It takes a lot more courage to play live poker than it does to play online for sure. When I play online I can three bet someone with air without batting an eye, I can be stuck $4,000 and not be phased in the least, or I can misplay a hand and immediately shake it off. None of this is easy when playing live poker. Last night I played a hand so miserably I don't even want to discuss it. I'll just say some maniac flopped a set on me and before I knew what happened I had lost everything I had in front of me (about $4600) and I was on my way home. It is WAY more disheartening to lose playing live than it is online, because you have to deal with embarrassment, having a losing image at the table, and trying to recoup your loses at a painfully slow pace (compared to online). I decided that I would try to slow down a bit and maybe only play half a day of poker and just try to book a win today. I played about 1,000 hands online and luckily got a seat in a game where a really bad player was playing 10/20 NL (6 max game). I ended up winning around $2,000 today so that took away a little bit of the sting of the $4,200 I lost playing live last night. So, I have had quite a few days recently where I won $5k+ and even some right around $10k, but losing $4k live feels way worse than those winning days felt good. Oh well, that's just the way it goes sometimes.
My buddy Justin and his girlfriend, Niki, have had a trip planned to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico for a few months now. They half jokingly invited me to go with them a while ago and I surprised them by booking my trip last week when the trip was only 2 weeks away. Molly and I are leaving Vegas on the 17th and getting to Cabo around noon and we'll be back in Vegas on the 22nd. I just booked my flight home for Christmas today and I won't be home until 10pm on the 23rd, but I am staying until January 2nd so I can attend Justin's New Years bash he has planned. I will try and post some pictures on here from our trip. At least this time I can be sure I will have some pictures to post, because I am sure the girls will take plenty.
In case anyone is wondering what to get me for Christmas I want the same thing I asked for last year....if you plan on giving me anything I prefer you either save your money and buy yourself something and/or donate whatever you planned on spending on me to the charity of your choice. The thought of donating stuff got me thinking about something I have always wanted to do....
I always had heard about "The David Letterman Scholarship", but all I really knew about it was that your GPA had nothing to do with it. I just looked it up and "The goal of the scholarshp (haha, brilliant! I just copied and pasted this from the site and the little red line popped up, letting me know that the word "scholarship" was misspelled...so I will leave it like that for you to see the irony of this scholarship) is assist average students who have a creative mind. Winners are selected primarily based on creativity."
I originally thought the scholarship was a little less structured that that, but it still gave me my idea. I never had a shot to win a scholarship of any kind, but then again, why would I? After all, I was a horrible student (Slightly above a 2.0 GPA), I didn't excel in any sports, I was from a wealthy family, I am white, and the most obvious reason....I never even considered applying for one. However, I want to pass on my legacy to some other under achieving, upper class, slacker of a kid. If for no other reason than for the comedic value that will it will bring to an otherwise VERY boring class day. I mean can you imagine when the undeserving class clown gets to walk on stage, shake the principal's hand, and accept his $500 or $1,000 scholarship? I am going to talk to one of my friends that teaches at Central High School and see what I have to do to get this scholarship implemented for this year's Class Day.
Here are the requirements:
-Must have less than a 3.0 GPA.
-Must come from an middle/upper class family.
-Must be attending Indiana Univeristy.
-Must have played at least one varsity sport his/her (can't imagine it ever going to a girl) senior year.
-Must have one letter of reference from a teacher stating his/her level of under-achievement.
-Comedic value of application will be taken into consideration.
It will most likely be a cash scholarship of $500 or $1,000 value.
Can you think of any other guidelines that should be considered for my scholarship?
Saturday, December 13, 2008
Thursday, December 11, 2008
A good day, but some weird hands....
I played a little under 5 hours online and won $4181 and then I went to the Bellagio to play 10/20 I ended up playing there for about 5 hours as well. I won just under $800 there. The games have been pretty bad in general during the tournaments that have been running. It seems like everyone playing in the games plays for a living and there are no soft spots at all. People are 3betting constantly which is so atypical of a normal live passive type of game. Basically, it is just a bunch of internet wiz kids all playing against each other.
Anyway, I want to talk about a couple of hands I played. One of them just because it was unique and one because I want to see if I made a mistake or a correct call.
