Seeking Poker Feedback (+Script Progress)

Well, I spent today being pretty darn lazy. I was hoping to get out and go write some in a little coffee shop somewhere, but I wasn't feeling great this morning. I think I might have a sinus infection or something, because there is a pretty intense pressure on the left side of my nose, way up there. I think it has been the cause of my hacking stuff up for the last week or so.

Anyways, I did get some writing in today. After a few games of starcraft, I fired up Full Tilt and played in a $5 tourney. I've been feeling really good about my tourney game since about a week before Vegas. I got 2nd in the Mookie ten days ago, then 4th at the Summer Classic, then 2nd at the donkament last night.

Last night was the first time I got deep in the Friday donkament, and I had a blast. At the break, we had the top 4 stacks of the tourney at our table--mostly thanks to Waffles inability to flip coins well. There were four of us sitting at M's of 75 or so, so we had TONS of room to play. Not being a cash-game player, this didn't really benefit me too well, but it was a fun experience. I pulled off a few bluffs along with the rest of the table, and hung on to a healthy stack into the final table.

In the last few weeks, I've been willing to gamble, and I've also been doing a much better job at realizing why people make the bets they do. Is that guy in seat 6 raising the three limpers because he hates it when people limp? Or does he have a hand? Understanding why people play the way they do makes it much easier to pick your spots and win pots without showing down your cards--or showing down winning cards.

Back to the $5 tourney today, I worked up a very healthy stack, probably in the top 20, when the wheels started to come off when we were down to the last 100 out of the initial 500. I flopped top two pair and got it all in against a shorter stack who hit his flush draw on the turn. That probably took half of my stack, but I would have a hard time playing his hand any differently if I were in his situation.

I treaded water for a bit, then got into a pretty weird hand at the 200/400a50 level (1k in the pot preflop). Action folded around to the button who had 6k behind, and min-raised it to 800. The SB is chip leader at the table with 20k, who calls. I'm in the BB with 8s6s, and think about pushing, or at least raising. I think the button might be willing to fold, but I'm not really sure what the SB has, so I just call.

We see a flop of Ts 5h 6c.

SB checks, and I quickly bet the pot (1,600). The Button min-raises to 3,200. SB folds, and I opt to call. I think the button could be making a move here, because there is 3,200 in the pot, and he's only got 5k behind, so I call.

Turn is the 5s.

This opens up some more outs for me, and I am pretty much committed to the hand. If the turn blanked, I was thinking about folding. I check/call his all-in for another 2.3k. He flips over JsTd, and I don't hit my 13 outter on the river.

After the hand, I didn't like either my preflop or flop play very much. I also think what makes this hand interesting is the chip stack sizes. We've got M's of 7, 13 and 20--fairly deep in a tourney. The short stack doesn't have much room for play, which in hindsight makes me think his non-all-in re-raise on the flop SCREAMS strength. It is conceivable that the SB had A-K thru A-7 or 99,88,77--and folded to the raise and re-raise in front of him on the flop. But I think if I pushed preflop, I probably could have taken the pot down. The short stack still has enough chips to wait for a better spot than JTo, and really, the SB had been nut-peddling with his large stack since I joined his table.

As for the flop, I don't really like my flop bet. I don't like the size of it, and I think a check might be a better idea. If the Button pushes, I'm probably making a good fold, and if he bets out, I'm seeing the turn for cheaper than if I get check-raised. Although, I'm not sure if I'm folding when I pick up the spade draw on the turn.

Any thoughts on this hand?

After that hand, I was down to about 7k in chips. The blinds went up and I eventually pushed A-x into AA about 15 players from the bubble.

