How much is it?

I've never said that at an online poker table, but I probably would, if the amount wasn't placed next to the call button.
After messing around on Party Poker for a bit, or just enough to collect my Poker Source Online bonus, I've started working on a bonus from Full Tilt.
Now I hated Party Poker, as I've said before.
But I love Full Tilt.
Right away I could tell the games would be more challenging when a guy re-raised me with 9,9, pushing me off my JJ, in a cash game. I play $50 NL cash games, and for the most part, on the Mac Web sites, Hollywood Poker and Pokerroom (I know I should link these but nah), if a guy re-raises you, you can count on KK or AA.
You could argue that his play was a donkey move. I prefer to think of it as a good, aggressive way to make money from a pocket pair that is difficult to play post-flop. Had I re-raised him I'm sure he would have folded. Had I called I'm sure he would have played it cautiously. I folded because of what I've faced in the past.
Now I'll have to re-adjust my game.
And the biggest re-adjustment, I'm ashamed to admit, will be paying more attention to a player's image.
Through my two-tabling, chatting with or bugging other bloggers (hi, drizz!) and watching poker on TV, I have devoted maybe 25 percent of my attention to each table I play.
Unfortunately, or perhaps extremely fortunately, I've still managed to book solid winning sessions most of the time, or at least enough to show a decent profit every month.
I do this, of course, by playing tight, aggressive, ABC poker.
I may be wrong, but it seems to me that won't work on Full Tilt.
A guy to my left raised me continually throughout the night my first time on, pushing me off marginal hands that normally would take down pots on the other sites. I was down $15, mostly because I folded to his aggressively play. When I got A,J, I called yet another raise from him, about 4x the BB, his standard.
Now I never usually call with A,J in a cash game. There's no reason to, in my mind.
But this time I called. I even thought about re-raising, but I wasn't prepared to go to town with it. Yet.
When a J-high flop hit, with two diamonds, I bet about half the pot, and he re-raised me. I knew he would, and I decided right then and there that my TPTK, a hand I would normally toss to a re-raise, was good.
I raised him back. When he pushed (he had me covered by at least $75), I called.
He had a diamond draw and did not hit his flush. I won a $75 pot and wound up finishing up $20 for the night.
I paid attention and it paid off.
Last night, my second time on Full Tilt, twice I folded A,J with a J-high flop after he re-raised after my re-raise. I'm pretty sure I was beat there but I wouldn't know for sure.
I was watching ESPN.
There are still bad players on Full Tilt, some of them really bad. Last night I took $30 off a guy who played Q,4 os against my AA.
But it takes some attention to recognize them.
So I"ll still chat, as I enjoy that, and maintaining those relationships with the poker folk is definitely beneficial to my game.
But no more TV. Maybe, for now, no more two tabling.
And the Professional Poker Tour will have to accept 25 percent of my attention.
The rest I'm turning to the table.

Let's ban fantasy football too then

Five reasons why fantasy football and online poker are the same:

• I don't have to go to some bash on some boat to play it, even though I really, really, really, really, really want to but my budget won't allow it (that and my wife and possibly the 1-year-old would have looked like Linda Blair pre-Exorcist had I asked her after being gone so much this summer climbing).

• They take more luck than we want to admit, especially us "educated" players who hate, say, the guy who takes, say, Drew Brees in the first round and crushes your team with Terrell Owens and Steve Smith and Shaun Alexander as receivers (strictly a hypothetical, that's not me). Does this sound familiar with a guy holding A,5 against your A,K?

• It's really, really fun when it's going well and really, really crappy, almost tedious, when it's not.

• I say Who-hoo! when I'm doing well, as I did Sunday, when my team scored 91 points.

• It's a little geeky, but in a hip sort of way.

Bonus reason: Both go better with beer.

Fall is here, and that's really cool

Now that I’ve accepted the end to the summer climbing season, I had a wonderful run Sunday morning.
It was the perfect morning, the kind of morning you only get in the fall.
Climbing in September can be as addictive as crack to mountaineers. The changing leaves are a reason, but mostly it’s because of the weather.
Fall arrived this weekend, and it’s already creating some welcome weather.
The weather was bad this fall, but when it’s good, it’s realllllly good. It’s usually clear and cold, but not too cold.
I planned to go about eight miles Sunday as training for a half marathon I plan to run at Boyd Lake in November. I started out in my running tights (not exactly flattering but wonderful for those cold runs) and a warm top, and my hands were biting at me when I started with my running partner.
We ran down from Northridge to the Poudre Trail, down past the trail, up 83rd Avenue and to 20th and back to Northridge.
As the run progressed, the day slowly got warmer, as if it was camped under a small, blue, gas flame. By the end, I was sweaty and almost hot, but just in time for the run to be over.
The mountains to the west looked gorgeous, with deep, white snow coating their tops. The clear, cold weather gave us a good view, something you just don’t see in the summer, when smog and ozone gets clogged in the warm air, obscuring their view.
Once you accept the fact that fall is here, it doesn’t take long to really enjoy it.

Goodnight season

This is dedicated to “Goodnight Moon,” one of 1-year-old Jayden’s favorite books.

Goodnight, climbing season.
Goodnight snow.
Goodnight weather that makes the wind blow.
Goodnight frustration.
Goodnight forecasts.
Goodnight summer, which really didn’t last.
Goodnight granola bars.
Goodnight sunlight.
Hello time with the little guy day and night.
Goodnight equipment, stashed out of sight.
Goodnight ruined plans - I’ve got no more fight.
Hello long runs so I’ll be ready.
For some snowshoeing and skiing come January.


P.S. Hello poker, time to play
So my aces can get cracked another day

Worst. Champion. Ever.

Jamie, Jamie, Jamie.
Poker really doesn't need this. Poker is more popular than ever, but it's still kind of a sleazy game, so it still needs all the good publicity it can get. They're trying to ban what made it so popular, after all.
And so who do we have currently representing our game in prime time all over sport's biggest station?
No, unfortunately, it's not Allen Cunningham.
We've got Jamie Gold.
Ugh.

You could sort of excuse the flap with his promise to split half his winnings. Yeah, it's kind of sleazy, but it was bound to happen one of these days, with every player who didn't make it in through an Internet tournament or satelite backed by someone. And you could sort of excuse the fact that he's a geeky, shallow, smarmy person. This year's tournament was loaded with them, the result of too many Internet players in Mom's basement apartment. Heck, at least Eric Molina didn't win (I bothered to look up his name this time).

But the guy is SUCH a douchebag. So many times on ESPN yesterday I hid my head in a pillow. All that talking, telling players what he has and then pretending he was sorry to knock out another player.
"I said top top," he said to one player. "I'm sorry."
"I told him what I had," he said later.

These are exactly the kind of players I hate, in my poker game and my softball game. I'll slide cleats first into them without a second thought.
Gold has to be poker's most embarassing main event champion since Robert Varkonyi.
And I hesitate to say this because at the least, Varkonyi is good family man, a humble, nice guy who got Phil Hellmuth's head shaved. How can you not like him? He said at the main event this year they had a baby, and last year he stood by and supported his wife all the way to her cash in the tournament. I'd leave my 1-year-old with Varkonyi for babysitting.
I'd walk through fire to snatch him from Gold's arms.

My finger was in my throat the whole time they were doing the Gold story about his father. The soft piano music. The close-ups of Gold's sincere face. The tears.
Yes, it's a sad story, but I just don't buy that all of Gold's money is going to his Dad. Why fight to keep half his winnings then? His father may be dead before that money is released.

I suppose we've gotten lucky in the past. Joe Hachem and Greg Raymer were great champions. Even Moneymaker did a lot for the game by promoting the idea that anyone could win. He's embarassing himself now in those commercials, but they paid him a lot of money, I'm sure, so who can blame him for doing them?
Gold just makes me shake my head, a guy who thinks he's a great player and doesn't realize that he hit the run of his life.
Here's to seeing him get knocked out next year.

• • •

I haven't written much about football, even though I love it, because I'm a Chiefs fan, and I went to the University of Kansas. We're not talking powerhouses here. The Chiefs put on an inspiring 9-6 overtime loss Sunday.
So, yes, I love football, but I'll just keep quiet about it for now.
My fantasy team is pretty good. I've finished first in my league twice, second once and fourth once in six years.
I just made a brilliant roster move. I picked up a kicker to cover for Vinateri in case he can't kick (and how hurt, really , do you have to be to not kick a football). Except he's on his bye weeks.
Nice.

• • •
Now that my new MacBook runs Windows, I'll slowly work through Poker Source Online bonuses and then stick with the ones I like. So far Party Poker isn't going to make the cut, and that has nothing to do with the fact that I lost huge pots last night with A,Q and A,A against 10,9 and 3,4 when both hands flopped trips. And no I didn't slow play them. And you have to come to my house to collect your $1.
I just don't like the software, the poor customer service and all the bugs. But I do like the PSO bonus and free money.
I've played 250 raked hands there. Once I reach 1,000 I may move on.

Mountaineering can mean pretty leaves as well as a summit

I scraped my first windshield of the season Sunday.
A thick coat of frost stuck to my car as my wife, Kate, and I walked out of the Alpine Inn, a quaint place we found in Gunnison a few hours after ditching my attempt to climb Vermillion.

That’s right. The climbing season might very well be over.

Fall is here, and in the San Juans, it appears, the cold and snow is leapfrogging fall and right into winter.

A windy, cold and unforecasted snowstorm knocked out my plans to climb the high 13er, what us climbers call a Centennial because it’s one of the highest 100 peaks in the state, near Silverton. It also may just end my season. I’m sick of fighting the weather every weekend — as I’ve already said, this was the fifth weekend in a row of bad weather — and I’ve only got this weekend before I can expect a path to a high summit without a lot of snow.

Driving home Sunday was, in a sense, as painful as the trip up would have been, as the skies were blue and crystal clear, featuring the kind of weather that makes mountaineers weep in gratitude.

But I left this weekend feeling like I had a good trip instead of crying over another lost chance to climb.
Kate, my wife, went with me, and we got to do see some of the best leaves I’ve seen in my life.

The best place we saw was over Monarch Pass on U.S. 285 outside of Poncha Springs. So that could mean by the time you make plans to go see it, that color might be over. The second-best place was over Red Mountain Pass just outside of Ouray, and even though the color was spectacular up there, it still has potential, and I’m guessing this weekend would be eye-popping.

