Tyler's father-in-law's cabin is amazing. The above picture shows about half of the cabin, it is huge. Pool table, ping pong table, hot tub, giant living room... and it is a zip-line or extreme rope-swing away from the lake. I jumped in on Saturday, and it was not warm. Knowing the hot tub was fired up at 104 degrees helped!
Week two of summer break I ventured off to three different lakes. The first lake, and the most familiar of the three to me, Lake Tapps, I already wrote about for Jimmy's bachelor party. The second lake, Lake Cavanaugh, I was invited over for a Saturday night get together to christen Renee's Dad's new lake house. The third lake, Beaver Lake, is located over on the Olympic Peninsula, and is the only of the three lakes I did not jump into, as the weather cooled off on Sunday.
Friday and Saturday were the hottest days of the year in Seattle, and I got to spend Friday in a pool and Saturday at a lake. Friday I spent with my friend Joe and his wife Kristen and their 1-yr old baby Jane. Jane is much more of a climber than she is a swimmer--as soon as her little feet hit the water she would start climbing whoever dare lower her into the water. Saturday I made the motorcycle ride up to Lake Cavanaugh around noon. The road was perfect--zig zags and two-lane highway once I got off I-5. Tyler, Renee and a few other friends I hadn't seen in a while were already at the house, and when I arrived we all walked down to the lake with a cooler of beer and two inflatable Mylee Cyrus dolls rafts.
We spent the majority of our time swimming in the lake and playing ping pong. Willy, Tyler, Mike and I must have played fifty games of ping pong on Saturday, it was a bit overwhelming. We were all so evenly matched that it made for very tight games--the tightest being a 28-26 victory by Mike and I over Willy and Tyler. That brought our mini series to a 2-2 tie, and Mike and I won the fifth.
Sunday involved a lot of motorcycle riding. I left Lake Cavanaugh at 10am and rode back to Seattle. I grabbed some lunch and some warmer clothes then made my way to the Edmonds-Kingston ferry. Riding motorcycles on the ferry is a great deal because not only is the fare cheaper, I also get to skip the two-hour line of cars and head straight to the front of the line! I rode west on 104, which takes you past a really neat little town called Port Gamble. There was a wedding going on at the church when I drove by, and it looked almost too good to be true. Highway 104 keeps going and it takes you along the Hood Canal floating bridge. Nothing too special about the bridge itself, but the view was holy. Rays of sunlight were shining down through the clouds from the southwest and directly to the west were the snow-capped and foreboding Olympic mountains. I felt like Frodo leaving the shire. For reals. Unfortunately, no stops on the bridge, so no photo from Frodo.
Highway 104 eventually meets up with 101, which took me past Sequim and Port Angeles, over to the bustling town of Beaver, WA (just outside of Forks). The ride on 101 along the south edge of Lake Crescent might be my new favorite stretch of highway. Ten miles of 30mph curves along a beautiful lake is motorcycle riding at its very best. It reminded me a lot of Tahoe.
I met one of my closest college friends in Beaver, Jenna. She is living with her boyfriend and his family on their property which covers a good five acres on Beaver Lake. Apparently Andy's grandfather used to work at the lumber mill and the mill's owner gave the land to his grandfather for a ridiculously cheap $9,000 in the 70s. The place is great, and when I arrived the whole family was outside playing volleyball in the backyard, celebrating Andy's dad's birthday. Jenna and I tossed the disc, then we all went inside for some delicious blackberry pie.
I'm not very familiar with living the rural life or having a big family, but they made me feel right at home. The most amazing part of the family get-together had to be Andy's aunt Cathy. She will be 58 in November and she has Down's Syndrome. The average life expectancy for people with Down's Syndrome is in the 30s. Cathy looked great, and she was my partner for a game of marbles after we all finished our pie, and we wiped the floor with Jenna and Andy (ok, we beat them by a single point). Cathy's situation seems to be perfect--she works at the grocery store less than a mile away, she has nearly her entire family living close by to help and support her, and the entire town embraces her whenever they go to the grocery store or come by the house to visit--no wonder she's lived so long.
Jenna decided to get a bit frisky and challenged Andy and I to a 2v1 match of horseshoes, and she got her ass handed to her. Well, OK, we only won by one, but if not for a lucky ringer by her late in the game, the score would not have been close. After horse shoes, Andy taught me a new game called "The Beaver Lake Game." You take two rocks, throw one up in the air over the lake, then try to hit the first airborne rock with the second. It is nearly impossible, and an impressively fun way to spend time by the lake, especially while looking for good skipping stones.
We decided to retire back to Andy's house and play some cards before calling it a night. I was gathering up my stuff from the grandparent's house when I realized I was missing my keys. Checked my pockets and my bag--nothing. Checked around the bike, inside the house where I set my stuff, then out on the lawn where I first greeted everyone--nothing. Jenna offered to help me search, which I took as a sign that she had probably pilfered the keys and wanted to poke fun at me, but that didn't turn out to be the case (after much prodding on my part). We looked for a good hour with no luck, so we headed to Andy's and had a fun project to look forward to in the morning... the three of us played some cards for an hour then hit the hay.
