Big Tilt Upgrade

Mookie's got a list of the changes with the latest Full Tilt client update.

On top of that, a $100 bonus went out yesterday as an apology for all the outages last week. I didn't encounter any, but I'll take free money, especially with the BBT³ in play.

Let's review:

Tournament $$ - Okay, this good. Unregister from a tournament and get T$. BUT - does this now remove the mutitple-satellite profit centre? Do I now get T$ if I satellite more than once into the same MTT? Although it looks like you can convert T$.

Auto Top-Up - I'm surprised this wasn't already there.

Sit out/in next blind - Cool, saves me from accidentally playing an orbit more than I planned. Only applies to speed games though.

Player notes from lobby - I can definitely see how this comes in handy. "Total fish, play whenever you get the chance."

12 hour self-exclusion - Yah, that might have come in handy a couple times.

Satellites end when top prize reached - ABOUT FREAKIN' TIME! No more "oh, have we made it?" moments or "WHY ARE YOU FOLDING?" fights. Hoy will be happy.

More blind-posting time - okay.

No All-in chatting - Return of Hoy-betting and reverse-Hoys! Although excellent means of inducing calls/folds, they were started because Stars doesn't allow chatting when there's an all-in. Now Tilt has it. It makes sense, but is annoying as hell in blogger games.

No observer chat in larger games - Booo-urns to this. I get it, but there's nothing like making it deep in a big MTT and having a sea of blogger railing you to the confusion of others. Not that I'd know.

No chat as bubble approaches in satellites - I'm not sure on this one. I mean, there's something to be said for the guy who says, "I only want the money, not the the seat." Although with T$ now, I guess this is necessary. Also, why take away the fun of typing "WTF?? Why would you bet at an empty sidepot! I had him beat you donkey! Don't you know how to play a bubble?"

Revamped windows - obviously a necessity due to the changes.

505

It appears I passed the 500 post mark about 5 posts ago. Cool.

A Rule: When asking yourself which game to play, if the thought starts with "I'm pretty drunk and tired..." the answer should automatically be NONE. Not, "a $22 SnG would be fine." Full Tilt made a point of telling me to go to bed by laying about 3 serious beats on me to knock me out in 6th.

Otherwise, no Riverchasers for me last night, although I checked in when they were down to 6, and I told CK that the guy I didn't know (Luridsomething) was going to win, simply because I had no clue who he/she was. Drunken prognostication rules!

But now, it's Friday. It's also February 29th... which is like a free day! Some people are all, "carpe diem" with the leap years. Those people annoy me.

I got nothing today. Maybe someone will write something to inspire me.

Can Anyone Spare the U.S. a Dollar?

Came upon this article today. It details the US costs of the war in Iraq. It is rather eye-opening.

The skinny - $3 TRILLION.

Granted, it sets off a few bias alarms in my head, but the underlying ideas and concepts that are touched upon are scary.

Can it all be laid at the current administration's feet? Well... mostly. But the part about the horrible accounting practices of the DoD makes me think there are historical issues here. Nobody questions the cost of war when Japanese fighters are dropping bombs on Hawaii. Nobody said "hold on a sec" when the world rolled into Afghanistan. But as soon as Iraq was invaded, unprovoked, questions started to get asked. Whoops.

I also mightily suggest checking out Julius Goat's latest. The goat speaks politics. A man of words writing about a man of words. Well-said Groucho.

MORE Poker

Seems I'm back to writing about poker a touch more frequently these days. It is perhaps ironic that I just changed the subheading of the title up there a couple days ago. I may have to change it again.

Anyway, nailed the $75 token in the frenzy last night. Found Bayne at my starting table, and he went down when his JJ ran into a AK minraiser who caught one of the 17 aces in the deck. Bdidde and Chitwood made it to my table too. I'm pretty sure at least 3 or 4 bloggers got a token this time around.

Bayne commented in the girly chat after that a minraise almost always = AK, and they always catch. PirateLawyer also commented to me that he's getting nailed by races these days. It's been a strange week. I think I've lost to more 4-flush and 4-straight runner-runners online recently than I've ever seen. Money in on the flop, me way ahead, and then that sinking feeling comes along. A few rivered UGLY 2-pair, and the odd turned or rivered trips too, but those are more common.

I just always find it odd when multiple people run into similar variance at the same time.

Anyway, $30 to get into The Big Game and game 1 of BBT³: Look Who's BBTing Now! isn't a bad start. I've also got 3 tier 1's ready for various MATH appearances. But I'm running about 50% in those at the moment after I couldn't win one to save my life yesterday. Still ahead of the buy-in game though.