The first hand an early position player made raised it to $80, one other player called, and I called with 45 of diamonds. The flop was Ad Jh 8c and everyone checked. The turn was the 3d. So now I had a flush draw and a gutshot straight draw. The original raiser checked and the other player bet $180, I called, the other player folded. The river was an offsuit Ten and he checked to me. I contemplated bluffing the river for a moment and then decided I would just give up on the hand, because it felt like he was trying to induce a bluff from me anyway. I checked and he said "you win" and folded his hand towards the dealer and I instantly said "No, you win", but held onto my cards. The dealer quickly grabbed his cards and jammed them into the muck and I kind of just sat there as the dealer started pushing me the pot. I took the pot and as I was handing my cards to the dealer the other player realized what I said and said something like "What? How High?". I told him I had 5 high and and he just smiled and said "Wow!". He clearly folded the winner and I felt kind of bad for taking a pot that I shouldn't have one, but that is how the rules in poker work. Anyway, I won a $630 pot that I shouldn't have and I offered to give him a $60 rebate, because I felt bad. He seemed to think that was a reasonable offer by me and he took the money and that was that.
The next hand, I raised it to $80 from utg with AK of spades, the aggressive Canadian to my left said "I have to raise here" and he raised it to $340 total, and a guy in late position just smooth called the $340. I had a very tight image (obviously) and I decided that I could make both of them fold hands like other AKs or maybe even QQ and I raised it to $1180 total and I had about $3400 more left. The Canadian folded in disgust and the other kid thought for a while before he put me all-in. I didn't like it one bit, but I really didn't feel like he had smooth called with AA or KK although it was very possible he held one of those hands. Anyway, I did some math in my head and estimated there was about $6,000 in the pot and I had to call $3400 more. I thought for a couple of minutes and eventually the Canadian called the clock on me. I ended up calling and he had the AK of clubs...SHEW! They let us chop the pot and we split the Jerky Canadian's money. I ran some math when I got home and if his range was AA, KK, QQ, AKs, and AKos I was profiting about $600 by making the call and if he could only have AA, KK, AK or AKs there I was making about $440 by calling. If he had only KK or AA I was losing about $1200 by calling. Basically, there was just too much money in the pot to fold and I ended up making the correct call, but it wasn't very much fun doing so!
Time to hit the sack...I have an 11am tee time tomorrow (today really, because it is 3:52 am).
Night. Night.
Anyway, I want to talk about a couple of hands I played. One of them just because it was unique and one because I want to see if I made a mistake or a correct call.
The first hand an early position player made raised it to $80, one other player called, and I called with 45 of diamonds. The flop was Ad Jh 8c and everyone checked. The turn was the 3d. So now I had a flush draw and a gutshot straight draw. The original raiser checked and the other player bet $180, I called, the other player folded. The river was an offsuit Ten and he checked to me. I contemplated bluffing the river for a moment and then decided I would just give up on the hand, because it felt like he was trying to induce a bluff from me anyway. I checked and he said "you win" and folded his hand towards the dealer and I instantly said "No, you win", but held onto my cards. The dealer quickly grabbed his cards and jammed them into the muck and I kind of just sat there as the dealer started pushing me the pot. I took the pot and as I was handing my cards to the dealer the other player realized what I said and said something like "What? How High?". I told him I had 5 high and and he just smiled and said "Wow!". He clearly folded the winner and I felt kind of bad for taking a pot that I shouldn't have one, but that is how the rules in poker work. Anyway, I won a $630 pot that I shouldn't have and I offered to give him a $60 rebate, because I felt bad. He seemed to think that was a reasonable offer by me and he took the money and that was that.
The next hand, I raised it to $80 from utg with AK of spades, the aggressive Canadian to my left said "I have to raise here" and he raised it to $340 total, and a guy in late position just smooth called the $340. I had a very tight image (obviously) and I decided that I could make both of them fold hands like other AKs or maybe even QQ and I raised it to $1180 total and I had about $3400 more left. The Canadian folded in disgust and the other kid thought for a while before he put me all-in. I didn't like it one bit, but I really didn't feel like he had smooth called with AA or KK although it was very possible he held one of those hands. Anyway, I did some math in my head and estimated there was about $6,000 in the pot and I had to call $3400 more. I thought for a couple of minutes and eventually the Canadian called the clock on me. I ended up calling and he had the AK of clubs...SHEW! They let us chop the pot and we split the Jerky Canadian's money. I ran some math when I got home and if his range was AA, KK, QQ, AKs, and AKos I was profiting about $600 by making the call and if he could only have AA, KK, AK or AKs there I was making about $440 by calling. If he had only KK or AA I was losing about $1200 by calling. Basically, there was just too much money in the pot to fold and I ended up making the correct call, but it wasn't very much fun doing so!
