Growth

Someone replaced my twin infants with squirming babies who eat all the time (yep, still at 3 a.m.) and have grown at the rate of a bamboo plant these last couple of weeks. Andie is now adept at doing "the worm" across the floor, which makes my heart heavy with cuteness every time I see it, and Kate thinks she's not far from crawling.
I'm not so sure, probably because I'm in denial. Mobile twins? Yikes.
What's also grown is my poker game. I'm not sure why but that Vegas trip put a bug in my brain that continues to whisper "play more aggressive" to me, and that's exactly what I've done lately, even at the cash games. Not only that but I'm suddenly playing $50 NL poker (yes, I'm rolled for it) again, and yet I'm playing the games even more aggressively than ever. I guess watching so many great players at work was good for my poker soul.
Of course, I'm didn't say I was winning. No, the tournament Gods have decided to fuck up my psyche and make me lose every hand that goes in pre-flop. If it's a race, a 60/40 or even a re-cock-u-lus 75/25, I'm gonna lose it. The suckouts have crept into my cash game, too, with people going all in on flush draws and hitting them and shit like that. Actually, I consider myself lucky to be breaking even in the cash games. A few flopped sets have helped with that.
Seriously, I'm looking forward to when this turns around, as it always does, because I will be red hot.
Christmas and the craziness that goes with it will cut down on some posting these next few days, but once I reach Kansas, I'll be a blogging fool, as I'll finally have a bit of time to do something for myself other than throw virtual chips around the digital cards. Saturday I've got a cheap home game with some longtime friends, something I'm really needing right now, and then the holidays will hit like Dorothy's tornado and sweep me to her home state.
I'll still play the Mookie tonight because life without the Mookie is no life at all.
And unfortunately I won't make this because I work Sunday nights, but I'll pimp it nonetheless because Trip is one of the coolest guys on the planet.
And it sounds fun, and fun is something we all need a little more of right now. Especially when it comes to poker.

Meh

Last night I managed to not really cripple myself but tear a chunk out of me anyway, sort of like when you step on a nail, in the Mookie last night.
I was also playing the Dookie and was considering a hand when Full Tilt buzzed me. I had just won a big hand with J-J and had 7,000 chips, which left me in the top 20, maybe even the top 15, I believe. I had played well the whole tournament, stealing, making good contination bets (for once) and getting a couple nice hands.
At the buzz, I clicked on the call button, and found that I had just called off a raise and a re-raise with Q,4os.
Awesome.
The flop brought me a queen and two nines, but TripJax bet large, and while I considered shoving, given that it was TripJax and he had a huge amount of chips and was capable of making a move on both those factors, I still folded because I did not think he would re-raise with nothing. It turns out he told me had me beat but just barely.
In the past such a moronic, stupid mistake would tilt me.
But I didn't even care.
Poker's been like that lately.
As Vegas approaches, I find myself caring less about poker every day, for the first time in at least three years.
The Mookie was the first time I played all week, and I'll skip Riverchasers tonight. As excited as the BBT2 is, my family life and work schedule doesn't allow me to play all the events. In fact, I can only play one a week , and I'm lucky if I make that. That leaves me at a serious disadvantage. So I hope they continue to host these contests, as they are really fucking cool, but I really can't take part in them fully just yet. Maybe in a couple of years.
Occasionally I get in these life funks, and usually I just tell myself to quit being a pussy and shake them, but a few times a year I really can't, and this is one of those times.
There's no reason for it. Work is still good, family life is fine, and after a brief hiatus to get my balls whacked, I'm running strong in time for the Turkey Trot 5K Thanksgiving race.
Ah, maybe that's it. I have post mortem depression.
I do think part of it is the twins have forced me into biorhythms that aren't really me. I would love to stay up until midnight every night and wake up at 7:15 or so, but instead I'm going to bed at 11 p.m., vaguely unsatisfied, and waking up at 6 a.m., sprinkled with wakings at 2 a.m., 3 a.m., etc. It's all catching up to me.
I don't know if poker itself is why I don't want to play or if it's this bluesy feeling I can't shake. I plan on dinking around in a cash game tonight and quitting when I don't want to play anymore, which might be right away. Maybe I need to hit up Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (yes, an old game, but one I've just discovered) and go kill a few innocents.
At least then they can't outdraw my set.


