Wednesday

It feels like Friday. Probably due to the ensuing craziness I'll be facing at work today. So I'll make this quick.

Mookie tonight as the BBToo rolls along and I continue the quest to win one of these through sheer luckboxery. I mean, when there's a verb created using your name, you need to maintain a certain standard.

And don't forget The Spook tonight as well! $2.50 short-handed short-stack madness! It will probably last about 45 minutes.

Hitting The Snooze Button

The BBT will be the death of me purely due to exhaustion. It doesn't help that I'm a night owl anyway, which makes it feel odd to force myself to go to bed after watching the MATH close out.

Regardless, after a night of inadequate sleep, the tilt is gone. Congrats to XxMagiciaNxX for taking a TOC seat, and Wormmsu for making him work for it.

I haven't changed my opinion that after Fuel was knocked out in 9th that the table was the biggest display of weak-tight "poker" I've ever seen. I'm somewhat guilty myself, but my rationale is that I had an above-average stack with 3 very short stacks there and figured there'd be some mutual destruction happening before I had to turn up the aggression. Not that I was playing for the money, but for the improved odds of a smaller table.

Unfortunately, my stack dwindled as the table passed around blinds, unless I tried to get some. So with my rank and chips dropping, I told Tragedy that I was cranking it up the next orbit. I pushed with ATC in position, and then decided that T9o was good from the hijack. I got called by the jackace and the board beat me further. Fine, I hope my pushes get called by jackace all day long. I was actually glad to get away from that bingo game at that point.

One last thing to clarify how I feel about that FT - Not a single one of you was playing to win, you were playing to not lose. Keep waiting for an ace or paint, you'll go far. Maybe I should stop tapping.

Anyway, on to my play. I got sickly lucky once that I can recall - I ran 77 into a flopped set of aces, only to river the 8-high straight. It was fugly. Other than that, I had a reason for every seemingly bad call I made, which I won't really get into. There was twice where I made a call figuring I was either behind (but had a large chip lead and pot odds) or facing a strong drawing hand. I was wrong both times in my reads and was in better shape that I hoped. I'm not sure if that makes me a complete donkey or not, but in the end, I called when ahead.

I also had one call I didn't make that was pure idiocy. I had just doubled-up early on and was sitting in the top 5 with 7k in chips. I got to the turn vs two players (Columbo and somone else), and EP pushed for his last 1k or so into a 4k pot. I had an OESD and flush draw with one card to come, on a paired board with Columbo to act behind me, covered by that 1k bet. Should I be afraid of the boat with 5:1 odds and probably 6:1 implied with 15 outs to a hand that will beat a set? I think not. I practically automucked and instantly smacked myself. I lose that hand, I have 5k early on, I win and I have 12k. Naturally my flush filled on the river and would have beat the trip tens EP had and Columbo's cowboys. I mucked because for a second I didn't pay attention. I didn't look at the pot size, or the stack size behind me, or my stack size, just the all-in, and laid down my draw.

In the long run, does it make a difference? I think so. That early, with that deep a stack, I can push around a table, keep building, and be even stronger later on. The power of compound interest if you will. Yes, I took the chip lead later with a monster stack, but I could have been steamrolling far earlier, and it would have likely made a difference at the final table.

Mookie is tomorrow, and 21 more chances after that.

3/5

5 BBT events, 3 final tables, a whole whack of Astinbaynage I'm sure. Just ask Chad, Fuel, or anyone else sitting with me in the MATH, I'm sure they'll agree.

Although I think I made the most of the hands I had, and finished 8th.

I'm not going to go into any details, but I'm totally tilting right now, and I don't tilt easily. The FT in this MATH has to be the most weak-tight bunch of crap I've seen. I wish Fuel had lasted beyond 9th and kept it interesting. Everyone's waiting for aces. It ain't poker, that's for sure.