With 3 Big Game's (I think), and 13 MATHs, I'm not done in the token games yet. Hell, I don't know why I stopped playing in them regularly anyway.

Also took down a $22 SnG, which more than covered any losses from those failed attempts. But when I calculate my ROI for the BBT³, I'll be including all failed token runs in the number... it's only fair.

------

Hoy has a post up (from yesterday) about preflop bet sizing. I like when Hoy posts big long strategy posts, because it gives me something to read and nod to. Nothing he's got in there is new to me, and in fact is somewhat obvious if you spend a couple minutes thinking about the math. What it boils down to is - Be aware of the pot odds you're laying to your opponents preflop, and don't forget about antes.

Okay, that sounded harsh, which wasn't my intention. Actually, what I really like about Hoy's long strategy posts is that I usually find some OTHER bits of information he doesn't explicitly state that help me out. In this case it opened my eyes to a couple holes I've let develop in my game, and which explains my so-so performance of late.

I've really dropped my aggression of late. I look back at the past few days of play, including the weekend at Eh-Vegas, and I'm amazed at how weak-loose I've been. Calling in EP with unsuited one-gappers, limping with KQs in LP, calling behind insufficient preflop raises with vulnerable cards, etc.. I've been playing bored, distracted, unfocused poker. Hell, last night I had 3 tables open, was railing another one, had Peggle, 4 chat windows, my BBT³ spreadsheet up, and the TV on, with the occasional jump on the web to look for random things that I'd think of. I even forgot about BDR! I caught myself a few times just folding on the flop to 1/2 pot raises and then realizing I was open-ended with a backdoor flush draw, or wondering how the hell I was at the turn with the shit in front of me and a pot that large. I need to tighten the screws if I want a shot at one of those SEVEN WSOP seats Al has lined up for us.

Poker + Booze

Let's kick off with the poker stuff.

Last night was interesting.  I purposely skipped the Skill Game, despite being interested by $12 HOE.  Instead I decided to focus on tokens for BBT Cubed.  When it came to lvl 1, I couldn't miss, going 3-for-3 with no problem at all (3 pocket aces at one final table was fun too, including 2 in a row followed by AK).  The lvl 2 frenzy however, that was a different story.  I played a decent game, and then found red cowboys in the SB.  Cutoff raises big, and I push over the top, happy with a fold.  Unfortunately, Mr. Raiser decides his ATo HAS to be good and calls.  2 spades on the flop,  and I know I feel that good ol' "here it comes" feeling.   Spade on the turn, spade on the river, and I'm done because he has the Ts.  Sweet baby jeebus did that suck.

I also played a couple satellites to the 50-50, but got smacked down in the $2 rebuy with 28 left (top 12 paying seats), and then went out 3rd in a 3-handed push-or-fold fest in a $7 SnG satellite.  I would have been better off going all-in every hand at that point than waiting to be first to act.

After the 4-flush in the frenzy, I got up and did a few things around the house to relax.  Then I came back and played 3 or 4 $1 turbo SnGs for tilt therapy.   Some $1 donks no doubt have notes on me now that say things like "will push all-in on first hand with nothing" and "will bluff at paired flop with 9-high".  Or maybe not, since they're playing $1 SnGs.  Good fun all around.

------

Fear.  I think it was Kajagugu that mentioned a conversation going on in at Pokernews about Stu Ungar calling for a pot heads-up with only T-high and winning. This got me thinking.

It's not uncommon to see someone call down with A-high, or even K-high on occasion. We've seen people go to the river with bottom pair. I seriously hope everyone here has at least TRIED to take down a pot with absolutely nothing in their hand on the turn. Yet how often do we fold on the river to even a small bet because our suited connectors missed their draws?

Yes, this is a safe move. If you're playing with 9Th and the board has missed you completely, you lose to any J, Q, K, A or pair. Better to fold your nothing than donate more chips. But what if your inital read had them on crap? Say it's a blogger game and you put them on the hammer? Or you've seen them play low connectors hard pre-flop in the past and bet their draws?

Let's say you're in the SB with 9Ts. The cutoff raises 3 or 4x the BB, and you call. Your read here could easily be "standard steal move." Say it's someone you KNOW can steal with absolute crap, or who loves 56d and has played it (or something similar) in position in the past. Flop comes 47J with two diamonds. You check, and they bet 1/2 the pot. You've seen them bet draws before and figure they're on one now, so you call. Turn is a 2s, helping nobody, you check, they check. Now you're positive they're on a draw with 56. River is an Qh and you check again. They bet the pot, or even overbet it. How many of us can call here, with only T-high in our hand?

