Fuck Dell

I know a lot of the recent posts have not been poker related, so just deal with it. I have stuff I need to get off my chest and this is where I do it. Don't mess with me fuckers, I am in rare form today! First go check the update to a previous post about the decreasing levels of IQ around the planet. I think at this rate my great-great-great-grandchildren will be living back in caves and hitting each other with femur bones. Fuck, how dumb are people?

So on the subject of Fuck and Dumb, I present to you the latest interaction I had with 2 genius Dell reps, via their support chat function. Commentary will be provided throughout:

Time	Details
11:01:21AM	Session Started with Agent (SMB_Cynthia_167711) - This after being on chat hold for about 5 minutes even though the wait time said 1 minute and 20 seconds, but whatever.
11:01:24AM	Agent (SMB_Cynthia_167711): "Thank you for patiently waiting. You have reached Dell Hardware Warranty Chat Support. My name is CYNTHIA and I will be assisting you today. In order for me to help you, can you provide details about the issue you’re having?"
11:01:52AM	Kajagugu: "hi"
11:02:09AM	Kajagugu: "th on-screen displays for volume, mute and display selection stopped working"
11:02:24AM	Kajagugu: "Fn+F* used to show three little icons which I could select from"
11:02:31AM	Kajagugu: "Fn+F8 i mean"
11:02:43AM	Kajagugu: "and the volume used to display as well and is now gone"
11:03:08AM	Kajagugu: "hello?"
11:03:45AM	Agent (SMB_Cynthia_167711): "Yes Sir im following on your symptoms." - Took her a while to let me know she is still there.
11:04:00AM	Kajagugu: "ok thanks"
11:04:09AM	Agent (SMB_Cynthia_167711): "Please be so kind to provide me your Service Tag." - Too bad I already entered it twice before the chat started, technology is grand.
11:04:20AM	Kajagugu: "xxxxxxxxx"
11:04:36AM	Agent (SMB_Cynthia_167711): "Thank you."
11:05:01AM	Agent (SMB_Cynthia_167711): "This will take me just a moment to verify your information."
11:05:06AM	Agent (SMB_Cynthia_167711): "I will be with you in just a moment."
11:06:34AM	Kajagugu: "ok - i have to go - this is taking too long" - Apparently a moment in Dell speak is a minute and a half.
11:06:47AM	Kajagugu: "can you e-mail me the solution to xxx@xxxx.com ?"
11:07:10AM	Agent (SMB_Cynthia_167711): "Kaja the thing is that we need to troubleshoot."
11:07:27AM	Kajagugu: "this has to be a common issue"
11:07:36AM	Kajagugu: "it's happened to every dell I have ever owned"
11:07:42AM	Kajagugu: "i guess i will try again later then"
11:07:46AM	Agent (SMB_Cynthia_167711): "To find the solution. Feel free to contact us later, but if you need to go please let me provide you your case number."
11:07:54AM	Agent (SMB_Cynthia_167711): "Just minute."
11:07:55AM	Kajagugu: "ok"
11:08:13AM	Agent (SMB_Cynthia_167711): "Thank you for your patience."
11:08:53AM	Kajagugu: "how long does it take to get a case nbumber?" - She wasn't kidding when she said it would take a minute. I mean, it's right there on her CRM screen. But I guess it takes a minute to read it, process it, confirm it, copy it and paste it into the chat window.
11:09:01AM	Kajagugu: "ok - sorry have to leave right now"
11:09:06AM	Kajagugu: "e-mail me the case number"
11:09:07AM	Kajagugu: "please"
11:09:24AM	Agent (SMB_Cynthia_167711): "I will KAJA." - Did this bitch just ALL CAPS my name? WTF??
11:09:45AM	Agent (SMB_Cynthia_167711): "I'm really sorry about the time , but this is the process."
11:09:48AM	Session Ended - Because I shut down my computer. This isn't over bitches!

So that took 8 1/2 minutes from my life. Let's see how I do when I try a second time a little later:

