Kicking Tom while they're down

ANNOUNCER: Will the lady who left her 11 kids at Lambeau Field, please pick them up. They're beating the Packers 29 to 0.

So I Woke Up Yesterday...

...and I made a game.

No really, I woke up. Sat up in bed and remembered everything that I had dreamt for the past half an hour to an hour. I jump out of bed (the neighbors downstairs must have ran for the nearest door jam when their pictures shook) and raced to the computer to right down everything I recollected.

It's based on a sports game. Either basketball or futbol works. Your turn starts by taking possession. Each time you pass the ball, you can draw a card. There are fast effects that your opponent can use/play that will punish you for "passing to much". You take a shot, compare some numbers (of course I'm not going to tell you the whole idea) and figure out if you score or not. If you do, the possession goes to the opponent and his/her turn starts.

So now I have an idea for a game. It goes up on the shelf with the other ones. It's not 100% complete, there are still some kinks to work out (depicting which character has the ball, distance to goal, etc.), but hey, maybe someone will come to me and be like "hey, I need an idea for a sports game, for either basketball or soccer"....and I'll be prepared.

Woot, I can do 8th grade math

You Passed 8th Grade Math

Congratulations, you got 9/10 correct!

Could You Pass 8th Grade Math?

Poker is killing me

no Joe...I didn't go broke


So, since I've been here, everywhere that I have been without Marnie that has been smokers. Friends house, pub poker, the casino, you name it, there have been smokers. Now before I went out to the East coast, I could handle all this smoke, in fact, I used to smoke at strip clubs and the casino, just because I was inhaling anyway, might as well get the benefits of the nicotine too.

Fast forward 2 years. I'm sitting here, hacking my lungs out. My chest hurts sooo much and it was a rough night. The cough hurts...a lot. So no poker/smokers for a little bit of time...at least till sunday when the D&D campaign starts up again at clarks place.

Whoa...

Greater than

Living 6 miles from a Casino >>> Living 6 miles from the beach

Poker @ Mah Papis

So, it is time for my inaugural trip to my dad's house for his monthly poker night. They play dime/quarter, big better is a buck, three raise max. Initially, I thought that was cheap as hell so I was thinking I would only need like $10 total.

When I get there, my dad has his poker table all set up and he's getting the sodas ready. He's like, "I'm gonna buy you in for this first one." I was thinking to myself, oooookkkkk. He hands me $100. I was like,"am I really gonna need this much?" And said yea.

The guys show up and we play till about quarter to 2am. I was down about $15. The only "normal" games we played were high chicago and low chicago, holdem and omaha. The rest of the time we played crazy games like 727, 357, hoggers, 10/20/30. Here is the break down for a couple of these crazy games.

357 -

Ante a quarter. When you have 3 cards, 3s are wild, 5 cards 5s are wild, 7 cards 7s are wild. Everyone gets dealt 3 cards to start. Each player in order decides whether they are in or pass. If you are in, you are betting that you have the best 3 card hand. If someone challenges you, you secretly show each other your hand. The winner pays the loser the amount that is in the pot, but you don't pay until later. If no one challenges you, you get a chip marker. Dealer deals two more cards for 5 total and now 3s are no longer wild, but 5s are. Again, each player chooses in or pass, same as during the 3 cards. Then two more cards come for a total of 7 and 7s are wild (not 5s or 3s). After everyone chooses in or pass. You throw your cards in. This is the point where the losers pay out the winners of the challenges (this is really where you make the money in this game). The reason you wait to payout till now is because this is a bluffing game, if you paid out earlier, then you might tip the game to who had the better hand in the challenge, etc. You repeat this process until someone has three chip markers in front of them at the end of a round and then they win the pot. Before each round, everyone antes a quarter so that increased the pot $1.75 each round.

I got really burned by this game the first time I played it and ended up paying out like $14 the first time to lost challenges. More than likely with the wilds, anything lower than a full house is dead in the water (I called with an Ace high straight and lost to a full house and a 4 of a kind). You can bluff in late position and steal a couple chip markers here and there though. I give this game about a B+ after I got the hang of it.