I started up a $2 tourney afterwards, and only made it ten minutes past the first break. Surprisingly, I was only about 50 from the bubble in that tourney too. I tripled up really early on, then decided to have some fun. I tried raising at least twice an orbit. It worked out pretty well until I flopped a set of 4's and got it all in against an OESD on the turn, and got rivered. I was then short-stacked and chopped a hand with JJ v. JTo preflop when T987 came on the board. A few hands later I push UTG with Jc8c and double up against 9d9h when I flopped a J. I was short and was pretty live against anyone calling me, so I went for it. The very next hand I'm in the BB with 8c8s and I push over the top of the CO's stealy-looking raise. He thinks for a few, and calls with QJo and flops a Q. What goes around comes around! :)

As the tournaments were going on, I made some slow progress on my script. I'm up to about 5.4k words. There is no way I'm going to hit the 15k words by Monday goal I set, but I don't mind too much. I am about 99% sure I will finish this script, regardless of whether or not I make 20k words by the end of the month, or even 20k words total. And really, isn't that what it is all about?

The two kids in the novel have now met up with the hermit, and the story is starting to write itself. I haven't really experienced that before. The quirks I've given the characters basically write the story for me, and although most of it is scripted, there are moments where I want to go one direction, and I'll stop and say to myself, "Wait, wouldn't Mel say this? Or want to do this instead?" And it will be something I wouldn't have even thought to write until that moment.

The bulk of the story starts now. How and what I'm going to weave in, I'm not sure, but it just seems like one of those things that I know will work out. The characters are in place, and ready to interact, and the way I've molded them so far can't really lead to anything less than a good, fun time together. I might throw in a few ninja attacks to spice things up (or not), but I'm in a good spot, and it feels good!

The Time Has Come

I've been putting off writing my screenplay for the last week, and who can blame me, with Vegas and whatnot. But my goal for this weekend is to write, and write a lot. I want to finish it this weekend, and I know that is possible--but I'd also like to give myself some time to breathe. So, a finished screenplay is not my goal, but around at least 10k words is my goal. So I'll be close to 15k words by Monday morning. There you go, 15k total words by Monday.

After putting the story on the shelf for a week, I have a lot better idea of HOW I'm going to get to the place I want to be, and what I'm going to do when I get there. Originally, there wasn't much conflict in the story, and that is all well and good for a boring screenplay, but I'm not really shooting for "boring." I've come up with a few scenarios that spice up the story a bit, without changing the key ingredients.

It was great to bounce ideas off of Jessica and Lindsay this weekend over in Vegas, and it turned out Lindsay is working on a screenplay herself, and she's almost completely finished with it, except for the beginning. I found it interesting that she started at the end and worked her way forward, but it makes sense now that I've written the beginning and realize that the climax seems like a distant mountain peak. I think the part Lindsay is struggling with is trying to recreate that first initial spark of the story, or in the case of climbing a mountain--that first exciting moment you realize you're actually going to climb the damn thing!

Jessica had actually already written a story, and was in the publishing stages if I'm not mistaken. She seemed to have a lot of great help in the LA area, and passed along a few writing tips to me. The one that stuck with me the most had to do with character speech. Writing a screenplay involves TONS of dialog, and it can become a bother writing so much dialog for a story. She said that one of the big critiques she encountered in her first run was that all the characters in her story sounded a little bit too much like her, and not enough like themselves, or who she WANTED them to sound like. I'm not really sure if I'll have time to go back and change all the dialog I've written, but I will make a point of giving each character their own, unique voice.

In all reality, it would be so easy for me to just let my partially written screenplay gather dust. I've done it before, and I'll do it again--but right now I think it is time to get my shit together and write this damn thing. I don't have any big plans this weekend, and I'd like to see if I have it in me to finish this screenplay. Maybe I'll go on a little hike and write in the shade of a tree, or maybe I'll find a little coffee shop or library somewhere around the lake and write a couple thousand words.

I get off work early tomorrow, have plans to go pick up my motorcycle, and then I can pretty much do what I want for the rest of the day. Heading to South Tahoe Middle School and getting some observation in would be a smart way to spend a few hours, but if I don't do that, I really think hopping on my bike and finding a good spot along the lake to write should be my one and only backup plan. If I'm not getting in observation hours, I need to be doing something productive.

I've started thinking about my job search and living situation in Seattle, but those can wait until after this weekend. I've gotten back into Starcraft and poker, but I would like to put those off until next week as well. I'm hoping to immerse myself in the story this weekend, and see where it goes.