We stayed in the Box Canyon Lodge in Ouray, where we could soak in several hot springs tubs. When I woke up Saturday morning, after reading a forecast of clear but cold and windy weather, the rain pattered against the window of my room. I couldn’t believe it. We drove up to Red Mountain pass anyway, thinking I could get a late start on the peak, and the mountains looked like ice cream cones, with harsh weather topping them like whipped cream.

Um, no.

But it didn’t seem to matter too much, once I got over my initial grumbling.
The drive up to the pass was beautiful, the kind of sights you only get to see three weeks out of the whole year. I still got to share with Kate many of my favorite adventures when I was chasing the 14ers, including the fun, 4WD road up to Mount Sneffels, Ouray’s king of the mountains, that I drove in hurricane-like weather the night before I planned to climb it, only to find starry skies at 3 a.m. when I got up from the back seat of my car to go to the bathroom.

On the way home, Kate said, “I want to go back next year.” She looked relaxed. It was good to get out of town and have a break from our little guy. And she realized, just like I discovered many years ago, that we are lucky to live in Colorado.

We started planning out next year as we drove back. We could stay a couple days in Lake City, where I staked my “base camp” the week I climbed five 14ers in a week and attempted a sixth (Sneffels the first time, when a thundersnowstorm drove me off). We could then go back to Ouray and get Vermillion. Maybe we could even bring Jayden, who would be 2 by then and might enjoy the sights.

Sometimes my most important mountaineering adventures, I am constantly reminded, come when I don’t even sniff a chance at making the summit.


Here are a few photos of the leaves and the snow later on. Check out the rainbow at the place we stayed Friday night. The hot springs were nice, too:

Embarassing on ESPN

Well, I was pretty embarassed for poker last night during ESPN's World Series of Poker broadcast.
We live in an agricultural community out here in Weld County, Colorado, on the edge of both the mountains and the plains, but I saw far more jackasses last night than I have in my seven years here.
I can't remember all the names. They all run together anyway, and I don't want to spend one brain cell more on them anyway.

My favorite was the guy in the Sugar Ray "I just wanna fly" sunglasses who berated a player for calling an all-in with A,10 (correctly, but still...) and then called later with 6,5 os and a board that matched about as well as my junior high school outfits.
Norman Chad actually had some good lines last night berating the beraters. "How did you get here unsupervised?" was my favorite to a "How could you call that?"


I don't blame ESPN for showing all the sparks. It's entertaining.
But it's also embarassing to the game. All those hat/sunglasses/iPod dipshits thinking they're Phil Ivey, going all in with shit and then acting like it's the greatest move since the Stop N Go. Jamie Gold couldn't have come off as more of a douchebag if he gave off the slight odor of vinegar and baby powder. Even Jeffrey Lisandro, a classy, tough player, talked about taking off the head of a tournament director.

When do we get back to poker?

Poker is not the nicest game. I realize that. The objective is to take the other person's money. You do this through deception, trickery, bullying, besting or outright lying. But it's a beautiful, interesting, thoughtful game as well. And we don't need to muck it up any further by focusing on all the asses. There are plenty of classy players who, by the way, play a wonderful game, like, I don't know, Allen Cunningham. It would be nice to see a few more hands from him instead of brief clips of him dragging a pot or two.

My theory on all these guys is poker is basically for dorks, geeks and video game whizzes who have found a new itch to scratch. Before you flame me, yes, I include myself in that group, although I think the mountain climbing and running gets me out of the basement every once in a while. Many of you have kids or softball or gardening or something else.
These guys currently making a fool of themselves on ESPN don't seem to have anything else.

Suddenly these guys find themselves doing something somewhat cool and hip. There's a spotlight on them. They've never felt that before. So they have no idea how to act.

In the future, ESPN, can you please focus on those who do?

Scraping by on the SnG short stack

One of my best traits at the poker table is my ability to sip on a short stack until the money comes in a SnG.
It is unfortunately, something I've had a lot of practice doing.
I'm fine with that. I prefer to wait for good starting hands instead of think I'm Phil Ivey and shove my chips in with, say, A,4, as many of my opponents prefer to do, at least at the levels I play ($10 + $1 is my highest stake, but I've started to play those more frequently).
Actually, I don't even think Phil Ivey does that.
Anyway, probably half the time I play, I find myself nursing a short stack and waiting for a good opportunity.
You probably do to, if you're like me and:
• You fail to catch a fish
• You fold to most raises and refuse to get involved early on in the game unless you've got a hand you simply can't fold
• You are satisfied with cashing most of the time instead of taking chances so you can win
• You bluff sporadically but not enough to steal more than once per orbit
• You get a cold run of cards
• You suffer at least one suckout (par for me in an SnG is at least once, usually when something like my A,K loses to 10,3 sooted)
• You think patience, rather than aggression, gets you more money in an SnG (anyone who believes differently can look at my 67 percent ROI according to Sharkscope and see how they match up)
So, you've played good poker and you've been rewarded by having half as many chips as three of the other world-class poker players who doubled up by playing J,10; Q,K and 5,5 to a raise, respectively, the last guy tripling up when he went all-in against QQ and KK and spiked his 5 on the river.
Here's a few tips on how to make the money. This is mostly the same as Harrington's low-M stragety and his short-stack advice in his latest, Vol. III. But read on because you may offer a few more tips after mine here.
• When you're in, you're all in - Your equity gives you a good reason to push with hands like 9,8 soooted or Q,10 if your M drops below 5. On the bubble, most players won't take a chance of getting crippled unless they've got a monster, and if they do, well, there's nothing you can do.
But...
• Don't call an all-in unless you either have a great read on a guy, and you might by this time, or you have a 10-percent hand like AA, AK sooted, KK or maybe QQ and JJ. Anything beyond that and you're likely in a coin flip, unless, again, you think the guy is a maniac.
But....
• Trust your instincts. In fact, players become chip leaders in SnGs because they're idiots, took chances and got lucky. If you have A,10 and you're against one of those players, and you're really short, call. Occasionally you have to take a chance to win at SnGs.
However...
• If you do call a maniac, or you push all-in because you're close to gasping for air, try to push with a hand that won't be dominated. Avoid hands like A,4, where someone will mostly likely call with any A, leaving you dominated. Try to push with, say, Q,10 or possibly 9,8, giving you a greater chance for a pair.
Also, if you get a pair, any pair, run with it if you're below 4.
And...
• Don't wait until you're almost dead to push. Your equity is your best weapon. If you have an M of 2, all you're doing is pricing someone into calling you. You have to have the chips to hurt someone if they call. If you do, most of the time, they won't call, and you've stolen some significant blinds.
Finally....
• Once you're in the money, you can loosen up, but only slightly. I can't tell you how much extra money I've won because players go back to their usual "Hey, I've got Q,5, I'm pooooshing here" and knocked themselves out. Obviously push if you have to, but don't just go all-in on the next hand because you've barely doubled your buy-in with third.
Good luck riding that short stack.

A reminder

Kinda frustrated right now.
After a week of beautiful weather for climbing, it's depressing, damp and dingy outside, and that's kinda how I feel on the inside. The forecast calls for a 60 percent chance of rain, which, all you poker players now, means 100 percent chance you will get sucked out on if you are ahead that far. It also means 100 percent rain, basically, in the mountains, or storms or snow. A high of 35. Winds up to 25 mph.

Does that sound fun to you?
Me either.
So I'm staying home unless the forecast changes.

People ask me if my climbing has changed since I had Jayden. Not really, I tell them. I still do dangerous routes.
But this has changed me in this way: Before I'd be more willing to just risk it and see if the weather suddenly got better. Now if I'm going to spend that much time away from him — usually climbing is at least a 12 hour day when you factor in the driving — I want a decent shot at the peak.
It doesn't sound like I'm going to get even that.

I may regret it tommorow, but I'm not going unless I pull a three-outer and the weather clears. As the forecast just keeps getting worse, I doubt it will happen.

Sigh.

• • •

I'm not a "God Bless the U.S.A." kind of guy. I think Bush is probably our Worst. President. Ever. I really hate the war in Iraq. And now they want to ban online poker. Hmph.

But I wrote this editorial for the Tribune that will run Sunday, and I believe every word of it. I hope you enjoy it and have a good weekend.



It’s still painful to see clips from what was one of our worst days in America’s history.

Even five years later, seeing that second plane slam into the innocent World Trade Center sends a spike through our hearts. If you catch any video of those people jumping out of the buildings, chances are you still have to avert your eyes. And footage of the collapse of the two towers can still bring tough, brave men from our local fire departments to tears.

But one memory, an important memory, should bring a smile to your face.
We responded with a patriotic flourish we haven’t enjoyed since World War II.

We sang “God Bless America” at ball games. Flag pins, flag shirts and flag hats became hip additions to our wardrobes, as if they were endorsed by fashion gurus from the show “Project Runway.” We even cheered for the hated, rich and somewhat snobby New York Yankees because we knew that city deserved a World Series after taking the kind of punishment no place should ever have to bear.
Most of all, we brought our flags out of the attic, dusted them off and flew them proudly, day and night, as a defiant fist-shake to the cowards who attacked us.

On the five-year anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001, even for just one day, it’s time to fly them again.

The way we showed our love for our country was something positive out of all the horror. It was proof that good things can come out of unspeakable acts. It was a way to show terrorists that nothing will shake us from our foundations of freedom.

It’s probably safe to say that we always loved our country. We just forgot along the way to show it. Marriages suffer from the same natural tendency to take something so stable, so comfortable and so natural for granted. And yet, just as a heart attack, a car crash or the need for counseling can bring back the affection married couples once shared so freely, watching so many of us die so unexpectedly and without warning made us realize how dangerous it is to assume our country will always be there for us.

It seems funny to fly our flags on a day that was so terrible. After all, we fly our flags on holidays, days that are fun to remember and enjoy and celebrate, such as our nation’s independence.

Fly our flags on Sept. 11, then, to celebrate how our nation responded to such a knee-buckling strike.

Fly our flags to celebrate that patriotism and keep it in the backs of our minds.

Fly our flags to celebrate how one of our worst days soon became some of our best.

We now interrupt this blog...