Time to hit the sack...I have an 11am tee time tomorrow (today really, because it is 3:52 am).
Night. Night.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
New Record =)
I broke my personal best daily winning record today. I won $4747 online and then went to the Bellagio and pretty much didn't lose any pots and ended up winning another $6831 there. That makes my new record for most money won in a single day $11,578. That is a pretty sweet feeling to win so much in a day, but honestly it doesn't feel like anything out of the ordinary happened. I had to make one tough call (I was right) at the Bellagio and I ran a little above expectation online. Its not like $11K is just another day at the office, but its not like I get the chills thinking about it or it is an amount that is going to change my life. When I won 74K in the tournament that was a very surreal feeling and I was on cloud nine for a few months, to the point where it negatively affected my poker game. I think it probably affected me differently to win so much in a tourney, because I almost felt undeserving of winning so much by risking so little and it was also very unexpected. When you win money in a cash game you have to risk all the money that you end up winning so you feel a little more entitled to it. Also, there is more of a realistic expectation as to how much you could possibly win.
I have been reading a book that was suggested to me by Nick and I find it really entertaining and insightful. The book is "Fooled by Randomness" and it basically just makes you aware of how much stuff that happens in life is a result of chance/variance rather than skill or hard work. I will have more to blog about this book when I am finished reading it, but it hard to re-explain the stuff that he talks about because he writes in a very concise style that isn't easily summarized.
Oh, I almost forgot! Tonight in my 10/20 NL game an attractive extremely drunk woman sat down to play with us. You could tell she definitely had a lot of money somehow and that she clearly didn't belong in this poker game. She then told us her husband was a baseball player so I asked what his name was...Kris Benson. I recognized his name and remembered him pitching for the Pirates and I think it was when he was a rookie. When she said Kris was her husband something was triggered in my memory and I recalled there being some kind of tabloid type publicity involving those two. Of course I immediately google'd "Kris Benson's wife" on my phone and before it had even finished I knew her name was Anna Benson. Anyway, when I got the results and clicked on the first link it told their story and also included some photos of her. There were some quotes of her saying stuff like "I told Kris that if he ever cheated on my I would sleep with the entire Mets organization (his team at the time)". The article also talked about how they got caught having sex in the parking lot in Kris's Tahoe and she talked about all the different baseball stadiums they'd had sex in. She was awful at poker, but somehow only ended up losing about $100 of the $1,000 that she had bought in for. She told us how she had sprained her ankle and broken her toe when she fell as she was running up the stairs, because she was in a hurry to get to Vegas to party. Anyway, she quit playing because her toe started hurting her and she didn't think she was going to be able to make it to her room. She wanted someone to push her in one of the chairs from the poker room all the way to her room, but she would not except the floorman's offer of providing a wheelchair for her. She ONLY wanted to get pushed in one of the chairs from the poker room. Long story short, she asked me if I would help walk her to her room and I obliged. On the way to her room she tried to steal one of those hover-a-round scooters that some handicapped person had left outside of the poker room. When we got to the elevators she obviously didn't have her room key or her any ID so they wouldn't let her up to the room. She first tried to call her husband on the hotel phone and dialed the wrong room and woke someone else up at 3:00am. Finally, she called Kris on his cell phone and I left her at the elevators waiting for Kris to come down and let her up. Just another normal night in Vegas!
Here she is in all her glory:
I have been reading a book that was suggested to me by Nick and I find it really entertaining and insightful. The book is "Fooled by Randomness" and it basically just makes you aware of how much stuff that happens in life is a result of chance/variance rather than skill or hard work. I will have more to blog about this book when I am finished reading it, but it hard to re-explain the stuff that he talks about because he writes in a very concise style that isn't easily summarized.