Immediately we start thinking of ways we're beat. Any 2,4,7,J, or Q beats us, any pocket pair beats us, Ax, or Kx beats us. We have to fold!! But wait... this entire hand you put them on low connectors and a now busted draws. Why has your read changed? They could just as easily be trying to take the pot here and now. If they wanted a call, would they bet so much? You've read them for one thing the whole time, and now you've tossed this read out the window from one bet that could very easily be an attempt to take the pot. But a fold would be seen here 99% of the time, because fear has just changed our minds.

Which leads to reads being remembered. Last night I threw a read of mine right out the window in the $2 50-50 satellite and it cost me. A LP player minraised, and I had QQ in the SB. I automatically thought "he's strong... AA, KK, maybe AK". I called and in fact almost folded because of the alarm bells going off in my head. Flop came down 8-high rainbow, and I bet. LP raised, and I re-popped all-in, to get autocalled by... AA. It was as if my memory went away for the 2 seconds required for me to push. As soon as I hit the raise button, I said, "oh shit... KK or AA?" I had a dead-on read pre-flop and threw it away when the board looked so good for an overpair.

I've seen it time after time in games, recaps, and discussions. People put someone on a hand, and then forget it or alter it drastically post-flop. "I put him on an A with a mid-kicker, so my AK was ahead. Board comes AT8 and he bets and I call..." both T and 8 fall under "mid-kicker", yet the player neglects this part of their read and is pissed that they got beat by 2 pair. Or a range gets neglected. "I put him on a mid pair, or a draw. Flop comes KJ2 rainbow and he bets the pot, I autofold my JT." Why?? Nothing you put him on before matches that flop, yet you caught a piece that beats the initial range. Did KK suddenly become a mid-pair? KJ is a draw?

A huge part of this game is reads and playing without fear. Ungar was fearless and a genius with a photographic memory. Daniel Negreanu and Phil Helmuth use their uncanny reading abilities to be hugely successful. These are supreme exceptions in the poker world, but to ignore what abilities you've developed on your own simply because the odds are bad can hurt you immeasurably. As has been said many times before, scared poker is losing poker.

------

Now the Booze part. I went down a rabbit-hole of links today and came upon a bunch of coffee-based cocktails from Illy, a frozen Mojito recipe, and more. So tonight, pre-Mookie, I think I'll have to do some experimenting. I think my base of choice will be... tea. I have a drawer full of teas, from the mundane to the exotic. I'll have to figure some stuff out. I'd do coffee, but I don't want to be up all night.

Dinner... I've got some bread, some elk, and the means to make a quick gravy. Do up some quick fries while I'm at it, and that's a meal. Leftovers are awesome.

Blogger Food Porn!

Here we gooooo...

The first course... soup. Butternut squash and roasted garlic bisque.


It seems that people were enjoying themselves.


This is what the elk looked like a couple hours before it was served.


Gonna be sooo good.


Three amigos.


Now they're seasoned. Kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper. By hand. In a mortar and pestle.


Ready for the oven.


And out of the oven. Damn did this smell good.


A touch more roasty.


The main course. Elk, vegetables, mashed potatoes. Ugly plates.


Now THAT is a pairing.


Droooool...


And finally, dessert. Crème brûlée ice cream.


You have to use real vanilla folks. Delicious.


And THAT was the meal you missed out on if you didn't come.

Not food related, but since Kat's got her side of this pic up, I figure that mine should be too.

Look Who's BBT Now!

Call it what you will:

BBThree
BBT 3
BBT III
BBTwo II

It doesn't really matter.... BBT III:Look Who's BBT Now! Is kicking off THIS SUNDAY at MiamiDon's Big Game!

Al has hooked us degenerates up once again. With SEVEN WSOP seats available, and some not insignifcant cash too! Sweet Gophers on a Spit is that some goooood eatin'.



55 Events (Monday-Thursday + Big Games) over 13 weeks. Over $1000 to buy-in to them all. Structure isn't figured out yet, but it's probably safe to assume there will be a TOC, a Leaderboard tournament, and the same point structure as last time. I intend to get in a littler earlier than the LAST game of the series this time. Perhaps this will actually get me to focus.

See you in the Token Frenzy tonight!

Pics Later

My camera battery died while I was taking pictures of dinner on Saturday. I haven't gotten around to charging it, and I don't have a CF card reader. Once the battery's charged, I'll get the pics up. Likely sometime tonight.