Time	Details
01:36:22PM	Session Started with Agent (SMB_Cedrick_153408)
01:36:31PM	Kajagugu: "hi"
01:36:37PM	Kajagugu: "one sec"
01:36:39PM	Agent (SMB_Cedrick_153408): "Thank you for patiently waiting, you have contacted Dell Hardware Warranty Chat Support.My name is Cedrick and I will be assisting you today. Would you please verify the person or company name that owns the system also, may I have your telephone number?"
	If we get disconnect our Outbound Agent will give you a call back.
01:36:47PM	Agent (SMB_Cedrick_153408): "Also, your email address."
01:36:52PM	Kajagugu: "Case #11111111111"
01:37:10PM	Kajagugu: "it's all in the case"
01:37:28PM	Kajagugu: "i had to leave an earlier session because it was taking too long"
01:37:39PM	Kajagugu: "let me know when you caught up and we can try to troubleshoot"
01:39:56PM	Agent (SMB_Cedrick_153408): "Okay, I have this case caught up." - Two whole miutes to read the case? Is this guy just super slow? There was nothing in the case to begin with.
01:40:27PM	Agent (SMB_Cedrick_153408): "And I will be glad to quickly help you with this icons issue." - It took another half a minute after he was caught up to tell me this.
01:40:45PM	Kajagugu: "i'm sure it's something simple"
01:41:47PM	Kajagugu: "let's do it"
01:42:01PM	Agent (SMB_Cedrick_153408): "Okay are you chatting on the system now Kaja."
01:42:09PM	Kajagugu: "yes"
01:43:00PM	Kajagugu: "why does it take over a minute to get a response?" - As you can see I am starting to lose my patience quickly with this one.
01:43:12PM	Kajagugu: "chat is supposed to be fast"
01:43:18PM	Kajagugu: "should I just call in instead?"
01:43:20PM	Agent (SMB_Cedrick_153408): "Okay can you tell me exactly when this started/"
01:43:32PM	Kajagugu: "do you have 18 widows open or something?"
01:43:38PM	Kajagugu: "it started a few days ago"
01:44:36PM	Kajagugu: "come on cedrick, let's do this"
01:45:06PM	Agent (SMB_Cedrick_153408): "This is what I need to know."
01:45:22PM	Agent (SMB_Cedrick_153408): "Okay, I am going to need you to run a system restore on the system."
01:45:44PM	Kajagugu: "a system restore? will that wipe out my system?"
01:45:53PM	Kajagugu: "or is this a bios system restore only?"
01:46:11PM	Agent (SMB_Cedrick_153408): "No Kaja, you will not loose any files or data."
01:46:19PM	Agent (SMB_Cedrick_153408): "Just recent saved programs." - Whaaaaa??????
01:46:37PM	Kajagugu: "how do i do this? restart hit F2 and tell it to restore?"
01:46:46PM	Kajagugu: "what are recent saved programs?"
01:47:28PM	Agent (SMB_Cedrick_153408): "This is how you do so,"
01:47:29PM	Agent (SMB_Cedrick_153408): "SYSTEM RESTORE: Go to start, all programs, accessories, system tools, and system restore. Choose restore to earlier date, next, pick a date you know the issue was not occurring on, and choose next two more times."
01:47:58PM	Kajagugu: "no way I am doing that" - In other words, are you fucking kidding?
01:48:09PM	Agent (SMB_Cedrick_153408): "This will fix this issue."
01:48:19PM	Kajagugu: "i don't know what it will delete"
01:48:19PM	Agent (SMB_Cedrick_153408): "You will not loose any data or saved files, Kaja."
01:48:25PM	Kajagugu: "i don't know when to restore is back to"
01:48:29PM	Kajagugu: "i am not taking that chance"
01:48:40PM	Kajagugu: "you said I will lose recent saved programs"
01:48:47PM	Kajagugu: "what does that mean?"
01:49:05PM	Agent (SMB_Cedrick_153408): "Programs that might have saved recently." - This is where it takes a turn for the worse. There could not be a worse way to answer my question. Might? Recently? But just wait for the next line:
01:49:20PM	Agent (SMB_Cedrick_153408): "But you want loose saved data, or important files." - Good thing I can speaka da english, because I don't think I mentioned that anywhere that I want (won't) loose (lose) saved data.
01:49:23PM	Kajagugu: "are you joking" - I think after this I lost him.
01:49:46PM	Kajagugu: "what does programs that might have saved recently mean?"
01:50:16PM	Kajagugu: "will i lose the program? the settings? the data that was saved recently?"
01:50:27PM	Kajagugu: "this could not be a more vague response if you tried"
01:51:23PM	Kajagugu: "what controls the on-screen display for these icons?"
01:51:39PM	Kajagugu: "is it a registry setting? a bios setting? a system service?"
01:53:58PM	Kajagugu: "ok thanks" - No response for 2 minutes.
01:54:01PM	Kajagugu: "goodbye" - Fuck you very much.
01:54:41PM	Kajagugu: "i don't understand why Dell even has this service, it's pointless and useless. Fell free to pass that along to your managers."
01:54:53PM	Kajagugu: "I guess it's not your fault, but this is truly awful"
01:54:55PM	Session Ended - This session lasted almost 20 minutes!!!

So there you have it. I searched up and down the knowledge base, tech forums, tech blogs, etc. and couldn't figure this out. I eventually did what he said and the following things happened:

1) Deleted files and folders showed back up on my desktop.

2) My AntiVirus software reverted to an older version.

3) My on-screen display worked again. So he was right. Damnit.

Still, this is the worst service possible. Fuck Dell.

iPoker (Poker & Music)

I need some opinions on this one people. As you might recall I have been loading up my entire CD collection into my new 80GB Video iPod and I started thinking about what I like to listen, what I haven't listened to in a long time and what I would listen to if I was playing poker.

I am usually a techno-electro-hard house-trance boy when it comes to music. I guess it just gets my blood pumping and turns on some hidden vault of memories from my young-and-crazy-guy days in NYC when I used to go listen to the big names and bounce around for hours. Those days are long gone, but the memories are still there.

So I tried running my 4 screen SNGs while listen to 160+ BPM hard house and boy was that fun. I think I might be able to multi-table more than 4 with that kind of music. But I doubt that i can play a single table like that because I would probably grow restless quickly and make too many silly mistakes.

I see tons of people with their iPods at live tables, which i don't really understand especially because it can lead to a lot of confusion and slows down the game. I can understand listening to music while playing online. So here's my questions to you fine folks:

What music do you listen to (if you do) when playing online or live and why?

Sick of Vick

Living in the ATL means you hear the Vick story everywhere. I finally read a great post by CC with his take on things, which got me thinking. And you all know that's not good for me. So here goes.

Of course it's a cultural issue. People are people, so why should it be, you and I should get along so awfully? OK, I got off on the wrong foot here with this Depeche Mode classic. But it is true. People are raised differently and act in ways that other people don't understand. If you go to Asia you will find all sorts of animals on the menu that would probably get you arrested in the US. There's a lot of history and cultural diversity when it comes to animals.

Let me check, yes, eggshells are barely cracked by that last paragraph.

But it's against the law. And that's all that matters in this case. And not knowing the law does not mean you can break it. And knowing the law and breaking it is even worse. The fact that he has $100M in his bank account only means he can get a great team of lawyers and they wisely told him to plead guilty.