727 -

I hate this game, it's a point game. Aces are worth 1/11, faces are worth half a point, everything else is it's value. The object is trying to get as close to 7 or 27 as possible. You start with a card face down and a card face up. Everyone checks or bets. then you decide if you want a card or not. If you don't, you put a chip on your cards. Then another round of betting. If you get three chips on your cards then you can't get another card. The pots for this game were upwards of something like $40 or so. I was beaten with 26 and a half to someone that pulled a perfect card draw like 7 cards into his hand...twice. This game is also a huge bluffing game, but it can get expensive. If your first card showing is really low, like a 4 or a face, then you can just start stacking chips on your cards even if you have a 9 or 10 down low. But again, it gets real expensive real fast.

Overall I had a blast and learned some new games. Sitting around the table with a straight wing pilot, a guy from SWAT, a trucker fuqer (they only monitor the commercial trucks on the highways) and a couple of friends was a blast. I'm looking forward to next time.

Oh...and I got to drive my dads Rolls Royce. Now that is a nice car.

I'm In!!!

I have registered to play in the
Online Poker Blogger Championship!

This event is powered by PokerStars.

Registration code: 8894860

Friday is a good day

blurry picture :(
Originally uploaded by TheGirard.

So today, I played chaffuer. I drove Marnie to Tuxson for her seminar that she has to babysit every 3 months or so. I made sure to make lunch plans with two good friends of mine.

We head down there and get there just in time. F Mapquest. I drive around for awhile looking for a place to h@x some wireless so I can get some PSDs made. I was out of luck so I headed to a casino. I wanted to try the Desert Diamond. I see a billboard and head south on I-19. then the miles turned to kilometers :(

So I get about half way to mexico and see the turn off for the Desert Diamond. I arrive and see what is pictured in the attached picture. It sucks that it's blurry.

They are STAR WARS slots!!!! How freaking amazing is that. They have pictures of the characters as the matching items. They have the deathstar just above the players that spins around if you matchup some Deathstar pictures. It plays music and at the very top it has a video screen that shows the best clips from the movies. I lost $5, but it was probably the most fun I have EVAR had at slots. The old lady sitting next to me thought I was a freaking idiot. She didn't even watch the little video of the trench run that they showed when she hit the deathstar pictures.

They didn't have a poker room. I say "HOWH!" to the change guy and he tells me to head up the nogales hwy to get to the other one that is in Tuxson. I drive the 20 miles back to Tuxson up a road that was probably the only way to and from Mexico about 35 years ago or so.

I bypass Raytheon on the way and it's on teh left. How freaking cool would that be, to work across the street from a casino.

I sit at 3/6 with about $100. I wasn't as confident with my poker skills as of late. Then I remember it's pubpoker and it's not casino poker that I was playing. I proceed to go up $200. I break for lunch as the WPT Satellite is about to start up. $250 buy in and it's a cut to the top table for sunday. Top prize is a $10k entry into the Foxwoods WPT event.

I meet with two great guys and one of their new friends. Beal and Enrique are always great to hang out with. It was really cool hanging out with them for awhile. I miss the days when we would just get together to play at a tournament. And the days when the I-10cup was the shizzle. I miss those days and hopefully i can do something to re-invigorate the playing community here. We have Long Wongs and after lunch it's back to the casino.

I break even on the second session as there is a loose cannon at the table that I can't really buy pots from, so I lose a couple that I would have won about 2-3 hours earlier.

I head to pick up marnie and we head back to Mesa. I decide to take US 87. I wave to some friends of mine and Jays. Luckily, their house wasn't on fire this time.

It was dusk and the sunset was absolutely beautiful. I'm so glad to be back in Arizona.