I woke up around 9am with a guard dog at my feet. Brock is part husky and part wolf, and had been rightly accused of mauling two kittens at a neighbor's house the evening I arrived. But does Brock really look like a killer?
Stone cold, baby.
Andy was long gone for work, so Jenna and I had some breakfast and played cards before our second attempt at finding my keys. Lucky for us, the 30% chance of rain was not happening just yet, and within 30 minutes I miraculously spotted the keys in the grass right by where Jenna and I had tossed the frisbee the day before--which is a place we had combed over multiple times, but just didn't have the right angle to spot them. Huge sigh of relief on my part, and I must have stuck them in my sweatshirt pouch and had them flip out.
We drove to "Third Beach," not to be confused with First or Second beaches. It was super foggy on the ocean, which was not too much of a shocker. The fog made for a pretty cool view of the rocks stretching out into the ocean, and the seals were showing off for our crowd of two.
We grabbed lunch at the place Jenna used to work and I downed a french dip and chocolate shake while we played a game of cribbage (which I held on to win! a first!). Playing all the card games with Jenna definitely made me miss playing cards with Andrew. We haven't been in the same town since 2000, and when we get together cards always get played.
I decided to wrap up my time in Beaver early at 2pm on Monday because it looked like the rain would be coming into town soon. Beaver is a fun little town, and if Jenna can keep busy I'm sure she'll have a great time. I got lucky on the ride back and missed nearly all of the rain except for a little drizzle while waiting for the ferry. It just POURED when I was in the warm, sheltered ferry, but by the time we docked in Edmonds the rain had stopped and I made the twenty minute ride home with ease.
Week 3 I originally planned to get another motorcycle ride in, but the weather looks crappy. I'll be recharging my batteries to full capacity during the week. I also got invited to play in a frisbee tournament up in Burlington on the weekend, so that should be a fun way to cap off summer break :)
Edit--8/31/08
Also on the trip to Beaver, the diner I ate lunch at with Jenna also doubles as a gas station. The gas station is so old, and oil prices have gone up so much, that the price the pump shows is actually half of what you have to pay. It says so right on the hand-written sign at each pump: "Payment is 2x the price shown."
I'm not sure why I hadn't really felt it since moving back to Seattle last August. The last eight months I've mostly spent my time re-acclimating myself to my home town. Everything is different through older eyes. Everything seems smaller than it once was, which is depressing in a way.
Riding the 1200 miles up from Tahoe on my motorcycle, behind Dad in the Explorer, I had lots of time to think about my future. I knew living with my parents was going to be bittersweet. I love my parents, and love living with them, but I'm also ashamed to say I'm 25 years old and living with my parents. Somewhere in the middle of Oregon, I remember tackling the pros and cons of living with my parents, and I had this great vision of walking down to a local pub with my parents for dinner. We would buy a pitcher or two of beer, play some pool, and have a fun and relaxing evening together.
Last night, we did just that. The three of us played a game of shuffleboard (shuffle-puck?) and on the first throw of the evening, with no warm-up, my Mom rolled the puck down the sandy counter and it stopped perfectly along the back edge of the counter for a 4-pointer. We didn't roll another 4 all night (although I think I did manage to knock her 4 off the board). Dad and I got a game of pool in after dinner, and he was confident that I would sink the 8-ball out of turn. This is usually a good bet to make, but somehow I managed to sink it AFTER hitting all of the solids in--there's a first time for everything!
Today was another one of those perfect Spring days in Seattle, where everyone and their mothers go outside to catch some rays. Greenlake was popping again this Saturday, and I got in a good three hours of ultimate. John from my teaching program was out at the field with his pregnant wife and her sister who is a beast at ultimate. The four of us headed to Baskin Robbins after ultimate, and I got a triple-scoop Chocolate Mouse Royale. Dear God it was good. I hadn't had Baskin Robbins for years, and I was ecstatic to find my favorite flavor still intact. I actually feel like I am throwing my money away if I buy any other flavor of ice cream at Baskin Robbins, because Chocolate Mouse Royale is THAT good. Dark, rich chocolate, filled with little shavings of hard dark chocolate--come on! How am I not gonna eat that?
Speaking of pregnant wives, when I got back to my cell phone after ultimate, I received a picture message of Marc's baby, Claire. I love that name, and he is the first of my friends to have a kid, so he got to snatch the name before any of us... bitch. Congrats, Marc and Sarah :)
I got a few games of Magic in with Tyler, then the two of us headed to Marshall to hoop it up. Tyler hasn't shot a basketball in six months, but he still won the first game of 21. He retired on top while I hopped into a game of 2v2. My teammate was the other guy playing 21 with us, and seemed to be pretty decent... until we started playing 2v2, doh. We started off ice cold and he threw up a number of air balls. I think the other team scored 5 points before we sunk our first bucket. We were down 5-10 and 6-11, then I caught fire. I remember thinking "alright, time to get hot." 8-11. 10-11. 12-11. It feels so good to play bball when your shot is falling, and it was raining 3's at Marshall this afternoon. We finished them off when I faked a 3 and drove baseline to lefty in a rare layup (I don't make layups... ever).