Tonight will also be when I finally finish the dishes and other cleanup from Saturday. Bloggers aren't necessarily a messy group, but 15 nuns would take me some time to tidy up after.

That said, I'm glad I've got plenty of leftovers. Even after giving a few servings of leftover soup and 1/2 an elk roast to my friend, I've still got 1/4 of a roast and at least 3-4 meals of soup left. Plus some potatoes and veggies. Lots of ice cream too.

Yah, I'll start that diet any day now.

-----

Here's a story from Eh-Vegas.

We were walking from the hotel to dinner on friday night. Along the way, the group split a bit. A group in the front, another straggling, and me alone in the middle. Some guy is standing in the street trying to hail cabs that already have passengers, and yells out randomly "get me a cab!"

Then he wanders over to me. "Hey man! Get me a cab! I've got like 10 minutes and I'm done!" I look around, no cabs.

"Don't think I can help you man."

"I need a cab man, I've got too much money."

?

"I'm serious, check it, I'm strapped. I've got a gun."

He opens his jacket to reveal a gun in his belt. I'm confused, but hardly worried, because he has a gun and too much money.

"I don't see any cabs."

"Portuguese man. Serious. The boss though, he's Italian. He's serious. I'm getting out man. 10 minutes, that's all I got and I'm done. I need to get there."

"Sorry man."

"Alright, keep it real man."

Fist comes out, I meet it with mine. Don't turn down a friendly gesture from a guy packing heat and obviously not entirely there.

He wanders off into the street again, and yells "get me a cab!"

Kat and Joanne wander up and I say, "I don't know what he's on, but keep it the fuck away from me."

------

While I hear the Pro-EH-dure was fun for those involved, the Friday night visit to the Brass Rail was somewhat dull. Dancers who have the enthusiasm of a wet boot and don't venture into your private area until one unfortunate drops $180 on one of them first can have that effect. Next time? We get a limo to Whiskey A-Go-Go's in Concorde. Waaaaaaay more fun.

Not that we didn't make our own fun after a little while on Friday.

------

Saturday I spent getting things ready. The tourney at the club was fun, even if BamBam flopped his set of 3's over my fishhooks. What he fails to mention is that as soon as we flipped over our cards (all-in preflop), he says, "I'm winning this one, just so you know." Followed by the 3 coming down HARD. Crippled me. Soon thereafter we merged to the FT and CK knocked me out of our second consecutive blogger live game with HER JJ vs my QJ (I pushed my small stack in early). D'oh.

The cash game (1/2) was equally fun, with a bunch of the crew, plus a couple of the club's staff/players who didn't feel like hitting the 5/5 game going on one table over. I was up for a bit before donking off a healthy portion to Kat's nut straight over my baby.

Iakaris showed up shortly after we all wrapped up. Kat, Jo, and I stuck around to chat with the good Dr. for a bit before calling it a night. The only Iak sighting of the weekend unfortunately.

------

Sunday was Niagara. I swung between donkey play and solid play. I made a few great calls, with one being useless when VinNay rivered 2 pair after I agonized on whether or not he had the straight or just a flush draw (neither) to my overpair. That stung. Mostly because I only called instead of listening to the voice that was yelling at me to push.

AA twice btw, both times when I was below my initial buy-in to more than double up. CK couldn't take 'em down with T7s. The other time, some donk decided that pushing with QQ into a 994 board was a good idea. No way he had a piece of that after pre-flop action.

But I ended up down after playing on tilt for a bit. I eventually decided to just have fun and keep the table chatter going at my end. I played the table entirely wrong, but had fun nonetheless. Final hand?

QQ. Raise before me to 12, I re-raise to 25, some prepubescent kid goes all-in short, raiser puts me all in, I call. K7KQ7 board... prepube has JT or some crap, and the raiser has... AKo!! Suck, re-suck, re-re-suck! I yell "BOOYA!" and show my cards nonetheless, and the say "I hate that river... I'm done." I stand up, put on my coat, and turn to leave when I hear "hey! why are you giving him the chips?" The dealer bought my act and pushed the pot to me! HAHAHA!! I, being far too honest for my own good, and knowing everyone at the table knew what was what, pointed out that kings full of 7's beats queens full of kings and left.

------

Skill game is tonight. I don't know if I'll be there or not. HOE ain't bad, but I've got shit to do, and haven't had enough sleep of late. Need to rest up for BBT3: Electric Boogaloo. Let me say, if you thought what Al had lined up for the Aussie millions was good... you ain't seen nothing yet.

Psych

Here, go read about the Dunning-Kruger effect.