Anyway, I eventually just started pushing my shortening stack with just about ATC in position, won some blinds, and got isolated by AJo when I held T9o. Lots of catches for the Jackace, none for moi, and IGH.

'Nite.

TGIM!

Ha! Like I'd actually be glad it's Monday. Wait, why I AM glad it's Monday. Why? Because BBToo continues tonight with Mondays at the Hoy! I'm going to take down one of these soon, and I don't see why tonight can't be the one. I think I've calculated the proper amount of luckboxery required and submitted my request for hands to the dealers along with the necessary compromising photos. I expect no fewer than 12 pocket aces, 7 cowboys vs stone-cold bluffs, AK 10 times without need for a showdown, and about 20 hands that I get in cheaply with that catch flops, straights, sets, and quads for the wins. Also, no suckouts please, kthxbye.

So just know that if I bet (I know, it's rare), I have the nuts and you're beat. Call at your own peril.

Congrats to Don for the deep run in the 750k last night. I'm not sure which sucks more, that he got caught stealing or that the pocket jacks that caught him flopped the set. Regardless, gg.

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Picked up Guitar Hero III yesterday for the Wii. I didn't even realize it was out, but went to Best Buy and there it was. My fingers are sore. Hoy - HIGHLY recommended game for the Wii (or any system), just be sure to pick up the one with the guitar controller. Kinda hard (read: impossible) to play without it. It did make me feel old though. As the game progresses, the songs keep getting newer, and I'm now in Japan without a clue what any of the tracks I'm playing are. I recognize some of the bands (Queens of the Stone Age for example), but not the songs. It's cool when Slash or Tom Morello come on stage and challenge you to a guitar battle though.

My Halloween costume was finished in time - Marvin the Martian was I, and I think it worked well. Maybe I'll post a pic. Probably not. Small but enjoyable party at a buddy's place. Many of the usual suspects were missing for various reasons, but a good bit of the core was there. Highlight of the night was when the "sexy cowgirl" invited me to something a friend of mine was inviting HER to... nothing like inadvertent cockblocking. I owe him one anyway.

Toss in the night starting with, "we need a picture of you because cute-so-and-so can't make it but wanted to know what you'd be dressed as" and it makes for a good ego-boosting time.

Ze Plan For Tonight

For anybody stalking me:

I've got to finish getting my costume together. This means finding a cheap pair of oversized white sneakers (harder than you think. I'm not dropping $80 on shoes I plan to draw on and wear one night). Chinatown, here I come!

I also need a wooden dowel. This will be glued, although I realize too late I could screw it on (but I drilled a HUGE hole in an attempt at a different attachement, and don't think I have a screw with a large enough head. I could use filler I guess).

Then I have to assemble it all. I'm hoping one piece holds together, otherwise it'll be a disaster of trying to rebuild in time. I may need more green spray paint too.

The final decision is - projectile weapon or not? I think we all know the answer.

After all that, it's donkament time! Naturally, this requires drinking. I think I'm going martini-style tonight. I also think I'll be creating as I go. Considering my mix currently consists of milk, cream, a bit of cranberry, and a variety of pops (but I may be out of club soda). it could be interesting.

Possible alcoholic components: Golden Pear, Creme de Cassis, Sloe Gin, Green Tea, Honey, Herbal Vodka, Ultimat Vodka, Butter schnapps, creme de menthe, creme de cacao, Navan (vanilla Grand Marnier), strawberry liqueur....

hold it.. think I've got one.

The strawberry liqueur I have (blanking on the name, but it's got a bunch of wild strawberries floating in it), creme de cacao, navan, and some base (likely strawberry vodka, or maybe a more premium one)... Neopolitan!

Hmm.. vanilla could be a base flavour for the night. Perhaps a variety of ice-cream inspired drinks. Mint chocolate... honey orange... vanilla pear... black cherry vanilla... mmm. I may have to pick up some vanilla vodka. That would bring my vodka count to something like 13 bottles. Seriously. Lime sorbet martini!! Lime vodka, crushed ice, lime juice.