Life is good.
Seattle is still different in my mind than the daily view I take in, but days like this connect the past to the present. I remember the sunny spring days down in Tacoma (close enough), where ultimate frisbee out on Todd Field played out from about 3pm to 8pm. The players would come and go, and the girls bathing in the sun would do the same. In Seattle, I remember plenty of sunny afternoons in Springs long ago, playing basketball and baseball games until dark.
Spring might just be taking over as my favorite season. I've always said Summer, but with Spring you've got these rare, amazing days that are my favorite. You've also got the anticipation of Summer. With Summer, you've usually always got nice days, but you look forward to a wet Fall, Winter and Spring.
Today is almost over, and I'd rate it 5/5 on spirit, 5/5 on body, and 2/5 on mind. Time to go read!
I've got to preface this post by saying I started writing this post at noon, while I was at work, through my email. I can't post from work, and I had plenty of things buzzing around in my head, so I started to write. I also suffered through The Wife's entire post about shoes. Why did I keep reading? I have no clue, but it was an inspiration for me to create this behemoth of a post. I dare anyone to read all the way through. I really doubt anyone will, because I bounce from World of Warcraft, to poker, to friends to bitching about poker, to a LIVE (then) REPORT at the Kat-less Donkament, to bitching about my play. It is truly a treat to read, I'm sure. There is so much rambling you won't possibly want to continue on, but that might just be where you surprise me. Good luck, god speed, and grab a pint of beer or a glass of wine and...
Hold onto your freaking hats. This is the big one.
I visited Tyler and Renee last night after work to check out their new Honda Fit. A new car is pretty exciting for anyone, but what makes it crazy for me is that Tyler was the one friend I had who wasn't chomping at the bit to get his driver's license when he turned 16. He didn't get his learner's permit until, well... last week! And he's driving around a new car. There is something awfully dangerous/risky about that to me. But, he and Renee are going to start a family, and having a vehicle (along with two drivers) is something that they understandably want to have.
It turned out to be a WoW raid night for Tyler, and his guild is trying the new final dungeon of the game. It was neat to spectate, but as you can probably imagine, it got boring after watching them wipe on the same boss a few times. The boss fight was pretty awesome though. I haven't done too much raiding in my MMORPG life, but the little I did in EQ, we pretty much had 40-50 people that all zerged a big dragon and tried to do as much damage and as much healing as possible and pray to God that we lived and the dragon died. On certain dragons or giants we had a little bit more strategy, but it basically boiled down to: kill the big thing, grab the loot.
The boss Tyler's guild was fighting last night, the first boss of the final dungeon, was... hmm... nuts. It is a huge water elemental. Think Neptune, the God of the Sea, but in water elemental form instead of human form. Or how about Ariel's dad from The Little Mermaid, but again, in water form. Big dude, big trident--you get the picture.
Or, if not:
Things have changed a bit since I last raided...
...and instead of just having one general strategy for each boss and giving it a minor tweak (hmm, fire boss, lets wear our fire resistance gear instead of water resistance gear--novel idea!), the bosses nowadays are insane. They poop out little guys every now and then, maybe there are four different bosses you have to fight at one time--it is just much more complex... and of course there is the 25-person cap as well. No more just finding everyone capable and storming in and slaying the dragon. Strategy and having capable players is the name of the game now. The unique thing about this water elemental boss is that he throws his spear every minute of the fight. When I heard that, I thought, 'cool, throws his spear, does some damage, good times.'
Sadly, no. Not good times. His spear sticks into whichever random person he throws it at, eventually killing them unless another person close by pulls it out of the unlucky impaled fool.
While the guild is running around trying to figure out who's been stuck with the spear, the boss puts up an invulnerable water shield which heals him quickly. How do you break the shield? Guesses? That's right, throwing the spear back at him. So whoever pulls out the spear from their friend, has to quickly throw it at the boss and break his shield. To add even more complexity, whenever the spear breaks his water bubble, it does a HUGE amount of damage to anyone near the bubble. The fight looks like a lot of fun, but it would be about as aggravating as Hoy's work situation. One teeny-tiny mistake by any of the 25 raiders and they wipe and start over again.
I knew what I was getting into before they began wiping on the boss, so I loaded up Full Tilt on Renee's computer and fired up two single-table SNG's, in attempt to fix my post-bubble blunders from the day before. Quite the opposite of the day before's huge chip leads and early exits, the two games I played last night played out in a much more familiar fashion. In both games, I hovered around the starting stack until we lost a few people, playing tight, but not really getting any cards. No suckouts, just solid play and snapping off a few continuation bets that seemed fishy.