Here it is in short for the lazy:

The incompetent tend to overestimate their abilities and standing, while the competent tend to underestimate their abilities, but are pretty good at figuring out where they fit in.

I'm pretty sure this can be applied to poker, I'm just not sure how.

Oh, wait... it's blatently obvious. If it's not, you're not paying nearly enough attention at the tables.

Grrraagh!

As my alarms blared this morning, I was dreaming that it was 9:30am, and I was officially screwed in terms of work. In my dream I knew that I wasn't getting out of my place until 10:00 at the earliest, and yet I still didn't get out of bed. I figured I was fired.

Then my brain woke up a little bit more and made me look at a real clock. It was 7:20, and I had oodles of time. My body, however, decided it was exhausted and I wasn't going anywhere. Such is the morning after the end of Eh-Vegas 2008.

There will be pictures. In my case, mostly of food and possibly people enjoying it.

Drinking, dinner, drinking, being told we had to leave the hotel by a couple besuitted members of the staff, unenthusiastic strippers, cooking, cleaning (I hear others were brunching and checking out the Eh-fternoon shift at this time), feeding, drinking, pokering, Niagara, more poker, lots of losing, and tons of fun, all surrounded by good conversation, good times, and good people. If you weren't here... your loss.

To Al, Riggstad, CK, IG, Joanne, BamBam, Pebbles, DonKaa, QueenK, Carson, SuzyQ, Matt, PokerTart, Bankwell, VinNay, Iakaris, and anyone I missed - thanks for coming, and I hope you all had fun.

To Kat - great job organizing! Thanks you SO much for putting forth the effort yet again. The only thing I'd change? Somehow find a way to stop the weekend from ending... because today sucks ass in comparison to the past three days.

Friday Flotsam

This post may possibly contain jetsam as well.

It is FRIDAY. Eh-Vegas kicks off TONIGHT! The best thing about Eh-Vegas? I don't have to go anywhere that isn't within walking distance! No airport security, no airport taxi lineups, no waiting for bags, no check-in... sweeeet.

So, no idea what the plan is for tonight outside of "eat someplace, go from there."

Although my plan also includes "do some groceries, go home, clean a bit more, and change". Very exciting I know.

As for tomorrow's Eh-fternoon shift plans, I'll of course be at home cooking for the rest of you degenerates.

What the hell is the song that's been trying to go through my head for a week? I've heard it twice, and both times promptly forgotten it. It's from the 80's, it's NOT "Hot Girls in Love" (which is what ends up going through my head) or "Hot-Blooded" but is along those lines... it's driving me nuts.

Minimal poker last night. 2 $22 SnG's, 3rd in one, and out by a douchebag in another. He seemed a touch miffed that I called his udnerpair bluff push with my TP earlier on. Annoying table... some dick who states "I should put your ass all-in" when I raise his BB from the button (which was stupid because with the few chips I had behind he had zero fold equity), and the aformentioned douchebag who when I put in a standard raise claims "payback time!" and pushes. The dick almost called, and then folded. I said "what the hell" with only a few chips behind and called with my 78s. Flopped a straight draw, but it didn't fill against his AKo. I laughed, because this tool is easy money in the future with moves like that.

Did I eat dinner last night? Right... rice stir fry. Elk sausage and fried potatoes the night before. Yum.

Dessert's coming in cone form tomorrow. Less cleanup for me.

Just discovered that work has finally banned YouTube. Now how can I keep up with witty financial videos?

Mmm... bacon double cheeseburger.... and frings. Lunch = yum.

More Eh

As evidenced below - soup's done!

Forgive the mixed measurement systems. 9 lbs of squash, 3 1/4 litres of chicken stock, around 10 cups of other veggies, and a few other ingredients = one big pot of butternut squash and roasted garlic bisque. Good thing I made space in the fridge.

A couple litres of crème brûlée ice cream in the freezer.

I'm getting there. The roasts are slowly thawing. I'm glad I'm giving them a few days to do so.

Tonight - round one of cleaning. Round two will be Saturday, along with setup of tables, chairs, and various other accoutrements. Forgive my lack of placemats, I'm sure it won't be a problem.

Tomorrow - I plan to get home as early as possible, change, and head out to wherever my fellow degenerates are at the time. Let's figure out where we're eating. Everything else can go from there.

A couple more options on the "things to do" list:

- Icefest in the Bloor/Yorkville area is this weekend, which is pretty close to you people staying in the Sutton Place.

- Or if you're the morbid type, check out the devestation of the biggest fire we've seen in a while here. Huge plume of smoke over the city most of yesterday.