(Let's pretend I have on a tacky checkered suit, a sweaty handshake and a bad haircut).

HEY! GREAT BLOG! I LOVE IT, REALLY, I DO, GRRRRREAT STUFF.

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Freerollin'

I got my new laptop, a Mac Book that is my reward for a long summer of guiding, and so I spent Friday figuring that out rather than play poker.

Except that I did play one game, telling myself it would be a nice reward for a day of watching Jayden and figuring out the new computer.

And I played another $10 + $1, 30-person SnG, figuring I was freerolling for the week after my $120, first-place win the other night.

And I took second.
And won another $85.

You ever start avoiding the poker table because things are going too well? Like you figure variance is gonna kick you in the nuts one of these days?

I'm going for a hike Labor Day.

I just don't want to mess with karma right now.

Get a goal and get off your butt (so sayeth the Fitness God)

I've decided to pimp myself a bit more. I'm posting this story just because I think you'd enjoy it and I like to share what I'm doing for the Greeley Tribune.
Plus a lot of you are great writers and I like your thoughts on the craft.
Here's the story

• • •

We're also blogging now for the Tribune, as per our editors' requirement because without the Internet, we're nothing as a paper now. My editors, surprisingly enough, didn't like the idea of a poker blog. They wanted something that has something to do with my beat.
I cover adventure sports such as mountaineering (I know, shocking) and entertainment, so now I've got a blog about fitness sports, outdoor recreation and running.
So now I get to write blogs like the one I wrote below. I like it, sort of, but it will sound preachy as hell. The message is good, but I sound like fucking Richard Simmons.
Anyway, here goes:

Sometimes the news is so obvious we miss the underlining message behind it.
We're getting fatter, the Associated Press reported Wednesday. Obesity now exceeds 25 percent in 13 states, and 31 states reported a rise in obesity.
I know. You’re shocked. Health officials have wagged a collective, fried finger in our face for a few years now, saying that our taste for triple-decked desserts, portions the size of Kentucky and sitting on our butt will continue to plump us up more than a turkey before Thanksgiving.
But did you notice something else? Colorado, our state, is the thinnest.
We’re not Olive-Oyl thin, so let’s not get cocky about it. But we’re still the thinnest.
Why? Well, to me, it’s obvious, even if my answer will appear incredibly self-serving (but a blog is pretty self-serving, too, so deal with it).
We have mountains here.
That’s it. The mountains mean our state offers far more recreational opportunities than most other states, and trail for trail, we probably have more recreational opportunities here than any other state. In fact, we probably have more things to do here that involve a little sweat and a lot of fun than all the southern states combined (and all those states were the fattest).
You don’t have to get high, like I do (anything above 13,500 is my preference), to enjoy the mountains. There’s fishing, hunting, boating, hiking, wildlife watching, leaf gazing, star searching, camping, skiing, snowboarding and mountain biking, and all of those activities are better in the mountains. If you combine that with the trail running, recreational sports such as softball (the Trib’s coed team is 2-0, who-hoo!) and biking already available in other sports, there’s really no excuse for not getting enough exercise in this state.
And exercise, dear reader, is why I can eat whatever I want and still weigh as much as I did in high school.
It’s hard to stay motivated to exercise when we don’t have any motivation other than a stern health official clucking her tongue at us. It’s easy, however, to work out when you know you’ve got something waiting for you.
I wouldn’t work hard nearly as hard if I didn’t have the mountains to motivate me to stay in shape to climb them.
You want to keep the weight off? Find a goal. Say you’ll hike Flattop in Rocky Mountain National Park by the end of the year. Say you’ll bike the Poudre Canyon. Say you’ll ski a black diamond.
Say you’ll start to appreciate Colorado’s mountains, a big reason why this is the best state in the lower 48.
And say hello to the thousands of state residents who have already used the mountains as a motivating tool to stay fit.

• • •

So, the point is good. Just one activity can motivate you to get or stay in shape.
Look at what softball has done for Drizz. Dude looks like Hulk Hogan, so I've heard.
Look at what gardening has done for Felicia. Girl looks like that chick on the Bravo show "Work out."
Look at what bowling has done for Low Limit Grinder. The guy is the next Walter Ray Williams Jr.

Or, at least, they are in better shape than many. Some? At least that.

• • •

Poker? Oh, yeah. I won a $10 SnG last night and a $5 SnG last night.
Things are going so well right now. Mostly I'm getting good hands but I've picked off several bluffs in a row. The dudes seem to think that going all in when the board doesn't seem to match their bet and they didn't raise will scare me off, especially when I'm chip leader.
Sorry, think again. Nice play with Q,8 though.
Mostly, my lesson here is by bonus chasing a little too much, my cash game had grown really, really stale, and I played it far too much. I'm refocused now by playing strictly SnGs this week.
The lesson? Always mix it up, and switch to another when one isn't going well.

Have fun this Labor Day. The Jman is teething about seven pearly whites right now so the nights are a little rough these days. Being a parent will get you in shape and out of shape at the same time.

Enough Negreanu already

So far, so weak for ESPN's broadcast of the Main Event.
Unlike many of you, I love ESPN's poker broadcasts. I think the network really tries to capture the strangeness of the poker boom as well as the seriousness of it, something the World Poker Tour could, I don't know, maybe learn from, given that that show takes itself far too seriously.

The Nuts stories are usually funny, short and interesting. ESPN manages to find stories that the Denver papers here missed, including one on a guy with brain cancer and his crew who came here to follow his progress through the tournament.
Yes, many times ESPN focuses too much on the "heartwarming" stories, as if it was NBC covering the Olympics, when we all know that the main event is packed with guys you really wouldn't want to sit next to on an airplane. But ESPN does a pretty good job of something impossible, and that's making sense out of more than 8,000 players in a poker tournament.
Having said that, ESPN obviously rushed the telecast this year, and while I don't blame the network's officials for making that decision — the Internet, something that fueled the poker boom, also squeezes all the drama out of it, so you might as well get it on while it's still somewhat fresh, or at least not rancid — it's made it too easy to focus on the easy stuff.

Last night we basically got two hours of Daniel Negreanu and Joe Hachem. I think focusing on Hachem is a wise decision — it's nice to appreciate him for the great player he really is — but ESPN basically just switched back and forth between Hachem and Negreanu, with tiny bits of Raymer, Moneymaker and a couple movie, music and boxing stars thrown in for good measure. Last night Hachem talked about a hand with his playing partners when quads got beat by runner, runner straight flush. It would have been nice to see that. Or did I miss it?

Negreanu had a good showing in this tournament, but it's time to focus on someone else, like, maybe, Cunningham, who made the final table.
I'm a huge fan of Negreanu. It's quite possible he's my favorite player. But he's getting far too much face time lately. He's all over High Stakes Poker, the Professional Poker Tour can't pull away from him and he's in a Pepsi commercial.
Partly that's because he's good at what he does. He's a wonderful player, and he's engaging and articulate and funny. But that's also precisely the problem. He makes it far too easy for the networks to cover him instead of finding the real stories behind these poker tournaments. Why dig when you can just go to camera one on Negreanu for two hours?
Negreanu deserves the publicity. But poker deserves to be covered as well.
• • •
Labor Day weekend is supposed to be beautiful here, and I'm taking the weekend off. This is when I question why I need the break.
But I do. Friday night I'm going to see my brother's house, and Saturday night I'm playing poker with the guys. In between all that, I'll have plenty of time with Kate and the J-man. That's still needed: Jayden last night favored Kate pretty heavily again despite me watching him all day Monday.
• • •
Our coed softball team last night crushed a good team 18-9. We've got a lineup no with no easy outs, and that's the key to winning at coed (at least in our weak league), is when your girls can hit or at least not strike out.
It should be fun. If I can get the damn ball over the plate we'd be even better.
• • •
I played three SnGs last night and bubbled all three of them. I didn't catch many cards and I didn't win the races when I had to push.
That stuff happens, I guess. I'm sure I could have played better, but I took it as paying the piper a bit after Saturday's awesome take.

Have fun this Labor Day weekend.

Maybe I should stay home more often

Slb already did the bragging for me, so perhaps I shouldn't puff my pigeon chest out any further, but Saturday was a fun night of poker.
I entered a $10, 30-person tournament Saturday night at Pokerroom, one of the few places you can play on a Mac (more on that below). I have played these 30-person SnGs with good success, and I picked the $10 one instead of the $5 tournament mostly because it was about ready to go, and they can take a while to fill up.
I've heard there isn't much difference between $5 and $10 SnG players, and I'm sure that's probably true, but I'm still a little intimidated by the $10. I know that sounds really stupid, but I have about $1,000 for my online bankroll, so I still need to be cautious about what I play.
I had a goal of making the final table and possibly cashing.

I started to stack a bit with raises and continuation bets and one small showdown, and then I had 4,4 and folded to a big raise. When the board hit 4,5,J, I was cursing myself for being a pussy, my worst tendency as a player. I had the chips to gamble a bit and felt like I blew a big chance to really grab a big stack early.
When the two others players pushed I gritted my teeth.
Until I saw what they had.
5,5
J,J.
No shit.
I even stood up and caught myself from saying, "I can dodge bullets baby."
My next hand I got QQ and doubled up when the other guy pushed with 10,10 on a flop with all undercards. I figured that's what the guy had, given that he had played poorly. Still, I took a chance and it paid off.
The Poker Gods, it seemed, were rewarding my patience.

I caught some hands at the end, survived when my K,Q went against A,9 and I flopped a K (my only suckout), and I found myself heads up with a wild but aggressive and strong player. I won when I flopped a flush and he refused to believe me. Then I called him down to the river with A,10 and one from a flush. When he pushed, I called and he had K,J. Neither of our cards matched and I took down $120, my biggest tournament score yet.

I wound up winning another SnG that night for another $25 score while watching "Silence of the Lambs" on Bravo. My heads-up match with the other guy in that one lasted 15 minutes. It was really fun, although patience, once again, paid off. He had me 4-1 at one point but I hung in there and kept chipping away. I need to remember that because at times I just push in heads up, yet that's when you really make your money is by winning and not placing.
Maybe I should stay home from mountain climbing the rest of the year.
By the way, I heard two 14ers about three hours from home got a foot of snow.
Wow. Winter's coming in a hurry.