P.S. Congrats go out to Scott for his news on the twins. Welcome to the club. It's not something I would wish on anyone, but it's also been the greatest experience of my life.

Devil Inside

There are times when I feel like I'm two people.
And that's not just because my time is being divided up like tiny pieces of quiche (ham, cheese, sausage, yum), thanks to two increasingly cute little girls who unfortunately have decided that any time outside their parents' arms sucks. And there's only so long I can wear one of those Bjorn pouches without feeling completely emasculated.
And Harry Potter still remains near, but not to, the end. In fact, a basket of laundry has remained unfolded for three days. It would take me 10 minutes to do it. I have not had that 10 minutes available to me. I also haven't blogged much lately. Thanks for noticing. Oh and I have a Pokerworks article to do soon here. Have I done it yet? I have not. Poker? Ha. One short session a few days ago; it was profitable, but just barely after a stupid push in a CASH game with TPTK.
Further proof that all that crying and all those demands have punctured my brain like swiss cheese came when I wanted to slime the tires of our jogging stroller so Jayden and I can continue to go for short runs and walks around the hood. A goat head punctured one of the tires, and if you've never run into a goat head, it's a small weed that releases seeds with the sharpness and size of a Ninja Star. So I'm sliming the tires, and part of the fun is unscrewing the "core" out of the valve.
Of course, I was doing this on our deck, and the "core," about the size of the top of a ballpoint pen, falls off the screw and rolls into the cracks of the deck and down into a dirty grave.
Sigh.
I make a brief attempt to crawl under our deck, but the only person who can fit under there is Jayden, and I consider it for a second before realizing that sending a toddler into a confined space without the ability to follow clear instructions would probably not earn me Father of the Year.
So I think. Ouch. Then I feed a twin, and inspiration actually strikes, as maybe the fussing jars a nerve ending in the cortex or something. I have a long steel rod I use to clean my trombone. I have chewing gum. I have a glue gun that I can coat said gum to make it extra sticky.
It takes a good half hour, but I rig the contraption up and manage to snag the small silver piece. Triumph! I am a genius!
And then I wash the gum off the rod.
And the silver piece disappears.
I am not a genius.
Fighting the urge to throw Jayden's high chair through our kitchen window, I retrace my steps. Nothing. Did Jayden take it? I wonder but I do not accuse. Did the twins take it? No, they are 10 weeks old. OK.
I finally remember the sink. Ah ha! I fish around the drain and pull out several disgusting things before my finger grazes across a piece of silver. It could be. It might be. It is!
I quickly screw the silver piece back into the stroller's air valve and finish up with the stroller.
Now, all this time, my second person was shouting at me to destroy things, throw something, maybe kick the dog or something. I ignored it, of course. But why does that second person even exist?
Why, for instance, would my voice ring through my head as I was running a 10K race Saturday? Why would it tell me to slow down? Why would it, in fact, even urge me to stop and walk?
Yes, I was uncomfortable, even miserable at times, but that's part of the pain of running these races. I wanted to run in 48 minutes, about a 7:45 pace, and I was accomplishing this, but all the while, that little voice spoke to me, telling me to stop, to quit, it's OK, just walk for a minute to catch your breath.
Why? Isn't that good for me?
Look, sometimes that little voice is a good thing. It's saved me a LOT of money on the poker tables when all I want to do is be a little aggro maniac (those of you who know my play will laugh at this, but now you know how effective that voice is). That little voice makes sure I don't eat a carton of ice cream every night or do something stupid like yell at my kids when all they want is my attention. It pushes me, ironically, to go for a run when it's cold or raining or hot, and it gets me up in the middle of the night when the girls are crying for food (well, that and my wife, a master at the push-push-until-he's-awake shove).
But sometimes that voice can be evil, so damn evil. It also urges me to push my chips in the middle with a hand like TPTK and eat what I want and to yell at my family.
It's not an angel on one side and a demon on the other. I'll never be an angel, but thoughts of, say, serial killing aren't in my blood either. But Friday, when I climb Longs Peak, a monster that will put me on the trail at 1 a.m. and probably take me 14 hours to complete, for the 15th time, I'm pretty certain at times I'll have to silence the Devil inside.