Sneak Preview

Pot Odds

I was over at ThinkingMan's blog, blathering on about how I thought his call for his entire stack with J8o was a dumb move. It was barely a correct move as dictated by pot odds, and this got me thinking a bit. I'm sure this is stuff everyone already knows, but I'm just thinking out loud, so to speak.

We all know what pot odds are. It costs you 500 to win 1500? 3:1. You're drawing with 2:1 against, you make the call, right?

What if the odds are a dead match? Or it's only slightly +EV to call?

Here lies the a key difference in a tournament that I think is often overlooked. In the example above at ThinkingMan's blog, based on his read and a lenient hand range, the odds were almost dead even, with a tiny EV in his favour. In a cash game, it might be worthwhile to take this, but in a tournament, I think you have to fold.

Pot odds can be simply seen as, "if I do this x number of times, will I make money?" 3:1 odds against means that for every 4 times you do something, you'll win once. So if the pot is laying you 4:1, then it makes sense to call. In real numbers:

Pot = 40
Call = 10
Odds 4:1

Your hand is 3:1 against to win, let's say the $10 puts you all-in.

If you can repeat this EXACT hand to this point 4 times, you'll win 4x your money once, and lose it all 3 times. So you'll lose $30, but win $40, putting you $10 ahead of just folding every time.

In a cash game, this makes a case for making the call. If you lose, you can reload. Eventually, you should be ahead if you keep making this play. That's all in the nature of grinding it out, no?

In a tournament though, you're finished if you don't catch. So your reward should be worth the risk. Where this comfort zone lies depends on the player and the situation. Obviously, if you have 1/2 an ante left behind, then you'll very likely call no matter what. If you have a huge stack, you might also call, because the reward is not only the chips, but the knockout of another player, bringing you that much closer to the money, plus the risk is much smaller. What if you're on the bubble? On the bubble of a 150-seat guaranteed WSOP entry satellite? 4 left in an SnG? I'll be careful not to delve into ICM here.

But what if you still have an M of 5 if you fold? Is it worth pushing a tiny edge and risking elmination? How does that factor into the math? 2:1 means that 67% of the time you're going to the rail. I don't know how many times I've come back from a low M to win a game because I was able to fold a losing hand instead of making the crying call. Or what if it's early on and the buy-in was relatively small? Some people are happy to push the small edges early for a chance to build a stack and go deep. Others will fold all day early on, waiting to be the big favourite and play that for maximum profit.

In short, I think that remembering what you're playing is something that is often overlooked. There's a difference between cash and tournament play. There's a difference between a $1 buy-in and a $10,000 buy-in (although there shouldn't be). There's a difference between an average stack, a small stack, and a monster stack. Poker is situational, and if you play every hand the same way, you'll eventually lose.

Eh-Vegas Progress

Wow, is it Wednesday already? Yikes.

Eh-Vegas kicks off in 2 days! I have to feed 20 people in 3!

Last night I did the grocery run. Bag of potatoes, bag of onions, bag of carrots, bunch of celery, herbs, garlic, and 8.5 lbs of butternut squash, and lots more. Let's say 1 box and 8 or 9 bags of groceries. I still need to pick up some mix and bread.

Ice cream was finished Monday. It's all frozen up.

Soup will be done either tonight or tomorrow. I'm so happy I have an immersion blender. If I'm late for the Mookie, blame the soup.

And of course, there's over 3kg of elk thawing in my fridge. My friend Alyce just put up a post extolling the health benefits of Elk. Look at that chart and tell me you aren't even more tempted... low fat, low cal, aaaaalllll kinds of tasty. You know you want it.

By the way - dinner last night was an elk burger with caramelized onions, sauteed garlic mushrooms, tomato, dill relish, sweet & smokey mustard, sun-dried tomato pesto, applewood smoked cheddar, and a fried egg, all on a fresh onion bun. I have more elk in my freezer than anything else (11 patties, 2 tenderloins, a small roast, at least a dozen sausages... plus the roasts and a couple packs of pepperettes in the fridge). I may have a slight addiction...

Anyway, it should be all ready to go in the oven come Saturday afternoon. Now I just need to make sure I've got the extra table, chairs, plates, bowls, and cutlery all together and setup by then.

Oh, and I have to clean my place somewhere in there too. The less cat hair floating around, the better.

All Skill

Okay... zero skill. Those who were watching are well aware of it. Once again, there was a deck, it hit me in the face, and this time I made the most of it, by taking down the MATH.