• • •

My weekend at home, by the way, was wonderful. I took Jayden swimming and read him a bunch of books and just spent some good quality time with him again. He actually cried when I went to work today. It's not all about Mom anymore, and I'm feeling our bond is strengthing every day after the damage I might have done to it this summer climbing all those peaks.

• • •

I bought a new computer, a laptop, with the money I made guiding this summer. It's a MacBook and will be a definite improvement over my 1999 500 Mhz iMac. I'm really excited too because this is an Intel, so it will run Windows, and that means I'm signing up for some more poker Web sites.
How has it gone for the rest of you using Poker Source Online? I'm going to try it with Party Poker (I just have to see how juicy these $25 NL cash games really are) and I'll see how it goes. It seems like a really good deal, so I'll probably use it again after I clear my first time.
I just wonder if it's better to go through PSO or the Web site's bonus itself. I figured PSO for Party given that it doesn't offer a bonus there.

• • •

I'm reading Harrington's Volume III, and I really love the guy. I've learned more about tournament poker from his books than anything else. His style fits my style as well, so it's a good fit. Volume III, the workbook, is definitely worth picking up. I hope one day I can meet Harrington so I can tell him how much his books have helped me.

• • •

I'll leave you with some sad news in the jazz world. Maynard Ferguson, perhaps my favorite artist after Miles Davis and John Coltrane, died Wednesday.
His music, especially in his later years, may sound like cheesy disco to many of you, but the guy, as they say, had chops. He could hit the highest of notes, and his band was always awesome, pumping life and excitement into the sometimes tired jazz world. He was one of the greatest trumpet players who ever lived, and he brought some great music to the jazz world. Without him, I would not have loved jazz the way I did, and I doubt I would have played in college.
Thanks, Maynard, for a great career.

Rain over me

The rain splatters against my basement window.
The scene has opened many prison movies. The rain is supposed to represent sadness, or at least that's what I'm assuming most of the time. Prison, the director is telling us through the obvious metaphors movies like to use, is a lonely, depressing place.
But I'm smiling as I hear the rain.
Instead of being in prison, I am, in fact, free.
I was supposed to go with my 14ers buddy and two other climbing partners, his wife and another guy who I climbed a couple peaks with last year.
Aspen. Capitol. The toughest 14er in Colorado out of the 54, and one of the state's toughest mountains.
I first climbed it in 2001, with a guy who had climbed almost 1,000 of them. My story on him ran across the national AP wire, along with my photo of him walking across the famous knife edge, which, if you imagine an ant walking across a butter knife, you'll get an idea of what we had to do to get to Capitol's rare and unforgiving summit. He said it was one of the toughest he's done.
Still, Captiol is awesome, and I was looking forward to it.

But I was also longing to stay home, with Jayden and Kate and my bed and dogs and poker.
I climbed Longs Peak Thursday, leading a group of seven up. It was a 17-hour day by the time I got home, and it was my 14th time up, and though the mountain is one of my favorites, it's always a hard and, well, long day.
I was sore, tired and not really anxious to do another mountain.
It's been a long summer.

But now I can stay home, relax and have fun.
Capitol is no mountain to mess around with a forecast of snow, cold and, at least, rain all day.
The weather gave me a reprieve.
I will stay home the next couple of weeks. Then I'll pounce on a couple more peaks, and, finally, fall will come, with nothing to do but the occasional half-marathon, play with Jayden and bitch about my fantasy football team.
I'm really looking forward to it.

• • •

People do ask me why I would climb Longs 14 times. Aside from the joy of leading clients up an awesome mountain for their first time,and enjoying the money they paid me (I bought a new laptop, a Mac Book that will run Windows).
I'll leave you with the reason why. I especially like the first one. Although it looks like that would be my inner self after I take a bad beat (like last night in Omaha when I lost to runner runner straight flush, I know there aren't many true bad beats in Omaha but I think that qualifies), it's actually the first hint of the sun at 12,700 feet. You start the 14,250-foot Longs at 2:30 a.m. because it's the only way to avoid the afternoon thunderstorms that happen almost every day. After all, the mountain is 15 miles and you gain more than 5,00 feet, and over its rough, Class 3 terrain, that takes a while.
The first two pictures are your reward for getting up early (other than remaining fried free and staying alive).








Here's Longs. That east face is one of the most awesome sights in mountaineering. Many come from around the world to climb it. We skirted around the back side through the "keyhole" route, probably the most popular route in the state - and one of the hardest.



One of the scary parts of Longs, the aptly named narrows.



Here's the final 250 feet. It's not as bad as it looks. But it's not THAT easy either. :)



CUTE BABY ALERT!!!
Finally, here's the best reason for staying safe and staying home, the 15-month-old Jayden Miles England.

Shocked! Shocked? Really?

Well, now Marion Jones, the darling of the 2000 Olympics, says she was shocked (shocked!) at her positive drug test.
Um, yeah, I'm sure you were sweetie. Maybe because all the blood cleansing drugs or Gatorade or whatever you took to get it out of your system didn't work.
Jones already had a cloud of suspicion over her for years after being attached to practically every doping scandal in the last few years. My wife, a physical education teacher, was convinced she was doping in 2000 just by looking at her.
"She just doesn't look natural," Kate said.
I, for one, am not shocked, surprised or even the slightest bit stunned when another athlete is caught with his or her hand in the performance-enhancing cookie jar. After Floyd Landis, Justin Gatlin, Barry Bonds, Ivan Basso, etc., etc., etc., I'm so cynical that I'll be shocked when an athlete does something amazing and isn't taking drugs.
Thank God for Tiger Woods, or else my faith in our sports scene right now would cracked into dust.

Reptiles on a runway - A review

Overheard from my friends yesterday as we exited a (mostly empty) theater Friday night showing "Snakes on a Plane."

"So, did you like it?"
"I don't know. It should have been more over the top."

Really?

WARNING! SPOILER ALERT!

In the first half hour, we got to see:
• An angry Korean/Chinese/Japanese "mobster," not to be stereotypical or anything, beat a guy to death with a baseball bat, a la Al Capone.
• A snake bite a woman's eye.
• A snake bite a nipple.
• A snake bite a guy's joint while he was taking a pee pee.
• A snake bit a guy's throat.
• A snake come out of barf bag.
• A snake go up a fat, ugly woman's skirt (of course she was fat and angry, the implication being that this was the first action she'd felt in years).
• A "hip-hop" artist who looked like Kayne West and Puff Daddy's offspring. He would later grab a gun and wave it around because that's the solution to all black people's problems.
• My favorite plot point, though, is the fact that simply by dressing up as a baggage handler, a dude is able to sneak aboard dozens of deadly snakes with a timed release that resembles a bomb attached to a cage aboard a high-security airplane. This, of course, means that all those security measures at the airport? The ones that include, but aren't limited to, taking off your shoes, anal cavity searches, making you take off your pants so you don't get beeped, forcing you to dump your shampoo, your water and your baby's juice, answering questions about whether you've seen your baggage the whole time (and God help you if you answer no) and presenting three forms of ID? Those will all be for naught because of a clever terrorist with a baggage uniform.


Later, we saw:
• A monster snake squeeze a guy to death after crashing through some window in the plane (what the hell it was, I couldn't tell you) and start eating him.
• A little kid somehow survive a cobra bite after a woman puts olive oil on it and suck the poison out (which, by the way, doesn't work).
• Samuel Jackson shoot a snake with a spear gun that just happened to be in a person's suitcase.
• The "snake expert" who looks and acts sort of like the guy who says he killed the little Ramsey.

And at the end:
• One of the rapper's thugs (friendly and fat, of course, because all rappers' homies roll that way) land the plane because he played a plane simulator on his Playstation.
• Samuel Jackson and the other star (sorry, I don't know his name, and I don't care) both hook up with the stewardesses.
• We find out that the snakes came from some redneck guy "who lives in the desert."
• The video to the awesome (I'm serious, I love it) "Snakes on a Plane (Bring It) by, get this, Cobra Starship.

Now, I'm not saying the movie was bad. Quite the opposite. It was what I expected, a cheesy, fun summer movie that featured lots of snakes, my favorite animal.

But it was PLENTY over the top.

I think what happens is when you hear so much about a movie - and lots has been said about this one - you go into it with too many expectations. I'm afraid the new "Star Wars" movies, save for the third one, were victims of this, as my expectations were far too high for what turned out to be fairly decent but not great or even that good pictures.
We all expected this one to be so crazy, so wild, so, well, over the top, that NOTHING probably could have lived up to it without it turning into a parody. And clearly the director, screenwriters, producers and star weren't shooting for a parody. They were shooting for a wild horror flick.

As a rolled out, one of my friends pulled up beside me.
"You remember Tremors?" he said.
Yes, I said.
"THAT'S what the movie should have been. Tremors on a plane!"

He was sort of kidding, but I think I knew what he meant. Tremors was over the top, fun and, as a result, a cult classic with some humor and some thrills. It was, in fact, what "Snakes on a Plane" wanted to be and very well could have been.
Imagine if "Tremors" faced that kind of pressure.
"Snakes," I'm afraid, will be strangled by all the blogs, all the press and the Internet chat groups. Do yourself a favor and wait three years, until it comes on late one night, on the USA Network, when you've got a bowl of popcorn and the kids are in bed, and you've forgotten about all the chat groups.
I promise you'll laugh, you'll jump and you'll think, wow, now THAT movie was over the top!

Where's my $175,000?

Last night, at our high-stakes, $5, home game Wednesday night, I took a tough beat.

Quads over quads.

It was seven-card stud, five-handed, and there was one wild card.
Maybe the wild card makes it easier to get quads.
I dunno.

At Blackhawk, they pay you $175,000 for the bad beat jackpot if your quads loses to quads.

I'll take my $175,000 now, please. I'll even take installments.

• • •

The good news is I finally wiggled my way out of my tight-assed self and starting bluffing last night. I do bluff, but not nearly as much as I should. The problem is I've been a winning player for months now, so the incentive to take chances wasn't there. Tuesday, however, I got four monsters, like stacking, pot-cleansing monsters, and they were only paid off in pieces. That tells me I need to loosen up a smidge at the table. I am playing a higher limit, $50 NL, so I think the players at least aren't masturbating to porn, texting a friend, petting their dog, watching poker on TV and checking out their fantasy football players while playing poker. They're actually paying attention to table image.