Pub Poker Night - 10/19

Last night was pub poker night again. I was at a starting table with a friend of the guy that runs the play, a chick who is also a friend of them, bahr's gf, a business guy, a kid, an older kid, and a grandmother.

I don't have a lot of patience, so the grandmother continued to get on my nerves. Please, if I'm ever that old and that unable to go about daily activities (yes, betting in poker is a daily activity) please put me out of my misery.

I played 4 hands last night. QQ, Ajunk, Ajunk, and A10. I won with the QQ, folded post flop with both Ajunks and went out with A10. Bahr's GF was table captain. Everytime she was in on the river, she always bet big. She didn't get called about a dozen times, the one time she did get called, she was bluffing. Makes me wish I had more hands against her. I was put out when I turned a 10 and she turned a J for her AJ.

Oh well, I need to loosen up my play style. I was getting dealt 1 and 2 spacers suited all night (things like 79 or 57). I'm wondering if I should see the flop with those because the blinds go up so fast that the noobs dealing can't maximize the number of hands seen.

Then and Now

Today, I will talk about the fact that you can go home. I live a fair amount of my childhood in the state of Arizona. Don't get me wrong, we moved around a lot and with my stepdad being in the Air Force, I also lived in Germany for 6 years and Montana for 4 years. Outside of that, from when I was born till I was 18, I lived the rest of the time in Arizona.

I love Arizona, I can never get enough of it. It was the toughest decision of my life when I decided to take the job at Decipher in Virginia. It was a much easier decision to come back 2 years later.

One of the big things that I like about Arizona is the constant development. The Valley of the Sun has been growing and pushing the limits of the valley ever since I can remember. Today I went for a drive and remembered some of the good memories from my childhood (yes, that was intentional, there weren't a lot of them).

- First up for Then and Now, the corner of Queen Creek and Power Road.

I remember that there was practically nothing between Williams Air Force Base and my Grandmother's house on Power and Riggs. Just orange groves, alfalfa fields, and cotton fields as far as the eyes could see.

Today:
There is a huge shopping complex that includes a Bashas, among other stores. I could get behing Trilogy and Power Ranch, that was closer to the base, but this is out in Chandler Heights. Where the poverty once roamed free.

Oh well, I moved on. Continuing down Power Road.


Then:
My grandma's house was the biggest on Power Road between Chandler Heights and Hunt Hwy in the 80s. They had about 5-6 acres of land. On this land, they had the main house, grandad Jack's toolshed, the bird averies, the farm setup with the goats and pigs, and some orange trees. What made this land was the huge eucalyptus trees that were out front. I remember those vividly.

Now:

Well, she sold it around when I was 11 or 12. She moved out to Hunt Hwy and Sossaman. I had a handful of great memories in this house. I remember watching the Dukes of Hazzard every day in this house. The tire swing on the tree is gone. It's a used car dealership and a house now. Most of the acreage has trailers on it and the averies are gone. Thank goodness the trees are still out front.

Then: One of my grandparents good friends was Henry. He lived on Lime and Hunt Hwy. This about 2-3 miles down the road and turn left on Hunt Hwy. He used have like 20-25 acres of Orange groves. He had a contract with sunkist and did pretty well with it. I used to work there when I was like 7 years old. I would go out to the orange groves and make sure all the new green branches that were growing out of the base were cut off and removed all the cicada shells from the tree trunks. He kept up the irrigation ditches with his tractor while I did this.

Now: Well the house is still there, but the orange grove is pretty much gone. There are random small houses throughout where the orange grove used to be. The house does still have the twin towers trees. You could see these trees from well up Power Road. It's what I used to gauge how close we were to his house. I don't remember it, but my grandparents told me that one day I just walked from the house on Power Road to Henry's house because I wanted to get some honey from him (he always had fresh honey). This was about a 2-3 mile walk when I was like 5 years old. It's a good thing I had my best friend in the whole wide world with me at the time...Dog Dog. I loved that dog, we were inseperable.