Oh, I almost forgot! Tonight in my 10/20 NL game an attractive extremely drunk woman sat down to play with us. You could tell she definitely had a lot of money somehow and that she clearly didn't belong in this poker game. She then told us her husband was a baseball player so I asked what his name was...Kris Benson. I recognized his name and remembered him pitching for the Pirates and I think it was when he was a rookie. When she said Kris was her husband something was triggered in my memory and I recalled there being some kind of tabloid type publicity involving those two. Of course I immediately google'd "Kris Benson's wife" on my phone and before it had even finished I knew her name was Anna Benson. Anyway, when I got the results and clicked on the first link it told their story and also included some photos of her. There were some quotes of her saying stuff like "I told Kris that if he ever cheated on my I would sleep with the entire Mets organization (his team at the time)". The article also talked about how they got caught having sex in the parking lot in Kris's Tahoe and she talked about all the different baseball stadiums they'd had sex in. She was awful at poker, but somehow only ended up losing about $100 of the $1,000 that she had bought in for. She told us how she had sprained her ankle and broken her toe when she fell as she was running up the stairs, because she was in a hurry to get to Vegas to party. Anyway, she quit playing because her toe started hurting her and she didn't think she was going to be able to make it to her room. She wanted someone to push her in one of the chairs from the poker room all the way to her room, but she would not except the floorman's offer of providing a wheelchair for her. She ONLY wanted to get pushed in one of the chairs from the poker room. Long story short, she asked me if I would help walk her to her room and I obliged. On the way to her room she tried to steal one of those hover-a-round scooters that some handicapped person had left outside of the poker room. When we got to the elevators she obviously didn't have her room key or her any ID so they wouldn't let her up to the room. She first tried to call her husband on the hotel phone and dialed the wrong room and woke someone else up at 3:00am. Finally, she called Kris on his cell phone and I left her at the elevators waiting for Kris to come down and let her up. Just another normal night in Vegas!
Here she is in all her glory:
Friday, December 5, 2008
Random act of kindness....
It is one of my favorite things to do and for whatever reason it had been a while since I had done it, but I love paying for the person's order that is behind me in line in the drive thru at a fast food restaurant. I had to be awake again today at 8am to let the workers in to continue the repairs on our ceiling that was recently damaged when our roof leaked. Anyway, I woke up early and went to McDonalds to get some breakfast and I decided to pay for the person behind me today. It is so awesome seeing their reaction when they go to hand their money to worker and they tell them that it has already been taken care of by the car in front of them. They always looked so confused at first and then you can tell that you just made their day a little better. Today she looked up at me with a big smile and I gave her a wave just kinda saying "you're welcome". She then waved back and mouthed "Why?" and I have her a shrug as if to say back to her...."Why not?". She didn't stop smiling the whole time I was waiting to get my food...it is always much more fun to do when you can tell they are really appreciative and she clearly was. So, for $4.60 I estimate that I made her day and my day like $200 more valuable. That is a pretty sweet investment....$4.60 turned into $400 (2 x $200) worth of enjoyment. I recommend that you do the same the next time you are given the opportunity.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
24 hours in the life of Pat....
I woke up for the day at 11pm
11:30-12:00 - Went to Del Taco for "breakfast".
12:00-7:00am - played 4,261 hands of online poker and won $3,649
7:30-9:00am - Went to the Maple Tree with Nick and Channing for breakfast (my lunch).
10:00-5:30pm - Played 27 holes of golf and ate lunch (my dinner) at TPC with Jimmy and two of his buddies from Wisconsin and won $41 (-$76 in greens fees).
7:00-9:00pm - Played two hours of trampoline dodgeball and won $120 (-$12 in playing fees).
9:30-10:30 - Browsed the internet and wrote this blog.
11:00pm - Bedtime.
I wonder if I will ever grow up? I sure hope not!
11:30-12:00 - Went to Del Taco for "breakfast".
12:00-7:00am - played 4,261 hands of online poker and won $3,649
7:30-9:00am - Went to the Maple Tree with Nick and Channing for breakfast (my lunch).
10:00-5:30pm - Played 27 holes of golf and ate lunch (my dinner) at TPC with Jimmy and two of his buddies from Wisconsin and won $41 (-$76 in greens fees).
7:00-9:00pm - Played two hours of trampoline dodgeball and won $120 (-$12 in playing fees).
9:30-10:30 - Browsed the internet and wrote this blog.
11:00pm - Bedtime.
I wonder if I will ever grow up? I sure hope not!
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