In another typical "MHG 180" I went from canceling my WoW account last Tuesday to picking up a copy of the expansion on Thursday and pretty much playing it non-stop Thursday, Friday and Saturday. I did get a study session in from 10am-4pm on Friday at school, which allowed me to justify my WoW addiction.
Saturday was Tyler's birthday. We started off with some doubles racquetball, and I got brained twice by flying racquetballs--good thing I have a thick skull. I "let" the birthday boy win all the games, then we headed to his house for some WoW and Smash Bros. People started to show up around 2:00pm, gathering at his place en route to the 3:45pm showing of the new Bond movie. I'll echo most of the reviews and say that this flick is somewhere in the middle of the Bond movies. Some of the camera work made me queasy--stick with one camera shot for more than half a second in the action scenes, please! Daniel Craig definitely pulls of the "off the grid" Bond very well. Timothy Dalton did a great job in the same type of Bond role, but I think the majority of Bond viewers like Bond for the gadgets and witty one-liners, something the Sean Connery and Roger Moore (and Pierce Brosnen?) Bond films perfected. Best part about the movie is the new Bond girl. She might be my favorite...
Today has been a great day. I haven't logged onto WoW at all, and I've spent the majority of the day outside. I woke up and made myself bacon and eggs, then helped my Dad replant four trees in our back yard. The tree roots will hold our yard from falling into the neighbor behind us, at least that is the plan. After that, I zoomed out to frisbee for a few hours, then hit the UW outdoor rock climbing wall for an hour. I was able to finish a few new routes on the wall, so now I've got a few under my belt I can start with, then move on to harder routes once I'm warmed up. I also learned that black t-shirts are not the best color to wear when rock climbing, since the white climbing chalk tends to show up well on the black cotton.
Well, this is round 4 for me in WoW. Four rounds of one game qualifies as an addicition, I'd say. Especially since I've pretty much spent all of Saturday and today sitting in my chair playing the game. Waffles makes the game fun to play, as does playing a new class (Hunter) with professions I haven't done before (skinner, leather-working).
I'm imagining roaming through the horde countryside, killing mobs and skinning them along the way to hide my path while searching for lowbies to kill. I've got two pets so far, my trusty bear pet named Smokey, and my boar named Baconbits. Thanks for the name suggestion, Waffles, even if it did mean I had to die again trying to tame the damn beast.
We're playing on Alterac Mountains pvp server, alliance side if you are interested in joining up. I haven't been PK'd yet, so that is good news. My crowning achievement tonight was finishing up the long quest culminating in bringing Van Cleef's head to a soldier in Westfall. The soldier shouts across the zone that I, Rambette, am the savior of Westfall.
Emotions, lots of emotions. First of all, I'd like to thank God, and my parents. I was proud, bashful, and even a bit sentimental. My time is done in Westfall, and now I'll move on to greener pastures. Before I got too teary-eyed though, a guy came up to the same soldier, spoke a few brief words, then I see the zone-wide message:
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 :)
Man, I haven't listened to Tupac in a while... good times. Tupac always reminds me of long high school nights riding around Seattle in Andrew's Honda, bumping the greatest rapper ever.
I just got back from hanging out at Tyler's place. It was a gorgeous summer day in Seattle, topping out at around 75 degrees... and I was cooped up in a First Aid training class down in South Seattle. I was ready to go toss the frisbee over at Greenlake the second I stepped out of the Red Cross office, and lucky for me, Tyler was down too.
We tossed for a bit, and finally got some long-tossing in, which we haven't done for a while. We usually keep the tossing short so we can chit-chat, but we backed it up a bit today and I got to run around a bit and throw some hucks. Frisbee fulfilled for the time being, thanks Tybo.
We walked back to his place and watched "300" for the first time. Renee and Tyler had already seen it, but didn't mind watching it again. I liked it, although I don't think it's at the Braveheart or Gladiator level. After the movie, Renee went to bed and Tyler fired up WoW. He got his 3v3 pvp team together with Mike and Guang, and I got to witness some high level arena pvp for the first time.
Before tonight, their combined record was something shabby like 7 wins and 20 losses. Tonight, they finished with 8 or 9 wins and only 4 or 5 losses, so they were doing very well! Three of their losses came against the same team with two druids and a rogue--which has me looking forward to playing my druid at high level, they've got quite a few options when they hit 70.