I was the short stack heading into 5 handed play in one, and in the other I was one of two chip leaders, at around 4k. The day before, I made the mistake of trying to run over the table. I got trapped and decimated. This time, I decided to pick spots that were advantageous to me, as opposed to trying to force the issue. It worked out well, and I ended up getting heads up in both SNGs. In one, I held an 11k-2.5k lead, and in the other I had a similar deficit to overcome. I finished second in the one I was behind, pushing 99 into JJ preflop. In the heads up game I was ahead in, my opponent scratched and clawed his way nearly back to even, but both times he got close, I pulled off HUGE bluffs to regain a big chip lead. He was playing aggressive, but wasn't willing to go to war without the best hand. Heads up, I was playing passively, with sporadic surges of aggressiveness. I think this gave my bets a little more pop to them, because my opponent "knew" that he could fold, keep up the aggression and win those chips back. I didn't go all-in every hand, and folded plenty often, so when my tight, passive image helped me steal the big hands.
I think the general rule for a lot of us bloggers is to ramp up the aggression as the field dwindles, especially in SNGs. But I'm starting to realize that as my knowledge of tournament and SNG structure increases, if I keep a tight and somewhat passive image, my steals and re-steals gain more respect. In a meta-sense, I think the tight, aggressive approach is the way to go in tournament poker, but I like mixing it up and playing one level higher. They think I'm playing passively, and I am, but I know they are thinking this. I have far from mastered playing this way (oh, so far, as you will read soon...), but by playing passively for a few orbits, an intelligent player will have to change his game to take advantage of my passiveness. If that player's normal game isn't that aggressive, when I start to push back, they aren't really sure what to do.
I'll stop there, lest this turn into some sort of poker strategy post. That isn't what I'm all about. I don't want you guys getting any better than you already are, especially you damn Seattle bloggers. You know who you are. Steal my money once, shame on you. Steal my money twice? Never! Is Cayne going to throw another home game, or do you think we can throw together a little surprise or non-surprise welcome home Seattle blogger game for Dr. Chako at his place, using his liqour and his food? Ah, what a welcome home!
After finishing 1st and 2nd in my two SNG's last night, glad I shored up my leaky short-handed SNG problem, I bounced from Tyler's house and headed home. The cats needed feeding, and I needed to get some math homework under my belt. When it comes to math homework, I've got a very good attitude about getting it done, I'm just terrible at following through. When I left Tyler's house, I thought, 'I'm going to go home, sit down at the table and work on math for an hour!' What do I do? Get home, feed the cats, check the internets, eat, watch Survivor, and THEN do 30 minutes of math between Survivor and a WSOP rerun. I planned to get back to the math, like the good student I pretend to be, but I got side-tracked by Jessica being online at the same time as me for the first time since I found her on Facebook two weeks ago.
She's got some nice pictures up on facebook:
I've brought my prop-bet degeneracy to renewed friendship already. Seeing how she is coming down to Seattle next month to visit her co-ed sister for spring break, it makes perfect sense to get a few games of scrabble in, to win some free booze off of her. Our first game of scrabble was for a pitcher of beer, which I won handily. She claims that she didn't know the different color tiles mean different point values. I find it hard to believe that anyone doesn't know that there are triple letter, double word scores and the like, but she is kicking my ass in the second game with this knowledge, so... shit. We're playing winner gets to decide the next game, but she sneakily started up a second game of scrabble before the first was over. I didn't buckle though, and since we were online at the same time yesterday, I requested her presence at the Naval Command table.
It was getting late, so I brought the laptop upstairs and got under the covers for some long-distance, platonic, electronic--snuggling.
Yes, Naval Command.
You may remember it better as Battleship, but we all know that would be copy-right infringement, and Yahoo would never do that! She said she hadn't played Battleship since she was 9. I think she was trying to rattle me. And rattle me she did. This game was for a bottle of wine (no re-occurring theme, just a coincidence...), and she hopped out to an early lead, sinking my battleship and one of my 3-length ships. I literally missed my first 15 shots, and in my mind I was already trying to figure out which bottle of wine to steal from my parents' wine cellar, I mean.. which bottle of wine to purchase at the store with my hard-earned money.
But I came ROARING back. We were tied at three ships remaining, then tied at two ships left, and slowly but surely we were both down to our final vessels. Each of us only had our little two-slot boat left. The hardest boat to find. I was criss-crossing the entire map, and at one point while she was off making toast, I counted that there were only six more possible spots for her boat to be. The map was completely blasted to smithereens. And then...
BOOM! Found it! She never did find my sneaky little boat, although she did completely surround it with misses (which I think is probably just as hard to do, so kudos to you, Jessica, kudos).
I've got a pitcher of beer and a bottle of wine coming my way the next time we meet (to be shared, of course), and now I've got to think of a game that she might stand a chance at. I'm having a hard time, chinese checkers, maybe? Or.. ooo! Mastermind! If I can find that, oh... it is on.
The last three hours at work, I couldn't get the song from this video out of my head:
There is a magazine sitting on the table in the break room with Uma Thurman on the cover, and Emily Haines from Metric (and the video), I think is a dead ringer for Uma.
I had to make up four hours at work because of not feeling well on Monday, and I was in an inner-struggle between staying and working really late tonight, or working until about 6pm and making up an hour on Monday. I chose the latter, and a big reason why is because I wanted to play in Kat's Donkament... even though most of the crew is partying hard at Eh-Vegas in Toronto as I type this. Kat, Irongirl, CK, Al, BamBam, Astin--oh, it has got to be an amazing time.