Brief Weekend Update

I'm up to 1700 words in my screenplay. I'm happy with the progress so far, but I realize that the big hurdles are yet to come. When I sit down to write, I have two Word documents open, one with the screenplay, and one for brain-storming. It works well, and I keep a rough outline of where I want to go next on the brain-storming side. I haven't done a great job of sticking with the outline, but it seems to work. Also, I haven't done any editing yet. Lately, I've been obsessed with making sure I don't have any glaring grammatical errors--but if I do that on the screenplay, I'll never finish.

With Script Frenzy, you don't have to upload anything, you just put in your word count--which is another reason I haven't worried about any editing yet. It is both good and bad--I wish I was able to sneak a peak at what some of the other writers have written, but I haven't been able to find many already-written screenplays, or even partially-written screen plays for that matter.

A kind of cool idea just popped into my head--it sure would be cool to finish my screenplay out at the Coast. I'll be there on June 30th, and I've always thought the Coast would be a perfect place to write. Who knows, I might save the ending for out there.

Another thing I'm not really sure how to do is share my screenplay. Both share it as I continue to write it, and share the final draft once it is complete. Sharing it before it is finished might not be the smartest idea, but I'd like to put it somewhere online once I'm done.

"The Hermit at Harry's Crossing" is the screenplay I'm working on. I'm not entirely sure how to describe it, but it might be a cross between "Bridge to Terebethia" and "Home Alone". There isn't much fantasy involved, but there are two kids who like to explore, with an outgoing girl (when she's with Harry), and a conservative guy. Their exploration leads them to find a hermit living out in the forest. A bit like the salt-man in Home Alone, he frightens them off at first. But Mel's curiosity gets the best of her, and as a single-child to a single-parent Dad, she has to find out why someone would choose to live alone out in the forest. The Hermit turns out to both teach Mel and Harry many valuable life-lessons during the summer, and he also learns a lot about himself from his two new friends.

Exactly what he teaches, and what he learns--I'm not quite sure about yet. But I'm leaning towards him ending his hermit-like ways. Also, whatever he ends up teaching Harry and Mel will end up changing them for the better in some way.

So yes, lots of things in the story to still think out--which is fun. I wrote a few hundred words this morning, then took a break to clean up my clothes that I have let slowly envelop my room. I packed up a lot of my winter clothes, that I can hopefully take back to Seattle in June on the plane. I was listening to Pearl Jam's Lost Dogs CD while cleaning--damn, that CD is good!

I still have quite a bit of cleaning to do besides my clothes, but it was around noon, and I was up for some basketball. I zipped over to Kahle on my bike, and was there in time for the second game. My team was awesome again. We could all shoot and played good team-defense. Lots of switching, and lots of communication on defense helped us win six straight games before I had enough winning for one day and came back home. When our shots were on, we just pulverized the other team, and when our shots weren't falling, our defense bailed us out. It was good times, albeit exhausting.

Sunny and 70 degrees at 2pm. Beach time! I sure am in a unique spot to live. I live in a ski town, a gambling town, a mountain town, a lake town, and a beach town all in one. I walked down to the beach with a Bud Light I stole from the fridge (did I mention the open-container law town part? :) ).

Every other time I've been down to the beach, it has been practically empty. The first time, there were still icicles on the boat ropes... but still! Today was a completely different story. The beach was PACKED with people. Lots of scantily clad people. I couldn't help but feel out of place with all the tanned ladies and muscular men. Especially because I was sporting the best farmer's tan since Elmer Fudd. Ten games of ultimate frisbee last weekend really grooved those tan lines in.

I hopped in the water and dunked myself after a bit of hesitation. Spent 15 minutes drying off in the sun, while trying to rid myself of the paleness. Then I got up and decided to walk down the beach a bit to see if I could find Kristara and Jen. The beach was ugly-packed. I ended up walking through the parking lot, because in some spots, the beach was literally standing room only. I definitely prefer the solitary beach--although admittedly, much of the scenery wasn't bad to look at!

I found Kristara and Jen on the other end of the beach, with a bit more space to themselves. It was a good spot, that I'll come back to when I go beaching in the future. They had some friends who work that para-sailing boat, who offered to take them out if there weren't enough paying customers to take out on the last trip of the day. I guess there are some perks to throwing parties every night after all!