Ichi is staring down at me from the top of the computer I've got on my desk downstairs. He's got a little booger, but I think I'll let it stay there and let Watson make fun of him tomorrow. Ichi doesn't seem to like Tupac as much as I do, dumb cat.
I've had a pretty relaxing first few days back in Seattle. Got to hang out with Tyler and Mike over the weekend, which was good fun like always. We tossed the disc, played some Mario Party 8 on the Wii for the first time, and saw the Bourne Ultimatum. Didn't get to see Andrew or Marc, Andrew is over in England and Ireland for the month and Marc was off camping in the rain for the weekend.
I've been playing quite a bit of WoW, and I finally got a guild started up last night with the help of friends and a few other interested parties. The guild is based around exploring all of the content and starting from scratch, much like the Everquest guild I helped create last year. Been playing a druid and I'm having lots of fun dancing in bear form.
Outside of WoW, I've also been getting a lot done. I visited my old high school about observation hours and an open assistant coaching position with the tennis team. Tennis was the only sport I played in high school, and I am very interested in helping coach this Fall. It turns out that the old assistant coach is now the head coach, and he is an incredibly funny guy. His nickname for my 6'6", 150lb friend is "MEAT!" "Hey Meat, get over here!" He'd teach us the proper fly-fishing technique whenever we'd meet in the hall during school... he was just a guy that made me laugh. Tryouts started yesterday, but it was rainy. I rode my bike over to the courts during a break in the rain, but they were empty. It looks a bit rainy again today, but I'm hoping to get ahold of Mr. K to see if I can grab that assistant coaching position.
On the way back from the high school, I stopped by my old community center, where I played basketball for a dozen years growing up. I've talked to Tyler and Brandon about helping out assistant coaching if I try to coach a team, and they both seem interested (although Brandon would be on a temporary basis due to travel). Filled out some forms at the community center for the basketball position, which I won't find out about until mid-Sept. As I handed the packet back to the guy at the desk, I noticed an Ultimate Frisbee sign up sheet on the counter. I inquired about it and it turns out they are looking for coaches there as well! So I wrote "Basketball and Ultimate Frisbee" on top of my coaching submission and had a fun chat with the coordinator at the front desk.
I could have a very full plate this Fall and Winter, assuming I get a part time job as well. I was thinking tutoring might be perfect for me, seeing how I want to get into teaching, it would provide a little insight into what teaching might be like. I've got to wrap it around my two classes at NSCC and coaching though, which might prove difficult. We'll see!
Agenda for the next few days is to get a WA license plate for my motorcycle (Yesterday I also signed up for a MSF course in October) and to contact teachers at both elementary schools and high schools about observation hours. Wednesday Tyler and I are planning on playing some handball/racquetball. Thursday my Dad and I are heading up to the cabin to get some work done up there. Then Friday or Saturday I'll be heading out to Lake Tapps to have a fun weekend with some old familiar faces!
Live Poker, Sacramento Visitors and WoW with Waffles
After busting out of Kat's Donkament on Friday night, I decided to spend the rest of the night down at Harvey's playing poker. I'm a bit hazy on the details, but I was jonesing to play some O/8 again. I put my name on both the 3/6 and O/8 lists, and got called to O/8 first. I played in the same game last week, and went on a nice little run. The game is 4/8 limit with a half-kill for any pot where $60 gets pushed to at a person (one scoop over $60, or a split pot of $120 or more).
There are a bunch of older players who like O/8 because you can make money by just nut-peddling--and because there are usually two nut hands, there is more action than a 3/6 holdem game. Add in the fact that tourists who have no idea what they are doing steadily flow in throughout the night, and you've got yourself a pretty good chance at making money.
I don't remember (notice a trend?) any huge hands, but I finished the night up $75, 3 margaritas and 2 sierra nevadas. I am very far from a good player, and I kicked myself for two terribly played hands--where I won both, but didn't bet the river--which would have won me probably another $30 on the night. After my missed check-raises on the river, which all the rocks at the table took notice of, instead of kicking myself, I tried to use my dastardly check-raising image to my advantage. I thought by failing a few check-raises, I might be able to get a few free cards, because they'd be worried about me check-raising... but for the most part they just bet their hands when they had the low or high covered. I would have fared better just betting my hands as well.
I woke up Saturday with an unexpected hangover. I drank three bottles of water at the casino after playing poker. I watched a craps shooter throw dice the entire time I was drinking water, and I would have made a pretty penny if I entered the game--but I was happy and content with my $75 gain on the night--and didn't want to blow it on table games.