Thoughts for Thursday

• "When the bow breaks, the cradle will fall
And down will come baby, cradle and all"

Who the hell invented this nursery rhyme and why is a song about a baby crashing to earth (along with the crib) supposed to soothe my kids? Should I read a "Friday the 13th Part 8" picture book before they hit the hay too?

"Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water
Jack fell down and broke his crown and Jill came tumbling after"

Great, a fable about a hiking trip gone very wrong. You people are just sick.

• • •

Haiku tribute to my girls:

What? Easy-Peasy?
Daddy, how could you say that?
No more sleep for you.

• • • 

"So you have twins."
"Yep."
"Cool. Two for the price of one."

Huh? Of all the stupid twins comments I've heard so far - and granted I'm new to this game, and no one has mentioned my fertility rate yet - this is the dumbest.
This comment almost implies it's EASIER to raise a pair of infants rather than one. How they came to think this I have no idea. It's much harder. Even the pregnancy was much more difficult.
My twins readers know this. Try calming one baby down only to have the other one start up (two nights ago) over and over and over and let's see if you change your mind. I'll bet my bankroll you do. Plus the juggling is just unreal. You can't trade off feeding shifts, there isn't one to "play fetch," so when you both have a baby on your lap, one simply just has to get up and get the wipes, etc.

My answer to this now is "Two for the price of four."
• • •

If the twins are in fact identical, why is it that one is wide awake from 2:30 a.m. to 4 a.m. and then the other is awake from 9 p.m. to 11:30 p.m. and then 4:30 a.m. to 6 a.m.?
Identical means the same exact genetic material, right?
So is this nature versus nuture?
Environmental factors are playing a part?
What, then, am I presenting in our home environment that makes it seem OK to be awake at that time?
• • •

Actually, the last two nights have been good ones - they only got up once after I went to bed at midnight - so I can't bitch too much. BUT both babies were really fussing from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m., which explains my absense from the Mookie last night (I really miss that tournament). When Mom leaves things are going to be rough. She had one and I had one.
We're pretty sure the girls have acid reflux too, but this time we've jumped right on it. They are sleeping in their car seats (hint, new parents, the crib is not God), and we've started them on some medication. I don't like pumping our new babies full of meds, but if it makes them less miserable, then we're less miserable, and that's the goal.

• • •
Poker continues to be up and down. I'm basically like $30 ahead in the last two months despite the hours and hours and hours I've played at $25 NL. Pretty pathetic if you ask me. Yes there's been the nice spate of suckouts and coolers, far too many to mention here, but I'm also making bad calls as well and paying some of those suckouts off. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong either.
Honestly there are times I feel like just stopping. Last night I had a great night, and I finished down thanks to a massive cooler when a guy had a Q-high flush over my J-high flush, and yes there were only three to the board. If you can fold that, you're a better player than me, and you always will be. Things like this are indeed my fault, and yet they've happened so much, it's why I'm even for the last two months.
I know it could be worse. From what I've read from other bloggers, a lot worse, actually. Whining over.
• • • 

We're gearing to head to Salina, Kan., next Wednesday. That's where I used to work. It's also where Kate's grandmother lives. I don't know if I'd call four days with in-laws in one of the most boring and humid places on Earth with two newborn twins and a toddler fun. It might be boring, though - probably will be, in fact - and right now boring sounds pretty good.
Plus I can get a good peanut butter shake at the local burger joint. This place has like 453 shake flavors. What's your ideal shake flavor? Peanut butter for me. Oh and there's a place that also serves a monster-killer chicken dinner. That rocks.
Maybe that's why Kansas is filled with fat people. The highlights of their days involve food.