I didn't take any screen shots until towards the final table. I started off rough, dropping below 1000 chips pretty quickly. Then I fought back with position and aggression, lamenting my card death.

Let me step back just a second. This weekend was a disaster on the poker front. I spent nearly as much to get into the FTOPS ME as if I'd just bought-in directly. This wasn't supposed to happen (I had only dropped net $15 by Sunday afternoon), but the Super Turbo Satellites called, and when I said "I'm done," a Pro entered one, so I figured it was possibly the best chance anyone could have at taking the prize for knocking one out. I joined, won the thing (but didn't knock out the pro), and was in the ME. I played a tight, positional game, and blew it all with 110 to the money when I bet 5k with AQs UTG, got re-raised all-in, and then called against TT. No improvement, and I'm done and royally pissed off with myself. I walked away to avoid tilting away more money. I took down a $22 Turbo, lost another, called it a night, and then went up and down a bit today in the $22 SnGs and peeps. I bought in to the MATH and almost unregistered out of frustration with my game.

But I stayed in to have some fun, and as I said, nearly donked out early. Then I started hitting.

- AQ over A4 (turned straight) doubled me from 1k to 2k.
- A bit later QTc vs J9c all-in on a 9hQh6c board doubles me to 5k
- Presto flops a set and turns a boat to bring me to 8.6k (vs a paired 9?), this made me the table leader.
- My last hand at the table saw me get AQo vs AKo, A66 flop, Q turn, I go to over 13k, making me the chip leader.
- First hand at the new table and I knocked out my second player with KJ vs A9 on J4Q flop, 15k. I worked my way to 18k before this table broke.
- The hammer gets me to around 22k by cracking presto.
- I knock out my 3rd player (wishing it was a KO now) with AQh vs TT. A turn, Q river. 27k
- Up to 30k uncontested
- Dealt 44, raise, face a push of 3.5k. Not a big threat, I call to race. vs A5o, 44 holds up, 33.7k. Blinds are 120/240/25 at this point.
- Take out JEC II MD's 56o with 6Ts and a 798 rainbow flop. Another KO, setup... 37k. 150/300/25. Table breaks shortly thereafter. 2nd place is 15.7k.
- Final table as chip leader.



- Take out another with QTd vs A7c. T on the flop. 41k.
- Take a HUGE hit when I make a bad read on a K56 flop with 77. 4th place player all-in with 56 and I call. 28k, with 2nd now 27k
- First time I'm not chip leader in a while, as I fall 6k behind 1st.
- Back in the chip lead uncontested. I stayed here for good.
- JJ vs Fuel's AQ all-in preflop 5-handed. Set on the flop, boat on the turn. Fuel gone. Third time's a charm as there were two borderline hands earlier that I folded that would have taken him out. 52k, 200/400/50. 4 left.



- QQ goes down to K6o after I re-raise for the first time pre-flop 3-handed?? T66 board. Go figure. 40k.
- 3-handed goes for awhile. LJ comes within 2k of taking the chip lead from me at one point... for one hand.



- Climb back to 55k after turning a pair of 5's on a straight draw and beating another straight draw. Setup turn?
- 44 raise, called by LJ. 7sJdAd on the flop. LJ checks, I check. Turn = 4 = BINGO! LJ bets 5k into a 7k pot. I re-raise to 15k, LJ pushes for 9k more, I call. A9c no good and I'm at 77k.



- 3rd hand heads up, 80k vs 12.9k I see 78o, and jmathewson_III pushes. I decided to call, and see his A7o. Oops. But I'll still have around a 3:1 chip lead if I don't hit my 8. 8 on the flop! Nothing else helps and victory is mine!



So... I was catching like my name was Bayne and took out 8 players on the way.

292 Hands
19 pocket pairs:

22 x 2
33 x 2
44 x 2
55 x 2
66 x 3
77
99
TT x 3
JJ
QQ x 2

Funny, no AA or KK.

AK x 2 <- that seems low for me too
AQ x 8
AJ x 3

KQ x 4
KJ x 2
QJ x 5

6 hammers

And just for fun - 78 x 7, 3 of those s00ted.

That's 6.5% pp, 4.4% A-face, 3.8% paint.

Basically, I won a lot of races, sucked out on dominating hands a few times, and used my stack to make small gains and keep my chip count steady. Like I said... all skill... right?

Food It Up!

Okay, been a while. I just got knocked out of the Donkament after dominating performance of luckboxery. $10 rebuy to the ME starting... nowish. So I'll post about food! Note - the full-sized pics look much better. Go ahead and click.