Expect nothing resembling reasonable play from me tonight.

Meme

I hate these things. But this one seems interesting and I'm bored.

Four Jobs I've Held
1.- Developer/Support/Trader (same job, same company, it just evolves)
2.- HR Database builder/administrator
3.- Developer/co-ordinator for a pilot project using PDAs in the field for safety inspectors (this involved a summer of goofing off)
4.- QA tester for a trading firm

Four Films I Could Watch Over and Over
1.- Almost Famous
2.- Galaxy Quest
3.- The Matrix
4.- Original Star Wars Trilogy

Four TV Shows I Watch
1.- Dr. Who
2.- Battlestar Galactica
3.- Heroes
4.- The Daily Show & Colbert Report

Four Places I've Lived
1.- Malton (Toronto Suburb)
2.- Etobicoke (Toronto Suburb, now part of Toronto)
3.- Downtown Toronto
4.- Fantasyland

Four Favourite Foods
1.- "Chicken Supreme" (mom's recipe which I have down cold, adapted from Julia Child)
2.- BBQ Pork Ribs
3.- Fresh Chocolate Chip Cookies
4.- BC Salmon

Four Websites I Visit Daily
1.- Canoe.ca
2.- Boingboing.net
3.- Redflagdeals.com
4.- My blog and the blogs linked from it

Four Favourite Colours
1.- Sapphire Blue
2.- Emerald Green
3.- Sunset Orange
4.- Vibrant blue-indigo

Four Places I'd Love to be Right Now
1.- Vegas
2.- Key West
3.- Paris
4.- Asleep

Four Names I Like But Wouldn't Give My Children
1.- Werner
2.- Cytheria
3.- Mistaya
4.- Norax, Devourer of Worlds

Four Favourite Books
1.- Just About all of Terry Brooks' Catalogue
2.- Wheel of Time Books 1-5
3.- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
4.- The Thrawn Trilogy

I Get Brokeback Mountain...

... because cowyboys fucked me in the ass. The difference being that I didn't want them to. Also, no Randy Quaid denying me work the following summer.

Riverchasers last night, and my least favourite thing in Poker happened. I'm playing a pretty tight game, especially with Lucko two to my left, when I find KK in the BB. UTG raises, it folds to me and I push my rapidly shortening stack (M=7ish), knowing I'd get a call. As expected, I got the call, by a man with Aces. To seal it, there was an A on the flop, followed by the board pairing fours on the turn, and my night is over in 39th place.

Congrats go to Lucko for getting his TOC seat and winning the Chasers. The man just built his stack all night.

What really smarts is that with jjok coming in 19th and Lucko getting 1st, I dropped to 3rd on the leaderboard. I wanted to close out the first week in first place. Dagnabbit. And naturally, with Lucko in the last-longer, he won that too.

Ah well, Kat's Donkament is tonight and I've managed to more than triple my measly Tilt bankroll with my blogger cashes this week, so I'll likely be donking it up instead of doing something like having a social life.

Well, that and finishing up my costume for the Halloween party tomorrow. It's gonna rock sixteen ways. I was Zoot last year, and I think this year's will rank as just as cool, but more recognized. I may need more green spray paint though...

BBToo Continues

Riverchasers tonight. 30th on Sunday, 6th on Monday, 2nd last night, the trend points to first. Alternately, I could tiptoe through a minefield amongst a bunch of drunk elephants and hope to make it to the other side unscathed. But hey, I'm a luckbox, right? I should have no problem making it with my 17 pocket aces, 23 cowboys, and 107 rivered nut flushes. My real money makers are the turned boats with 52o.

But enough of that. Did everyone see that you can write your way into the TOC? I seem to have missed that option. Two seats for whomever writes the best fictional account of their time in Melbourne after winning the TOC and having Full Tilte send them and a guest off to the land down under (great, now that song's stuck).