Barb, Roxie, Kristen and Conor eventually arrived at around 4pm. They were supposed to leave at 11am, but took their time, and ate in Placerville on the way up. We walked down to the beach and had a good time in the relatively chilly weather. We all hopped in the lake and tossed the disc for a bit before heading back up to the house. Conor and I played a 3-hole round of disc-golf on the way back to the house. We tied the first two holes, then on the last hole--hitting the stove on the porch, I sailed my drive way past where I wanted to go, and ended up going all the way around the house. Conor went the smart way, but I got lucky and hit the stove in 3, and on his 3rd shot he clanked the disc off the porch fence for the loss. He tried again and hit the stove, but no mulligans in folf! By losing, he had to buy my drink at dinner.
The five of us headed to Sam's Place for dinner, and they enjoyed it as much as everyone else I've taken there. Conor and I played two games of pool, and he won both. I sunk the 8 ball in the first game, and he won legitimately in the second game. He ended up paying for pool instead of my drink, because we got two pitchers of beer. I had been craving a french dip for weeks, and finally satisfied that thirst for bloody meat.
We headed to Harvey's after dinner, and Kristen, Conor and I played poker for a few hours while Barb and Roxie checked out the men in the casino. This weekend, both Friday and Saturday, Rascal Flats held a concert in the Harvey's parking lot, so there were a lot of cowboys and cowgirls in attendance. The ladies didn't mind the cowboys, and I sure as hell didn't mind the cowgirls! Cowboys aren't very good at poker.
Kristen isn't the best poker player in the world, but she had some shit luck on Saturday night. She'd flop the Q-hi flush and lose to a rivered Ace-high check-raised flush. She'd flop trips and lose to a turned straight, lost with pocket kings and queens--it was just a rough night for her. And it was also tough to watch, because with a few years of poker under my belt it was pretty easy to tell what hand Kristen had, and that her hand wasn't going to be good--but a fold wouldn't be easy.
I had a pretty rough night at the tables too, and although I didn't play perfectly, I played pretty well and lost $25. Even if I had played perfectly, I don't think I would have made more than $20 dollars on the night. Bad cards, and lots of situations where folding was pretty much my only option.
The bad cards didn't stop me from having fun! There was an elderly lady directly to my left with a pretty large stack of chips. Either she was on a rush, or she hit a jackpot hand. My hunch was right, and she eventually disclosed that she had hit quad Jacks earlier in the evening. The first five hands I was at the table, we both insta-folded our hands. After the fifth fold in a row, I said, "Ah, I see we play a very similar style!"
She chuckled, then I proposed a little side-bet with the 75-year old maiden. "Since we fold so much, why don't we make a game out of it? If you fold your and your two cards land and stay on the star above the 'Harrah's' logo, the other person gives the thrower a dollar." Surprisingly, she agreed, and we spend most of the night trying to line up our folds. We both got real close, but neither of us could land both cards on the star. Sometimes we'd land one, then the other would slide off, and sometimes we just missed completely. She got the closest, when both of her cards stuck to the felt on a lofty throw, but she was an inch away from the star.
The hand I was most proud of on Saturday night was a hand against the quad-jack lady on my left. She limped UTG, which brought many other limpers into the pot on my BB. I looked down to Qs8s and checked my option.
Flop came down Q,T,8, and I bet my two-pair. I got a few callers, and the turn was a brick. I bet again and the lady called as well as the SB. The river paired the ten, counterfeiting my two pair. The SB checked, I checked, and the lady bet out. She was a typical elderly lady, and bet her strong hands. I put her on A-Q, and after the SB folded, a lot of people would make a crying call, just to see her hand--but I was able to fold my top two pair with a crappy kicker. She flashed K-Q and I smiled. In a low-limit 3/6 game, those aren't the folds you usually want to make, but I was happy to save six dollars. Those were the type of hands I found myself in all night, and I was very happy to only leave down $25.
Conor was the big winner on the night, that lucky bastard. After poker, we found Roxie in the Keno lounge, just filling out cards but not betting--while getting free drinks. Nice. You go, Roxie! We joined her for free drinks, and Conor and I made a side-bet on a game of Keno. I felt so good about my picks, that I decided to go place a bet. Conor would not be one-upped, and joined in the fun. We had no idea what we were doing, and both lost $5. I got 3 of my 20 picks correct, and if I had only gotten 2, I would have won $10. Balls!