These guys can get boat rentals for super-cheap too, at around $50 for a day, which would probably be split between at least ten people. So I'm looking forward to that sometime this summer. We chatted for a bit, then the para-sailing boat came back and Jen went off to see if they'd get their para-sailing chance. My pale torso had enough sun for one afternoon, so I headed back up the hill.

Kristara and Jen showed me a nice little beach-side trail while we were soaking up the rays--and I think I'll go for a little run and bring my camera along to see if I can get a good sunset shot or two. If I get lucky, I'll post a shot or two~

Donkarama Bummer and My Script Begins!

Just after I hit submit on my last entry, a HUGE thunder clap occurred, and the first lightning strike I had seen all day struck down not more than a mile from our place. And the internet and tv promptly died. I called Charter to request a service guy to come out, and the earliest they could schedule an appointment is for Monday afternoon.

I had already registered for Kat's Donkarama, so I decided to take my laptop down into town and see if I could still bum a wireless connection from the Travelodge. I got the connection, but it was kind of flaky. I showed up about halfway through the rebuy period and immediately went all-in. I had A-T and doubled through Pushmonkey's A-9. He was right to call, because I literally would have pushed with anything on that first hand. I got about 10 or 15 minutes in, then lost an all-in after declaring I would flop trips. I didn't flop trips. And at the worst possible moment, my wireless connection crapped out, so I wasn't able to rebuy before the timer expired. It happened to Kat the first or second week of the tourney, and I felt terrible for her--it truly sucks. I wish you could just buy-in anytime during the first hour. Where is the harm in that?

I headed back home around sunset, and tried to climb to the top of our hill because the sunset was amazing. But, I had Ichi with me, and he was very hesitant. Especially when a dog started barking--so I didn't make it to a good vantage point, and didn't take any pictures.

I actually started up my screenplay tonight though, which is a bit amazing to me. I've only got 500 words so far, but I guess just under 700 is the magic number. Do 700 words a day, and you've got yourself the 20k word goal. There will be plenty days I don't write this month (including Vegas and the four days at the end of the month), so I'll need to have a few monster days. I'm hoping to write a lot this weekend. I have a good idea of what the next few scenes will be, so hopefully I can get a few thousand words down by Monday.

The internet got working again, but it has gone down twice since it came back up, so I haven't called to cancel the service appointment yet. I just assumed the lightning hit some cable box, but I must have been wrong.

In other, very appealing news (literally?), I'm a-pealin' from the top of my head. My hair is so short that I sun-burned my scalp at frisbee this weekend. I stupidly forgot a hat... but I'm not sure, can I even sun-screen my head when it has half an inch of hair on it? I've never had to before, because my hair was always long enough to cover the top of my head from those harmful UV rays. I'm thinking hat for the next tourney.

T-Storms in Tahoe

It has been thundering since about 1pm in Tahoe, and is supposed to keep going until the wee hours of the night. I haven't actually seen any sparks of lightning yet, but I sort of have to assume they're out there somewhere. There's a new photography-goal for me this summer: to get at least a couple good shots of lighting across the lake.

I rode home from work to a slight drizzle, which was my first time riding in the rain. It wasn't much different than normal riding conditions, so that was nice. Yesterday, when I rode up to Truckee for pickup, I could see the rain clouds on the far side of the lake. The sky was intense. Luckily, they never made their way up to Truckee.

I was thinking about heading into town tonight and going for a hot tub session, but the thunder and lightning axed those plans. I'm going to settle in for some Donkarama action with Kat and the gang, then start up my script for the frenzy. I'm not really sure what I'm doing when it comes to screenplay writing, but I've got an idea in mind that just might work...

Screen-writing? Why not?

Much like NaNoWriMo, or NaNoPoMo, or even biking every day for a month to work... June is apparently "Sit on your ass and write a screenplay!" month.

I've never written a screenplay, and my June could be considered by some to be a "full" month--but I think I can find some time. And I've always wanted to try... so...

why not?