The real question is - if you win a seat by playing, can you still win a seat by writing, thereby eliminating even more competition?

See you at the 'Chasers. I expect 100 to be broken yet again. Maybe even 120 this time? That's a very full fishtank.

In the meantime:

It was dark and stormy night... in Australia...

Sooooo Close

It's a familiar story. Astin amasses huge chip lead, Astin doesn't win. 2nd isn't anything to be ashamed of, but these are winner-take-alls here. 112 runners, a new Mookie and BBT record.

Before anything else - A BIG congrats to Iggy for the win and the TOC seat. It was a hell of a battle and you completely deserve it. I hope to see you at the final table in the big one.





How it ended. Money in on the flop. I didn't put him on a set (for the second time that night), figured I had 11 outs twice at least, so I pushed. Well played Iggy.


Unlike at the MATH, I didn't make any tremendously stupid mistakes this time. I trusted my reads, got out of the way, and got cards when I needed them. For the record - AA 3x, KK 3x, AK a bunch. Most of it was early, and only one AA got me any serious chips towards the end.

I had one bad beat near the beginning when PokerBrian rivered a boat against my turned nut straight (not long before we'd split a flopped straight), but the doublestacks saved me and I had enough to fight back.

I got lucky when I was still the short stack (in fact last place at the time.. 39th?) and found snowmen. There was a bet before me, I pushed, there was a re-push and the original better called us both. I was against AQo and AKo, all of us red. Flop brought an 8, and then a 4-flush in the spades that nobody had. I was a 46% favourite, but I was lucky for the lack of spades. Has anybody seen more 4-flushes in one game than last night? It felt like every 3rd hand had 4 of one suit on the board.

I made one call against Iggy when he had a set vs my TP, but the odds looked good, there were no draws on the board (if I recall), and it would have won it for me right there. Losing didn't crush me and I built back up until a well-timed large raise on the turn by the Blogfather, when I had bottom pair and an inside straight draw and tried to steal it there, forced me to lay it down.

I am a bit confused by the vitriol sent my way in the chat during the final table. I'll go with the assumption Don decided to try and tilt me from the rail, although I have no idea why I was chosen. Something about being the worst blogger and how I sucked. Standard Don stuff. I'm having a really hard time taking it seriously. Oddly enough, I didn't knock him out. I didn't even sit at his table the whole night. I should have taken the last longer bet though. Ah well, that's a bad beat.

Ready, Set, Mookie!

Is everybody ready for tonight's Mookie? I think it would be safe to say it's guaranteed to be the biggest turnout ever for a blogger game, possibly including the old Wheaties (which I believe once topped 100 runners). I mean, if 57 can make the Big Game @ $75, 82 make a MATH @ $26, how many will show up for the $10 Mook? Will Al's head explode from the numbers? I can see it breaking 100, maybe 110? Imagine a Mookie with a $1000+ pool.

That's a lot of fish.

A Scenario

For some reason, I was thinking back to a live game I played earlier this year when I was at the River Rock in Vancouver. At the time, I posted about the table, how card dead I was, etc.. I'm curious on how you'd play this table.

It's a 10-person 200NL cash game, you're in seat 6. The players are:

1 - A rock. Doesn't speak much, TAG. If he starts talking, you're in trouble
2 - Mouth-breather. Baseball cap on loose and sideways, jaw slack, glazed eyes, a bit of drool. Screams moron and plays like one.
3 - Decent player. Will play pairs, connectors, suited aces and kings. Will fold.
4 - Weak-loose. Willing to see a lot of flops, but folds to any scare card. Has chips from catching a couple hands. Not nearly as good at reads as he thinks he is.
5 - Pathetic aggression. Tosses chips in trying to scare off opponents. Everyone knows he's full of crap. Everything about screams he's full of crap. Plus his not-as-cute-as-he-hopes girlfriend is constantly standing at his shoulder.
6 - Hero
7 - LAG. Straddles every time he's UTG. Talks a lot. Will hammer you with bets if he has a hand or not. Unlike 5, you never know if he's full of it or not.
8 - ABC poker. Bets with medium-big pairs, protects on flops.
9 - Big stack. Plays just like 7, and in fact seems to be his friend. He's had a good night with at least 4 buy-ins in front of him.
10 - Very much like 1. Rock, quiet, solid.