Now, some good will come of it. Some superstars might understand they are not above the law and will start (hopefully) thinking about their idiotic actions and life choices. But the best part of this is that it will raise awareness. A lot of people were shocked to hear this story. Shocked because they either didn't think this was going on (naive) or shocked to hear it was illegal (idiots).

So in the immortal words of Shawn Sheikan : Yo Vick! You got what you deserved, sucker!

I have three related stories:

1)Half a life ago I was in an Air Force training course far, far away. We were a group of young cadets and had barely known each other yet. We had gone through a few hell weeks and were finally set up in a nice tent city for the next phase of the course. There were guys from everywhere and from all backgrounds. City boys, farmer kids, you name it. And we also had very little sleep and a kitten infestation. One of the farmer kids decided he had enough of the situation and got a rake and killed about a half dozen of the kittens with it, stabbing and drowning them in a shllow pool in the yard. The story spread quickly within the group and we had the full spectrum of reactions from shock and horror to indifference to applause. Now this course is a tough one to get through (less than 1% of the people who star graduate) and you are judged on everything you do, every second of every day, including being rated by your peers. So there were a lot of factors going into what to do no next. I had to check things out for myself and I confronted the guy who admitted to the deed, but made light of it and had several reasons and excuses. At that point it was clear to me that I needed to report this, no matter what the consequences. I talked about it with my crew and we all agreed this was the right course of action. None of us could get over this act and had no desire to serve with this guy. To our horror he was not ejected immediately, but rather had the incident put on his record for further evaluation at a later date. He was eventually ejected after several months because this turned out to be just the tip of the iceberg. Sicko.

2) About a decade ago when I live in NYC a good friend of mine decided he wanted a dog. He's a rich kid and had grown up with exotic pure-bred puppies and missed having one around. So we started checking out some ads and eventually drove out to Brooklyn to see a breeder. The breeder opened the door with nothing on but sweat pants, on which I could count at least 4 pagers. He was a body builder and was covered in tatoos. And his house was full of puppies. Dalmatians, Shar-peis and Pitbulls. His convertible BMW was parked outside on the street with the top down. Something smelled awfully fishy with the whole situation. We got out of there quickly. We figured this guy was some drug dealer who nobody wanted to mess with. The dogs were a great way for him to show income and not look too suspicious. He charged $500 per puppy. Nobody breeds Pitbulls for fun. Although I really wanted to, I did not turn him in.

3) I convinced my buddy to take a look at animal shelters in the city and we ended up going to Harlem. We found a 9 month old Pitbull/English Staf mix and she was just so cute. But a note on her cage said she will be euthanized in 2 days if not claimed by her owners. We tried to convince the shelter to let us adopt her, but they said that any Pitbull over the age of 6 months has to be euthanized. If they were found on the street nobody can vouch that they had not been trained to fight other dogs or attack people. We pleaded and pleaded and eventually they decided to see how she reacts to other dogs, crowds and children. She passed all the tests to everyone's satisfaction and they eventually made an exception and released her to our care. A year later my buddy went out there again and got a second dog from the shelter, this time a Pitbull/American Staf mix. They are both amazing loving dogs and live happy lives.

Petition

Got this from a friend and figured I could help spread the word. I don't usually like these petitions but I think this one is warranted:

Help remove Jew-Watch from Google!

When you Google the word "Jew", the second website listed is http://www.jewwatch.com (no link on purpose), an anti-Semitic, hate-filled harangue masquerading as "scholarly, factual, informational". Add your name to the petition to remove www.jewwatch.com from Google's search engine. (Check out the site and you will understand why.)

Btw, I did actually Google "Jew" and the third site was the following link/letter from Google http://www.google.com/explanation.html. In order for Google to remove this, they would need a petition of over 500,000 requests.... so let's make it 1,000,000 (its now at almost 240K, so we are half way there to removing it.

http://www.petitiononline.com/rjw23/petition.html

I am posting this to readers of all religions and races, as racism is a global malaise that can hit each of us, and hurts all of us.

Thanks for your help and sorry for taking your time on this and please pass it on!

Bad Beats - Shmad Meats

Thanks to Murray The Cat for pointing me to this gem. I think i will put a permanent link to it just to make me feel better after I take a ridiculous beat. Enjoy:

Macau, LVS and History

Macau is going to be HUGE! I talked to a buddy of mine yesterday and he said they were going to have their Asia-Pacific company summit at the Venetian in Macau. It just opened last week:

"Las Vegas’s days as the capital of excess may be numbered.

The $2.4 billion Venetian Macao Resort, scheduled to open here Tuesday, will give Sin City more than a run for its money. The Venetian has more floor space than four Empire State Buildings. The hotel’s slot machines, baccarat tables and other games of chance sprawl across a casino more than three times the size of the largest casino in Las Vegas. The 15,000-seat sports arena nearly rivals Madison Square Garden, the convention center has a 6,000-seat banquet hall and the luxury shopping mall has three indoor canals with singing gondoliers; the Venetian in Las Vegas has just one.

But what is most surprising about the 3,000-suite project is that it is merely the first of 14 interconnected hotels being built here by the Las Vegas Sands Corporation. When completed, the complex will include a St. Regis, a Shangri-la, a Raffles, a Conrad, an Intercontinental and a Sheraton, with their own casinos, bars and restaurants. And the project, which will cost $10 billion to $12 billion, is just the largest of a series of giant gambling complexes being constructed here in Macao, on the southwestern lip of the mouth of the Pearl River."

The owner of LVS is a nice old man called Sheldon. Do you know why he built the Venetian in Las Vegas? His wife asked him to:

"In 1991, while honeymooning in Venice with his wife, Dr. Miriam Adelson, Mr. Adelson gained the inspiration and theme for a mega-resort hotel, and he proceeded with the implosion of the venerable Sands and the construction of the $1.5 billion, Venetian Resort-Hotel-Casino, that became the ultimate resort destination by bringing the famous city of water to the desert of Nevada."