One time I raised one of my best friend's blind for like the 5,000th time that night and bluffed him off the pot despite him saying, "I shouldn't fold here based on principle." I showed him 5,2 os when he folded.

I probably won just as much money through the bluffing as I did through my good hands. I"m still learning how to bluff with regularity, but last night was an important step.

• • •

Last night I ran hard in the track group, and it felt really good. It's so nice to finally be healthy again after three weeks of coughing.

• • •

Snakes on a plane. Friday.

I can't wait.

Too much is more than enough

In the winter, the weeks without a mountain start to pile on like snow, making me edgy, even cranky. As spring approaches, and the weather delievers blue skies and mild winds but snow still packs the trails, I start to almost crawl up the walls, as if I'm going through heroin withdraw and I've misplaced my methadone.
But now, I have a weekend without climbing, and I can't be more grateful.
I am sick of it all.
This summer was my first guiding clients up mountains, and in some ways, it's sapped the joy out of climbing.
In the past, my summers would consist of doing a few 14ers in June, with maybe a snow climb or two. Then In July I'd climb in Rocky Mountain National Park with my Dad and a few family friends. Finally, I'd wrap up the summer with some epic trips up more 14ers, some of the harder routes, and then relax and wait for the coming year.
It was always hard, at times, but you only really get two or three great months of climbing before the snows hit again, so you have to take advantage.
This summer I took three weekends out of my schedule to lead clients up 14ers. Next Thursday I'll lead a few other paying clients up Longs Peak, the state's most popular 14er (and one of the hardest).
In many ways I'm grateful for the part-time job. It's something I love to do, and I'm getting paid for it. I will use the extra money, around $1,000 (or about as much as it feels like I've lost lately overplaying QQ) to buy a new computer, a MacBook Pro laptop. And I've enjoyed sharing my passion with others and seeing their eyes light up when we reach the summit.
But climbing is hard enough already, and I've discovered that doing it for others has made it a job, and a tough one at that. I'm no longer doing it for myself. I'm doing it for a computer.
So this weekend I cancelled a trip for the Colorado Mountain Club. I'm tired of guiding, and I'm tired of climbing. I plan on being a normal person again, playing some poker (and there are signs that, maybe, I'm doing a little bit too much of that as well), hanging with my wife and the kid and, finally, going to see Snakes on a Plane!!!
Then I'll do the Longs Peak trip, then over to Aspen to help my friends climb the hardest 14er in the state (I'll post pictures of that, you'll be blown away).
I'm looking forward to September for two reasons.
One, I'll be climbing for myself again. I'll try to knock off a couple Centennials for my quest to knock off the top 100 peaks in Colorado. One of those trips, down to the San Juans over several days. should be spectacular.
And second?
By the time mid-September rolls around, the weather will turn colder, the snows will start to fall again...
And I'll be done.

Why why why?

Why do we continue to make plays that we know are bad, when we know we are beat, even when that inner voice is screaming at us to just put down the mouse and walk away until you're timed out?
Three reasons.

• We're tired and we don't know it.

Saturday I signed on just expecting to play an hour of poker. I really needed some alone time, and I was looking forward to it after leaving Greeley at 2:30 a.m. and leading my 14ers group up the last mountain of the year. Yes, I seemed tired, but I was really looking forward to the poker.
It was a great day, and I was feeling good. The group responded well despite me having to be much more of a hardass than before because of the inclement weather and the need to get down. We did make the summit up Elbert, Colorado's tallest mountain, and we made it to the van three minutes before a huge storm ripped through Leadville.
Soon after, I got K,A. A guy raised 4x the big blind, and I called, along with one other player. The flop came K,3,Q, with K,3 hearts.
I bet half the pot, $3, and the guy to my left raises, and the other pushes for his last $12.

Understand that all last week, I played patient, solid poker and did not sniff A,K. I barely got any solid starting hands and yet managed to squeak out a $25 profit for the week on the cash games. It was the kind of week I'm proud of, a week that requires great discipline (I folded several hands when I was in the lead until I got a bad feeling on the river, like the guy flopped the kicker I thought he had, giving him two pair and giving it up when he would excitedly overbet the pot) and a week that also means I avoided losing my whole buy-in every time that week.

So what do I do? Do I take the warning sign that my TPTK is not good here? A raise and a re-raise?
No. I call the $12.
It's a great play because what I essentially did was price myself in when the other guy pushed, meaning I had to pay $33 to win $100. Those odds are pretty damn good. I figured I would gamble and pay attention to that. I also now have a lame excuse for losing this hand. And, finally, I gave up all fold equity to the other guy, making him the aggressor.

The raiser had QQ. The re-raiser had K,Q.
I had a losing hand.

I was too tired to play. I was exhausted, in fact, and I let my want (need?) to play poker get the best of me. Had I been sharp, I would have of course recognized that I was beat after I was re-raised and simply folded, saving me a lot of money. It requires discipline to fold TPTK (more than it should, really), and my mind wasn't sharp enough for that. It's why you fuck the ugly girl in the bar when you're drunk. It's hard to turn down a blow job, any blow job, but if you're sharp, you do it when the girl who looks like Spock hits on you.

• You refuse to believe your luck is that bad, even when you know it is.

So Sunday I'm at it again, telling myself that I was going to play smart, disciplined poker, the kind of poker that has helped me fatten my bankroll.

And not long after, I get QQ.
QQ has not been kind to me lately. In fact, if QQ was my wife, I would have divorced her and left her with nothing but the weeds in the backyard. While JJ has been so good, I feel like going "Brokeback Mountain" over it, QQ has been a nasty bitch.
I feel kind bad for her, though, because it's really not her fault. Her ex-husband, KK, has been stalking her.

So I raise 3x the big blind.

And someone re-raises me.

Now, this will sound like incredible whining, the kind of bitching that donkeys do, i.e. "My Aces Always Get Cracked." So you don't have to believe me. Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.

But four out of the last five times, my QQ has run into KK.

I've kept track.
It's cost me a lot of money. Not my buy-ins every time. But too much money.

When the guy re-raised $1, alarm bells went off. No one seems to re-raise in my level, $50 NL games, unless they have KK or AA.

I called the $1.

And here's what happened:

Texas Hold'em $0.50-$0.50 NL (Real Money),  #848,139,803
Table Valparaiso, 13 Aug 2006 10:50 PM ET
Seat 1: Chippsmith ($95.40 in chips)
Seat 2: scottyrob1 ($45.75 in chips)
Seat 3: bloodndef ($71.40 in chips)
Seat 4: prolox29 ($15.85 in chips)
Seat 5: Pokerpeaker5 ($48.75 in chips)
Seat 7: Crow Magnon ($80.75 in chips)
Seat 8: masinnerx ($24.45 in chips)
Seat 9: itchybelly ($7.50 in chips)
Seat 10: steppa30 ($49.65 in chips)
ANTES/BLINDS
scottyrob1 posts blind ($0.25), bloodndef posts blind ($0.50).

PRE-FLOP
prolox29 folds, Pokerpeaker5 bets $1.50, Crow Magnon folds, masinnerx folds, itchybelly folds, steppa30 bets $2.50, Chippsmith folds, scottyrob1 calls $2.25, bloodndef folds, Pokerpeaker5 calls $1.

FLOP [board cards 2S,10D,4D ]
scottyrob1 bets $3, Pokerpeaker5 calls $3, steppa30 bets $10, scottyrob1 folds, Pokerpeaker5 bets $43.25 and is all-in, steppa30 calls $36.25.

TURN [board cards 2S,10D,4D,6S ]


RIVER [board cards 2S,10D,4D,6S,KD ]


SHOWDOWN
Pokerpeaker5 shows [ QS,QC ]
steppa30 shows [ KC,KH ]
steppa30 wins $102.50.
SUMMARY
Dealer: Chippsmith
Pot: $103.50, (including rake: $1)
Chippsmith, loses $0
scottyrob1, loses $5.50
bloodndef, loses $0.50
prolox29, loses $0
Pokerpeaker5, loses $48.75
Crow Magnon, loses $0
masinnerx, loses $0
itchybelly, loses $0
steppa30, bets $48.75, collects $102.50, net $53.75

Yes, for the fifth time in six QQs, it ran into KK.

I refused to believe that my luck was that bad. "There's NO WAY my QQ could run into KK again, right? I mean, he MUST have JJ. He MUST. There's just no way, right?"

Sure there is.

• Bad luck

I'm not going whine about my QQ anymore. In fact, I just demonstrated that it happens.
But I've noticed that when variance comes knocking, and she is this week, in full force, that not only do your great hands go down, your monsters don't get paid off.

Suckouts like this one happen all the time in a losing streak:

View Previous hand for this table.

Texas Hold'em $0.50-$0.50 NL (Real Money), #848,243,884
Table Giessen, 13 Aug 2006 11:20 PM ET



Seat 1: cleensweep ($17.75 in chips)
Seat 2: steve_albini ($51.85 in chips)
Seat 3: Chippsmith ($57.30 in chips)
Seat 4: Skip_Dr ($49.30 in chips)
Seat 5: turbox3 ($32.50 in chips)
Seat 6: Pokerpeaker5 ($47.50 in chips)
Seat 7: Cr3d ($30 in chips)
Seat 8: pm_abs ($68 in chips)
Seat 9: FloppinNutzz ($47 in chips)
Seat 10: newf01 ($24.85 in chips)



ANTES/BLINDS
Pokerpeaker5 posts blind ($0.25), Cr3d posts blind ($0.50).

PRE-FLOP
pm_abs folds, FloppinNutzz folds, newf01 folds, cleensweep calls $0.50, steve_albini calls $0.50, Chippsmith folds, Skip_Dr folds, turbox3 calls $0.50, Pokerpeaker5 bets $2, Cr3d folds, cleensweep folds, steve_albini folds, turbox3 calls $1.75.

FLOP [board cards 5S,9S,4S ]
Pokerpeaker5 bets $2, turbox3 calls $2.

TURN [board cards 5S,9S,4S,10D ]
Pokerpeaker5 bets $10, turbox3 calls $10.

RIVER [board cards 5S,9S,4S,10D,3H ]
Pokerpeaker5 checks, turbox3 checks.