There is no way short of all-in that you're winning pre-flop. Winning on the flop is also unlikely. In fact, most hands will go to the river without SEVERE aggression, but you won't necessarily see a showdown.

Obviously 2, 3, 4, 5, and 8 are easy marks. 1 and 10 can be avoided. However, either 7 or 9 will be in every hand and playing hard. You bet, they'll re-raise. You re-raise they'll call and bet hard on the next card. They have the chips to make it matter.

Now the final bit - you are absolutely card dead. In two hours your best hand is pocket 3s. Next comes ATs. The only hand you have that catches anything is a Q8o that flops a straight, but you threw it away pre-flop becuase 3 players were in before you with bets and raises. You've got garbage, and NONE of it catches anything.

So a mixed table with just about the whole range of players, and you have no cards. Two LAGs to your left, and most of the easy players to your right. What do you do?

I think the best way to play is to request a table change. At the very least, a seat change to 2. The whole experience taught me something about the importance of position and table-selection. You can win with no cards, but not if you can't get people to fold.

What do you think?

Just Like Hoy

Went from this:



... to being out 6th. I'll take the cash, but I really wanted the win. I made one absolutely asinine donkey move that killed me. I have AQ, I call jjok's raise, thinking he has AK. I have no idea why other than it was relatively cheap. Flop comes KxA and I bet. He pushes and I CALL. I, like Hoy the other day, went from playing what I put him on to playing what I wanted him to have (a weaker A or a K). It halved my stack, and I never recovered. I then lost more with 88 vs QQ (right after JoeSpeaker lost with 88 to JJ) and finally pushed with A9 and ran into jjok's JJ (which rivered the set just for fun). I blame it all on my donk AQ move. I played a great game the whole way and one mistake hurt at the exact wrong time.

Damn.

Another One

Did I miss a memo somewhere? Am I supposed to be invited to Vegas in Dec? I think the closest to an invite I ever got was, "hey, are you going?"

Seems someone thinks they need an invite. If you don't know who Dr. Chako is, go read Tragedy's blog. He's stuck in that cesspool of a war in Iraq, and it seems unlikely he'll get leave to come to Vegas. His wife however, has been before, but now is unsure as she hasn't been invited.

Go, comment, show her the love. I've never met her, I barely read her blog, but I know that if she doesn't go to Vegas, I won't meet her, and she won't meet all the wonderful people she has yet to meet either. Who would debate something like that?

Specs

So in the end, this is what I've spent the last week building (stupid hard drives).

Intel Core Duo E6750
Asus P5KE WiFi-AP board
2GB Crucial Ballistix DDR2-8500
BFG Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTS OC2 320MB
2x160GB SATA RAID 1 (formats to about 150GB)
2x320GB SATA RAID 0 (formats to about 600GB)
LG Dual-layer SATA DVD burner
Antec TruePower 3-rail 650W PSU
WD 500GB SATA drive hooked up externally in a NexStar external HD case. With this attached, I have 1.25TB of space at my disposal, but the external drive is for backup and transfer purposes.

That's the new stuff. If graphic cards had stayed with the AGP standard instead of moving to PCI-E, I would have just bought a new card for my Athlon64 3500+ setup, but instead I spent a few dollars more to upgrade everything.

