Flush My Nuts

Danny boy came in the mail today.

2005-05-17T19:56:00.000-07:00

I received my copy of Harrington On Hold'em today in the mail. I have already read it but it is the kind of book you need to have handy at all times. This book completely opened my mind to how the game works. It clarified concepts like pot odds, probe and continuation bets in a friendly non condescending tone. If you haven't picked this book up and you play tourneys regularly it is a must have. Part two comes out next month I believe. The concepts I learned from this book helped me win the first two tournaments I played in Vegas earning my over $1200. So go and buy this book today!!

Grilling and poker...a couple of my favorite things.

2005-04-30T09:10:00.000-07:00

Today the Spaceman is having a home tourney and a cookout. Woohoo! We are also going to watch some televised poker tourney. I'm excited as I love eating grilled animal flesh and playing poker. Also I have faired well in the last few home games at Jason's. My friend Trisha is down from Belguim and is new to the poker thing. Maybe she will have the same luck my cousin had in her first hold'em home game.

Ahhhhhh Vegas.

2005-03-13T13:00:00.000-08:00

Las Vegas was a sweet lady to my wallet and a drill sergant to my body. Once I have recovered from the physical assault that is Vegas I will attempt to write a neat keano trip report. So bear with me and check back in a few days. Oh and for the record NL > Limit,
Spaceman > Moneymaker and Vegas > just about every other place I have ever been.

I'm still not dead.

2005-02-08T17:58:00.000-08:00

Well today is my 26th birthday. I would like to say life has been good to me so far, but the truth is life has been kicking me in the balls for almost a year and a half. I have been sick for a week, I just found out the lastest round of poison I have been taking has done nothing and I'm not getting any lovin'. So boo fucking hoo. Pity party for me. At least I'm going to Las Vegas next month with some good friends. Oh and there is no hockey which really sucks. Peace out, Charlie

(Cross posted at The Predators' Den.)

The Hand.

2005-02-03T08:13:00.000-08:00

So my first experience with the WPBT was a fun but short one. I won the second hand at my table when I flopped a flush. Not a big pot but I thought it was a nice way to start. A few hands later I had to fold AKo when nothing flopped for me. From there I preceded to sit back and watch the show. I had Dr. Pauly to my right and I watched him push with the hammer preflop and drive everyone out of a pot.

I saw a few flops here and there but most of my starting hands were awful and the few I had that were potentially playable saw sizeable raises that most of the time I could not justify calling. After sometime (I have no idea how long, I was in a fever/drug induced haze) I was down about 400 chips under the starting stack. The blinds weren't killing me yet but I needed a hand quick....

I'm on the SB and I have cowboys....Yay! The guy behind Pauly, 787Style raises to 150 from 50, Pauly immediately pushes. I'm thinking 787Style=overcards, Pauly=hammer, yes I actually put the good Doctor on the hammer, I mean he did it earlier so it did not seem so far fetched. In my mind I'm probably ahead and can potentially triple up and then have some real fun at the table. Ahem, no. 787Style had AA and Pauly did have the hammer. Flop came 7h 5d 7d, glup! Turn in 9d. Hmmm now wait, I can catch my miracle four outer flush here cause on of my K's is a d. Alas no the river is a 5h the board pairs and Pauly gets a full house hammer.

The news travels faster than I thought possible around the tables. In no time the hand history is posted on Iggy's site. Did anybody get a screen shot??

I was not upset, I mean this is what is supposed to happen at the Blogger tourney right? Also I shall ever live in infamy for being involved in The Hand. I informed Pauly of his winning of my bounty, he feels a bit guilty about the hand compiled with winning a bounty with it. Let me say this Pauly, if I had caught my four outer I wouldn't have felt the least bit guilty and neither should you. So all in all it was fun but waaaay to short also not being anywhere near 100% made it a bit less enjoyable too. I can't wait for the next one!

Bounty for the tourney.