But, I had a problem. I stayed at work too long. I hadn't pre-registered, and I was going to have to rush home in order to register by 6pm. As I was leaving the office (and they were expecting me to stay until 6pm...), I saw that the freeway was standing completely still. Roger, I'll have to take the side streets. Which takes longer, but I might be able to make it.
I was making good time, too. I ran a yellow light on 85th, that would have had me stopped for a good five minutes if I had missed it--and I was zooming... until...
The dreaded four-way stop of doom. Oh. My. God, the line was backed up all the way to the freeway--I'm talking a line of 50 cars, two deep, waiting for a four-way stop, without a light. I resigned myself to an unplanned evening at home, with nothing to do. Until!!!
I whipped out my... cell phone, and called Tyler and Renee. I had five minutes to make it home to register, and it wasn't going to happen, but I remembered that I had just installed it on Renee's computer the night before. It was a bit of a long shot, but they were home, and not using the computer, so she was so very kind enough to register me in, with one minute to spare after a very confusing list of directions and instructions on how to find and register for the tournament.
Click the tournaments tab, then private. OK, now what? Now you've got to sort the tournaments by date, or hmm, maybe status? You're looking for a $1 + $1 tournament, with probably around 15-20 people. The info should mention donkament or poker kat. Hmm, I don't see it. (Crap!) No wait, there it is. How do I know this is the right one? Open the lobby, maybe you can list off some names already registered. How do I do that? OK, got it. Um... swimmom, hozyahoo, surfwalman? (Hooooo boy!!!) That's the one! Register me, please! It is asking for a password. (double-crap!) Try donkament, no wait, donkarama. Can you spell that? D O N K A R A M A. Alright, it worked. Yay! Yay! Hey, the tournament just started! Woooot!
Thanks again Renee, you rock. Five minutes later, I make it home and greet the table with a big HELLOOOOO. Dontknow, who I got down to heads up with a few weeks ago, was directly to my left, and to his left was Gadzooks, a very fun and witty blogger I met while donking off all my money at the MGM Grand mixed games. I'm sure my money is always welcome in any of her home games, much like with any of the Seattle area bloggers I met a couple of weekends ago. Again, I'm hoping this isn't a trend. People being friendly to you in the poker world isn't usually a good thing...
And then, I decided to start blogging the damn thing. I knew I had this post going from work, so what the hell, why not make it a ginormous post that no one will ever read? Hey!! Sounds good to me!!!
---
Nothing Going my way, Cayne at 16k.
A7 nearly back-to-back to chip up to 10k with 3 minutes left in the rebuy--perfect.
Stealing from tight people, paradise. All is right, AJ holding up, hammers flying. folded to my bb every time, steals a plenty.
---
OK, OK, it was some pretty terrible "live-blogging," so I'll try and add some meat to it. We started the tourney with 17 or 18 runners, perfect for two tables of blonkament action. I noticed some familiar faces, including Gadzooks64 and Dontknow to my left, and it looked like a circus on the other table with Hoyazo, Sirfwalgman, pushmonkey72 and a couple other cats.
The stars were aligned, the moon was fresh off a vernal equinox, and blogger hands were hitting like Bobby Brown. For the entire first hour, I didn't see a hammer lose, and I didn't see JackAce fall. Not once. It might have happened, and I struck it from my memory, but it was just amazing. JackAce against Hoy's Kings? Sorry Hoy! Hammer against Aces and KQh? Boom, flopped two pair for the hammer bros.
For almost the entire first hour, I never got my starting stack above 5k chips, and fell victim to the JackAce and hammer, but I was loving it. That is why I wrote "Cayne at 16k," because damnit, I had chip envy. That all changed with about three minutes left in the rebuy period. I had to get some chips, along with a few other short stacks at my table, and I ended up going to war with As7c. I think I was actually the favorite, over Q9o and 76o, and even more surprisingly, my hand held up. That popped me to 6k with a couple minutes left. Less than an orbit later, I've got two all-ins in front of me, each with their starting 2k stacks, looking to get lucky. I'm more than ready to fold, but I look down to see...
God damnit... As7c again. I pretty much have to call, don't I? The hand that just won me all those chips? It won't fail me now, will it?? Boom, pretty much double-up again, and I'm sitting pretty with 10k chips at the end of rebuy. That is how it is done!
After the rebuy period, I was in quite possibly the best table situation I have ever been in. I had Dontknow and Gadzooks to my left, both with larger stacks than me, and both playing very tight. Then I had three short stacks to my right, who didn't want to go home. The short stacks did a good job of stealing blinds, but they really only went after Gadzooks and Dontknow's blinds. It was amazing. It literally had me thinking of paradise in the form of poker nirvana. Much like my heads up match against Dontknow, I felt like I had virtually no risk, and I was steadily chipping up my stack. 11k... 12k... 15k... 18k, and then sadly we got to the final table. And here was the motley crew:
Mr. Boat drinker got knocked out on the first hand of final tabledom, by I think Gadzooks in a race.
PushMonkey's TT fell to BloodP's AQs all-in pre flop with a god-awful Q on the river.