Do you know what else happened in 1991? I dated Dr. Miriam Adelson's 18-year old daughter for a few months. We met at a coffee shop. We broke up because she was too clingy. Good fold, donkey.

Well, she's no that dumb, right?

I guess by now everyone has seen Miss Teen South Carolina make a stand for blondes and brain, right? Oh if you haven't seen it yet here it is again. Put down any soda or warm drinks you might think of attempting to consume in the next few minutes:



Her answer, transcribed:
I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uhmmm, some people out there in our nation don’t have maps and uh, I believe that our, I, education like such as uh, South Africa, and uh, the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and I believe that they should, uhhh, our education over here in the US should help the US, uh, should help South Africa, it should help the Iraq and the Asian countries so we will be able to build up our future, for us.

So then she went on the Today show and tried to set the record straight. Basically claiming that she was totally caught off guard (ummm, did she not know this was the question part of the contest?) and that she has no idea how that statistic can even be true. Then she goes on to say how she wants to study graphic design and move to LA. Yeah, to LA to study graphic design. Right. She already has the stripper shoes on. I guess she's ready for her "career" in LA:

Miss South Carolina Teen USA Responds

UPDATE: She's not done with her 15 minutes of in-fame. She did a geography quiz for People Magazine. Geez!

Encore Update: French people are dumber than dumb blondes from South Carolina. I think my head is literally about to explode today. I couldn't figure out how to embed the video here so just follow the link and then read the first comment. GAhhhhh!

HUC and done

Congratulation to mclarich who took down our second match in easy fashion:



I have a lot to learn. Or as Yoda might say "Learn a lot to, I have".

Max value with quads

So this has never happened to me before, so i have to share. I'm playing a $5 SNG and playing fairly tight. I decide to limp along with half the table in the CO holding QhJh and about 5 of us see the flop which is JJ2. Great flop for me, now I am trying to figure out how to make the most of it. I decide to check it when it gets to me and surprisingly the button makes a decent bet, I think around 1/2 the pot. To my delight the SB calls and it gets folded back to me.

Here is where I don't know what I should do. Usually I would raise here to try to build the pot and make sure I am not outkicked. But for some reason I felt I could just flat call and see what happens on the turn. Ummmm, nice turn:



Well, now all I have to worry about is getting as many chips as I can. So when the SB checks I check behind and the button shoves all his chips in the middle. Not 2 seconds go by and the SB shoves all his chips in the middle too. I have both these idiots covered and can't stop laughing. I type in the chat two words: "Awes" and "ome" and call:



There ain't a better feeling in poker than holding the mortal nuts and having people gift you their stacks. Not one, but two this time. And that, gentle reader, has never happened to me before.

DQB!!!

HUC tune-up

But the competition I ran into was so bad that I don't think I can even call it a practice session. I played three games that lasted 2.1/2.1/5.1 minutes. 6/6/10 hands, I kid you not. Of course I won all three, what did you think? Pffffff......

So even though mclarich said he couldn't play tonight he pinged me right before I was about to head to bed. After going upstairs, tossing and turning, I came back down and he was still interested in playing. Game on!

It started out badly for me, when I overplayed my first hand to get in a hole. It took a lot of work to get back to even and then the following hand happened. We both limp and on the button I get Js5h. The flop is 876 all hearts and I bet out and get called. The turn is a 4c completing my straight. I check and he checks. River is a Qs and he check-calls and shows a better flopped straight:



I guess there were a lot of hands that can beat me there but this was definitely bad. I kept getting counterfeited by the turn and river and every trap I set got messed up. I flopped top two pair with J9 only to see KK complete the board and he has a King, of course. But then on the next hand his straight gets countered by my rivered boat:



I also played a great hand where I got him to call a value bet with a made straight on the turn:



At this point I am back in the lead and all of a sudden, 20 minutes into it, he disconnects. I tried to reach him on IM but to no avail. So I sat out and let the dealer shove the chips back and forth for about 30 hands. All of a sudden he pops in and before I can sit back in he raises me and takes my blind. I sit back in and tell him I am willing to just restart. Right after he jams the very next hand. I have A7 and we agree to try again. I call to get the thing over with as fast as possible and he shows AK and I flop a 7 to win:



So I ship him a refund and we get going again. I think he is still on disco-tilt and I get him down to about 5-to-1 in chips pretty early. Then I make some crucial mistakes, let him double up and take it down:


I decided that since I was going to win the HUC I needed to practice a little.

So I am down 0:1 and waiting for the second game that will hopefully happen tomorrow.

Here we go!

HUC5 is underway and I have my first opponent, mclarich. I have to admit that I don't recall playing against him before although his name is familiar to me. I guess he's just another donkey. I keed. I keed. We almost got a match going yesterday but I had to go to bed. I was just getting done with my treadmill session and it was getting late.

Last night I saw some of the blogahs playing a $1/$2 game and they asked me to join. I felt so honored. Problem is my bankroll on FTP doesn't even allow me to buy in for the max $200 so I was not sure I should. But eventually being the dumb donkey I am, I did, played exactly two hands and had to leave because KajaWife needed my help with something. ROI for the one orbit session = %30+. Not bad.

Then I had to walk on the treadmill. Rav asked me why which was a good question to which the answer is that I'm fat and lazy. That got a few chuckles. But to the point, I think I found the ultimate poker multi-tasking experience. If I can succeed playing this way I will no doubt start crushing the game. Here's the setup:

1) Treadmill in the basement
2) In front of the big screen
3) Tivo full of WPT, WSOP and High Stakes Poker
4) Wireless broadband throughout the house makes it to the basement
5) Laptop propped up on treadmill
6) Game on!