2005-02-02T13:10:00.000-08:00

In honor of my hockey blogging roots I am offering a Nashville Predators hockey puck to whoever knocks me out. Unless it's Jason cause that's just redunant as hell.

Come Hell or HIgh Water!

2005-02-02T10:58:00.000-08:00

I contracted a cold after acting foolish at a party on Saturday night. I have been fighting it with all my power, but now have a 101.5 fever. I will play in this damn tourney. I have taking some drugs and bundled up. So if I do really stupid stuff in the tourney please excuse me because my brain might be cooking in it's own juices. Is it wrong to enjoy the flavor of Robitussin? It's like sweet boozy medicine.

WPBT time!

2005-02-01T11:16:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow I will be participating in my first World Poker Bloggers Tour tourney. I hope that I at least play well and don't go out super early. I know that most of the people I will be playing against are of a higher caliber and skill level than I. I have been practicing playing sngs on PokerStars, some real money, some play. I must say the sng setup is much better on PokerStars than PartyPoker you start with 700 more chips and the blind structure is more player friendly. I'm sure someone out there can tell me, what does the Latin mean on the WPBT emblem? See you guys tomorrow....Good Luck to all!!

Well (Royal) Flush My Nuts!!

2005-01-25T14:37:00.000-08:00

So I had a great weekend. I saw the Modest Mouse concert on Friday night, it was a good show. Afterwards I went out to eat with Spaceman, Rachel, Luke and my roommate Olivia. Upon leaving Wendy's Luke and I missed the place being overrun by cops with their guns drawn. Jason and Rachel got a face full of it. I don't know what was going on but it sounded scary. So anyway I ended up spending the weekend at the Spaceman's. This has become a more common occurance as of late. Any of you who were expecting his trip report over the weekend and were dissappointed, well sorry. When Jason and I spend time together little constructive gets done. :)

We had hoped to play a game Friday night but only Luke came over and he left after an hour or two. By then we were all quite tired and fell asleep watching a movie. So Saturday Rachel was itching to play but the table had stuff on it and no one really wanted to clean it off. I really couldn't tell you much of what we did, I watched Jason play some on Party and watched some TV. Nothing too exciting but sometimes that's for the best. My ass (knee actually) was still dragging from the night before so a day of R & R was great.

So on Sunday we go over to Rachel's grandmother's house for some good home cooking. We watched part of the the Eagle's/Falcon's game....YAWN. Neither Jason nor I watch much football but usually the playoffs provide something more entertaining....not this one. After awhile we went home and watched more of the game. Rachel worked her butt off cleaning up the house and wanted to play some poker with the badness. As did I. Being that there was only three of us Jason suggested we play dealer's choice. It sounded good to me, Rachel was a bit apprehensive but went along with it. Before I talk about the games I must mention La Tortuga de Tunica! When the Spaceman went to Tunica the other weekend he brought yours truly back a gift. It is a five dollar chip from Bally's with the emblem of the Memphis Riverkings on it. The Riverkings are the first hockey team I ever saw play live. Jason had won big at Blackjack when he got this chip so I think it had some good luck on it.

