Friday nite, heading home with some excitment, eventhough I had to bail on something. Indeed, I was supposed to go to the CPR with my poker buddy (still no nickname, so he shall remain nameless for the time being :tongue:), but, early in the afternoon, my oldest lady friend told me she was going to have some drinks after work with some peeps. I asked who, hinting at the single woman my friend had mentioned a couple of times in the past, a movie buff whose allegedly perfect for me... Therefore, I got torn apart most of the afternoon between the "gotta see about a girl" and the poker nite scheduled for a while now... And then it happened; my friend's boyfriend invited me to his poker homegame, which was to occur at the girl's place (since her roommate his a poker player)... Then, I definitely wanted in... And my poker buddy gave me his blessings to bail on him... So, I accepted the invite, a tad late though. And the proverbial shit the proverbial fan...

I get home, sit at my desk and login to PokerStars. I play a single Hold'em low limit table to past the time until 6h30, when my friend is going to call and give me the game's location. So I play and spent my time. 6h30 comes and pass and I kinda get the idea of calling myself, but then get dealt Rockets in the hole in position. My concentration doubles and I utterly forget I was thinking of calling my buddy... I win a decent sized pot... 7 o'clock hits and I say to myself "They must be arguing about something... The call'll come real soon"... And the demon is starting his jiggle "you'll end up here all nite... you'll end up here all nite... you'll end up here all nite... ". Sure as an egg is an egg, I never get the call, get pissed off a while cause I could have been playing poker for a couple hundred bucks instead of missing a double opportunity and ending up home alone on a Friday nite... This passes though, as I click the "Tourney" tab of my PS client and see a 5-table Omaha SitnGo almost full. Woohoo!!! Jackpot, I register and end up playing my first Omaha tourney. But that's not all; around 8 o'clock, still on the first few blind levels, I get an email from my friend's boyfriend with the adress of the game and everything... Annoyed, I look at the header and realize that the dude was alright all along, emailing me around 5h30 with these infos... How in the world did I received it almost 3 hours later??? This is still puzzling me to the day...

But, then I rake a good pot with top two pair against a drawing dude paying too much for any draw... Life is better suddenly... Even more when, about 10 hands later, I make THE nuts on the turn and get paid for it, almost doubling up (this is Pot Limit Omaha, needless to say). The high is cut short in the span of 3 hands that get me broke with 2 stupid hold'em plays before the killing hand. Final rank: 17th out of 45. And I still think I could (maybe even should) have won that thing "smirk:...

Very fun first experience. Loads of newbies and clueless peeps. Just like me! The pace is a bit faster since more players take more chances, going at a whim often enough. Makes it a little more crapshoot like, but I think one with good starting hand judgment could do real good getting paid a lot by many Hold'em players looking for a good laugh. Only downside is the rarity of 45 Omaha players registering... I hope the Poker Train eventually picks up on the other games, cause for the time being, peeps do not seem that interested by anything else than Hold'em...

"Will fold for sex (with a chick)"

Yeah, these are the toughest situation I face in poker, lol. And this very important issue (only half-kidding here, as you will probably learn from future posts that I do believe in life, and, well, to me, the love life is an intricate part of this life :smirk:) reminds me of a Tiltboys tale. Well an anecdote rather, about Rafe if I recall correctly. Rafe being THE orignal titlboy, poker IS everything to him. The proof: once in a Vegas casino playing some lousy low limit Hold'em (again iirc), some hottie one table over busts out. Stepping away from the table, she walks to him on definite tilt, and asks him straight up "I feel just shitty now; wanna come up to my room with me and have sex?". And the fscking guy answers "Yeah sure. Let me just play my blinds!". And the sound of a billion geeks and dorks going "d'oh" echoed throughout the desert, jumped the pond and hit just about everyone who ever fantasized about some girl doing exactly that... which is about all of us guys! Hence, some cool dude designer thought of the "Will fold for sex (with a chick) slogan". Priceless. I must admit though, I'd be in a very serious pickle if that meant mucking rockets!!!!

Still, I almost did bail on a poker game to "see about a girl" no later than yesterday... But, the homegame had only 4 players include me, so I went... Didn't regret it, eventhough the "gotta see about a girl" is haunting me now...

Hmmm... Was supposed to go to the CPR yesterday but I chocked like a little schoolgirl dressed in pink! Instead, a good old pal came by and we had a couple of beers, talking life and shitty stuff that happened to me recently (now, Doyle always made a very strong case of playing with a clear mind, and for having forced it a couple of times, I must agree with the greatest - hence, it was better for me to have this conversation than playing some lousy clouded-judgment poker... One must know oneself). Now trying to make sense of these shitty things might have been the priority, but after a couple of beers and a 2-hour conversation, we kinda covered most of the ground needing coverage, so,coming back from the bathroom, I went "Dude, wanna do a little Omaha Heads-up?", and to my extreme but very satisfied surprise he replied without missing a beat "Yeah, sure".