I saw that the 1/2 game had a waitlist as long as can be and went for my regular digs, the .10/.25 game. I quickly cracked Aces with Queens to double up and that's all I needed. 100% ROI in 5 minutes. Perfecto.

I also played a few SNGs, since that is what I am supposed to be doing to build a bankroll. Busted in two and won the other two. I am either hit or miss and I need to hit every time. This is pissing me off. I did get a few good hands in there:

DQB, twice !!!




This one was interesting. I called on the button and could not have wished for a better flop. When Crazy_Flops led out I min-re-raised him and he jammed. I think it's funny that I know without having to count that I have 15 outs twice and that's about a 60% favorite with two cards to come. So I obviously had to call and one of those outs came on the river:



Then I dished out one of the sickest beats I have ever laid on someone. By the time he jammed on the turn I had to call because we were both shorties and I had no fold equity at that point. 4-outers are brutal:



And this is from a few days ago. How sick is it that there is only one hand that beats you and that is exactly the hand your opponent has? I hate 2nd nuts vs THE nuts:

Pwned

One of the geek blogs I read is The Raw Feed. They just had a terrific pic of a car getting pwned by the Maine floods:

Back to the Continental Divide

I guess I didn't really explain the reason i am calling these couple of posts Continental Divide. The reason is that when I looked at the area map I saw this line and I guess it means that this is the ridge line crossing the continent from north to south.

Anyway, after a disappointing first night at the Gilpin Casino in Blackhawk, CO, I decided to give it a second chance. I had the rare opportunity to get out of the office early and head back up into the mountains. The drive was awful and I had to contend with rush hour traffic as well as a highway being shut down because an antique RV cuaght fire in the middle lane. I was going to miss the 7pm tourney if they kept this up.

Luckily, the traffic cleared up and I made it to Colorado Central Casino in time for their $100+$10+$5 7 pm tourney that got 60 players, top 6 pay and 1st taking down $2400. That's quite the score for a $100 tourney, and I was surprised that the juice was only $15.

I didn't see any playable hands for the first three orbits and I couldn't even limp my blinds because the table was super-aggressive. Even after 3 orbits of without playing a single hand I got no respect and got rasied and re-raised.

The blind structure was pretty quick, with 20 minute blind levels:
25/50
50/100
100/200
Break
200/400
etc.....

We started with 5000 chips so I didn't have a lot of wiggle room once we hit the third level. At the break I had been whittled down to 2200. After the blinds went through I was down to 1600 and had to make a move. I stole the blinds once and went back to 2200. Then I saw my first pocket pair of the tourney and pushed from UTG+1 with JJ. Guy to my left calls with KK and I am out early.

Early enough to try to play the 9pm at Gilpin. I called them up and made sure they will run it. When they said they think they will, I headed out there and signed up. We needed 10 players to start and couldn't find more than nine. Some of us actually tried to recruit players who were busting out of the 7pm game and eventually we got the tourney started.

"The Niner" has some funny rules that i was not aware of:
9000 Starting stacks.
9 Levels - at the end of 9 levels biggest chip stack takes first and so on.
9 Seconds to act - if the action is on you, you only get 9 seconds to decide what to do.
15 minute blind levels:
100/100
100/200
200/400
300/600
400/800
500/1000
1000/2000
1500/3000
2000/4000

With a total of 90K starting chips there will probably be no need to go past that 9th level because there will only be 22.5 big blinds.

I don't remember too many hands, but once again play was very loose and aggressive. I stayed out of the way for most of it and tried to pick up on the tendencies of the players. There was one guy, 2 seats to my left, who I recognized from the previous evening that loved flushes and any Ace. The guy to his left was an old loose calling station and I got a lot of his chips when we had AQs vs ATs on an Ace-high board.

One thing that everyone picked up on was that we were being dealt a lot of pocket pairs. An amazing amount and on almost every hand. We saw QQ vs QQ as well as set over set.

One mistake that I made twice last night (in each one of the tourneys) was that I raised with a single larger chip without stating the raise. I did this in the first tourney and actually saved a bunch of chips when a player behind me shoved and got called before the action got back to me. I did it a second time in The niner when I wanted to raise with pocket 6s and only said "5 thousand" after I threw my chip in and it landed on the table.

Young guy to my right who had raised it up before I was going to re-raise caught on to the error and was going to let it go, but I said he was right and I will just call. Since it was just a call we got a couple more people to play. The flop was JJ6 giving me a flopped boat. I checked and fired a small bet on the turn which was a King. I hoped nobody was overplaying KJ and they all in fact folded. I felt like I missed a big opportunity there.

On the very next hand I got dealt pocket 8s and this time I announced "raise to 5 thousand" loudly before throwing my 5K chip in. I got a call from an aggressive player in the BB. He checked the flop of T54 rainbow to me and I fired another 5K at it. He thought about it a bit and said he was going to re-raise me all-in. This was an interesting situation. I didn't put him on a set, overcards or a Ten. With only 9 seconds to act I called and he didn't seem happy about that, so I knew he didn't have it. I tabled my 8s and he turned over 7s. That was a crucial double up for me.

People were getting knocked out quickly now and we eventually burst the bubble. Young guy to my right and his buddy to his right were the only other players left. There was a lot of stealing and re-stealing going on, but with the blinds at 1500/3000 it was not going to be easy. The guy to my right mistakenly thought that this was our last level and with less than a minute left he went all-in dark on the button. I called with AT and he had 96o and made a pair on the flop to double up.

So on the very next hand he shoved again but this time had me covered. I looked down at 8d7d and decided I was live and probably in good shape. It was his turn to show ATo and we both made pairs on the T82 flop that held two diamonds. I had 14 outs twice so I loved that flop and then the turn was another 8 and I took back all my lost chips.