SHOWDOWN
Pokerpeaker5 shows [ AH,AC ]
turbox3 shows [ 9H,9C ]
turbox3 wins $29.



SUMMARY
Dealer: turbox3
Pot: $30, (including rake: $1)
cleensweep, loses $0.50
steve_albini, loses $0.50
Chippsmith, loses $0
Skip_Dr, loses $0
turbox3, bets $14.25, collects $29, net $14.75
Pokerpeaker5, loses $14.25
Cr3d, loses $0.50
pm_abs, loses $0
FloppinNutzz, loses $0
newf01, loses $0

But that's poker. I played it well, checked on the river and saved some money. So OK.

But I would like some hands to be paid off. When I get AA a second time that night, I would like at least one caller to my raise of 4xs, please.

When I get quad 9s, as I did TWO hands after my QQ disaster, and there are five people in the hand, I would like action from at least one player, please.

When I flop a set of 6s, as I did TWO hands after my AA suckout, and there are four people in the hand, I would like action from at least one player, please.

And no, I'm not shoving when I get these hands. I'm betting half the pot each time.

Am I making excuses? Am I playing poorly? Or are there a number of factors at play here that are combining to possibly start me on a long-term losing streak?

I'm not sure. But the storm clouds are starting to swirl overhead. I just hope I can get to treeline safely before the real storm hits.

Rebirth

I'm in a running group, and we meet every Wednesday to do intervals. If you're not sure what an interval is, you run a short distance very hard, until you're close to puking, and then you do it again and again. It's funny how five two-minute runs can make you much faster than running for 45 minutes, but it works wonders.

Last night we ran the mile to gauge our progress. Despite being coughy and kinda sick for two weeks, I managed to run 6:16, which is my best time ever in the mile. I once ran 6:20 when I was in the eighth grade. That was more than 20 years ago.
I'm very proud of the time.

I don't know if I'm in the best shape of my life, but I'm learning how to push past the pain and, yes, even agony, of running really hard for minutes or miles at a time. I'm learning that it's OK to run along the margin, even if you're close to falling off (or puking on it).

I'm leading my 14ers group up Elbert, Colorado's tallest mountain. It's a long, hard, steep day, though it's also easy, in the sense that a dirt trail leads all the way to the summit.

I hope that this time the group starts to push its own margins as we slowly make our way up Saturday.

Cracking the casino

Saturday at Black Hawk, CO went well again. I played for four hours and made about $50.
The world of Colorado poker is a wild one and probably not much different than what you're used to regarding casino poker and the craziness of it. The only game in town is $2/$5, and almost all of it is Hold 'Em. This was only my second time playing, but I think I've watched enough to make some observations about limit poker in casinos, at least in our state.
I played in the Ameristar Casino this time, and I loved it. The room is now smoke free, which is wonderful, and the tables are nice and clean. I had to wait about 15 minutes for a table at 7 p.m. Saturday.
Most of the bigger casinos have latched on to the poker craze and now offer 10 tables spreading Hold 'Em.
I tend to play an extremely tight game, especially compared to most of the other players, which means, in my mind, I'm playing correctly. In fact, by the end of the night, many of the regulars were making fun of me, saying "You can't wait for AA all night."
I play this way because:
• Generally at least five are in a hand, so you'd better be starting with something you can work with. Here's a hint: Q,8 is not something you can work with, unless it's soooooted, and even then, you're playing a hand and calling bets hoping for that less than 5 percent chance you'll wind up with a flush.
• You'll start to get respect from the other players at the table, meaning your bets will do what they are supposed to, remove players from the field. This is extremely important, as a $5 maximum bet won't get rid of anyone unless they believe you are betting the nuts or close to it, and if you don't thin the field, someone will outdraw you unless you are indeed holding the nuts and are impervious to drawing hands.
• Even if it is $2/$5 poker, you'll spend about $20 a hand that you take to the river if play it correctly, meaning you've got to pick your battles or else wind up like 80 percent of the players out there, $100/$200 down in an hour.
• You'll still get action. Yes, you might play one hand an hour, and yet people will still call you down with third pair. Why? I believe most people play limit poker in Casinos for entertainment, not to win money or improve their game, and it's more fun to play a lot of hands than fold, fold, fold like I did. That's why they play K,8 offsuit.
I love those players. Most of the time.
Here are some other observations:
• AA in limit poker is like the Vegas hooker with the big cans and a bit of what AC/DC affectionally calls "The Jack." It's alluring, sensual and soooo appealing, until you play with it and get stuck with a sour feeling down there and some of your money gone.
I saw AA hold up three times all around the table in my four hours, and one of those times, I was holding them. I bet the maxium pre-flop and it got folded around to me. Unless you flop a set, "made" hands don't seem to be as valuable as drawing hands in limit poker. I would have finished about $100 up had my AA not lost to 9,7 soooted when she spiked her flush on the river.
She did apologize.
Leading me to...
• Suckouts happen all the time in limit. There's too many other damn hands out there, and even a $5 raise pre-flop may not narrow the field that much. The best thing to do is bet your hands hard off the flop if you have something and hope it holds up. I suffered two of them, the other when a guy's 9,9 caught his Q on the river for a straight, crushing my two pair.
The amazing thing is, it's CORRECT for these people to call, even with merely a draw. In limit, most of the time they're getting at least 10-1 on their money after the flop. When that woman called my raise with 9,7 sooted and my A,A, she was getting at least 3:1 on her money pre-flop and far beyond that post-flop.
Knowing this, I wasn't steaming at all when my A,A lost to her hand, and as a result I promptly won a big hand with Q,J. The Poker Gods reward clear thinking.
After all...
• You'll get lucky, too. It evened out. I had 6,5 (soooted connectors, a valuable hand in limit) and flopped two pair. I raised but the guy called for his gutshot and hit it on the turn. I knew he hit it but called his bet and got another 5 on the river. I also flopped two sets with my small pairs and both times when I had A,K a K-high flop hit.
• Get out when you don't hit. Hello, people, A,K is a drawing hand, meaning you shouldn't call $20 worth of bets if it doesn't hit.
• After watching so many lose at least $100, you'll never convince me that tight isn't right in limit.

P.S. Come on out here, we'll play sometime, and then we'll go hiking the next day!

Pimping myself

It's hard at times to tell from this blog, but I'm a writer for a living, working for the Greeley Tribune in Greeley, CO. I'd love if you checked out a project I spent four months working on, off and on, including some of the Web stuff that accompanies the story.
Feedback is appreciated.


Here's the project

Bad Beat Template

P.S. I'm playing in a casino for the second time tonight. Let's hope I don't have to use this.

Take a tough one? Here's my handy-dandy template that you can use for any situation!!!


"You won't believe the:
a) Bad Beat
b) Suckout
c) Rigged shit

that happened to me last night.

I had:
a) Pocket Aces
b) Pocket Kings
c) A,K

and I raised 3x the big blind. I get three callers. This concerns me a little but I
a) Plow through it. I'm a God of poker, after all. How could I lose?
b) Know I can fold when I need to. I'm a God of poker, after all.
c) am a God of poker and know I'm the best, so I move along.

The flop comes A,K,x, and I bet the pot. Two others fold, but the
a) Fucking Donkey
b) Fucking Retard
c) Fucking Idiot

calls me. A x comes on the turn. Naturally, I bet the pot again.
The
a) Fucking Donkey/Mule/Llama
b) Fucking Retarded retard
c) Fucking Poker rookie

calls me again.

On the river, A x falls. It worries me a bit, because:
a) It could have made the guy a straight.
b) It could have made the guy a flush.
c) He's been calling me down, and that always worries me.

But I push all in, because:

a) The straight would mean he would have been playing x,x, and that's impossible, no one would call a raise with x,x, right?
b) No one would call two pot-sized bets with just a flush-draw, right?
c) I am a Poker god and I always have the best hand when I push in.

The guy calls, and:
a) You'll never guess what the donkey had!
b) It's Enema time!
c) I scream and throw my fourth computer this year out the window.

He had:
a) Quads! He called my pre-flop raise and all the way to the river with x,x and caught his case card on the river!!!
b) A straight! He called my pre-flop raise and all the way to the river with x,x and caught his inside straight on the river!!!
c) A flush! He called my pre-flop raise with x,x and all the way to the river with my pot-sized bets with x,x because it was soooted!!!

I was so pissed I
a) Raked the guy over the coals in the chat box for 25 minutes.
b) Killed the dog/cat/small children.
c) Went for a long drive with Slayer in the tape deck.

I:
a) Hate poker.
b) Am gonna start entering Scrabble tournaments
c) Will try again tonight to win my money back, and I'm gonna have to keep pushing all in because I am a God of poker

By the way, can I:
a) Borrow $20 for tonight?
b) Borrow your car and put it on E-bay to sell it?
c) Use your wife as a hooker so I can pimp her and get my money back?


(Not recommended for Seven-Card Stud, Omaha or Five-Card Draw. Do not use frequently as your friends may hate you. May cause drowsiness, erectile disfunction or lose of appetite. Women who are nursing, pregnant or may become pregnant should not listen to these stories. If you use this for more than a few days tell your doctor, as serious side effects or dependency may develop).

These are a few of my favorite things

• Favorite music to listen to while playing poker: Hair Nation on Sirius.
• Favorite hand: JJ.
I know AA should be, but I've had much better luck with these bad boys. They may be a little gay: They like each other and always seem to show up on the flop when I have a pair of these Brokeback lovers in my hand.
• Least favorite hand: QQ. Hard to fold but a lot seems to beat it; at least, it always seems that way when I hold these bitches.
• Favorite poker snack: Queso. With chips. Although near the end of the night my finger works too.
• Favorite poker drink: Mike's Hard Lemonade. No, you bastard, these are NOT wine coolers.
• Favorite poker munchie: Lemonheads. If you time it just right, you get a tiny squirt of lemon sour stuff when you bite into them. There's probably a metaphor there but I don't want to get into it.
• Favorite poker activity besides playing poker while playing poker: Screwing around on the Internet, including reading climbing forums, blogs and other newspapers.
• Favorite thing to do besides playing poker that doesn't involve the family: My name is pokerpeaker. So climbing peaks.
• Favorite TV show, all time: The Simpsons.
• Favorite TV show, current: Poker, as sad as that sounds.
• Favorite poker show: High Stakes Poker, although I do love the WSOP coverage as well.
• Favorite player: I don't really have one. There are dozens I like and admire.
• Favorite author: Stephen King. There are many other writers I admire, probably more than King, actually, but King always is a good read.
• Favorite poker author: James McManus wrote the best read, "Positively Fifth Street," but Dan Harrington wrote the best books. They helped me with my cash game a great deal, too, even if he wrote for tournaments.
• Movie I can't wait to see: "Snakes on a Plane"
• Favorite movie: "Star Wars." Duh.
• Favorite poker movie: "Rounders." Double duh.