It's got my D-Link Extreme-N wireless card in there (the only reason I have a WiFi board is because you can't find the non WiFi version), along with my favourite DVD drive ever (Pioneer 10x slot-loader. The first DVD anything I owned), and I'm currently using the onboard sound, but methinks I'll be putting my SoundBlaster Audigy back in for the EAX capabilities which I believe has EAX 1.0 and 2.0 on it. It's all nestled snugly into my Lian Li PC-68 aluminum case with its four case fans (all quiet Zalman 80mm). Plugged in is my Samsung 225BW 22" flat panel monitor, and my Logitech wireless mouse and keyboard combo (don't remember the combo name, but the mouse is an MX700). The Canon MP750 multifunction printer/scanner is there too, but it's called a peripheral for a
reason.

I've never not claimed to be a geek. Now to call my cell provider and upgrade my phone to a Samsung u740 so I can have it before Vegas. Lots of texting is likely.

A Vegas Without Sean...

would be A TRAGEDY!

Since I can't post in his new-fangled blog (TypeKey no likey), I'll just post it here, knowing he comes by once in a while.

Instant Tragedy NEEDS to come to Vegas. He's got the days off, the kids are visiting in November, and we know we want him there. So what if he's low-limit? He's hardly the only one. Not much of a drinker? Not much of an issue. Nothing quite as amusing as watching others behave like asses.

But most importantly... you can't do BDR live without Tragedy!

Speaking of BDR... had BuddyDouche figured out if he's coming yet or not? If you say no, you're a pussy.

So everybody bug IT into making the trip. Buddy too I guess. :)

Anybody else who is wavering? Quit it and BOOK IT!

Excuses and my Responses:

- I don't have the time
- Leave Friday night, red-eye back Sunday. You can't set aside a weekend 1 1/2 months in advance?

- I don't gamble
- Then don't. See some shows, see the town, drink!

- I don't drink
- You're not the only one. See above.

- I don't know anybody
- So? After about 30 seconds, you'll know 30 people and consider them your friends.

- I have nobody to room with.
- You have a blog. Put out a request. Last I heard, Buddy was looking for a roomie. Or go solo, then you have some place to bring back that hot hooker you met at the bar.

- I'm afraid of flying
- Start walking. You'll save a bundle! Or drive or something. Or move to Vegas.

- I get epileptic seisures with flashing lights.
- Wear shades and avoid the flashing lights

- I'm broke
- People need kidneys. You need money. You have an extra kidney. They have extra money. Do the math.

- I'm a pussy
- Then prove you're not. Pussy.

- I have no idea what you're talking about.
- Stop Googling the word "pussy" then. Because you'll end up here. Also, it's "I Can't Believe I TOOK the Whole Thing", not ATE. Keep your porn titles and Alka-Seltzer ads separate. Please.

- My parents didn't hug me enough as a child.
- Come, you'll get plenty of hugs.

- I live in a war-torn country with closed borders and a dictatorial tyrant as a leader.
- Put together a survival kit and don't stop running until you get through that hole in security. Remember, the human factor is the weakest point of any system. Once you're across the border, sell that kidney and COME TO VEGAS!

- My grandmother died.
- What? Just before the trip? How would you know that? Unless you're planning on killing her! Don't do that! Come to Vegas! If you're not planning a murder, then how healthy are her organs?

- I'm missing a kidney.
- Do you have money? See above and network. Alternately, gamble, win, and buy a new one. Or better yet fashion one out of your winnings. Mmmm... moneykidney.

Okay.. I'm done.

They Can't All Hold Up

Solved my issue by firing up a Tier 1 on Saturday around 1am or so and dominating that. Then I fired up the Tier 2 right afterwards, and through constant slipping off into unconciousness and strong play, won a token in that. Off to the races with me.

Made my live game, and went out after the first break after this brilliant play:

Dealt AA UTG+1, 150-300 with a 50 ante, I have 14k in chips. I raise to 1200 and the table folds to the button, who calls. I've been playing pretty tight so far and the only hand that's been shown was KQ that split with this same guy's KQ.