He was all-in on the button on the next hand and I just completed the BB and we checked it down and took him out in thrid for $180. I knew my opponent had roughly the same amount of chips left as I did so that meant we had around 11-12 big blinds each going into heads-up. He offered an even chop and we talked about it for a couple of minutes. We counted out our chips and were about 44K to 46K. Top spot was $445 and second paid $265 so an even chop would give us each $355 and we agreed to do it.

So overall it was a fun tournament. I ended up winning $255 and after a $25 dealer tip, $115 buy-in for the other tourney and an $80 loss from the first night, I was just a little bit ahead. It really felt good to cash in the tourney, especially since it was going to be a total crapshoot with these blind levels.

The Machine is Dead - Long live the Machine

The SNG Machine is no more. KOD has given up his old (extremely profitable) ways and is now The MTT Machine. He figured out how to change his URL before telling everyone and left us all hanging. So here it is again:

http://TheMTTMachine.blogspot.com

Joke

Johnny wanted to have sex with a girl in his office,
but she belonged to someone else...

One day, Johnny got so frustrated that he went up to
her and said, "I'll give you a $100 if you let me
screw you. But the girl said NO.

Johnny said, "I'll be fast. I'll throw the money on
the floor, you bend down, and I'll be finished by the
time you pick it up. "

She thought for a moment and said that she would have
to consult her boyfriend... So she called her
boyfriend and told him the story.

Her boyfriend says, "Ask him for $200, pick up the
money very fast, he won't even be able to get his
pants down."

So she agrees and accepts the proposal. Half an hour
goes by, and the boyfriend is waiting for his
girlfriend to call.

Finally, after 45 minutes, the boyfriend calls and
asks what happened.

She responded, "The bastard used coins!"

Poker on the Continental Divide

Out in the rockies again and finally figured a way to play some live pokah. Rather than hit up one of the many free poker leagues that are played out nightly in many bars around town, I opted for real money action. The only problem is that Colorado doesn't make it easy:

1) There are several locations, old mining towns that have gambling licenses, where the casinos are located. It's about 45-60 minute drive from Denver, up into the mountains.
2) They have a $5 max bet limitation so they spread a strange $2-$5 or $5-$5 game. And that's it!
3) The can hold NLHE tournaments, but those usually run during the day with the latest starting at 7pm, which means I would need to leave real early to avoid traffic to make it.

There is one tournament that runs at 9pm and has a $100 buy-in. I tried to get there in time, but they only had two people sign up so it got canceled. Crap-tastic. I drove all the way out there after calling earlier to make sure they were going to run it only to find out it was a no go. The 7pm tourney had 60 people buy-in at $60, with 6 spots paying out and the top prize was a little over $1K. Not bad.

Anyway, off to the weird limit game I go. So just to clear this up, there is only a forced SB. So the player to the left of the button can post anywhere from $2-$5 and then anyone can call or raise up to $5 more. There is a 5 raise maximum except if heads-up on the river. So someone could post $3 and then the raise can be to 6, 7 or 8. Then a re-raise can be to a max of $11-13. You get the point. There is no bet increase on the turn or river so you lose the entire effect of bigger bets on later streets, which in my opinion is crucial to limit hold-em.

We started up a new table and I bought in for $100. I saw that this was going to be a really wild and loose game. Most of the players joining the table were on tilt from the tournament, so they were throwing chips around like crazy. I decided to play it safe and tight for a while and build rock image. It worked and I was actually able to get some of the aggressive players to fold with turn check-raises and river bets, even when I was holding absolute trash. Here are some interesting hands:

I mucked a bunch of suited connectors only to see them hit flush flops over and over again. So the next time I got Qc6c I limped in with the rest of the table for $2. I saw a wunder-flop of QQ6 and checked it because I knew there was going to be a lot of action behind me. They did not disappoint and when it got bet and raised I just smooth called. I check-re-raised the turn and lost one player, but I got a call on my river bet and took down the biggest pot so far. Normal limps were $2 pre-flop with a standard $5 raise, so the pot was probably around $80. Not bad.

A few hands later I bluffed the young aggro sitting to my left with A5o on a T42T6 board and he let it go on the river.

I saw that this was going to be a night of river beats when I got called all the way down by two players when I held J9s on a QJT flop, blank turn and Ace on the river. They had K4o and K5o. Donkeys always draw.

75s saw a flop of 876, turn 7, river 5 and did my now patented check-raise on the turn. Young aggro folded to my river bet again.

New player sat to my right and I had to test his folding ability. I got AKo and fired bullets, pre-flop, flop, turn and river (I missed everything) and he eventually folded on the river bet. Phew!

AQo flop all diamonds Queen high I re-raised an EP player and everyone folded including him.

I missed out on a huge pot when i folded my Q8o when I checked the flop and it got bet, re-raised and called before it got to me. I saw the original bettor call out of turn so I knew I could see another card for just $10. The flop held an 8 and I should have just called to see the turn. It was another 8. The river was a Queen which would have given me the boat and given the other player a staright. I would have taken all his money if I had stayed in that hand. Oh well....

Anyway, I eventually got tired of writing down all these notes and from the game in general. I had been there for a little over 2 hours and my stack was fluctuating between 100 and 180. I started playing much looser and eventually ran KJ on a QQQJx board into AQ. One new guy at the table was dealt 4-5 two pair hands in a row and took a big chunk of my stack as well. I knew I had an hour drive back to my hotel so I packed it in and walked away stuck $80. I might try to go there again tonight to get into one of the tournaments. We'll see.