DontKnow fell in 7th place in a battle of the blinds. My T7 from the SB hit the 764 flop, and I check-called a pot-sized bet. The turn brought another 7, and I check-raised DK all-in and he called off with A6, drawing dead.
And we stayed at six. For a very... loonngg... ... ... time... short stacks won every showdown, but for the most part, we just never saw a flop. As one of the larger stacks, I really should have been more aggressive, but I was getting shit for cards and waiting for people to knock each other out. Dino made a massive comeback, and was the bane of my existance. He stole my blind, and I just didn't have the balls to pop him back with air. He started min-raising my blind and I'll call that every time, in position, but I didn't hit a single flop, and only bluffed him off the flop once. I was finally ready to make a stand, when I flopped top pair on a king-high board. I knew he would keep betting at the pot, so I called his flop bet hoping to get him all-in on the turn... and then the turn came the mother-fucking Ace of spades. The perfect scare card to bet at, and I had no information on whether or not he had an ace, because he had bet the whole way. His stack wasn't large, so he pushed all-in and I was still in 2nd place, so I folded for a better spot.
It was so frustrating being healthy on chips for the last hour of play, because I never had an easy decision, and I always fell back on "well, I'm still healthy if I fold here. And fold I did. It was fucking pathetic. I went from the table captain to the table chump. The hand that appitimized it was another blind v. blind battle with Dino:
A9 in the BB, folded around to dino in the SB--been stealing my blinds all night.
Call the minraise.
Flop is A76 rainbow.
He bets 3k into a 4+k pot, I call, intending to trap.
Js on the turn, 6k bet into 10k pot, called--knowing he'll bet the river, regardless.
River is Ks, filling the flush and straight draws. Son of a bitch. Worst card in the deck for me. All of the crap he might have been semi-bluffing with just may have hit.
Dino goes all-in, I let time run out and fold--finally decide to fold because folding still leaves me as 2nd highest stack. Weak. Dino claims to have had TT, doubt it.
I really... REALLY wanted to call on the river, but I was playing so greedily, and with such a desire to take his entire stack, that I was blind to how poorly I played this hand. This type of fancy play crap I am terrible at, and I think it is best served in cash games. In tournaments you are trying to preserve your stack, and by letting all those weaker hands catch up, I simply played this hand terribly.
That hand spelled the beginning of my demise, and instead of realizing how poorly I played the hand at the time, I was steaming with the injustice of it all. How dare he catch up, how dare that ace fall on the turn in the prior hand. Gah!! I knew I was steaming, so I paid less attention to poker, and more attention to the entertaining TV shows.
Price is Right is on TV... at night... with Drew Carey as the host. Something is terribly wrong. Bob Barker is supposed to be there, this isn't right! Hey! What was that? Was that a contestant-row bid of 3201?! When the next highest bid was 3200?? You dog! I'm hooked! Plinko!!!!!! WWOOOOO!!!
First throw: ZERO 2nd: 500 3rd: 1000 4th: ZERO 5th: 100
Booo...
What else is on? 1v100, eh? Bob Saget? There is a lot of shouting, that is annoying. Oh, I guess she just walked away with $250,000... I see... go on...
1v mob of 100, ok.
alright, so the contestant has to get the right answer, if he does, then you find out how many of the 100 got the answer wrong. 2 people thought Dolly Parton's theme-park is called Magic Mountains... lolz
Poker update: still at 6: 1) BloodyP: 42k 2) HERO: 32k 3) Dino: 18k 4) ZOOKS: 18k 5) JMath: 13k 6) Snarf: 2k
LOL, must watch Amnesia, the show that is coming up next. Pilot episode, asking questions about contestants lives. "What is the name of the club you almost burned down?" nice!
Back to price is right. 1v100 is just a glorified Millionaire, or am I missing something?
God Damn, it has been almost an hour since we last knocked someone out. The shorties keep winning the races. Zooks just ended up with a boat with KJs over 44 aipf. Gooo horse! Speaking of horse, we made an MS-Paint ... wait, this just in...
CHIP LEAD!!
back to regularly scheduled program
...Zooks and I made an MS-Paint bet when we had just entered the non-rebuy period. We picked horses, I chose her and Dontknow, and she chose me and Cayne. The bet is an MS-Paint illustration on the loser's blog, of the winner of the bet in all his or her glory. Zooks didn't quite understand the bet, but more to that later.
Woots, JMath out in 6th, my 44 out-raced his AK, up to 45k.
*here is where A-9 god-awful hand with Dino happened*
That had to be staged. His freaking bet was $83,844 and the ACTUAL RETAIL PRICE was $84,685. Of course, the girl's bet was only $1,000 off, to add to the drama. I'm not buying it.
Amnesia is starting, and I like it. I wouldn't be able to answer half of the questions, nor would I want all my dirty little secrets to be aired to millions of people.
I continue to fold, and get crap for hands. I really dislike it when people complain about "not getting good cards" in poker, because really, it shouldn't matter. And I can see how that might be a big downfall to my weak/passive theory from earlier. I NEED good cards, or a good flop in order to beat someone. The whole game is trapping someone. Getting them to think that they can bet at you and you WILL fold. I had a trap baited for Dino for about the last 45 minutes, and it was so frustrating to not be able to spring the trap.