Whiny ass post, v. 7.3

I simply need to vent.
Blog, you're it.
The twins have decided that they were making things a little too easy for us, so they've swapped times they needed to be held throughout the day. Jayden also apparently had a Chernobyl-like meltdown for almost an hour, and though I wasn't there to witness it, I felt it when I got home, as the fallout from said meltdown turned our normally cheery household into a black hole sun.
I was mentally exhausted by 9 p.m., and after another hour-long battle getting both girls down (I'm awake, no, I"M awake, no, MY TURN NOW to be held by Daddy), I finally got a chance to sit down at poker.
I played well, if I do say so myself. I won a big pot with Q-Q, bluffed several times, had a couple draws come in and twice got all my money in when I was at least 5-1 to win.
And I lost both those pots.
And I finished down $30 for the night.
And I was PISSED.
I still am. In fact, just thinking about the two beats leaves a thin drool of anger creeping down my chin.
Again, I'm venting. The first time I had a set of 4s, turned my full house and gladly called the monkey who decided that was a good time to push his A-A (he could not have telegraphed his cards any more even by turning them face up).
Still, shit happens, right? I played well enough to crawl back into even or close to it, and then with five people in the pot, I called a raise with 7,7 and got a board of K,5,7 rainbow.
Beautiful.
By the time the betting is through, three others push their stacks in, and I need to call $22 to win a $84 pot.
Um, OK.
What do you think they all had? I put one, the initial bettor and a donkey who bet two times the pot on an underpair, one on A,K, and the third on an underset.
I was right on the initial bettor - he had 8,8. One other guy did indeed have A,K. The third I was wrong about. He had two pair. He was the only one who had me covered, of course.
I really don't mind the call with two pair. It's probably not a great call but he was getting nice odds on his money, and as I said before, those other two players really had a wide range. You could even make a case that the big bet with 8,8 wasn't terrible. At least he was betting. The call with A,K is simpy inexcusable. What on earth would make you think top pair was good there?
Well, for my good play, the poker Gods saw it fit to reward Mr. Two Pair and give him a runner, runner flush.
So. If my monster, huge favorites hold up, if the odds just play out, I'm easily up $75 for the night, or at least three buy-ins. That's a lot for me. I'm a conservative player. No way would I ever, ever ask for a suckout to get those numbers, as I know that will never happen. I've also reviewed the hand histories and poker tracker and I haven't sucked out for a big pot, or even a pot over $5, in two months. Unbelieveable, isn't it. I think the ratio over the last two months is 25-1.
Now, yes, this sucks anyway, but in the last two months, I've basically been treading water because of beats like this. Yes, I've made a few mistakes, but most of the beats have come just like this one, where I get my money in and get fucked over. I'll show you the hand histories.
When you have kids in the house, you can't throw something or even yell, so I'm hoping this will work out some of the anger. I haven't been this angry in a while, and I really don't know why. Maybe it's because my poker time is limited now, so it burns me when I lose money cause it's hard to win it back, or maybe it's just everything else and I'm really tired. Or maybe I'm really fucking tired of losing when I make the right play. That was a huge pot last night, and I won't get another chance to win a pot like that in months.
Honestly I'm so fucking discouraged right now I am thinking about putting poker off for a while. If the game is truly like that these days, where you have a great night, slowly build your bankroll the right way and then continue to have it chopped down like a tree because of some fucker catching his miracle card, forcing to you once again build it back up and then rinse and repeat, so be it. I don't need that in my life right now, not with demanding kids and climbing season approaching.
We'll see.
I've got a meeting with a group I'll be guiding this summer up three 14ers, and then I've got a date with the new James Bond.
And when he loses that huge hand I've heard about, I'll simply smile.
We've all been there, Mr. Bond, and misery loves company.


P.S. Stay tuned tommorow for some cute Wordless Wednesday pictures instead of a bitter, whiny poker post.