We agreed for a freeze-out style, but since he had to get home earlier, we set a game timer: after 90 minutes, the guy with the most chips wins the other guy's buy-in. Which was a beer :P! It's always nice to win drinks :P! And it's very nice playing heads-up against a good friend; you feel free to validate your reads and insights, show your cards and you're generally almost meta-playing with a poker dialog surrounding the game. I must take Nic on his "drop by to my place and let's do a freeze-out heads-up"... I think we could both benefit greatly from such an activity.

Speaking of the devil! I was browsing 2 + 2 Forums this week and stumbled across a guy posting about "session review and analysis workshop" where players send in a 100-hand session log to 3 other players who will then review and analyze these and get back to the player with comments, suggestions, questions, etc.. Nic and I decided to do this between the 2 of us, to take our poker verbiage to what we hope will become a new higher level... I'll keep you posted on this... I'm also thinking about a log parser to make it easier to read and see the relevant information. We shall see about that though...

Read an interesting and interestingly funny article in this month's Bluff Magazine. The paper, from Jeff Madsen's quill (Go movie lover Go!!!! ;-)), is about Poker (d'uh!), life, decision making and philosophy. Something I've been wanting to tap since I started playing the damn game!!!

No sweat though, cause the guy doesn't go as deep as I would and keeps it very lighthearted, mainly focusing on the difficult decisions one constantly make at the poker table as well as in life. The funniest analogy comes when he tells the anecdote of him having to take a 50 question driver's license test and finding himself one question short of failing when he reaches the last one. Thus, he keeps things smooth and funny, whereas, I'd probably go with a philosophical essay, actually. Something about the self-enlightenment inherent to facing tough moments and bad beats and humongous glories at the poker table. Around poker, one truely finds out what one's worth...

The cool thing with reading such an article by a respected top pro is the feeling that I, micro-stakes small timer, quickly figured there was something very metaphysical about poker and how one plays it...

To be continued... Definitely!

Went to a live tourney yesterday, and once again, some kind of prescience hit me about half an hour before the tourney started; I was going to burst the bubble.

Played what I think was solid poker flirting dangerously with a rocky tightness. I just could not switch gear, intimidated that I was by all this live action (ironically enough, not at all by the big Mike Matusow wannabe sitting in front of me and annoying almost everyone in the club). And, off course, eventually, my inability to efficiently switch gears seemed to have cost me the money. Thrice, following a "battle of the blinds", I thought to myself "now is your chance to build up something" but just could not find my balls :P!

Might be worth mentioning the best hole cards I got all nite: a Gretzky!!! Got pockets ducks twice and, I think a little slick but I'm not even sure :). Considering this, I'm pretty satisfied to have reached the final table.

Final rank: 8th out of 43.

So, yester evening, I'm playing in a 1$ Sit'n Go (I know I know, my stakes are pretty pathetic right now... this is why I label myself as 'learning the game' still :P). Since I am the product of my time, I cannot live without noise, music, something to create the audio background track. Mostly tv, in my case, for I must confess I am what could be called a "tv kid"...

Becoming the perfect Poker geek, I watch the free CGTV channel (Casino Game TV) on a regular basis. I think Poker Night Live is an awesome place to learn plenty of ropes. Anywho, yesterday, I happened to catch a show I wanted to give a shot for a while; The John Patrick Show. Now I know from a poker buddy of mine (I actually only have one for the time being - sad sad sad... And my other friends ARE gamers, just not gamblers :( ) that the dude (John Patrick that is) advocates to play "any two suited cards". Now, I definitely don't know much about poker, but I know this: beginners overvalue suitedness. I know, I did lol. Roughly, suitedness will give you between 0.5% to 2.x% edge against an unsuited hand. Not that relevant when you're a 3 to 1 dog, now is it?

Anyway, this episode was not about poker; it was entitled Introduction to Blackjack and Money Management if I remember correctly :). Besides giving me some interesting insights about blackjack, which I know squat about :P, Patrick dude said one thing that really stuck. Talking about money management, he gave a simple guideline to keep a close monitoring eye on your session's bankroll; simply aim at winning 20% of your bankroll (or table buy-in would be more appropriate in our case :) ), and quit when stuck no more than 40%. I thought this made a lot of sense, especially since I was having a hard time with the burden of having lost an entire buy-in earlier that very same night. The psychological toll of losing all one's session money can be quite overwhelming, and this simple ratio can help one cope better with losses.

Worm: You know what always cheers me up?
Mike McDermott: No, what's that?
Worm: Rolled up aces over kings. Check-raising stupid tourists and taking huge pots off of them. Playing all-night high-limit Hold'em at the Taj, "where the sand turns to gold." Stacks and towers of checks I can't even see over.
Mike McDermott: Fuck it, let's go.
Worm: Don't tease me.
Mike McDermott: Let's play some cards.

Aaaaaahhhhh! Priceless Worm's wisdom!!!

So this it folks!! The brand new Towers of Checks poker blog has just been launched. Off course, since it's all about poker, moreover mostly about MY poker, and since any respectful poker player believes he is the king of the world, what better place to let it all go than a blog???

As you must have guessed already, this should (in an ideal world that is :P) pretty much talk only about poker... My shitty poker game, my shitty bad beats, my underdog and favorite shitty whinings, my prop bets and everything and anything poker related. Hopefully, someday, someone will read this and laugh his or her ass off :P!