Movie of the week: "Brokeback Mountain." You have to see this movie. Yes, I realize the love scenes aren't as fun to watch as, say, girl on girl with a bottle of honey, but the acting and directing is some of the finest you'll ever see.
Song of the week: "Snakes on a Plane (Bring It) by Cobra Starship. Loud. Obnoxious. Cheesy. Perfect.

Ain't no cure for the summertime hack'n'wheeze

I'm in full whine mode now after hacking, lung-rattling and blowing my nose for what seems like the 155th day in a row.
Really, summer is no time to be fucking sick. I've got mountains to climb, races to run and babies to chase (namely, my own), and noses just seem to run like mountain streams when it's 100 degrees.
Also, it's hard to play solid poker with a stuffy head.
As if to prove it, I'm still trying to dig out of the Saturday Night Massacre. Last night was a good start, cutting the losses for the week by a fourth, most of it earned when some dude called by 8x BB raise with KK (no fucking around anymore, if I take the pot, then fine) and then pushed all in on a Q-high random board. I called for his last $15 and he had....Q,J.
At least I have those poker fairies to dump some money on me and help me recoup my losses.

Speaking of climbing, I'm taking the week off to earn some brownie/anniversary points with the wife. Saturday the wife and I will have a nice dinner together and then hit up Colorado's casinos deep in mountain country. So I guess I can't get away from the mountains. It will be my second time playing poker in a casino, and it's all $2/5 limit, so the only thing you can do is bet your hands hard and hope you don't get sucked out on by the five others playing 8,3 os. Last time it worked well. I hope it does again.

I was seriously hoping Snakes on a Plane would open this weekend so I could see it, but I guess I may have to settle for Clerks II. I've got mountains to climb the next three weekends in a row, so please don't spoil the surprise ending of SOAP for me.

I've decided to put some ads on this blog. I'm not all uppty. I'll pimp myself for money. Daddy needs a new bankroll! Actually, as these are refferals, I'll probably be lucky to get enough money to cover a pack of diapers. But now that I'm getting linked more, I've noticed more people stopping by to check me out. Thanks tons for that.

I may have to break down and take some more cold medicine. I'm trying to avoid dumping the entire contents of Walgreen's in my bloodstream — that's what Mike's Hard Lemonade is for — but I may just have to do it, or else I think my co-workers are gonna kill me to silence my hacking, wheezing and, ultimately, whining.

Pressing the button over and over

You've seen the video of the rat that presses that shock button because he was given a niblet, an orgasm or a pocket pair until he shocks himself to death?
I haven't seen the pocket pair video, actually, but I'm assuming one is out there because that's what I did to my bankroll Saturday night.
QQ, QQ, JJ, JJ and KK cost me a lot of money Saturday night, almost every bit of my $125 takedown from Thursday night.
I don't have the hand histories here. They're embarassing, anyway, and I've already analyzed them to death.
Both times my QQ lost to KK. My JJ wasn't too bad, but it still lost a pot, and the second time when I flopped a third J and bet half the pot it got NO ACTION at all.
When I got KK? Another harmless board, the guy got his third 7 and took me down.
The problem with pocket pairs is they're just so damn exotic. They look so sexy, so magnetic...er, anyway, they really do look great, like 70s velvet great or something. And in online poker, when TPTK gets pushed a lot, they're golden.
Or so it seems. Many times it's easy to push with them and get rewarded by freaks who can't let go of A,Q with a Q-high board. Trust me, it's how I won one of my big hands Thursday.
And yet, eventually, pushing with a pocket will give you nothing but a shock. No orgasm, no pellet, just a smack in the face and your bankroll whimpering in the corner, sucking its thumb and shying away from your touch.
It's basically a guessing game, with all these new players jumping in and out, to know when that pellet will arrive and when the shock will come.
Do I dare resist the pocket pair push before I shock myself to death?

Quads to the rescue! (Beeeeches)

View Previous hand for this table.

Texas Hold'em $0.50-$0.50 NL (Real Money), #767,613,317
Table La Plata, 27 Jul 2006 12:35 AM ET



Seat 1: DaveG11111 ($47.50 in chips)
Seat 2: CODYVALENCE ($47.20 in chips)
Seat 3: illteachu5 ($57.70 in chips)
Seat 4: mattnespoli ($58.30 in chips)
Seat 5: McDougal. ($15.75 in chips)
Seat 6: AlexMR ($46.25 in chips)
Seat 7: weistronaut ($47 in chips)
Seat 8: Pokerpeaker5 ($48.50 in chips)
Seat 9: TheHalfSame ($50 in chips)
Seat 10: rggrady3 ($58.50 in chips)



ANTES/BLINDS
Pokerpeaker5 posts blind ($0.25), TheHalfSame posts blind ($0.50).

PRE-FLOP
rggrady3 folds, DaveG11111 folds, CODYVALENCE calls $0.50, illteachu5 calls $0.50, mattnespoli calls $0.50, McDougal. folds, AlexMR folds, weistronaut calls $0.50, Pokerpeaker5 calls $0.25, TheHalfSame checks.

FLOP [board cards 6D,AH,6S ]
Pokerpeaker5 checks, TheHalfSame checks, CODYVALENCE checks, illteachu5 checks, mattnespoli checks, weistronaut checks.

TURN [board cards 6D,AH,6S,2C ]
Pokerpeaker5 bets $0.50, TheHalfSame bets $3, CODYVALENCE bets $5.50, illteachu5 folds, mattnespoli folds, weistronaut folds, Pokerpeaker5 calls $5, TheHalfSame calls $2.50.

RIVER [board cards 6D,AH,6S,2C,2S ]
Pokerpeaker5 bets $2, TheHalfSame calls $2, CODYVALENCE bets $41.20 and is all-in, Pokerpeaker5 bets $40.50 and is all-in, TheHalfSame folds.

SHOWDOWN
Pokerpeaker5 shows [ 2D,2H ]
CODYVALENCE shows [ AC,AS ]
Pokerpeaker5 wins $1.30, Pokerpeaker5 wins $102.90.



SUMMARY
Dealer: weistronaut
Pot: $105.20, (including rake: $1)
DaveG11111, loses $0
CODYVALENCE, loses $47.20
illteachu5, loses $0.50
mattnespoli, loses $0.50
McDougal., loses $0
AlexMR, loses $0
weistronaut, loses $0.50
Pokerpeaker5, bets $48.50, collects $104.20, net $55.70
TheHalfSame, loses $8
rggrady3, loses $0


That's why you never slowplay Aces and why you maybe should bet even your full house with more than one other player in the hand.
He let me get lucky.
Boy, did I.


We now return you to your reguarly scheduled writing.

Knowing when to fold 'em

The hardest thing for me to do in life is relax.
That doesn't mean I have ADD or jump around the house like a chipmunk on meth (or, as my current analogy fits better, a 1-year-old on a popscicle rush), but I can't sit on the couch all day and all night.
I can't allow myself much of a break.
I need to keep busy.

So when I got up at 2 a.m. Monday, facing my longest and toughest climb this year, and I felt a scratch in my throat, I blew it off, thinking it was no big deal, that I could still do 17 miles and gain more than a mile straight up.
It turned out to be one of the toughest days I've had in years.
I should have realized that as our leaders set the pace about the same as the Daytona 500 of hiking, as if we were park rangers and four climbers were hanging by their shoelaces off a ledge and needed our help. By the time we reached the base of the mountain, I was whipped and in need of food.
Instead, we scaled up a trough so treacherous that two rocks whipped by, one of them whizzing as if Randy Johnson had thrown it at my head. I ducked just in time, showing off my reflexes developed by pitching in slow-lob softball these last four years.

By the time we got near the summit, I was pulling a Floyd Landis, falling several minutes behind the leader, only there would be no Landis-like comeback. I crawled to the summit, shoved five Oreo cookies in my mouth, downed a bottle a Gatorade and tried to prepare for Longs, 1,000 feet straight up away.
The food helped enough to push me to keep up, and by the time we got off Longs and back to the trail that would lead us to our car, six miles away, I was feeling OK.
And then it started raining.
And then it started pouring.
And then...
Flash
BOOOOOOM!

There are many things about mountaineering that do not scare me. Heights? The cold? Rocks flying like fastballs at my head?
That's part of the deal. But lightning? And knowing that you are the tallest thing above treeline and therefore a target?
That scares the hell out of me.
For a half an hour, I prayed to the Gods that they wouldn't send a bolt my way. I've been good, I said, not chasing my draws when I don't have the odds, taking that first pitch in softball and giving my kid and wife a kiss every night.
It seemed to work. The storm cleared, and we had a wet but calm three miles down to the car and food, a hot shower and dry clothes.
When I got home, I started shivering. Must be the cold rain, I thought.
Nope.
That tickle in my throat turned out be a 101 fever. I was sick with a cough.
So I was supposed to go hiking Friday before I led another group up the mountains Saturday for my 14ers group.
But I'm not going.
I'm taking it easy.
I'm relaxing.
Sometimes, you just have to know when you're beat.
Sometimes you have to fold 'em.

Song of the week: "The Illusionist" by Scar Symentery - Good, brutal metal with a catchy chorus. My favorite.
Movie of the week: "Shopgirl" starring Pot Committed, aka Claire Daines. This clever tale bombs out at the end, but the acting and story are too cute to not watch this.

Hiking with my father

For the first time in several years, I was on a summit with my father today.
It felt good.
I missed it.
Dad was the inspiration, the engine and the driving force behind my moutaineering hobby/obsession. For many years after my first summit of Longs Peak, perhaps Colorado's most climbed mountain (and one of its hardest), when I was 15, we visited dozens of summits together, even taking a trip to Washington to climb Rainier together in 1994 and again in 1997, when we spent a week on the mountain in the winter.

