U-Haulin' It, Workin' It, Lassoin' It

So last weekend (the long but still not long enough weekend) was card free. I flew into Kamloops Friday to visit my Mom who lives near Salmon Arm. We had a fun weekend, and being the good son that I am, I took full advantage of her generosity by leaving her fridge dry and empty. She recently moved, and I turned out to be the lucky recipient of some pimp new to me leather couches. I rented a U-Haul truck to make the trek back. I had no idea what I was in store for. Turns out these lean, mean, V8 powered, AM/FM radio equipped machines are quite the hit with the female variety. I was overwhelmed by enthusiastic waves from ladies while they pressed their chests up against the window and whizzed by me in the passing lane. Even this silver fox in a motor home pulling a Ford Taurus took a shining to my ride. She blew me a kiss and flashed her tan colored brassiere. I played it cool though. I just gave her the "hang loose" wave out the open window in my bright orange Ocean Pacific muscle-T with Classic Rock FM cranking.

The U-Haul adventure did not end on the #1, however. Along my journey Katy sent me a text and asked how the big bad U-Haul was treating me, so I told her about my encounters along the TransCanada. Obviously, she needed to see this magical unit for herself. Once I got the couches unloaded with Q's help, and took my now ex-futon over to his place I figured I should swing by Katy's. I crept up slowly (with my lights off, of course) to her front door as she came out to meet me, and she was obviously impressed. Not having the will power to resist, she jumped in the cab before I was even able to come to a stop. We proceeded to cruise the alleyways of Kensington, running over any curbs we felt were an inconvenience and slowly creeping up on unsuspecting pedestrians. It's surprisingly difficult to dodge potholes when navigating the big V8 down alleys. It's a good thing we weren't delivering chandeliers.

Apparently it was monsoon season in Calgary last week. I think we got approximately 17 feet of rain, give or take. I only rode the bike once, and despite it being great poker weather, only got in one session of cards. Made a decent run in a $109 turbo with about 160 people in it. Finished 6th for just over $700, which didn't actually put me up a whole bunch overall so it's hardly blog worthy. Figured I'd just toss it in there since I'm lacking stories of poker glory in this post.

This past weekend I took in 2 birthday celebrations. On Friday was Darcy's. She was a trooper, and even gave her best effort at a muff dive shot. Well, at least she thought it was a shot. The sly waitress decided to leave the shot out, and let her fish around for it when really she was just getting a face full of whip cream. Good times were had by all. Especially this fella, who appeared to be a very eligible bachelor and was certainly not scared to work it out there. I took video so us guys can take notes:

On Saturday was Jenn H's celebration which also proved to be a very good time. Hit up the Local 510 pub on 17th. Was a good turnout, the section Jenn had reserved for the party got swallowed up fairly quickly by mobs of people. After shutting the place down, we headed down 17th in search of some healthy eats. Since the lineups at Tubby Dog and The Poutinery were far too long for our stomachs to handle, we continued on to find some grade C pizza. Along the way, we discovered what appeared to be some long climbing straps laying bunched up on the sidewalk. Naturally we were all intrigued by this discovery, so we adopted them figuring they would come in handy somewhere along our journey. Sean discovered in the pizza place that they were best suited for a lasso. After futile attempts to lasso a bottle of hot sauce from the neighboring table, he took his skills to the street in an honest effort to lasso us some cabs. He was briefly distracted by a young girl running across the street, and attempted to lasso her as well. As Sean explained it this morning, her friends across the street noticed what was developing and yelled "don't you lasso her!" as the infamous Saltwater Cowboy twirled his lasso. His efforts eventually paid off, and he lassoed us all some cabs.

Needless to say, I was a bit groggy on Sunday after the two late nights. Around 3pm I entered a few poker tournaments but I felt about as sharp as playdough. I did not last very long in these tournaments, and did not enter any after that realizing my brain was clearly not functioning properly.

Till next time, keep fit and have fun! (Advice credit: Hal Johnson and Joanne McLeod)

Josh

Cards and Chords

Oh hi again. So I haven't played too many sessions since my last post. Two, to be exact. Both on Sundays, and both relatively uneventful so this should be a quick update. I've continued some pretty good play since my last post. I was actually really pleased how I played this past Sunday despite it being a break even day. That's just how it goes sometimes, didn't quite catch the breaks to take anything really deep. I've only played in one SCOOP event ($215, $1M Gtd), just the timing of the schedule hasn't worked out for me. I was actually building a neat little stack in that event until I got it all in preflop with a maniac who overplayed JJ and sucked out on me, catching a J on the turn to beat my KK. That was about 3 hours into the tourney, and since the SCOOP tourney structure is suuuuuuuuper slow we were probably about 5 hours from the money still so it wasn't too devastating. It's kind of like getting home on a really hot summer day and pouring yourself that last glass of cold lemonade from the fridge, only to spill it all over the floor. Does that suck? Well, yes. However, life goes on and you can always make more lemonade.

