Joe Speaker

The first time I won a game of chance, I was nine. Emma C. Smith Elementary School yearly fair/fund-raiser. The cake walk.

I was beyond excited to carry that thing home. Chocolate cake with butterscotch frosting. It tasted as if it was baked by the Gods themselves, sugary ambrosia. The sweetest cake is bonus cake.

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Poker is a game of incomplete information. How many times have we heard that? When playing online, one is robbed of even more chances to get a handle on an opponent.

Naturally, this idea reminds me of Celtic Frost.

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It’s difficult to write about poker when you don’t play. And perhaps I’m naive, but I get the sense what I had for lunch isn’t gonna float your boat.

So I played poker tonight. For you. Dear Reader. And for me.

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Every good story has a beginning, middle and end. I think I’m on solid ground with the first and the last.

It’s the other where I continually find myself stuck in mud.

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I’m feeling way too hungover to live blog the Event, but I’ll provide periodic updates, say, on the hour. If we make it to Hour Four or so, I’ll hopefully be able to be more verbose. Currently starting the Hair of the Dog phase, so I’ll let you know how that turns out.

The specifics: 4372 runners. $1,311,600 pool. 585 places paid. 3K starting chips and 15(!) min. levels starting at 15/30.

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I hadn’t realy planned to play much poker this weekend. But then I won the seat to today’s FTOPS Event and felt like I needed to work some dormant muscles–the ones that don’t correspnd to donkitude–and played the $28K Guaranteed on Full Tilt last night.

I think. Recall is fuzzy, but I’ve got some scars that prove I was there.

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Looks like I’ve got a date with some big money on Sunday.

Sweat me, won’t you?

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Logged on to the poker machine quite innocently last night and quickly found myself sucked in. Not playing, but watching.

The Princess was rolling along in FTOPS Event #2 on Full Tilt, $200+16 HORSE.

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Changes needed to be made. Bad habits erased.

Poker? Nah. My beer gut.

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Being that we are logical, astute people, we resist the urge to scream “Fixed!” when our opponent makes an idiotic play on a flop where they have no business treading, but makes perfect-perfect to bust us. The tin-foil-topped hue and cry is fun to watch, but less interesting to join. It’s one long session and math rules and while it’s easy to blame the inanimate RNG, this kind of stuff is going to happen.

Which makes it difficult for me to join the conspiracy nuts. But the evidence I’m about to submit is cut and dried. I have to say it:

Mario Party 8 is rigged. Totally rigged.

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