Work Tilt and Blogger Luckboxery

OK so as most of you can probably tell, I really did not have time to get up Tuesday's or today's post until much later in the day than usual. Sorry about that. I hate writing a post but not being able to get it completed until most of you have left from work or whatever it is you degenerates people do during the day, but sometimes work tilt just takes over and I have no choice. Right now my already small legal department in my company is basically falling apart, with one of our two legal assistants getting ready to leave for another job, and the other two lawyers other than myself really not around or available to do any work, one of whom is also getting ready to leave for another job. My boss doesn't even know any of this stuff yet, but I do, and let's just say that the amount of work being done by those people right now is nowhere near sufficient to keep me from going absolutely apeshit at the office. It doesn't just feel like I'm doing four people's jobs right now; I am doing four people's jobs right now. It's sad when it's only the middle of the year and I already know that my company could not pay me enough at year's end to make me feel fairly compensated for the sacrifices I have made this year. Seriously. The amount of money it would take for me not to be fucking pissed off at year's end at this point is so far above and beyond what I've made in the past here, it would not be possible. This probably does not bode well for my future at this company, but que sera sera, that's not my problem.

All I know is that at the very beginning of this year (literally on the last day of last year), the ranting maniac lawyer from my group (that's actually not me, if you can believe it!) was finally fired at long last, and I was "asked" to take over his job responsibilities "temporarily" until we could find a replacement. Keep in mind here, this is not a 100-person group where I was just taking over a few deals from the guy or something. This is a 3-lawyer group, and suddenly I was asked to do 2/3 of the work in the entire group that was normally handled by three people. Not good. But, I wasn't really given a choice, and of course the implication was made to me that I would be rewarded for my loyalty come year end, so what was I gonna do? Quit on the spot? So I took this guy's work. Anyways, fast forward five fucking months later, when we finally hired someone to replace the asshole maniac guy, and I was finally allowed to transition his responsibilities back to the new lawyer. This is where the story gets really good.

Some ho in another continent in my company gets pregnant and takes maternity leave. Someone from another division of the company in the U.S. decides to move out to the other continent to take the pregnant ho's job. And before we know it, one of our three lawyers is "asked" to sit in for this chick in the other division, for three months (the entire summer). This is not me, and not the brand new lawyer we hired to replace the maniac, but our other lawyer who is currently doing the other 1/3 of the work in our group while I had been 2/3 for the past five months. He basically has no choice, and plus it was a good career opportunity for him, so he left and took the 3-month job helping out in the other U.S. division of my company. This was exactly two weeks after we hired the new lawyer, which meant that I had had two weeks of training and transitioning the new person where I technically was not doing two jobs in this entire year. Two weeks. Then my boss calls me into his office, tells me that our third lawyer is leaving for three months, and "asks" me to take on her job responsibilities for the summer. Yummy. So, for precisely two weeks through the first 9 months of the year, I will have done just my job and no one else's, and for the other 8 1/2 months, I will be working two full jobs. Not my job and a couple of things from another job. Two. Full. Jobs. Two salaries, two bonuses, two full sets of responsibilities. All being done by me, for one salary and one bonus. Good deal for my company, huh?

The kicker to all this is that, as I alluded to above, the other lawyer from my group, who is now approaching halfway into his 3-month "temporary" assignment in this other division -- just as I predicted was going to happen all along, even though everyone here said I was crazy -- has now decided to accept an offer of permanent employment by the other division, instead of coming back to us at the end of the summer. The glorious thing here is that when he doesn't come back, there is literally zero doubt who will be keeping his work on an "extended" basis, and let me just tell you, it ain't fluxer and it ain't Waffles. It's me. And given the time it has taken to find a new attorney for our group in the past, we're probably looking at 3-4 months before we have someone new after August, and that my friends means I will spend this entire year working two full jobs for one job's pay. Delicious. As I said, the amount of money these clowns would have to throw at me at year's end to make me not be really effing pissed about the sacrifices I've made this year is so far off from anything they would or could ever offer me, it cannot be good for my likelihood of staying here for the long term. Which is too bad because I had a nice thing going here for a while, but I would look at some point within the next year or so for word that I am switching jobs to somewhere else that won't shit all over me and take advantage of my talents and my willingness to chip in and "be a team player". God I hate corporate speak.

Anyways, now that I've gotten that off my chest, let me get to a few announcements that I just did not have time to mention in my abbreviated post from yesterday. First and foremost, and I know this is old news now, but our own Dr. Pauly cashed bigtime in Event #38 at the WSOP, a $1500 buyin nlh event. Out of 2778 entrants, Pauly finished in 119th place, taking down $4740 and change for his incredible effort. Is that fucking incredible or what? This brings the number of people in our blogger crew cashing in a WSOP event this year to at least three, with myself, LJ and now Pauly ringing the bell and bringing home some bacon after surviving through very tough fields. I am probably missing somebody but this is all that comes to mind right now. Add to that that we have at least Fuel55, Lucko and KOD already having won WSOP ME seats -- and KOD you had better be playing in that thing -- the chances are aplenty that there will be more cashish to come for our group. Which to me is a glorious thing to say the least. Cashing in the WSOP, who'd a thunk we could produce so much of that out of relatively few entries this year? Not me, that's for sure. Especially when I see how you blonkeys play in the blonkaments. Dam do we suck.

