My sister, the queen of e-mail forwards, sent me the following today. I'd seen it before, it's been circulating for years. But it gave me a welcomed chuckle, so I'm passing it on:
With all the sadness and trauma going on in the world, it is worth reflecting on the death of a very important person, which almost went unnoticed last week. Larry La Prise, the man who wrote "The Hokey Pokey", died peacefully in his sleep at age 93. The most traumatic part for his family was getting him into the casket. They put his left leg in.......and then the trouble started.
'K. Visitors to this little island in the sea of poker blogdom may have noticed a little addition at the top there. That blinking, sometimes annoying thing known as a banner ad. Yup. I have a sponsor. We're giving it a shot for a couple of months, and if they think I'm worthy, then they'll continue buying the space. I've received a few e-mails from various entities in the past couple of months or so wanting to "advertise," when in reality they wanted an affiliate deal. I won't do affiliate deals, hence no advertising, until now. Empire e-mailed, I responded with what I was interested in and rates, they responded with a counter offer, and 28 e-mails later we had a deal. So, yee-haw, my Vegas travel fund has been replenished. A warm thanks goes to a diminutive housewife in Cincinnati for the advice.
The New Orleans post is back up. I am grateful to those of you who IM'd and e-mailed about the post and wanted to see the story return. I think it would be great if the person who got the story ball rolling would gather all the stories together in one place. Whaddya' think?
Poker. Ah, yes poker. I'm in kind of a yin/yang state with my game right now - Yin: live play has been very good; Yang: online play has suffered. My "coach" would be pleased to know that the other night at the Bird, I successfully jammed my draws and used what I knew about players to play against them. Case in point. A player sat down I'd played with a couple of times before. On both those occasions, he pulled the "this is my first time to play" nonsense. And on both those occasions, his aggressive play ran over the table.
So when he sat down, I girded myself for the same behavior. He didn't play the "first time" game, but his aggressiveness was unchanged. I knew that to play against him, I'd have to open up my game a bit and ramp up my aggressiveness. Which I did. He never got a pot off of me.
At the Bird, generally, there's no such thing as raising to isolate or to drive people out of a pot. The 3/6 tables are rife with what Bad Blood has called "zero level" thinking. Therefore, raising at the Bird is to build the pot, 'cause you're going to get called. Check-raising is hard because most times it'll just get checked all the way around - even if someone is holding top pair or hit the board in any fashion. And you have to steel yourself for the inevitable suck-outs. You will get called all the way to the river if your opponent(s) have any part of the board or are holding a face or an ace. Don't even consider bluffing.
Online, the same 3/6 tables are a different story. There's room for a bit more finessing. Opponents are a bit more sophisticated, occasionally demonstrating 0+ thinking. I have a major leaky flaw that's developed in the past few months, though. I'm a compulsive pot stealer/bluffer. I cannot let an orphan pot go, so rather than checking my crap, I'll make a stab at the pot. Or, on a hunch, I'll bluff at it or even bluff raise. That gets me in a whole lot of trouble and I need to stop it. However it's quite a thrill when it works. I'm a thrill junkie.
Speaking of addiction... a few folks have asked why I turned off comments on my little piece of blog real estate. I did it because I'd become overly needy of the validation. It was turning into a scorecard and affecting my writing. Instead of appreciating the commentors whether it be one or many, I began to be concerned about comments not received. And that's just plain stupid. I nixed the comments cold-turkey in a effort to break that mindset. My apologies to those of you who have wanted to leave a tid-bit or two. I suspect I'll get them back on eventually, but in the meantime, if you want - use the email address.
Alrighty. Hope everyone has had a pleasant Labor Day weekend. My week at work will be shorter than most 'cause I'm flying out of here on Friday to Oregon for my favorite nephew's wedding on Saturday. Maybe I can get him out of the house for some prenuptial poker Friday night, a little outing with his auntie. Y'all take care.
Party Poker has scheduled a fund-raising tourney for September 7 (Wednesday) at 8:55 pm (EST) - $30 + $0 entry. 90% of the entry fee + 100 % match will be donated to a hurricane relief fund. You can find this tournament under the “Special Tournaments” tab in their lobby.
Scott is putting out a call to RV & mobile home owners - follow the link for how you can help.
Royal Vegas Poker) is hosting a charity tournament for the hurricane relief efforts. It's tonight (Tuesday) at 9 p.m. EST. It’s a $25 buy-in and 50% of the prize pool is going to the relief effort.
Poker Stars has organized several tournies to raise funds for the Red Cross. Follow the link for the details.