So I have a few fillets of tilapia in my freezer. Tilapia is great as a base fish. I've used it wrapped in prosciutto with roasted red pepper, coated in spices, and now deep fried in a pretty kick-ass batter.



I changed the recipe a bit, by seasoning the dredging flour with dill weed, garlic powder, a bit of chili powder and some cayenne.



Damn good fries too. Follow the instructions in the link above.



As for the tartar sauce. Pretty simple stuff. Mayo, capers, dill relish (or pickles if you want), lemon juice, salt, pepper, garlic powder, some olive oil, a dash of hot sauce, and whatever else you want to put there. Mixed and left in the fridge while you make the rest.



That was last night. Tonight, I still had some leftover batter and flour. So I made up some onion rings. They should give these things away, it costs so little to make so many. 365ºF until golden (~3 min).



Rings ain't enough for dinner though, so I took my friend's advice and had a grilled cheese. Of course, this is me. So it was colby, 7 year-aged white cheddar, applewood smoked cheddar, and roasted garlic havarti, with double-smoked bacon and tomato.



Looks pretty good I think.



Can't forget something to dip the rings in. Chili mayo. Mayo, about 4 or 5 types of chili powders, salt, black pepper, garlic powder, and chipotle hot sauce.



And just because, FRESH roasted coffee beans. By all means, compare these to whatever you buy pre-roasted. These are from over a week ago, when I roasted them up for work coffee.

And On It Goes

Ok, roasts are in stock, so I'll be heading to the store tonight to pick them up. Ice cream will be done this weekend (first batch is finished, 2nd batch will be cooked tomorrow and frozen Sunday). Soup ingredients and veggies for roasting will be purchased early next week and soup should be made by Thursday.

Saturday will involve roasting meat and vegetables, mashing potatoes, and making the yorkshire pudding once the meat is out of the oven. Kat - you've got the garlic bread handled, right?

Somewhere in there I'll restock whatever beer shortages I have. They should be minimal. I need to inventory my wine to see if I need something more suitable for the meal. Fuel suggested a Cab Bordeaux, and if there's any blogger I trust for wine selection, he's the man.

Of course, there's SoCo and copious amounts of other booze as well. That reminds me, I need to get some white grapefruit juice.

I'm just warning you now, you may have to eat off your laps. I have the space for everyone, but the seating/table availability could be tricky. I'm sure you'll manage. Or I could just buy a damned coffee table already...

Food Question

Okay meat people. Quick question re: Eh-Vegas. This may just be for my sake of "talking" it out.

Any preferences on the roast? Current options are:

Sirloin Tip
Eye of Round
Top Sirloin

Bearing in mind that it's elk, and therefore incredibly lean (ie.- ZERO marbling). All three make a decent oven roast. The trick lies in not overcooking, especially since I'll be doing multiple roasts simultaneously (tend to come in a 3lb range.. with 14+ people coming to dinner so far, that means 3 roasts likely).

Right now, I'm leaning towards the top sirloin. Eye of round tends to be tougher. If I was slow-cooking instead of oven-roasting, then this would be fine. Sirloin tip is also tougher than top sirloin, and not as textured. This leaves the top sirloin, where the only major drawback is that it can be touchy and easy to overcook. That said, I'll be monitoring the temperature constantly, so it shouldn't be an issue.

So at the moment, top sirloin is the leader. Any objections?

Hot Damn

Yah, there'll be a food post sometime re: last night's dinner. It was just fish and chips, but damn was it tasty, and deep-fried perfectly. Now I really need a working deep-fryer (the one I have is a combo fryer/steamer/slow-cooker... it doesn't get hot enough for frying, so I have to risk a pot). Yup, yet another specialized item that I'll use twice a year is on my list. Time to do some research.

Long weekend coming up, and me with minimal plans. I'll probably go see a movie or two (No Country For Old Me, The Diving Bell and The Butterfly, There Will be Blood, Sweeney Todd, and Persepolis are all on my list), but will largely be playing poker.

Tonight is Kat's donkament, which I may or may not be in. I'll be around, but I often find that playing a $1 rebuy while playing other, more serious tables, can be distracting. I imagine I'll have the 50-50 going, maybe the 24 or 28k, an FTOPS ME satellite, and midnight madness is always a possibility if I find myself on the no-longer playing side of the equation on the others.

We're expecting another 15-20cm of snow on Sunday (done by Monday morning), so staying in all day will likely be the order of business. Isn't this the time of the month where The Big Game usually happens? Regardless, the FTOPS ME is on, and that's where the focus will be.