Sweet, sweet chaos

The prompter on Ultimate Bet blinked at me, like it had winked at me, and I faced a tough decision on my first hand.
December was a cruel month of poker, and January showed signs of it turning around until Wednesday, when I donked my way out of the Mookie and then played passively into two bubbles on weak SnGs. It seemed like it would never end.
And now this.
Now I had KK and a guy to my right, who I had no information on, had just put me all in. The board looking non-threatning - there were no completed draws out there, it was 9-high, and I really couldn't even make out a plausible two pair that he might have called my 4x preflop raise with.
He had just called me down the whole way, even when I overbet on the turn.
It seemed like the perfect conditions for getting beat by a set.
A bad call,and I"m spending another week in the red. Not by much, mind you, but $50 is $50. It was, in fact, my whole Poker Stars deposit bonus, which I had finally earned.
But sometimes poker is not a game of skill. It is simply gambling. I thought I had the best hand. I thought he had missed his draw of two diamonds. But I couldn't be sure. I had one pair. A fancy, neato pair, to be sure, but just a pair.
I called.
He had Q,10 of diamonds. He had missed his draw and tried to bet me off.
No, sir.
And that was the beginning of perhaps the most chaotic night of poker I've may have ever had.
I had some hands written down, but I played so many hands on both tables that I honestly couldn't write them all down.
Yeah, yeah, I know I said I wouldn't multi-table. I also said I wouldn't play .25/.50 NL again, but I got stomped at .50/$1 and so this is my compromise. You've probably already broken your New Year's Resolutions to get in shape already, too, so we're even.
Anyway, magic hands, coupled with a determination get more aggressive, meant I probably looked like a maniac to both tables. We know better, but they had no idea. I got beautful hands that got paid off, like a set of 8s, a flush when someone had a worse flush and someone else had a straight. My pocket Ks again got paid off. QQ got paid off and actually held up.
But every time the chips were shipped my way, I seemed to be Federal Expressing them back to others. I wasn't making bad plays - that's just how many good hands I got. And when you get good hands, some will lose.
I flopped trips three times during the night, and every time, they lost. Once to a 4-flush (bet the pot every time, he called me down and hit it, nice draw, sir), once to a straight on the river (again, nice draw, sir) and finally, the worst.
I had Q,8 in the BB and checked. The board came QQJ. I checked because I'm clever as shit and wanted to slowplay my hand. Dude checks. On the turn, a K comes, so I bet the pot for information and also with the thought of taking it down. Dude calls.
Hmmm.
The 8 falls on the river, and now I've got it. Dude checks, and I bet $5, about half the pot. It's a value bet.
Until he raises me $15.
I have a thought to push, but I pause. Q,J is a conceiveable hand, right? He was UTG and called.
I'm definitely calling here, but I think just a call is prudent.
He had Q,J.
Ouch but whew. That cost me $30 but could have cost me much more.
My A,10 lost to A,Q (he didn't raise, not even preflop). TPTK got shot down four other times.
And yet every time, another big pot would come my way. As soon as that full house stomped me, the set of 9s doubled me back up.
Oh, and then a sauced-up and saucy Princess Maigrey kicked me off X-Chat twice. So even on the chat box there was chaos.
Final score? I believe I won about $150 for the night. And I finished it with a $65 profit.
So I'll take it. That's a great night for me, especially after December, and it will ensure that I finish well into the green this week.
I don't know how you aggressive folks do it. By the end of two hours, I was exhausted and stopped when I started bleeding chips a bit too much on weak calls.
I will remain aggressive, but I will also play my tight style. I do that, mostly, to avoid turmoil.
But for one night, I embraced chaos.
Her faint perfume on my collar still makes me smile.

Three reasons for a follow-up

I feel better after a hard couple days at work, but I'm still a little funky, and not the Prince/Sly and the Family Stone/Earth, Wind and Fire/Stevie Wonder/Jamiroquai kind of funk we've grown to love.
Maybe I just need to get back into a routine, but I think there are three reasons why I'm not exactly bopping along life's highway right now.