When I got back to my hotel I fired up FTP and went to work on some more SNGs. I have been very streaky with these suckers and I either take 1st or I am out early. But I am now making some nice returns:




I am now squarely in the 35% ROI and 38% ITM, although this is still only 34 SNGs, so it's a pretty pathetic sample size. I'll keep going at this and see how I do. I borrowed a 19" screen from the office and put it in my hotel room so I can actually see all 4 tables without overlap and with a decent font size.

Speaking of great service

Last Friday, I walked down to my home office and attempted to get on a conference call. There was a really loud metallic hum on my line and when I joined the call it was just awful. Nobody could hear me and I could barely hear what the other parties were talking about. I quickly switched to my cell phone to continue the call.

When the call was over I walked around the entire house unplugging all the jacks to see which one was causing the problem, but then did the simple math that it was in fact the line and not a phone or a jack. I was pissed. I had a long list of calls for the day and using a cell phone is teh crap (I will one day calm down enough to explain why cell service is just sooooo pathetic in the US).

I was going to call The New AT&T, but then decided to seek some easy web self service and report the problem. I know that before Bellsouth was acquired by AT&T they had put in a place a pretty elaborate repair application and I decided to give it a shot. I filled out my repair ticket and skeptically sent it into the webbersphere.

The first thing that happened was that I got an e-mail confirmation within a few minutes. So that was pretty good. Then a few minutes later I got another e-mail stating that AT&T will try to repair the problem and have a deadline of about 36 hours to do so. Ummmm, not so good. But what can I do? At least they acknowledged that there was an issue and they were going to fix it.

Not an hour went by and my network connection dropped. Since I use DSL on the same line as my phone I figured someone was outside fixing the problem. I tried the phone and got no dial tone. I dashed upstairs and saw a phone repairman working the issue in 115 degree heat. I asked him if it's all good and he said he has to go check something else up the street. I offered the poor guy some water or a something to drink, but he declined and went on his way. Five minutes later he called and said the problem was fixed.

I picked up the phone again after I hung up with him and heard the clearest dial tone I have ever had to my house.

Total time to resolution - about 2 hours. Hassles - none. Minutes spent on hold with a customer service rep - zero!

Thank you The New AT&T. I won't forget this.

Now if only you could bundle all my services without having to get a damn PhD to explain the formula to me, that would really be something....

Time Travel (AKA - I love Duplicate Poker)

Update: Go ahead and read the comment I got from Dan from DP. That was just terrific. I obviously knew there was a mix-up, but I loved the response.So, I will now place DP in my list of great customer service companies. And I will now link every place that says DP to go sign up and play there. And I will review my play there. And I will enjoy doing all this.

OK, now seriously, go sign up now at Duplicate Poker

DPDPDPDPDPDPDPDPDPDPDPDPDPDPDP

I signed up at Duplicate Poker because of all the PokerNews freerolls going on and the $10 free they are giving out. I made an easy $20 MasterCard deposit to qualify for the freerolls, Then I got a fun e-mail:

From: Duplicate Poker
Sent: Monday, August 20, 2007 5:03 PM
To: kajagugu
Subject: Freeroll Confirmation!


Dear Kajagugu,


Congratulations for making a deposit with us. DuplicatePoker is the most exciting new innovation in poker since the chip. At DuplicatePoker, you and your corresponding players at other tables each get exactly the same cards, and you're rated based not on how lucky you are, but on how well you play those same cards versus your opponents at other tables. You don't need to think about "running good" or "running bad" - your success is based on your skill.

You can now participate in the $2,500 freeroll we are running on Sunday, August 12 at 11:55PM ET.

We have already registered you to the freeroll, so all you have to do is to remember to log-in 15 minutes before the action starts. Please be on time, we cannot allow latecomers to enter the game!

We'll see you at the DuplicatePoker tables.
Regards,
The DuplicatePoker Team

How nice of them to sign me up for a freeroll that happened...... 8 days ago?

So I sent them back an e-mail:

Dear Duplicate Poker,

Wow - that's awesome. Too bad I can't travel back in time to play in the freeroll that ran 8 days ago. But then that wouldn't be fair because I would already know what the cards were and how to play every hand, thus messing up the whole concept of Duplicate Poker.

Oh well, maybe next time.

Time travel could be a lot of fun....

Not McLovin Poker

Watched the end of the $3K WSOP with Shak and Phil and I have to tell you, if (you never know, this will probably never happen, but there's still a chance) I ever get to sit at the same table with Hellmuth I will talk back at him every chance I get and make fun of his pathetic ego. Pussy. "I can't believe she called with KQ". "Did she really call with KQ"? Ummmm, yeah - why would anyone respect any of your moves? Half the time when you're in a hand you make a speech and fold. What an annoying dick.

I even ran the hand in PokerStove. With the blinds at 20/40/5a there was 90K in the pot and he raised to 120K. So when it folded to Beth in the BB she had to call 80K into a 210K pot. And against ATo she was only 45%-to-55%, so what the hell was he whining about? The flop came QTx and she moved in and he CALLED with middle pair? What a cry baby. Then he runs to his wife and cries some more. "I hate poker", he says. That is not "best poker player in the world" poker if you ask my humble opinion.

Moving along. I saw "Superbad" on Friday and I McLovin'd it. It is really good. Stupid, but you will be laughing most of the time.

And last night I finally made it to the PPL game over at BrainMc's hood. We only got 11 players and they decided to play two tables (6 and 5) and only merge them at 9, so even though the blind structure was pretty good, we were playing short handed for a long time. It took me some time to adjust and I lost a bunch of chips early. It was very aggressive early on, with no walks and no showdowns for almost two orbits.

Surflexus and Aposec72 (who I met for the first time last night) were at my starting table and Aposec72 had his Aces cracked by the BB's two pair and was the first out. Then I got to play a big hand with Surf.