Dino eventually gave all his chips to Zooks, but by that time my stack had dwindled so far to put me as the short stack. I got so short that I had to push soon, and I just wasn't getting anything to push with. I got down to about 6k in chips and found A8, with a BloodyP raise in front of me, and had to go with it. He flipped 77 and we were racing. Ace on the flop, 8 on the turn, and the fucking devil-incarnate 7 on the river.
To make the sting that much better, I bubbled, with no one to blame but myself. Oh how it hurt. I played so God-DAMNED bad that last hour. What the hell was I doing watching TV and folding, oy vey.
I suck so much at poker. I couldn't help but compile some stats of my last 50 hands of the tournament:
Folds: 45 losses Wins:
2: folded to me in the BB 1: limp then check-down win on the river 1: Won the blinds with Jacks preflop 2: win the pot preflop by raising in the SB on Gadzooks' blind
I didn't win a single pot bigger than two BB's, and I didn't force anyone else to showdown that entire time. It was fucking pathetic, I was a punching bag.
But, as much as it sucked to end the night that way, Gadzooks put up her MS Paint image, and that got me smiling again :)
It has been twelve hours since I started this post, and it is about time to wrap it up. No picture from me this time Zooks, I thought about it, and decided that you've got to earn it by winning the bet--not by winning the god damn poker tournament! Congrats :)
It feels great to call the big upset and have it come to fruition. It feels even better when you raise the stakes and win a bank-busting two dollar bet with one friend, and a 20 push-up bet with another. I was supremely confident in my bet, because I got 3 1/2 points on both of my bets for the underdog Giants, and everyone knows the Patriots only win by 3 points! If the Pats had scored on a last-second play, with no time left on the clock, do they still kick a P.A.T.?!?
I really did think the Giants stood a fair chance, hence the "Go Giants!" I hollered about 20 times at the donkarama on Friday night. Eli has been a completely different QB this year in the playoffs, and the front four on the G-Men's line is just amazing. The way they man-handled the Patriot's offensive line, arguably one of the best O-lines in the league, proves how great they are.
Saturday night was a little crazy. Josh and I headed to Pies and Pints, where Renee and Tyler showed up shortly after our arrival. Ten minutes later, Renee's friends Regine, Lisa and Angela joined us. Renee was trying to play match-maker and hook Angela and I up, which is usually kind of annoying... but Renee didn't make it too apparent, and Angela and I hit it off. After a pie, a pint, and a few rounds of pool, we all headed back to my place, where Marc was busy watching American Gladiators.
We played Liar's Dice for a few rounds, which is an amazingly fun game--but a little nuts with 8 people. Then we switched it up to Asshole, and the rest of the night got blurry in a hurry. I remember hot tubbing, and I remember getting to know Angela better... we'll see what happens there?
Tyler and I are pretty much equals when it comes to racquetball, and it is infinitely more fun to learn a sport with someone your skill level, than learn the sport all by your lonesome. When Marc was learning how to snowboard a few years back, instead of just skiing alongside him, laughing at him while freezing my buns off; I decided to pick up snowboarding too—and we had an absolute blast. I still remember our first run, having no idea how to get down the mountain, but we raced anyways. I won with a mere 13 falls on my way to crossing the finish line first. Watching a string-bean 6’5” Marc trying to get up quickly after face-planting on a snowboard is right up there on my list of hilarity in the universe. Watching him fly off a jump—while trying to impress some lady-snow boarders—and land squarely on his non-existent ass at Stevens Pass tops the list of Marc Snowboarding Memorable Moments (MSMM).
A close second would be his memorable face-plant at Mt. Baker the day of the huge Seattle storm last year. I wrote a song about it, like to hear it? Here it goes… OK, I didn’t write the song, but I did make a video. I make a cameo appearance in the middle of the video getting my snowboard on, but Marc is the star, and don’t you forget it!
But back to racquetball. Apparently Mr. Howell, who I am observing for one more week, is also an avid racquetball player. He’s been playing for 20 years, and competitively for the last seven years. He was playing in a tournament up in Lynnwood on Sunday, and I was heading up to Everett anyways to watch the Seahawks game with Marc—so I made a pit-stop at the Lynnwood Bally’s to watch.
In the first 5 minutes of watching racquetball, I learned a dozen new things. Defensive shots, change of pace shots, serving technique, and court positioning—to name a few. I hadn’t really thought of any of these while playing with Tyler. I know how to lob in tennis, but when you are playing in a square court, where you can hit the ball off the back wall and the ceiling—it is like comparing blurnsball with baseball. The lobs I saw in racquetball hit the ceiling first, then hit the front wall, then bounce high and deep towards the back wall, which makes them incredibly hard to do anything with. The guy Mr. Howell was playing had an incredibly mean serve, that clung right against the wall. Any miscalculation on Mr. Howell’s part, and he winded up either completely missing the ball, or whacking the wall with his racquet, which never feels good.
