. Due to my dwindling online bankroll at Full Tilt, I don’t play the virtual tables much anymore. After my latest blunder, it’s probably best I stay away (however, I’m hoping to get back into the swing because I miss the cameraderie). The Friday live sessions serve to get me out of the house and to engage in a little social interaction, although the latter can be difficult given the typical surly nature of a Riverwind player.

This last Friday, after a table change from sub-zero table 2 (it’s right under an AC vent), I was at table 13, seat four. The table where I’d been the week before. My end of the table was fairly affable. The two guys on my right were friendly and kept boredom from setting in. The guy on my left was very quiet, short-stacked and didn’t seem to be enjoying himself. The guy on his left, the six seat, became my target for the night.

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I had a poker conversation with a colleague today. He asked me how the poker was going and I said, “It’s going - up and down and all around.” He’s not a poker player, plays blackjack some, but not poker.

He asked me if I had any “tells.” I told him that I’ve been made aware of a few. I then mentioned that I sometimes create false tells. “What do you mean ‘false tells,’” he queried.

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How great is that, huh? Hellmuth nabs number eleven. Can you imagine the eruption of joy, the cheers of the crowds around him, the unbridled celebration?

Well, it would have to be imagined it because, unless you’d purchased the Bluff Magazine final table coverage package, the final table and Helmuth’s record victory was accomplished sans crowd, sans media, sans hoopla.

I’m not saying it’s a bad thing. For some players the Poker Vault or the Sequestrium, as it’s been dubbed, might be a welcome respite from the spotlight and the pressure of playing in front of a gallery of fans. But for others, whose friends and relatives fly in for the big moment, it has to be frustrating.

What’s being sacrificed here for the sake of immediacy and a “wider” audience? And how wide is that audience? This seems like the idea that looked great on paper, but in reality may have more of a negative than a positive to it.

At any rate, congratulations to Hellmuth for his eleventh. Say what you will about the Poker Brat, he’s one of the greats.

My last session at the Riverwind was an odd one. I sat at a table with two people with whom I’ve played before. One I’ve written about - limping like a pro and in nearly every pot - who was a chatty, knowlegable, expert and who informed us as to just how much he hates to play big pocket pairs like aces or jacks. Why raise them up when “they just aren’t a favorite against random cards?”

The other was at my table the week before. He sat across from me and was a solid player - a slab of granite. I avoided getting involved with him unless I had something with which to play back at him. He was happy to take full advantage of our knowledgable expert. As was I.

Then there was the dealer who sits on Pauly’s face.

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I’m going to have to get a new cell phone. It appears to be on the fritz. It’s the only explanation I have for its three days of silence this weekend….

ANYway - so 13 events and counting at the WSOP. Here’s hoping things are smoothing out. I have to hand it to Harrahs. A corporation at the leading edge of the hospitality and tourism industry, a corporation that makes it’s money on conventions and events, a corporation that owns and runs a butt-load of the Las Vegas properties is a corporation that just can’t seem to get the WSOP right.

I’m just a little nobody here in Oklahoma, but I did spend nine years of my life running a performing arts facility, sooo, I know a wee bit about event planning. This is, what, the third year Harrah’s and the WSOP? I’m not going to go into detail, but the debacles I’ve been reading about this past week have had me shaking my head more than once.

Oh. Wait. Hold the phone, Sadie. A commercial blip just came on the tube (I’m watching the Tony’s) - Hugh Jackman in a new series Viva Laughlin ????? Oh. My.

Where was I? Oh, yeah. Harrah’s…. I’m sorry…. I still have that image of Hugh Jackman from the commercial in my head. It’s a musical dramady. Oh. Dear.

Oddly, the only thing I’m missing is the company of friends who are working their sweet asses of in Vegas right now. I’m not especially missing Vegas or the Series. Yeah, blasphemy, I know.

I’ve turned my attention fully to cash games, so tournament play has ceased to attract me. My Fridays at the local casino give me my weekly fix. Online play is rare these days. And all this due to the UIGEA, interestingly enough.

However, I am pleased to see that the UIGEA hasn’t put a dent in the WSOP - the turn out thus far is testimony to the game and indication that the bubble has yet to burst. Now if Washington would only take notice. The game ain’t going away.

We’ve all encountered him at one time or another on the virtual felt. He joins the table with a short buy, enters every pot with a raise then when he loses the hand, he fills the chat-box with a tirade of insults meant to reduce you to a soup of the pond scum he thinks you are.

“what a donkey… u r an idiot… calling my ep pf raise with ak off?? nice catch a**hole motherf*****!”

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