Then: My grandparents "new" house. They traded the old place for this new place straight up when I was about 11 or 12. This new place was on an acre of land and it just had the house on it. There was only two other houses nearby, right next to this house and then in the back on the left. The land was not tilled and there was no front yard. They had a small chicken coup and a couple orange trees in the very front of the plot of land. The road kind of went up the middle and they started some follage on the back left.

Now: Whoever the new owners are have really cleaned up the place. There are some horse stables and there is grass throughout the entire front yard. The driveway goes up the right side and they built a garage on the left hand side where there once just stood a pile of adobe bricks and an old stove. This house was pretty nice house, but I didn't have a lot of good memories in this house (problems as a child, seeing my grandmother very sick and near death, etc). I do remember Jebediah though. He was my friend when I lived here for a semester when I was in the 6th grade. He had a dirt bike. There are houses that have sprouted up all around this house now. Most of them have some horses on the acreage. On the opposite side of the road it just used to be desert and it's pinal county. Now they are putting in a new development.

So in closing, I love Arizona. I love the idea of Arizona. I just wish I could remember more of the good times from my childhood. I haven't gone to Queen Creek to see my uncle yet, I'm afraid of what I might say or do to him.

Good Poker Movie

Poker Movie
Originally uploaded by TheGirard.

So last Thursday, Bahr and I were spouting off lines from Rounders. I got dealt A2 and it turned into the wheel, so I pulled out the whole "..got enough kick to win me the high and the low, etc." The APL guy was looking at us like a couple of amatuers and said something like, "have you guys watched a real poker movie like Shade?"

I hadn't. As I was passing the el cheapo movies at Walmart, I noticed it was like 5.99. I picked it up and watched it. Outside of the fact that they play a lot of 5 card (draw and stud) it was a pretty good flick. It was pretty shallow, I kinda knew how it was going to turn out, but it was still a pretty good flick. Some pretty good one liners, like an older type of Rounders.

Pub Poker Night

So I made it to my first pub poker night. I was weary going into this night because I'm a semi-rock. What this means is that I don't raise as often as I probably do and since the average player skill that will be in attendance is lower than that of the casino, I probably wont' do as well.

The first event comes. I fold the first 5 or 6 hands. When I get to play my first hand, the blinds had already moved up to 100/200. I get dealt A/Q mid position. I raise to 600. The small blind goes all in for about 2200. I call, he has QQ and they stand up. I then proceed to never see a hand better than J7off until my last hand. I get dealt A10, go all in and Bahr has QQ and they hold up again.

I was pretty bummed at this point, but I sit at the loser's table and proceed to slow play trips twice and triple up and play rock. The loser's table is more loose than the regular tournaments so the bigger hands were more playable and paid out more. I end up taking first and get the points and then I play in the 10pm.

My table is me, drunk, poker kid, older poker kid, biker guy, poker guy, boyfriend, girlfriend. The boyfriend deals and is helping his gf with the blinds and bets, etc. Blinds are 25/50 and first hand I get dealt QQ. Five callers before me and I raise to 200. They all call, flop comes Q78 skittles. I check, poker kid bets the minimum, they all call, I make it 500 to go. Chase everyone out but the bf and gf. Turn is a 3 (the 4th suit). The gf makes a bet, I make it 1500 to go (start with 4000 chips). BF and gf call. So now I'm thinking to myself that I have to have this hand thoroughly dominated and they are both on draws. River comes a J. The Bf leads with a bet, the gf calls. So what do I do here? ...
...
Well, I still think I'm best and by a long margin, I push all the chips in. The bf thinks for a second and then folds and then the gf says something to the bf and he replies with "yea, that'll be all your chips". She folds. I show the Trips and get respect.