Flop come 568 with two hearts and I bet 2k into the 3300 pot. Button goes all-in, and I have him covered with 1200 left behind. I think. I look at that flop and worry about a set. No way he flopped the straight, but a flush draw is a possibility. Maybe suited connectors? I finally put him on an overpair and call.

He flips over K7o???? He called a tight player with K7o?? Connectors I could see, a 1-gapper I could see. Seeing a set wouldn't have surprised me. I'd put me on a strong hand pre-flop and call with an Ace-cracker, but K7o no heart? Wow. By far the donkiest hand I'd seen this guy play (and he'd played a few). So I'm 65% and naturally a 4 comes on the turn and I'm crippled.

Next hand I see JT and push my 1200. I get 5 callers but nothing on the board and I literally go home.

Fine. Gave me time to get some other things done before The Big Game. Went about 1 1/2 hours in that one before a donk move by me and a donk move by The Goat knocked me out (I say that in the nicest way possible JG).

Some decent play, steals, resteals, and cards that got me nothing (KK twice) had me sitting in the top 15 with 30 left. I'd been as high as 9th I think. Tripjax had been luckboxing like a madman to build a huge stack and I had some sort of suited connectors that I called his raise with. The flop brought me an inside straight and flush draw for 12 outs twice and Trip overbet the pot. I called, and it brought me to 1600 chips left, with a pot of over 4800 or thereabouts. Turn gave me an OESD with the flush draw and we both checked. River paired the board, check, check and Trip has an ace. Damn.

Mistakes I see: I like my call preflop. I hate my call on the flop. I should have pushed or folded. If he's bluffing, the 1600 extra MAY be enough to get him off with his stack not committing him to the pot. Although that's unlikely, it at least takes away any decisions I have to make on the turn if he does anything other than check. Does a push on the turn or river help me? Maybe. If I fold, I've got far more chips to play with.

Next hand I see AK UTG and push. Folds all around to Julius Goat who calls with AT. T on the flop or turn and somewhere I hear a fat lady singing.

Ah well. Cost me $35 or something in peeps to make it. Cost me far more to lose live earlier.

Then I fired up a lvl 1 peep, kicked ass but forgot to take names for a token for The Hoy tonight. So far, BBTwo has cost me around $44. I've decided to calculate based on this simple formula: (Bankroll after BBTwo) - (Bankroll before BBTwo) - (P&L for non BBTwo-related games) = Profit (or Loss) for BBTwo. If I token in to a game, then it costs me $8.70. Why? Because that was the purpose of the token. If it takes two attempts, it's $17.40 Consider it a non-optional satellite.

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In other news - the cats seem to be getting along. To the point where they were both sharing the top of the giant cat tree in the living room this morning. Good.

My computer is on its way to recovery. I spent the weekend installing and upgrading my new box, yay technology! After that was done, I hooked up my messed up drives and scanned them. Lo! It did discover data! Boo! It recovered it terribly. File extensions I've NEVER had were there, and none had a name. 20kb PNGs? I don't think so. So I deleted that recovered data (on a different drive) and tried again. This morning I attempted another recovery and it appears all is going as well as can be expected. Files with FULL file names now appearing, in all their full-sized glory. I can actually VIEW my pictures again! I left it running as I left for work, and expect a fun-filled night of renaming directories and rebuilding trees. As long as the files are there, and named, I'm happy.

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**UPDATE: Congrats to Jeciimd for taking down the Big Game. He has now pretty much guaranteed he will have a much better ROI than the first one, and not get harrassed for always pointing and not cashing. Nicely done.

It also helps a bit that both Tripjax (2nd) and The Goat cashed as well. Glad my chips worked out.

A Quandry

As is known, BBTwo kicks off on Sunday with Don's Big Game. I am faced with a dilemma. I'm out tonight, I'm busy tomorrow building computers and installing software, and on Sunday I have a live tournament at 3pm that could conceivably go until 7 or 8. I don't yet have a $75 token, and it seems unlikely that I'll be able to play for one before Sunday rolls around. I've already invested $26-and-change into token attempts, with one bubble to the desired token.