Things change, as they always do, but this is not a story about me getting older and finding my own way. Dad got divorced and then remarried to a younger woman (don't roll your eyes, it's not one of THOSE) who had three young children. He then had a baby with her, at age 60 (please, no comments about how his trout must be still swimming upstream, I've heard them all), and that wiped out pretty much all the climbing we had together.
Dad, in fact, stopped working out because he's now too busy carting the kids to soccer, baseball, etc.
The life choices hurt me a bit, but I didn't begrudge him too much. It was, after all, his decision, and he still managed to make it known that I was an important part of his life.
It's possible, without delving into some serious psycho therapy (yes, the pun is intended, because with me that's what it would be) beyond this blog, that his decision to stop climbing with me because he was too busy lit a fire under me, pushing me to complete all 54 14ers in five years, something that usually a climber 15 or 20 years, if they do it at all (and most don't). Maybe I was saying, OK, fine, I can do it on my own, just watch me. It turned out to be one of the best things I've ever done, right behind having a child and getting married (deciding to play poker falls right behind the 14ers).

I don't know if it will ever be the same again. He's 65 now, so even if he did work out, something he still doesn't do, he'd be slow and probably unable to do the epic stuff we used to tackle. He even took the wrong way down, which was my usual move before he moved on, and, in a sense, so did I. He's still got it, but he's got it in the sense that an aging NFL player still can take the field without embarassing himself but may not score many TDS anymore.

Still, Saturday was special. I got up at 3 a.m., drove up to our meeting place, absorbed his jokes about my morning attitude (which is grouchy and sour, if you must ask). We talked about work, laughed about our kids and got into a bit of his tour in Vietnam, something we hardly ever discuss.
You may not be able to go home again, unless home is a summit. For many years, it was. It was nice to sit on that front porch once again.

Home Alone

OK, I'm a bachelor.
No, the wife and the baba did not die in a fireball plane crash. She went to Salina, Kan., which is almost as bad, seeing as how it's about 157 degrees there, or about six degrees cooler than here, with the only difference being that it's also humid there, pushing something called the heat index to about 187 degrees.

Every year Kate's family travels to western Kansas, which is about as bad as it sounds, to visit her grandmother, watch a demolition derby and try to dodge violent, tornado-spawning thunderstorms. The highlight of the four days is a chicken dinner, and while this is a highlight because it's the best damn chicken dinner you've ever had, it's not worth four days of mall-walking, sweating and mosquito slapping.

Why am I so bitter? I worked in Salina for almost five years at the Salina Journal (sorry, no link, it's not worth it), and while I did enjoy the experience there — the city does have its merits, including a fluffy artistic side, meaning 4,000 out of 40,000 came to see our initial production of Shakespeare in the Park, which was a blast — it's still western Kansas.
That means the outdoors activities offered there include hiking on a crappy lake trail in 100-degree, humidity-splashed weather, biking on a thin highway with 18-wheelers storming by or fishing. I have no problem with fishing, I even support it and write about it, but it's just not my thing, kind of like hunting or crossword puzzles.
Colorado has mountains, which pretty much ends the competition right there.

So I'm at home, alone, and you might think this means I am sitting around the house in my underwear, the dogs licking waffle syrup off my bare chest, while I sing "I wear short shorts." Nope. I'll be in the mountains, of course.
I'm climbing Friday, hiking Saturday (for work, actually, ha ha ha sometimes being an outdoor/adventure writer is even better than covering the WSOP) and probably doing something epic Monday with my longtime hiking partner.
Despite this smorgasboard of high-altitude debauchery, I'll approach the next few days with a heavy heart.
I'll miss my little guy.

I never thought it would be possible that I would value family over mountain climbing, but it's happened, I'm a full-blown Dad now and wish I had my little guy with me. I fear that by the time he gets back, on Monday, he'll be saying his first few words, and not one of them will be, "Da Da." (He does say "Ma Ma," but he says that when he wants food, probably just a result of three months of breastfeeding; when Kate was thrilled that that was basically his first word, I reminded her that he basically sees her as a refrigerator).
I'll have fun these next few days, but I may, in fact, be happiest when I get updates from Kate in Salina.
• • •
I'm on the biggest rush of my life on the poker front. I know it seems to be much more fun to bitch about bad beats these days, but I've increased my total bankroll by a third just this month, up to more than $1,000 for the first time in my life. This may not seem like a lot to you, who play in the Big Game and call off $1,500 bets when you've got eight outs, but for me, it's a lot of money, and I'm thrilled.
The light is shining bright in my dark tunnel that is poker knowledge, and the game could not be more fun at this point.
I'm picking off bluffs regularly, I seem to know what my opponent has more and more and continue to drag big pots despite continuing to play extremely tight and only occassionally aggressive.

More and more, I'm convinced that erring on the side of careful play is much better than erring on the side of aggression, at least online at the levels I play. If that means I leave $50 out there, as I did twice last week, then so be it. I've also had one losing month in my last nine, and limiting your losses is the key to plumping up your wins.

And if you think I'm throwing the doom switch down, well, I'm not because ironically I'm on the worst streak of my life playing those $2.25 Hollywood Poker, full-table tournaments at work during my lunch break. I've cashed something like 3/15 in the last two weeks, with more suckouts than I care to recount (9,6 versus my A,Q is my current favorite against a jerky luckbox who claimed he was 11 in the chat box and certainly acted and played like it).
My theory is all my bad luck is going there, leaving me with either neutral luck or good luck when I play those cash games in the evening. I've moved up to playing .50 NL about 85 percent of the time now; I'll stay there until things start to inevitably go bad.
That's the sad thing about a long, extended winning streak; you're always looking for that piano above your head.

• • •
Song of the week: "Throw It All Away" by Zero 7. A great band releases a new album, a departure (a writer's nice way of saying, "not as good as their other albums," but this song rules.

Movie of the week: "Little Fish." Great performances by Hugo Weaving and Cate Blanchett pushes this mediocre movie into three-star terriority.

Don't know what you got...

My wife poked me awake at 6:30 a.m. I opened one miserable eye and saw my son smiling down at me.
"It's time for your day with Dad!" Kate chirped at him.
Grunt. I spent Thursday mountain climbing, and so, of course, what do you think I did far too late Thursday night instead of getting the sleep I needed for my day with a 1-year-old who has the energy of an Olympic Decathlete or meth addict on a Twinkie rush, take your pick.
You already know. The cards are right in front of you.
Heh.
Anyway, I rolled out of bed as Kate grabbed her bags and said her tearful goodbye.
Yeah, it's always rough to leave WHEN YOU'RE GOING TO VEGAS.
Yep. I'm home with the little man for the weekend while Kate goes to Vegas with her sister and some friends for some much-needed me time. They're all staying in the same room. And get that nasty thought out of your head. Shame on you.
So that meant, for me, every minute, every hour, all day, with Jayden, the baby whose batteries run out about as often as a Quartz watch.
Whew. I'm exhausted as I write this, at 10:30 p.m., while playing me some poker and listening to the baby monitor.
Kate deserves the vacation. She's a great mother who sees nothing wrong with getting up five times a night and spending most of her free time chasing him around and picking up the little piles he always leaves behind him. I call it his Path of Destruction, but Kate prefers to refer to it as the "price of exploration." Moms always were more positive.
Plus, in the summer, Dan's usually about me me me with all the climbing I do, even if that has slowed down since he was born. Prime climbing season basically lasts three months, when most of the snow is gone from the peaks, so I need to take advantage while I can. You can go all year, and I do, at times, but of course it's easier without -30 degree weather and snow up to your waist. Imagine getting to play with fish for three months and play with Phil Ivey the rest of the time. You'd pick the fish too. Oh, yes, you would.
One of the things I love about mountain climbing is it forces you to appreciate the small things. You don't really don't love your shower, your pillow and your fatty double cheesburgers until you're force to eat trail mix all day, sleep in a tent and go without showers for a couple of days (hell, even after a day-long climb, that shower feels pretty damn good).
And as I'm sitting here, exhausted and feeling like I just climbed a mountain after the day with Jayden, I've learned to appreciate the small things that I haven't appreciated lately:
• The day was bright, sunny and hot. A typical July summer day. And yet these last two weeks have been crammed with clouds, storms and sort of a crappy, misty cold that made it either impossible to climb or downright miserable. But July is back, and yesterday, I climbed Half Mountain in Rocky Mountain National Park with a longtime partner to bright, sunny, blue skies without even a hint of those nasty storms that have made life difficult for hikers this year. I even got sunburned on my neck. Last week, as I slogged through a hike with my 14ers group in Fort Collins in clouds and mist and rain so thick I needed a foghorn, I would have killed and eaten a marmot for a sunburn.
• Wow. The wife does a lot to keep our house running smoothly. Every day, in the summer when she's off from teaching, she watches the little guy every day.
• A pool. Greeley built us a new recreation center, complete with a water play area, a moving river, a baby pool with cool small fountains that squirt up (crack for 1-year-olds, Jayden stood there and stared at it like it was Quad Aces for about 20 minutes) and an awesome slide for, uh, the kids (and adventure-minded Dads who aren't above standing in line with 12-year-olds and even running up the stairs to beat them to ride first, but that's just what I observed, I wouldn't, of course, know otherwise what I was talking about). The city built that sucker just in time. Jayden gets to visit a great pool whenever he wants.
(Side note: I used to DESPISE Adult Swim when I was a kid, but now I LOVE it. That's right, you, the little fucker who's done nothing but squirt me and Jayden with that little gun in the adventure area. Sit your bratty ass down while I stay in, ha ha ha you little shit).
The point is the neighborhood pool when I was growing up was a great place to spend the summer, but I was worried he wouldn't get to experience that. No worries, mate, as Joseph Hachem says. That was the perfect afternoon activity today to keep the Baby from Getting Bored. I actually got him down at 7:30 p.m. tonight. I think it wore the little guy out, which is about the same level as the Miracle on Ice or catching your case A to beat a straight flush.
• Finally, this got me thinking. This is why we really need to defeat that damn poker/gambling legislation in Washington.
I really love online poker.
And I don't, one day, want to be sitting upstairs, wishing I should have appreciated it more while it was still around.

P.S. Any Cinderella fans out there? Hair metal is SUCH an underappreciated art form.