The five of us headed back to the house, and the party-poopers went to sleep early. We had a thirty-pack of Tecate, but only managed to drink 3 of them. For losing the keno bet, I had to chug a beer then do 25 situps, but somehow that bet changed to me chugging a beer while Conor did 25 situps--and we raced and made another bet, lol! I beat him handly, although I really suck at chugging beer. I forget what we bet, and I don't even think I made Conor pay up--weak! Barb and I played some Indian Poker, 3 card poker, and 5-card draw for drinks--and each of us basically chugged another beer. Then everyone zonked.
Sunday, we all woke up in the late morning and headed down to Zephyr Cove restaurant. The service is terrible, but the food is great. Service anywhere on a Sunday morning in Tahoe is pretty crappy, and I had good company, so I wasn't too miffed. I added a chocolate shake to my 'High Sierra' breakfast that included biscuits and gravy, two scrambled eggs, two pieces of bacon, two sausages, and hashbrowns. The chocolate shake was a perfect compliment at 11am, lol. I usually don't go that big for breakfast, but Kristen was paying, because I loaned her some money the night before at the casino. In hindsight, I should have just gotten the money back instead of having her pay for my breakfast, because I felt like I was on a freeroll and went nuts on breakfast.
After breakfast, we walked back to my house, chilled out on the porch for a bit, then decided to head over to Emerald Bay for some sight-seeing. Emerald Bay was packed, but we got a few pictures--it is the most gorgeous place on the lake.
We also stopped by the Angora Fire, which I haven't been to since racing out of there the day of. We drove up the road to Angora Lake, and once we got to the ridge, the site was pretty amazing. One side of the road was charred, the other side was lush, green forest. We got somephotos, then headed down to Camp Richardson for a snack before they headed back to Sacramento.
I got home and fired up some WoW. Tyler and I had talked about what class would suit me best for a pve server--playing with Tyler, Mike and Guang if I actually intended to level up to 70. We sort of settled on a Druid, because of its versatility. I went to fire up a new character on their server, but found that the only alliance class to be a druid are night elfs, and I ain't playing no damn night elf! Taurens are the only horde class that can be a druid, and Taurens are much cooler, so I decided to remake my character on Waffle's server, and made a druid.
I played until about 10pm and was chatting it up with Waffles the whole time. That guy rocks the house, and if you even have an inkling of wanting to play WoW, or want to hang out with Waffles more... now is your chance! For the Horde!
So I haven't been playing many of the blogger poker tournaments lately. A big reason is that I just plain forget what time they start. I decided to add MATH, the Mookie, and Kat's Donkament to my Google Calendar (which gives me email reminders 30 minutes prior to the event start).
I caught the Mookie last night for the first time in a month or two, and had a good time. Chipped up with a couple good plays against the aggressive players at my starting table, then lost a bit of it back making bad plays against those same players. I got moved to a pretty tough table with Hoy, Pushmonkey and Skidoo, among others.
I played tight, and got a great read on the table. I made a few weird bets 222, 333, which got some notice from the table. K-3-2 flop, and I flopped two pair with K-2 from the big blind and led out with a pot-sized bet that I really intended to look like a steal. Hoy gave me action with a re-raise, and I pushed. He mulled it over, knew he was beat, and decided to go with a fuck-it call. K-Q. Runner 10's sent me home to counterfeit my two-pair. I steamed for a while, then realized he had six outs, plus the runner-runner outs--so he wasn't as big a dog as I thought in the heat of the moment. It did feel good to completely outplay him though :)
Just before my bustout, I had been chatting it up over on Waffles' table, and he said something about playing his hunter more than his druid now. What?! Waffles plays WoW??? He busted out just before me, and gave me his server and name, so I hopped on after my bustout to make a Warlock and see if he was online. He was, and we chatted it up for a while.
The plan is to get all of the poker bloggers who play WoW to get together on the same server for some fun WoW times. The guild will be called "The Waffle House" and I have already called Vice President, so back off, bitches.
I'm a firm believer in moderation, so quit playing so much poker and start playing WoW!
Haven't had too much to post about recently, but that won't stop me from posting! (You can learn from this, Brandon)
My time in Tahoe is coming to an end, so I've been trying to think of all the things I want to do in my last week here. Parasailing, hiking up Mt. Tallac (9,000ft mountain--3k elevation gain), swimming lots, basketball at Kahle, hitting the casinos, playing with Sacramento friends. Lots to do in my next week, but how have I spent the last few days? Playing WoW. Damnit!