#1 - I miss my old life.
OK, I admit it.
Having a child is maybe the greatest thing that's happened to me. I say maybe because that's such a cliched thing to say - Hallmark Cards practically has a patent on it - and yet in many ways it's true.
But the birth of another child has made me realize that I do love my time to myself. I love to watch movies, play video games, play poker, read and blog. I don't like making choices, and in the past, I didn't have to. Now I do, and not only that, I would love to head to the casino more and play poker more and see a damn movie in the theaters with my wife every once in a while.
Kansas City, when we had access to a free babysitters, made me realize that.
And now I guess I'm a little worried that with two, all that will go away for good, at least for a while.
I feel guilty for feeling that way, too, which only adds to it.

#2 - Whoever wrote about the summertime blues was nuts.
In the summer you've got places to run, mountains to climb, girls to gawk at, places to swim and dogs to walk. In the winter you've got a land encased in ice, snow, cold, and it's dark by 4:30 p.m.
I love snow as much as the next person, and this winter, in many ways, has been fun, but I'm a little tired of it, and the realization that we've got at least a couple more months of this shit hasn't helped.

#3 - This third reason is a little complicated and rather stupid.
But I'm a little jealous of y'all.
Every day I've been reading posts about how you crushed this SnG or how you won $400 over the weekend or how you placed first or second in a 180-person tournament, and I'm over here still playing .25/.50 NL after an unsuccessful move to .50/$1 NL and having the hardest time making a fucking final table to a 45-person SnG. Yes, I've suffered several suckouts in those, but that's not the only reason I haven't made it. I'm feeling very small in the poker world right now.
I know how stupid it is to feel that way. I don't have the talent of a Fuel, the aggression of a Lucko or the pure blind courage of a Smokee, and I should be OK with that. I'm not Iakaris. I'm not even TripJax. I am not Jordan, even if he just wrote about his bad losing streak over the weekend. I suppose I'm not even Change 100, even though she honestly documents her own struggles, she seems to be a damn good tournament player.
I'm happy with what I've accomplished so far. I'm up more than $3,000 since last year playing low limits for my first year of real money poker. I've improved more over the last month and added several aggressive moves to my game. But I'm nowhere near where I want to be, and I wonder how long it takes to start dominating limits that would either bore you all to tears or make you chuckle as you laughed at the simplicity of the game and demanded the finest meats and cheeses.
And now many of you are getting paid to blog. Deservedly so. I haven't put enough into this to even dream about that. But, wow, that's really cool.
This hasn't affected my play, as far as I know, given that I'm up again so far this month.
I'll work my way through it.
I hope the sun comes out and melts all this snow, and my blues, away.

Taking a break

I guess I should say a pause.
I'm still playing poker and still blogging.
Just not as often as I was.

Although I have no addictions, I have a slightly addictive personality. Sometimes that's a good thing, as I can't rest until a project is compelted. That little nagging voice in my head prevents me from procrastinating too much. In other ways, I can become fixated on something.
Like poker, for instance.

Poker is a tough game. It's not a game to take lightly. It requires a lot of thought to play it well. And when you do play it well, you aren't always rewarded; in some cases you are punished.
And all those suckouts were getting to me.
Way too much.

So I went back to video games. I got away from video games because I was playing a lot of poker. In fact, I got away from reading and watching movies, too. I wasn't stupid enough to ignore my wife or baby - I always played after they went back to bed - but I set aside everything else.

As a result, I'm a much better player than a year ago, when I first started playing for money. I have more disposable income. I have an iPod shuffle and a laptop. I also had a stress level that I shouldn't over something that's supposed to be enjoyable.
In fact, poker became a second job. Open a couple tables, work off those bonuses (see, there's that word, work), grind out a few dollars a night, bitch about suckouts and go to bed, usually sort of unhappy, even if I won that night.
So now I"m playing Gun and loving it. I'll start on Half Life 2 again here shortly, and I'll also hit up some books - Jay Greenspan's is first on my list - and maybe write a bit more.

Oh, I"ll still play poker. In fact, here's where you'll find me tonight:




But I'm limiting poker to an hour or two a night at the most.
Poker is supposed to be fun.
Maybe I'll start realizing that if I don't get to it quite so much.