So, what's a guy to do? I imagine that by the time I get home tonight, I'll either be drunk or exhausted or both, which does not bode well for playing ability. I might be able to squeeze in a game tomorrow night, or Sunday morning (like I'll be awake). I'm actually pretty happy that I haven't reloaded at Tilt in months, but buying in directly would drop my small roll there to dangerously low. I can easily reload, but I'd rather try and actually make this poker habit profitable.

Oh, who am I kidding? If I don't token in, I'll be buying in. I'll just have to win the thing, build up the roll to a level that can pay for the whole BBT, and get that TOC spot out of the way quickly. Maybe combine it with a juicy live score and make it a truly profitable day.

BOOKED!

VEGAS BABY!

Flight and hotel are book-ed! We (me and two buddies) are getting in on the 6th at 2:45pm and leaving on the red-eye on Sunday. Staying at the soon-to-be-grand-opened Planet Hollywood. This puts me pretty central to all the action.

I'll definitely be there for Craps and Pai Gow on Thursday. Karaoke, however, well... let's see how many drinks I have at Pai Gow to see if I show up for that portion of the evening.

Okay then... let's get rid of November so I can get to this faster.

Progress

Thank [insert deity here] it's Friday.

It's somewhat bittersweet that I'm planning to meet up with some friends tonight. There's shit I want to get done. Plus, I'm running on 3 hours of sleep, so I may not be at my best.

Anyway, progress is being made on all those pesky fronts taking place in the real world. The cats were properly introduced last night and on the whole, it went quite well. Minimal hissing and growling, and no fighting. Good.

Computer tribulations continue. I still haven't recovered the drives I hosed, but I think it's just a matter of time. See, I started the scan on a virtual RAID, and it moved along nicely. Then it slowed to a crawl. Then it picked up. Then it stalled completely. Well, that was a waste of 20 hours.

So I decided to build my new machine regardless, and attempt recovery on it. I figure a Core Duo E6750 with 2 GB of DDR2-8500 might be a TOUCH quicker than an Athlon64 3500+ with 1 GB of DDR-266. So, after unravelling the tangle of cables and removing the old board, powersupply, and associated cards, I then reassembled them in another box. Then came the new stuff, which got assembled (damn that heatsink is a pain to get attached firmly), and put into the nice aluminium case. Arounds this time (1 am), my buddy called to see if he could come by. Lucky him I was up, and I knew he was calling from downstairs. So I had some company for a couple hours as I assembled, and he had a needed friendly face.

3am, a drive is nearly formatted (WTF? It's 160 GB drive and it's only formatting for 130?), and my friend leaves. I sit down and continue the XP installation (I'll get around to Vista eventually... let them fix it first). It installed quickly, but XP vanilla doesn't have wireless support, and for some reason the motherboard drivers/utilities disc wasn't reading properly either. Joy. I said, "screw it," hooked up the old machine and fired it up. Somehow I spent about an hour fiddling with both machines before just going to bed around 5. I had the foresight to move my alarms to 8am instead of 7. Yay.

So sometime this weekend, I need to finish getting XP up-to-date, recovering my drives, and making world made a better place (for me at least).

Needless to say, no poker content. That will come Sunday.

Vegas booking hit a snag when the airfare jumped $200 on my final booking click. My fault, I waited forever to actually book. Stupid me. But now there's a slightly less convenient option. If my friend every gets back to me, I can book it.

Quick Question

Just about to book Vegas (finally!). Last minute change to Planet Hollywood instead of TI. Good idea? It's cheaper, better located, and still falls under "recently renovated". Plus Mookie seemed to like the buffet.

I mean, it's just a place to collapse drunkenly for 3-5 hours, right?