The game is just way too addicting. Especially after I found my old pvp rogue. I'm an orc, and I love the Horde--mostly because I get to sneak around and stab the goodie-goodie alliance in their backs. I love to stalk. I've been watching Ichi from the porch, as he stalks all the little rodents in the forest. He would make a very good Orc rogue.
I've also been playing around with Fraps a bit, and hopefully I'll get a little WoW video up sooner or later, with some of my stupid amazing feats of dumbness skill.
Now, to give myself some credit, I did accomplish all most, of the things I put on my to do list this weekend. I changed the oil in my motorcycle (which reminds me, I need to change the oil in the Explorer before the hiking trip/seattle trek), I wrote up some of the Pirates v. Ninjas finale, and I registered and paid for my two classes this fall up in Seattle.
But, the majority of my time was spent playing WoW, and I had a nice, relaxing weekend. I took a few breathers to walk around in my hiking boots, attempting to break them in. I've used them before, but not in a while, and I want to make sure they don't rub me wrong before our 30 mile hike next week.
This weekend should be a lot of fun--some Sacramento peeps are coming up for their last chance to visit me in Tahoe. Beach and casino fun will be had, and I'm sure we'll toss the disc a bit too. My last day of work is a week from tomorrow, and then I believe we start on our hike Friday down in Mammoth, CA. I'm really excited for the hike--it is a four-night escapade through the Sierras. Truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience for me, because I'll be moving back to the Northwest for the foreseeable future. Expect lots of pictures.
I should have the Pirates v. Ninjas finale ready for public viewing by the end of this week. I'm working full-time this week, so I didn't have as much writing time as I hoped to have, hence the delay.
Dr. Bannar was nice enough to see me yesterday afternoon, when I came in for my afternoon shift. He took a look at my sprained ankle, poked a few places that felt fine and a few places that made me grimace with pain. Dr. Bannar then shot me back to Marty to take a few x-rays (free of charge, thank goodness!), which came out negative. No fracture, but he's pretty sure I tore the lower ligament in my ankle. Apparently there are three main ligaments that hold ankles in place, so the two that are alright are the ones that I use for walking--which hasn't been interrupted too bad--but the third is vital for running, which I can't do.
Bummer, because I shelled out $90 to play in the Hats, Hops, and Hucks tournament this weekend in Santa Cruz. Fortunately, I was able to get a little refund, even though I still plan on going, I just don't plan on playing. Also, it turns out Anne, from my old Daoc-days, lives in Santa Cruz now--so I might hang out with her a bit this weekend. Should be a fun weekend, even though I am a bit bummed about not getting to play in a really fun hat tournament.
My WoW addiction has begun again. Must...still... get outside! Although, I must admit--when you're holed up at home with a torn up ankle, WoW is a nice escape.
What else am I supposed to do while I'm laid up with a sprained ankle?
The latest installment of Pirates vs. Ninjas is up. It is a shorty, because I was busy this weekend (and I'll be busy again next weekend--but expect another installment by next Tuesday). I have a good idea of where the story is going now--and I'm looking forward to more improvising from the four horsemen who have nicely enough joined in the fun. Willy and Schaubs commented on the last post, and you can see what they suggested now. Tyler emailed me his suggestion, which will probably come into play in the next episode.
I attempted to play softball last night, and my best contribution was the 12-pack of PBR's that I brought to the dugout. We polished those off quickly, and with two innings left, we were thirsty and all out of beer--just like at a Major League park. We ended up losing in extra innings, and I got to play a bit of 3rd base. Didn't let any balls get by me, and even threw a runner or two out--so I felt like I contributed. If I had been 100%, who knows, we might have won!
I've been fighting the WoW itch for a while now, and I finally decided to download the game today. It took about 9 hours. And now I'm waiting for it to patch, which will take another hour or so. I really should have plugged into the router for this, instead of doing it all via the wireless connection--ah well, live and learn. I don't have to buy an account just yet, because my old one is active still, being taken care of by a friend.
While the download was happening, Tyler introduced me to a real cool game called Armadillo Run. It is on the featured links section to the right. It is an engineering-type game, and the demo shows you a little bit of how it works. Tyler sent me the full version, and I can send that out via some gmail trickery if anyone is interested. The game is addicting. You can finish the levels all sorts of different ways--using elastic ropes to sling-shot the armadillo to the goal, or using rockets and girders and rope. All in the name of engineering, of course!
Now to figure out what class to play in WoW... hmm...