In other news, I purchased a shiny new acoustic guitar on Saturday. Or as the 3 year old version of me would call it, a "rictar" (my Mom or Dad may need to confirm the exact spelling). Yeah, when I was around 3 years old I had a pretty bad ass yellow plastic rictar. I'm going to be honest with you, it was a total babe magnet. I even wrote a song. I would put bandaids on and sing my famous hit "I got a bleed" as I strummed away. So here we are, 24ish years later and I'm back at it. I'm a little rusty with the chords required to play "I got a bleed" , but I'm working hard at it. Should be a fun challenge and I'm looking forward to it.

Well that's all for now, thanks for stopping by!

Josh      

An Early Morning Tale

It was very, very early Thursday morning, around 1:00am. It was dark and quiet. I didn't have any pants on. The sound of my slowly increasing heartbeat echoing through my chest was the only thing keeping me awake. I wiped a small bead of sweat from my brow. Then it happened. I found myself at the final table of the $320 Wednesday 100K Gtd. It was at that point I realized my first ever 5 figure tournament cash was well within my grasp. Nine people remained. Third place and up was what it took to get there. By about 2:30am, I was eliminated in 3rd place, taking in 11.3K, a new personal best by nearly 4K. Oh hi. At that point, after 8 hours at work, almost 2 hours on the bike to and from work, a few chores, and then 8 hours of poker I was too tired to show any emotion. I got up from my desk about as quickly as an arthritic 80 year old, and plunked down on my bed. Somehow I woke up 4 hours later, before my alarm, and biked back to work.

This was a very encouraging result. Not because of the money, but because of the quality of players this tournament attracts and the way in which I played to get a 3rd place finish. With the higher buy-in, it attracts generally strong players with bigger bankrolls. The eventual winner, "rivermanl", is a highly respected online tournament player who has stood the test of time in the poker world. He was victorious for one reason, he was the most skilled and experienced player at the final table. Was that 2 reasons? Anyway, he is so difficult to play against, he is very aggressive and has a way of always putting your back against the wall and forcing tough decisions on you. I paid close to attention to his style, not only to help me play against him more effectively in the future, but also to learn. So congrats to him on another sick score (20K) and a very well played tournament.

I want to talk about one interesting hand mid-way through the tournament where I did something that I rarely do, put all my chips at risk on a pure bluff. For those who don't care, you can skip to the bottom :) A player in mid-position, who was fairly active, raised pre-flop. I was on the button with A7 suited. Now, this isn't a great starting hand to be calling raises with, but since he was an active player who I had position on (having position simply means you are last to act every round of betting) I decided to re-raise, and hopefully pick up the pot pre-flop. If he comes over the top of me, I have to fold. If he calls, at least I have position on him and can outplay him more easily. He flat calls. The flop comes K-K-3. Clearly I whiffed that flop, and have nothing. I'd say the chance my hand is stronger than his at this point is about 2%. He is first to act (since I'm on the button in position), and he checks to me. The tricky thing about his check is that he is probably checking that flop every time, no matter what he has. If he has a K, he might slow play it, if he has air (like I have) he'll likely check, or even a smaller pair, say TT is likely to check-call if I bet, and then re-evaluate on the turn. I decided to throw out a small feeler bet, about 1/3 of the pot which could easily rep a K in my hand, or another big pair since I took control of the pot by re-raising preflop and showing strength. He goes into his timebank for a while, then throws in a re-raise, a little under 3 times my bet. So now I go into my timebank and think about what he could possibly have. Clearly he has me beat, but the pot was growing and I figured it deserved some serious consideration. He could have a K, yes. Probably not AK as he probably would have come over the top of me pre-flop. KQ, KJ, KT, etc would be kind of weak to flat a re-raise with pre-flop and out of position and I didn't have him pegged as a weak player. It just didn't feel like he had a K, and was just trying to represent a K. I put him on a hand like AQ, or possibly a pair like TT. Both of which dominate me, but hands I don't think he can call with. I figured if I shoved all-in over his re-raise that he wouldn't be able to call me unless he had a K, which I didn't feel he had. So with a complete garbage hand and the courage to trust my instinct for my tournament life, I shoved all my chips in the middle. He went into his timebank....I'm waiting....waiting.....waiting....sweating....possibly even screaming "FOLD!".....and he eventually did. He types in the chatbox "nice hand, I folded JJ". I did not tell him what I had. That ended up being a pretty big pot for having absolutely nothing.

Well, next on the agenda is possibly some SCOOP events. Starts this Sunday, but I'll play it by ear. Was sure nice to kick that dirty MTT downswing I was on with a big showing in this event. Good timing with some big tournaments to come in May. A little extra confidence never hurts.

That is my story.

Josh