So we start to play. I think we started with 7 card stud, I won with what I can't remember. We played a few different games at the start, I should also mention we were playing very low stakes. Essentially with the few people we had low stakes made the most sense...we were fucking around. So I procede to catch great cards... AA in a hand of NL. Numerous hi/lo hands whilst playing Omaha Hi/Lo. Jason couldn't even catch flies with his shitty hands. Rachel and I split two Omaha Hi/Lo pots. By this point a couple of drugs in my system had started to peak. I was getting silly and I was winning! I started talking to my turtle from tunica chip, singing and all around being quite goofy. I felt like Marcel Luske except that I was just getting good cards, I wasn't making killer reads on my opponents....that was the turtle! We played a few hands of Mexican Sweat (I'm sure there is another name but I don't know it), I won one or two of those, I think Rachey took one and Spaceman took a couple. So Rachel got disenchanted with the whole thing, she seemed to be just in the mood for some good old Hold 'em and the switching of games didn't suit her. So she went out with Jason getting the rest of her chips. We played a few hands of NL hold'em heads up which he took, the Spaceman is wiley heads up. He suggested we try playing Cincinnati. The first time around my straight got beat by Jason's full house. So let's go again! This time I get dealt JTd7dxx, the first community card is Ad next is 2, next is Kd yay! got my flush, by this time Jason and I were capping one another, I was afraid he was ahead but hell I had the flush, next is Qs ok so I got the straight too, woo hoo? the last card was Qd. Now you think I would be going apeshit...except I didn't even realize I had the Royal! Jason turns over his K and 2 full boat, I'm like damn I got the flush and then it hits me. BOOYAH! I go "Oh shit, I got the Royal!" Of course the Spaceman was all "Kick Ass!". So we got the camera out and took pics of the hand and me with the hand and Mi Tortuga. This was my first royal, ironically I caught my first straight flush at Jason's house which was a 9 through K diamond straight flush while playing 7 card stud. Weird huh? Needless to say that ended our playing for the evening I doubled up my buyin so I was happy monkey. Hopefully soon I will have links to the pics for everyone to see.

Another Home Game at Spaceman's?

2005-01-21T14:57:00.000-08:00

Tonight I go to see Modest Mouse in concert with a bunch of old friends. The Spaceman and his wife included. Afterwards we are going to try to get a home game going at his house, but knowing our crew this is much easier said than done. At the least we might be able to get a small ring game going. Who knows?!? Will update you as I am able.

Lessons

2005-01-21T14:36:00.000-08:00

Awhile back I had taken quite a hit at the tables. I mainly play $25 NL at Party. A few nights later I logged on with one mission.....make money. Amazingly enough I did this in the first hand. I was dealt AKs raised PF had three callers flop was xAx I bet the pot, two people fold and the last guy pushes. I take a deep breath and call. :) He shows AQo nothing hits him and I almost double up on the first hand!

So Mission Accomplished right? Well that's where the lesson comes in, what I should have done is play the rest of my orbit, I mean hell I paid for it right? After that I should have stood up and left. I didn't play another hand until I was dealt KQo in EP. I called a min raise along with a couple of others. The flop was 4Kx rainbow. I bet the pot, everyone folds except for the guy who raised. He calls. Turn was rag, I think by this time I had him on KT maybe KJ so I bet at the pot, he calls. At the river I'm confused so I check as does he......he shows K4o. Ack! So a fair amount of the money I had just made got bled away. On the chat he says this is his favorite hand. So he is not a complete idiot he just has a "lucky hand" he plays with. I don't know that it made me feel any better or worse, but at least I could understand why he did what he did and at least he understood what he did.

So to make a long story longer I stayed at the table for another orbit getting hit by two more bad beats and one mistake to put me under for the session. I fled to another table where I eeked out enough to be barely even for the night. So in short the lesson is if you come to the table with a goal and you acheive it then you should probably leave. I singlemindedly wanted to make money, once I had done that I should have gotten up and played hockey or blogged about it or something.