And speaking of blonkeys, I also did not have time to mention yesterday that fucking Chad a.k.a "KOD" (King of Donkeys) won the fucking nightly 26k guaranteed tournament on full tilt again the other day! That is I think two wins in this friggin unwinnable tournament in a month, to go along with two more final table finishes in this event, which is not only unwinnable but also unfinaltableable. I do not know the funk he does it. But Chad was cool to give us this post the other day which gives away just a few of his secrets on how to bet these large minefield mtt's. Nothing much new in there for me, but then again I am already the king of the resteal so there's not much surprising there. I basically do everything that Chad mentions in that post already, but even these days when I play the 26k I am usually lucky to make it past a couple of hours. Some shitdonk calls my allin reraise with my A9 and his AJ on a board of A92, and then turns a Jack to send me home. I get in ahead way, way too much to survive in that thing. Chad, I honestly don't know how the fuck you do that. Four final tables in a month in the biggest donkey tournament I've ever heard of. Unreal. Go read his strategy post if you haven't yet, as it is fairly rare for the KOD to give tips like this on his blog.

I also want to link to this post from Astin, where he gives an honest and humble recount of the card rack that smacked him in the face all through this week's MATH tournament. I got to hear about these hands as they were happening on the IM, but to actually see this stuff verified in screenshots it is really just sick. It was a couple of weeks ago now that I wrote about Astin's amazing card rack abilities, and the funny thing is, that commentary from me was based on my own personal experience of months and months of playing pretty regularly with him. Now, FWIW I definitely do not believe in luck over the long term, let me get that out of the way first. But I have got to say that Astin has me thinking about it. As I said, it's been months that I've been joking with him that he gets unbelievable starting cards, so this has been based on many many many tournaments where I have seen a number of his starting hands that were awesome. Well, take a look at that post I linked above, where you can see Astin's one AA, three KKs, one QQ and two AKs from this week's MATH tournament. What's that, you say? 7 premium hands isn't that much for a guy who lasted all the way to 10th place in a tournament? OK.

It turns out that was just during the first hour of the MATH. Impressed now? I guarantee you I haven't seen 7 premium starting hands in all 28 BBT tournaments I have played in this year, and this guy gets 7 premiums just in the first hour on Monday? Sheeeeeeit. And I'm not even mentioning the two flopped 3-of-a-kinds, the flopped nut straight with J8 or the turned flush that Astin also mentioned in that post, which you really should read for yourself if you want to get a good experience of what being on a rush of cards is really like. And if you really enjoy this stuff, then go check out this post by Astin about his first round of starting hands from the Riverchasers HORSE tournament this past Sunday, which included AKo, QQ, 22, AQs and 66 all during the first eight hands he saw in that tournament. That has got to be nice. And let's not forget this post from last week's Mookie tournament, where Astin details the starting cards he saw in that event as well:

"Mookie - I don't think I've ever seen cards like this. Pocket Aces 3 times, Cowboys at least 4 times, Hiltons twice, AK at least twice, and more medium pocket pairs than I can count. JJ turned into quads on the river to beat pocket Kings at one point. Hoy might be on to something. Then again, I had pocket kings totally counterfeited with quad 9's with an A kicker on the board."

Wow. That is at least 11 premium starting hands in one 3-hour tournament, plus quad Jacks and "more medium pocket pairs than I can count". Just wow is all I have to say. Obviously Astin knows how to play with these big cards, as he has been on quite a run lately in the BBT tournaments, but...I mean...damn. 11 premiums in last week's Mookie, all those good starting LHE hands in the first round of HORSE, and 7 premiums (plus at least two other pocket pairs) in just the first hour of the latest MATH? Have I said "wow" enough times yet? Wow.

Bayne is a luckbox too, by the way.

Do not forget the Mookie tonight, at 10pm ET on full tilt. Password as always is "vegas1". For once I am an early registeree for that event, and last week saw a new record of 82 entrants. Also don't forget to listen to Buddydank's live radio show during the Mookie, which I say again IMO is the coolest new thing in the poker blogiverse in a long time. The BBT is coming right down to the wire here with this week's Mookie, Riverchasers and Big Game tournaments all on the slate to finish up the 3-month poker tournament series, and with a number of players still vying for the top 50 spots on the leaderboard and/or the 20 events played threshold, participation should be up tonight in the Mookie as well, which is always fun. And lastly, don't forget tonight's 9:45pm ET token frenzy on full tilt, the $14 buyin tournament that awards $75 tokens to the top 18%+ of finishers, which you can then use to buy in to Sunday's Big Game, the BBT finale and one of my favorite blogger tournaments every month due to the higher buyin and generally higher quality of play.