I had been very aggressive with the table and built my stack back up and then some. I even got a couple of walks from Surf at this point. So the next time it folded around to him in the SB he raised it up and I flat called with KQ. I thought about raising but gave Surf some respek for his SB raise. The flop was a glorious JT9 with two diamonds. I flopped the nuts and was going to get paid. I was delighted when Surf bet into me. I thought about it a bit and then raised, just to continue my aggressive image and to try to avoid a flush draw from hitting. Surf moved all-in for a little more and I had to call no matter what. He turned over JT for top two and did not improve. It was a massive cooler of a hand and there was very little he could do to get away from it.

So down to 9 we merge the tables and I have a nice stack and we are finally with a full table so the blinds are not as bad. I played well making some timely raises until we were down to 5 handed. Then it all went downhill. One of the guys had gone down to 150 chips and was tripling and doubling up but was still short. I raised his BB and he shoved. I had A9o and figured he had a pretty big range so I called and indeed I was ahead when he showed KTo. The flop was QJT and I doubled him up.

So now with a pretty short stack I didn't have a lot of moves. The blinds were 200/400 and I had 1600 left. A few hands later the guy I doubled limped UTG, UTG+1 moved all-in for 1000 and I looked down at AQo. Usually I muck at this point, but we were 5-handed and I had a good feeling I was ahead of both their ranges. If I re-shove I might get the UTG to fold. But he called with AJs and UTG+1 flipped over K9o, so I was ahead of them both. I told everyone that I was certain I would be out by the river. The flop missed us all. The turn was a Jack and the river gave the K9o a runner runner straight. So he more than tripled up, UTG got the rest of my chips and I was out in 5th.

I hate poker.

I keed. I keed.

Thanks to BrainMc for the invite. I really enjoyed the game. I loved the blind structure even though playing short handed for the first couple of hours was very taxing on the stacks. And your hood buddies are great fun.

I am starting to formulate a plan to host an ATL-BPT event at my place. Maybe in a couple of weeks? Anyone reading this, let me know what you think. I might send out some e-mails to ask your opinions as well.

Rules and Digital Waffles

Catching up on some WSOP on ESPN, I came across the episode with Hellmuth and Beth Shak. They had an awesome hand where some guy with KK raises 4xBB, beth thinks about her raise and moves all-in with Aces and Phil insta-calls with his Aces. EP with KK is still in the hand and thinking about what to do. Here are the problems, someone tell me what the ruling should be:

1) Beth starts jumping around and flashing signs to her husband Dan Shak on the rail, saying things like "I got it", "I got 'em" and "I got them". Is this allowed, while there is still a player left to act? Or is it just bad etiquette. It's bad poker for sure because you still want the last player to call, but that's not the point.

2) Phil runs over to his wife and explains how he called in less than a quarter of a second. I guess that's OK by the rules, but again pretty bad poker because he would still love a call from the EP guy.

So then the EP guy, after all this ruckus, still calls all-in. If he had paid more attention here he would have known he had to fold. Tough fold, but after Beth's antics he has to do it. Now that all three players are all-in it's time to reveal the cards. Here is my biggest problem:

3) Beth takes her cards and dances around her seat showing them to the crowd. She takes the cards OFF the table and holds them in the air for quite a while. I don't think that is allowed and her hand should have been dead. Anyone know what the ruling here should be? I think both other players should have called the TD to ask that her hand be dead.

Anyway, SNGs not going well because weekend players like to shove as 95%-to-5% underdogs and hit 2 outers on the river. I blame the weekend RNG for that and will just have to concentrate harder.

Oh, and I ran across this guy at one of my tables. I guess Waffles has gone all Digital on us, with his multiple blogs and all:

Pool Time - It's just soooooo hot.

I can't stand these over 100 degree days so I decided to head over to the pool to cool off a bit. Our neighborhood installed a new wave pool that is a lot of fun and I figured it would not be full on such a hot day. Boy was I wrong. Good thing I had my video camera to shoot the following footage:

OMFG !!!

This seriously cracked me up this morning:



The Official Meetings Facilities Guide needs to get a clue. OMFG.com - Can you believe it?

Much better

So I was really upset at the way I played those first 11 SNGs. I decided to fire up 4 more and see if I am really that bad. I took a deep breath and went over a few guidelines in my head. And then everyone just decided to give me their chips:



So the new finishes distro looks something like this:



And just to be clear, the one I bubbled was when my 77 was beat by KJo by hitting a Jack on the river.

So just for good measure, I fired up another one and my first hand was Aces in the SB. Limp, limp, limp, raise to 160 in LP so I re-raised to 300 and just the raiser called. Flop was Q high but had two diamond and all kinds of straight draws, so I bet about 2/3 pot and LP shoved with his AQ and doubled me up. I was still laughing and missed the second hand. But on the third hand I got AJs in the CO and raised. I got the SB to call and we saw the Jack high flop with two hearts. To make a long story short he missed his heart flush draw and decided to shove his whole stack on the river, so now I have triple the chips of all the other players. It was pretty easy from there.

I have to admit, it was not easy playing heads up against 3 people at the same time. But these games are SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO soft. TripJax, if you're reading this, the $5 SNGs are the place to be!

UPDATE: Just so I know my place in the pecking order, I saw Hoy playing $110 and $55 turbos. Looks like the play is not much different than the $5 level though. I saw an EP raiser shove his whole stack after Hoy raised him with Kings. What did this monkey have that seemed to be worthy of a push? 99 - Genius. So much for Hoy not catching ANY cards, right?
Then I saw the SNG Machine 10-tabling $50s and $30s (insane!!!). Even his girlie chat showed he was in BRB mode (Sit n Goes). I guess that's how he got his name. Nice to see him going back to his roots: