Friday Musings

As we head into the weekend, today I've got a bunch of random musings, and a little bit of poker content, that I think I'll share. During the week I've got so much poker-related stuff swirling around in my head, and more adding every night as I play and am always seeing interesting, funny or crazy things at the virtual tables, that I tend to write half-posts and then save them as drafts in my blogger. Then on days like today when I decide I've just got too much random stuff saved up in draft form, I'm just going to do a dump of a bunch of that information, all of which was intended to be up on the blog already but which keeps getting replaced by other material as it becomes available to me. I don't know in the end if this format will turn out looking much different at all from my usual stream-of-consciousness posts, or maybe it will be very different (I doubt that), but hopefully you will like it. I think I'll say what I have to say up front, and then I can end the post with a stud hilo tidbit that I had originally planned to put up here today anyways. But you guys can use a nice random musings post from me on a Friday, right? Thought so.

So first off, how's about a nice family-oriented story. Last weekend the Hammer Wife and I took our kids to the Museum of Natural History in the Upper West Side of Manhattan on Saturday. It was a holiday weekend, and it was cold outside, so when we got there around lunchtime the museum was utterly and completely mobbed. Uberpacked, if you will. It was hard to even push the stroller around the hallways and exhibits with all the A7s tourists and kids running around that place. The worst part of all was that, after we took M, the older Hammer Girl, to her favorite exhibit which has this big huge life-size blue whale hanging from the ceiling and also shows at one place a gigantic sperm whale chowing down on a giant squid (for some reason M loves that one more than anything else in the entire museum, possibly even anything in all of Manhattan), M decided she wanted to go eat in the museum's food court. She loves it there but I hate it, mostly because it's all fast food and pretty crappy at that (chicken fingers, pizza, burgers that have all been sitting out under the heat lights for an hour, you know how it is), but we went because, well, when M wants something even semi-reasonable she has a way of making things so ugly that it's pretty much always a more attractive option to just do what she wants. Sad but true. So we go down there, and not surprisingly the cafe is mobbed like nothing I've ever seen. There are no seats available at all (it's a huge room), so Hammer Wife and I decide to do the family thing, and she takes M inside to get some food for us all, while I take K in the stroller and try to nab a table for us.

To make a very long story short, after fighting hard through the throngs, I finally find a family that is cleaning their trash up and obviously getting ready to leave. Even though most tables seem to have someone waiting like a hawk to pounce on the seats as soon as they get up, for whatever reason I lucked out and there's no one else waiting to grab this one, so I get my stroller in position and am pleased that I've finally got a bead on the table I've been jostled so hard to find for the past 10 minutes or so. And let me tell you btw, being jostled by a bunch of New Yorkers ain't exactly fun. So, while these people are just pulling their trash into bags and trays and starting to stand up and get their own stroller together, this 60-year-old or so mom walks up with what looks like a 9- or 10-year old boy. Either it's an old mom with her amazingly young son for her age, or maybe it was a grandmother with her grandson (or maybe she just looks old as shit). I don't know. And I don't care. This grandmotherly lady sees the family getting up from the table, and then she looks over at me. She looks me right in the eye, I point to the table and shake my head "yes", saying to her that this is my table and I've been waiting. There was no confusion about who got there first or anything like that, as I watched this bitch walk up to the table and I'd already been there waiting for a good five full minutes at least. Anyways, she starts looking around antsily, as if she's also been trying to find a place for her son/grandson and her to sit for some time among the crowdedass cafeteria, and I can just tell what she plans to do. Of course I'm not going to let her, but then when the fucking family stands up, they end up pushing their own stroller over right in front of mine, completely blocking me off to get their own kid in his stroller, and before I'm able to get near the seats, this bitchass sits down with her 10-year-old and they start to eat.

Now, you just have to take my word for it here. She knew exactly what she did. She knew the table was mine, and she knew that the family who had been sitting there had blocked me out. She saw her opportunity and she bitchingly took it. I was floored. Now those of you who know me well will note that I am a vengeful s.o.b. There was aboslutely no doubt whatsoever that I was going to exact some form of revenge on this whoremonger. I debated my options.

The first thing I thought of was just to sit down right on her lap and act like she wasn't even there. I actually gave serious consideration to this. Because, I am a fair man after all, and I want the punishment to fit the crime at all times. And in this case, the table was clearly mine, so why not just have me treat it as if it is in fact clearly mine. And if you know me, you know that sitting on some old grandma's lap is not going to feel good for her one bit, not unless her lap is made of steel or something (I'm 6 feet tall, and beefy to boot). Not wanting to physically assault the woman, I then pondered whether I could just take the two empty seats at the table, act like the bitch-n-son weren't even there, and then make sure to have my two girls cause such a ruckus, and be so rude and messy and swearing and loud myself, so as to ruin this chick's entire meal and make her sorry for ever sitting there in the first place. Both of these were nice options as I thought them through, but each was going to require me to make quite a scene in order to adequately make my point. In the end, I decided I didn't feel like creating that kind of a scene, but at the same time one of the things that bothered me the most about this situation was the boy. Here he was, nerdy-looking and all of 10 years old or something, and I solemnly guarantee you he is now going to grow up doing this exact same kind of thing to people as he gets older. Why? Because he watched his fucking mother do it while he was growing up! She does this and makes it appear as if this kind of behavior is acceptable even though we're living in a fucking society here, and then this poor, impressionable nerdboy is going to grow up and probably piss off 100 other families over the next 40 or 50 years by cutting in line and stealing people's tables, etc. And as I thought more and more about all those innocent victims spread out across this young boy's future, that's the part that really got me the most of all. I really didn't feel like creating a big scene after all, but I had to do something that would make it clear to the boy that his mother's behavior was wrong, and not something to emulate in any way. And I needed something that would make a lasting impression on him, hopefully something he would not forget for some time as I really wanted this lesson to sink in. So after much deliberation, I did the only thing I could think to do that was approaching deserving of the crime, and yet got the message I wanted to get across to the boy as well. I went over to the table (the other family had left by this point), I walked right up to the boy (not the (grand)motherfucker, and said to him, in my angriest voice I could muster:

"Your mother is a cunt."

Then I left. I never even looked at the old hag to see what her reaction was to the whole thing. That oughta make for some interesting conversation at the rest of their meal. What a bitch. But I think I did ok defending myself and my family's honor in the end.

Wow, I've been wanting to tell that story for days. Love me or hate me, that's just the kind of guy that I am. And if you think I regret saying that at all, then you just don't know me. I regret not saying it sooner maybe, but that's about it. Whore.

OK now on to some other random thoughts:

I think it would be cool if Janice kills Tony on The Sopranos. They've already shown what a psycho raging temper she has back when she shot Richie Aprile in the head about 5 seconds after he hit her for the one and only time. They've shown what a fucking dysfunctional family the Sopranos are. All the pieces are there. After Tony got his revenge on Bobby for beating Tony up by forcing Bobby to go kill someone for the first time in his life, Bobby of course, being the fuckup that he is, managed to leave his shirt and his DNA not only at the scene of the crime, but right in the dead fucking hands of the victim. He's gonna get busted and get busted good, and it's going to be very hard even for the mafia to do anything about that with that kind of evidence out there. When Janice figures out that Tony made Bobby do that guy just to get back at Bobby for beating Tony up, and then Janice's gravy train and baby daddy goes off to jail for murder (if that's what ends up happening), I don't think there's any doubt that Janice is going to go absolutely apeshit. I haven't read this prediction anywhere else, so let me be the first to put it right out there. Janice flips out and in an absolute fit of rage, goes to see Tony and kills him dead. I could see it. I really hope The Sopranos doesn't totally jump the shark in what they know is their last season, but it wouldn't shock me if Tony gets fucked up real bad before all is said and done. I also think btw that I saw an interview with the actor who plays Pauly Walnuts where he referred to when he gets whacked. I might have mis-heard that, but I don't think so. Which means that my new favorite non-poker blogger the Blonde is going to be pretty upset, as she is a huge Pauly Walnuts fan according to her comments. That guy's been trending towards disloyal for a long time now, so although nothing yet would indicate that's going to happen, I'm pretty sure that's what the actor said in this interview I saw on E! or something.

Entourage is officially better than The Sopranos now. I love that show. I didn't used to love it, but over the years it's really grown on me. I did enjoy the Sopranos episode this past Sunday, but the premiere of Entourage really kicked ass. Although I don't really care much either way about Turtle, that Johnny Drama absolutely kills me. You could not have picked a better actor to play that character than Kevin Dillon, seriously. He's perfect. And no mention of Entourage can be made without mentioning Ari. Jeremy Piven, also the fucking perfect cast for this character, really steals the entire show IMO. They're very smart to bring him back and make him a central character even in the premiere, and you can see that they're planning to keep the focus on him for the time being, which is very smart. Between Drama and Ari, I am hooked. And as Lost also appears to be heating up right now, I am just super psyched for the next couple months of television, something I haven't said for a long, long time.

On to the world of sports. As most of you know, I am a die hard Philadelphia fan across the board. Philly is my hometown, and I am every bit the quinessential Philadelphia fan as anyone you'll ever meet. Although I wasn't at the game, I was cheering silently myself when Michael Irvin got injured at the old Veteran's stadium against the Eagles, the injury that eventually ended his career. I've thrown garbage, I've thrown snowballs, and I've booed anybody and everybody as I had season tickets to all of the Eagles, Phillies and Flyers at various points of my life growing up. I live and die by the Philly professional sports teams -- which being in New York is hard to do, mind you -- and when I talk about the baseball team in Philly, it's a whole lot more dying and very little living. The Phillies effing disgust me. They have started off the season now 2-7, including an opening-series sweep at home at the hands of the Atlanta Braves who finished something like 16 games out in the division last year, in what has become an annual ritual for the Phils as they look to start off the season by digging themselves an insurmountable hole before things really even get underway for the dog days of summer in MLB. Jayson Stark has a great article on ESPN this week describing how teams that start off this badly basically never make the playoffs, and clearly that's what's in store, yet again, for the losingest franchise in all of professional sports. There should be a rule for cyring out loud that when one owner fails to make the playoffs as much as the current owner Bill Giles has, in a major market like Philadelphia, he should be forced to sell the team. Give him fair value for it, I'm not trying to penalize him financially in any way, but he does not belong owning a major league team. He's not a winner, and he's not interested in becoming or even trying to become a winner. He's a loser, plain and simple. The city of Philadelphia has enough trouble with the Sixers and the Flyers suckin right now. The Phillies are so bad that they've transcended being just an embarrassment to themselves and to the city of Philadelphia. They're a national embarrassment as far as I'm concerned, and a black mark on the eye of Major League Baseball. It's one thing when the Royals or the Pirates suck every year, with their $25 million payrolls, etc. But for the 5th largest market in the country, with a payroll of over $87 million this year and every year, to fail to make the playoffs as much as we do, it is a fucking embarrassment and something should be done about it. Personally, I am sick and fucking tired of already knowing before tax time every single year that the Phillies' season is over. The people of Philadelphia should revolt against this guy and throw his ass out of the city. Bring in Rocky, make him the owner of the Phillies. Now that's what I'm talkin about.

Don Imus, you are a donkey. I have no clue what all the hubbub is about this particular racist and sexist comment that you made, since you've been making comments at least that offensive -- actually, far more offensive -- for a long, long time. But I'm glad this happened. I hate Don Imus. Your show is just about the least funny thing I've ever heard. It's real simple, Donny boy. Thirty years ago you used to get high as a kite, and drunk as a skunk, and do your show. And people liked it, it was funny. You were funny. When you were sloshed. But 10, 15 years ago all that changed. You sobered up. Normally I might question if you are really sober or not nowadays, like I would with other known allegedly former drug-heads like Rush Limbaugh who sounds high to me every time I've ever heard him. But one listen to your show makes it very, very obvious. You're sober, and you're not even remotely funny. It's that simple. Your show sucks, so even though I cannot possibly understand why this comment is the straw that broke the camel's back, I'm just glad you're off the air. Now hopefully they will move Mike and the Maddog to the morning show on WFAN in New York City, finally giving us our full 24-hour complement of sports radio programming, and that will be a major, major upgrade as far as I'm concerned. But don't kid yourselves, anyone. This is not happening to Imus now because he finally offended the black community and they're forcing this firing to happen. Imus has been offending the black community in this country for about 20 years. He's a racist, sexist, hateful pig and always has been, and he's made millions by insulting and offending anyone and everyone, so I am at a total loss about why this particular comment has led to this chain of events. But I'll take it. Good riddance, Don Imus.

One does wonder, though, where we draw the line. How come Howard Stern is still allowed to be on the air when he says what he says. He is far more offensive to black people, to gays, Jews, Italians, you name it and he offends. Unlike Imus, I find Howard to be generally really funny, but that doesn't make his show any less offensive. And I for one will be the first person to say that a lot of what comes out of Rush Limbaugh's mouth is highly offensive to me. In fact, Rush's station WABC here in New York is chock full of people who offend me with their political shows on an almost minute-by-minute basis. Where do we draw the line? I just wish I understood again what suddenly got people so up in arms about Imus's comments the other day. Yes they were completely and totally racist and sexist, not a doubt in the world about that. But why now? And does this mean that guys like Chris Rock will have their shows taken off the air now? What's next?

OK before I leave you with this post for the weekend, I thought I would post briefly about a hand I ran into near the end of the bracelet race last night on full tilt, which was a $26 buyin HORSE event. Yes, the very same low-buyin limit HORSE that I promised myself I would never play in again. Well, I forgot about that, and quickly regretted my decision. Never is it truer that Donkeys Always Draw than in these small limit HORSE events, where people are always playing shitty cards because they generally have no clue how to play these games and what constitutes good starting hands, and due to the limit nature of these games, people feel like they can just keep drawing and drawing and drawing with abandon. And inevitably, some of the people hit their draws, and it's often impossible to even guess because how can you really put a real human being with an actual brain on staying in for two big bets before the turn and the river just to try to catch an inside straight, right? Well, it happens.

Anyways, a couple of hours into this thing on Thursday evening, I played in a fun stud hilo hand that I think illustrates well the principle of playing with a freeroll. Now, to be honest, this is not any kind of an advanced hilo move. It's actually quite basic, and to those of you out there who have even a medium amount of experience in playing stud hilo and/or in HORSE, this point will be largely wasted on you because it will seem obvious, which it is to someone with a bit of experience at the game. But I definitely remember a time when this was not intuitive to me, so I'm going to post it here in case it can help anyone out there who is just getting into hilo or maybe would like to start playing the HORSE events online but doesn't have much experience with high-low split games.

So the game is stud hilo, and a guy with a 9 showing bets out on third street. The action folds around to me near the end, and I have (64)7. A good three-card low, with straight possibilities as well. Now, in the big game in the Bellagio, am I playing this hand for $8000 cash on third street? Probably not. But in donkeyville against just one player showing a 9? You betcha. I call.

Fourth street brings an 8 to my opponent for a board of (xx)98, and I pick up a 5 for a board of (64)57. So here I've got four cards to a low, and my opponent almost surely can't catch me on the low side at this point, so I like my low possibilities with 15 outs three times to a low (four Aces, four 2s, four 3s and three 8s). But what's more, I also now have an open ended inside straight draw, with a chance to hit one of seven outs (four 3s or three 8s) in my last 3 cards to have a great shot at scooping this pot. When my opponent bet out again with the 98 showing here, I figured I have 45 outs to a winning low and 21 outs over three cards to scoop the entire pot. Even though right now you are almost surely behind to the pair of 9s or pocket pair that your opponent was obviously betting from third street on, you have to raise here with all those outs to win half if not all of the pot:



In fact, with all those outs and so many cards to come still, when he re-raised me, I very quickly capped it there on 4th with what I consider to be as close to a freeroll as you will often get in hilo. Yes I was still one card away from making my low, but with 45 outs to the low over 3 cards, it is highly likely I'm going to make a low, and that low is going to win half the pot given what my opponent is already showing, and with 21 outs also to scoop, it was an easy decision to cap it then and there, which also got him allin in the process:



Now again, I'm not trying to represent this as any kind of an advanced move. It's fairly automatic for any experienced split-game player when you've got a made lock (or a near-made lock such as my low in this example) for half the pot, and a good number of outs to the other half as well. I just remember being surprised when I first figured out that sometimes it is right to raise, and even cap the betting, in a split game like this even when you technically have nothing in your hand right now, and you know that currently you are behind your opponent. Situations like that rarely occur in holdem, where you would be significantly favored enough to get it all in while you still don't have any kind of a made hand, but in a split pot game like hilo or O8, this kind of situation will arise and you have to be aware of it in order to maximize your opportunities. In this case, I was basically looking at 45 outs over 3 cards to win half the pot with the low, and 21 outs over three cards to win both the high and the low, plus the other added outs on the high side if I could pick up trips, two pair or some other kind of a winning hand over what was just a 98 showing for my opponent. I'm all about pushing my edges in a limit game like hilo, so this was the move I thought I would show today because it may seem counter-intuitive to some hilo beginners out there to be willing to get it all into the middle without even having a made hand of any kind against a guy who you know basically has some kind of a made hand that beats you.

Incidentally, here was the final board on this hand (turns out my opponent had QQ in the hole to be betting this hard early in the hand):



Yay 6th street! Making me look like I actually know what I'm doing in this game. This hand helped me chip back up at a crucial time in the bracelet race, where I ended up busting just short of the final table, in I think 12th place overall, in what I really, truly hope will be my last ever low-buyin limit HORSE event of my entire life. I won't forget this again next Thursday, don't you worry.

OK please make sure to play in tonight's 9:45pm ET token frenzy on full tilt if you're online, and try to win those tier II tokens for Sunday night's Big Game hosted by Miami Don (and congrats to crazdgamer, the only blogger I saw out of the 14 or so who played in last night's frenzy who ended up winning his token, wtg crazdgamer!). The Big Game is also the next event in the Battle of the Blogger Tournaments series, and barring any unforeseen circumstances I definitely plan to be there. Which means that somebody is going to get the easiest double-up around somewhere in the first few minutes of the tournament, no matter what I do to avoid that outcome. So far we know that in these BBT blogger tournaments, you can call my preflop raises with anything, and you will not only flop a huge hand but it will also be a flop that hits my own hand pretty hard too so you'll be really set up. And on top of that, if you don't get it allin preflop, you can call my allin on the flop with nothing but two shitty overcards, and one of those will still hit on the river even if you're a 20-to-1 underdog at the time. I'm the fish of all fishes in these events, so come out and play the Big Game on Sunday and hope to god that you get to start off at my table. I may not be able to make the token frenzy tonight as the Hammer Wife's family is coming over for me to kick their asses in hearts (I dominate that game), but I should be on at some point later this evening, and either way I will see you Sunday for the Big Game!

One more quick thing, I'm sure Al will be posting all about this later, but the big announcement is finally here. Al has set up a bloggers-only Bracelet Race on full tilt, paying out at least one $1500 prize package to the WSOP if enough players sign up. The details are:

Tournament name: Blogger Bracelet Race @ Full Tilt
When: Sunday, April 29th, 7pm ET
Game: NLHE Deepstack
Buyin: $24+2 or token

Please email blogger_wsop@yahoo.com to receive the password

Only bloggers will be sent the password for this event, so as to ensure it's a real-life blogger who wins his or her way to the preliminary event of their choice in the 2007 WSOP. Either way, by my calculations it looks like we will need 63 players to join in order to make one $1500 prize for the winner, so go email the address above for the password, and get registered for this bigtime blogger extravanganza. If my math is correct, 125 players will mean two $1500 WSOP prizes can be awarded to bloggers, so get in there and register as early as you can, and tell all your poker blogging friends about it as well.