I take down another couple pots and get moved tables a couple times and each time have to come in right on the blinds. I'm down to about 2500 when the blinds are 400/800 and moved to a table where a drunkish, TW Lewis shirted guy is raking in chips of the 1000/500 variety, he had just knocked out two guys. I come in on the big blind...again. get dealt the Jack Bauer, Bahr calls and TW Lewis guy calls my big blind. The flop comes 245..bink bink...bink bink. I push, Bahr folds and the big chip stack calls with Q2. The Bauer holds up and I double up. I double up again and make it to top 5. It's me, bahr, short stack, TW Lewis guy, poker guy. I'm big blind and get dealt A2 crubs. Bahr calls, short stack pushes, TW Lewis calls, poker guy calls. I decide to push here. I'm putting the poker guy and Bahr on paint. Bahr folds, TW Lewis calls and poker guy folds. So there are two of us all in, flop comes paint34, turn 5. The wheel gets me a big enough stack to make it to top three. I have the second biggest stack, bahr is 1 chip behind me (they are all 5000 chips now) and TW Lewis has about 8 more than me. I'm the big blind and get dealt the speed limit (55). Bahr makes a modest raise (about 3 chips over the big blind). TW folds. I push. Bahr contemplates and pushes as well. He flips over K7off. Flop comes Kblankblank. The 3rd 5 never came and on the next hand I was out. TW ends up winning in heads up and Bahr and I finish 2/3. So Bahr final tabled in both events and I won the first scrub event and final tabled in the 10pm event.

I think I'm going to try and hit 2 of these pub poker nights a week. The points that I got are pushing me on my way. The big tournament is the first week of December, they are taking the top 100 people in points standings. A big screen TV to first.

Plus, this is probably cheaper than me trying to make a run at Casino AZ...but that doesn't mean I won't go.

Who Knew...

that wearing socks with your sandels was not considered "dressing up"

We Made It..we made it!!!

I'm going to bust into my Dora dance now...we made it! we made it!
or something

anyway, we are here now. We got in last friday morning. It was rough and it took an extra day more than I thought it was going to, but we are here and we are loving it. I love this state so much. The weather is sooo beautiful and you can see actual mountains. There is a gas station on every corner and a minimall at every freeway exit. Did I mention I'm pretty fond of Ikea as well?

So here are some notes that I jotted down on the trip here -

- We stayed in the Tranquility room in the KOA campground in Crossville Tennessee. It was weird, everything in that "hotel" room had a place and I was afraid to touch anything for fear I would break it.

- There was a downpour in Earlsboro, OK. I could barely see the road the rain was so thick.

- On our trip, we drove by Prague, London, Dublin, Paris and Lebanon.

- Heard the two worst radio commercials of all time. One for Pizza Plus (they started whispering extra cheese and then started shouting it) and Blue Bell (something about cows with high pitched voices).

- We are now 1 stamp away from every prize on the McDonalds Monopoly board.

- Drove through Carrie Underwood's home in Chekotokee, OK. A sign even told me so.

- The same is said for Troy Aikman's home of Henrietta, OK.

- They should just combine Oklahoma and Texas. I mean while we were driving through OK, it just felt like Texas. Maybe they can rename it North Texas or New Texas.

- Cracker Barrell count stood at like 150+ when we hit Texas and we stopped counting

- the Pyramid in Memphis looks cool, the bridge that followed...not so cool :(

- Firework Capital of the US = Tennessee

- Gas through most of OK was only 2.79 a gallon.

- Tastee Freeze isn't all it's cracked up to be. It's like a redneck Dairy Queen or something.

- The line for the showers at the Flying J was long. Not that we were waiting in line for shower or anything.

- It likes to rain a lot in OK.

- At the border we sang "the stars at night are big and bright"clapclapclapclap"deep in the heart of texas".

- As we crossed the Mississippi, the clouds parted and the heavens sang...thank goodness we were in the West.

- We saw the two largest crosses ever.

- I can't undo a bra with one hand going 85 miles an hour.

- Going 55 in a 25 construction zone is bad, having a pops in the highway patrol is good.

- The glow from the phoenix skyline can be seen from payson. I really love that glow.

So we are here and I'm set up and ready to get back to working. More to come.