Most of the other tricky shots I saw Mr. Howell and others hit, involved them hitting an off-wall corner, just before hitting the front wall. Some of those shots were just killer, and were basically instant point winners, where the defender has no chance to get to the ball by the second bounce.
Tyler and I got to play racquetball this afternoon down at Sand Point, because tennis practice was canceled due to about ten minutes of ill-timed rain. We discussed the strategy I soaked in yesterday a bit, then played two games to 11. I don’t think I’ve ever beaten Tyler before (although I probably should have last time we played), but I won both games today. My everyday tennis playing and being more in-shape helped, but watching the good racquetball players yesterday helped tremendously as well. Luck was on my side too, as I must have hit at least three shots that were accidentally kill-shots.
We reserved the court for Wednesday night, so hopefully Marc can make it after work for his first taste of racquetball. He says he is interested, and I’m interested to see how his 6’5” wingspan will change the game!
Tyler, Marc and I spent Saturday morning hitting some tennis balls down at Bryant Park. Marc's started out the day with a "practice serve" that ended up being a homerun--clearing the fence by a wide margin. His serve picked up as we kept playing, and he got aces on both Tyler and I. I got a few aces of my own in, and we had a good time playing for maybe 90 minutes. Tyler never really played much tennis growing up, but his racquetball skills translate well to the game and he held his own against me and Marc.
We dropped Tyler off at his place, picked up Sarah at the U-Village QFC, then headed down to Lake Tapps. We hit a mighty big traffic jam on the way down to Auburn, and it took us about twice as long to get there than usual--but I napped in the back seat for a bit of the wait. I guess all four lanes of traffic were closed on I-5 South near Tacoma due to a big accident involving a car from the northboud lanes hopping the median. If I was riding my bike and that happened, it'd be game over for me. No continues.
The weather was pretty crappy out at the lake, it was drizziling rain when we got to the cabin. Usually when the weather is crappy, the lake is a pretty boring place to be. We play cards and what not, but the big appeal to the lake is obviously the water and having fun in the sun. That said, this trip was easily the most fun I've had out there in crappy weather.
Sarah, Marc and I were the first three out to the lake, and we started the afternoon off with some 3-handed pinnochle. Marc crushed us. We switched the game to Lier's Dice after finding a few extra dice in the Clue and Pictionary boxes. Lier's Dice is a game I picked up from Conor, Kristen and B.J. in Davis during a bye in a frisbee tournament this summer. The game is crazy amounts of fun. Lots of lying, lots of trickery--my kind of game! Coronas #1, #2 and #3 were drank during these first two games.
Jeremy showed up around 6pm, with two young ladies, neither his girlfriend... scandalous! Not really, Tanya had to work, and the two attractive ladies were friends from work, who also happen to captain the kickball team Marc and Jeremy picked up with this summer. Kim is from Massachusetts, and we spent a good amount of time talking about how the Yankees Suck! and some of the differences between West Coast and East Coast. Liz is from Michigan, and she might have the most energy of any 24-year old I've ever met. She was wrestling with Marc's co-worker Jamison, who is also a cop-in-training. Liz ended up on the ground with her hands in cuffed position more than once, but she tried a number of different tactics to try and take down the big guy. One included pretty much jumping onto him and wrapping her legs around him... maybe I should look into a career change.
Sam showed up a bit later, and we had a game of Asshole already going. He hopped right in and assumed the roll, and I think he kept the roll from that point on. I was Asshole a few times, and although a usually nice Asshole, I decided to change tactics for last night's game. Every card I dealt out, I was making people drink. As expected, I had my comeupance after the last card was dealt and power was restored to El' Presidente' Kim. Eventually the game changed to Bullshit Pyramid, one of Marc's favorites. We also got a few games of Lier's Dice in at some point, but my memory is a bit foggy.
Corona #4, Coors Light #5, PBR's #6, #7, Alaskan Amber #8, Fat Tire #9 and Miller Lite #10 were drank during the fun games.
I'm not sure how, but it was decided to start playing sardines. Marc hid while the rest of us drank out on the porch. Sam was wearing a headband that he stole from Liz, and Jamison requested a Karate Kid impression that almost was the end of Sammy C-K. He was in the crane position, went to kick and kicked a chair, stumbled backwards towards the railing... the small of his back hit the railing and he started flailing. He caught himself at the last second, and if not for the catch, he would have had a nice little drunken fall over the railing to tell the paramedics about.
We got to bed around 3am, and I woke up this morning around 9am to eggs and breakfast sausages by Chef Marc. They were a nice compliment to the poppiseed cake my Dad whipped up for us to bring out to the lake. Thanks, Dad! I was quite groggy this morning, and there was a tiny piece of me wishing I had consumed at least a drink or two of water before I went to bed. Jumping in the lake sobered me up quickly post-breakfast. We played all of the usual sports, wiffle ball, frisbee, football, and of course, Lake Tapps Hack.
Ed and June showed up as we were finishing lunch out on the porch. Talked with them for a bit, then Kim needed to get back to Seattle for some afternoon work. We all had a great time and are probably heading back out to the Lake again in late October to celebrate Liz and Marc's birthdays, which are one day apart.