Home game at Spaceman's

2005-01-17T13:54:00.000-08:00

Saturday night I particpated in a NL Tourney at the Spaceman's house. We had 7 players, Spaceman, Myself (Charlie is my name and Kingtutt13 is my PP handle for those who are interested), Rachel (Spaceman's wife), Lydia (Celebrity Poker), Josh (Rachel's bro), Steve (Rachel and Josh's father) and my cousin Delana who was visiting from Maryland. Now I usually do alright on PP sit n go's but for some reason whenever I play in a home tourney I usually do not catch and can't seem to find the right place to steal. This is something I defintely have to improve but I always have fun so it's no big deal. Steve and Delana had never played Texas hold'em before so we watched part of a Howard Lederer dvd so they could get the basics down. Soon enough we all got settled at the table and the gaming insued. Myself, Rachel and Steve couldn't catch a cold. Steve showed us 63o and 62o I don't know how many times. I caught AQo twice but caught jack shit on the flop both times. I won one pot with Ax and was able to bully everyone out of the pot. I think that was the only one I won. Maybe I won one other, I cannot remember for sure. After awhile Josh was up quite a bit by playing horribly. This drives Jason up the wall because he has been trying to teach him how to become a better poker player. Josh listens occasionally but his play is extremely loose and unpredictable. After seeing this for over an hour I dubbed Josh ATC....slowly but surely all of us will have our nicknames. Rachel was the first to go out with yours truly following soon afterwards. This is interesting to me because after Jason, Rachel and I are the players with the most experience and understanding of the game. Such is the nature of the beast of course. At some point the hammer was dealt to three players in a row. The chances of this happening were of course mind boggling but still it happened. I should also mention that Jason has a great chip set and Wonderful cards. I believe they are called Copag....simply amazing cards. A must have for anyone who plays regularly. Ahem so Steve went out next and then things settled down for awhile. Celebrity Poker was next out after playing a VERY patient game....she has come a long way and her moniker will soon become an oxymoron me thinks. So now we are down to ATC, Delana and the Spaceman. Play is a bit back and forth, ATC finally tightened up after losing many of his chips, which is what Jason had been predicting all along. I don't remember exactly what Jason had but I know he raised decently PF, ATC calls...of course, at the flop Spaceman pushes. ATC calls and has Q4 sooted! Jason looses because ATC hit his random two pair. The Spaceman then left to go finalize his Tunica plans and not strangle his brother in law. So my cousin the newbie and the any two cards monkey are heads up! ATC had a big chip lead from earlier in the game when he had popped my cousin with his pocket A. She got him back good though when she pushed at an open ended straight draw against his 55. She hit it on the turn and took a significant amount of his chips. They played for a few more hands but they were both a bit tired and everyone wanted to watch a movie. So they decided to play their last hand blind! Silly for sure but all in good fun. One of them raised PF, cause you know, why not? Of course the other called, the flop was K x Q, my cousin asked for a count and after much counting and confusion she decided to push. ATC calls they turn over, Delana JTo, ATC A6o. Wow. Turn was a 6....uh oh. River was an A!! My cousin got her straight and won her first ever Texas Hold'em tourney! So all in all it was a great night with some not too bad poker being played by most and some very crappy poker played by ATC. Whew! That was a lot of typing.

Oh what a night.

2005-01-11T02:11:00.000-08:00

So this is my new blog. Big thanks go to Jason or Spaceman as he is known among the poker bloggers. He has been the person who has taken my hand into the blogging and poker world. Also the name of the blog stems from something he and I came up with in Tunica. A sitcom set in a dive restaurant in which the spunky old waitress' catch line is "Well Flush My Nuts!" we picture marketing possibilities out the wazoo. In reality you should go read his blog first and then come check out mine. So the Spaceman and I were both playing tonight at Party Poker and frankly it was a shitty session for the both of us. I should have gotten up and left after my cards started getting bad but this is among the many lessons that I am doomed to learn again and again. I didn't have it as bad as Jason who was at a table with a maniac who would play ATC and win again and again no matter how far behind he was. Very nasty stuff. The only true high point of the night came when I bet heavy at a flush draw to push out another player who at least probably had a decent PP. After he folded he asked in the chat box "Did you have it?" without missing a beat I replied, "Sorry chan I forgot!" a second behind me Jason said the same! I have been wanting to drop that baby since New Year's eve when we had a home game at the Spaceman's house and had much fun throwing it around. Anywho I promise that future posts will have more hand histories and the like to go with the entries. It's just very late tonight and I wanted to get my first real post out there.

Poker Kicks Ass

2005-01-10T21:48:00.000-08:00

BLACKJACK IS TEH SUCK! POKER ROOLZ!