Friday night

So just about every Friday night the better half and myself go out for dinner or get takeout. You know end of the week don't feel like cooking. There are several restaurant/pubs near our house that we always get great service and great food but the wife was putting in some overtime so we decided to go to a pub/restaurant near her office that her and some of her office gals go to for lunch. I had been there once before but I think we just had a drink. Anyways my 20 year old son decided to join us. Now the drinking age here in B.C is 19 and has been like that for over 30 years.

We walk in the pub , grab a seat and waitress #1 asks us what we would like to drink and gives us the menus. We order and wait for our drinks. Then waitress #2 comes over and in a really loud voice says to my son you can't be in here as you have to be 19. Now my son looks young and does get asked for ID a lot of the time but the bar staff usually ask politely can we see some ID. They don't automatically say you can't be in here. So my son somewhat embarrassed shows the ID. Then waitress # 3 brings us our drinks but my son (who is not much of a drinker) ordered ice tea (here in Canada ice tea is semi sweet). Anyways his tea was tea with ice added. Pretty gross stuff. Regular ice tea is actually really good and refreshing. He asks waitress #2 to get a pop instead. She says sure and away she goes to get it. Or not.

So we order our food and waitress #3 asks what kind of dressing for my wife's salad. She then precedes to bring the wrong kind. So waitress # 3 brings our food and my son ordered teriyaki chicken wings. Well the wings looked like they were cooked and then a glop of teriyaki was poured on them. Looked gross but my son struggled through them all the while waiting for the pop he had ordered. Finally after he nicely reminded waitress #2 he got his pop.

My potato skins were actually fairly good but my wife's salad was minuscule and she ended getting a another dressing. She then ate one of my potato skins because she was starving.

So then waitress #2 brought the bill and I gave them my credit card. She then brought this machine over to our table which looked like a debit machine but is actually a credit card machine. So I figured oh cool. Anyways not so cool. The machine showed our total and then asked me what I wanted to tip in % not amount. Meanwhile waitress #2 is standing there watching me. It was so complicated trying to figure out which buttons to press I ended up not tipping. I mean I have used machines before that ask how much to tip and you add a dollar amount. This one wasn't like that.

We then felt bad and threw a few dollars on the table and left. I know I probably shouldn't have tipped. It certainly wasn't a dinner to be remembered. I am still trying to figure out why we had had 3 different waitresses. Anyways needless to say I doubt very much whether we will be going back there. There are so many other great restaurants and pubs that I'd rather spend my money at. My wife was certainly surprised by the food and the indifferent service as she said at lunch its usually good and better service but goes to show you a restaurant is only as good as its staff. I might even coin a letter to the owner describing our night. Not that they probably care but we will see.

I was looking at who is still in the 40,000 WSOP event in Las Vegas. What struck me is the lack of huge names that made the top 27. A lot of the big guns were gone right away and most of the so called stars played this event. Good to see Vanessa Rousso cash in 27th place(that was the cutoff). Big names still in are Justin Bonomo, Greg Raymer, Tony G (the Brit)and Andy Black. Other than them all the other so called big names hit the rail early. Top prize money is 1.8 million. Not bad!!! Of course most of the stars probably didn't put in a cent. They were either totally sponsored or people bought a piece of their action.

My Thursday night game was much like my other 2 live games this week. Out early although I did play much better just got beat when my pocket queens went up against AK and she hit both her Ace and her King. Its been that kind of week. Hopefully play better next week at the River Rock.

Grisham, Homeless, WSOP

I have always like millions of others been a big fan of John Grisham. I believe I have read all of his books over the years. Some have been excellent and some just okay so when I got my hands on his latest called (The Associate) I eagerly looked forward to a few hours of entertainment and I wasn't disappointed. This is one of his that you really can't put down wondering where its headed and what will the next page bring. He certainly is a great story teller and I love the lawyer/courtroom dramas that he spins. This without going into too much detail involves a young lawyer fresh out of law school who goes to work for a huge prestigious New York law firm. If you are a fan of his I certainly highly recommend this book. You won't be disappointed.

Here in B.C. like just about everywhere we have a fairly significant homeless population. We have many shelters and places they can go for meals and to get off the street but with our year around fairly mild weather we attract a lot of people. Anyways about a year ago one of these guys went missing. He was a regular at one of the shelters that provides meals and actually had his portrait painted by a local artist. This week they discovered his remains inside a van that he owned. He obviously was using the van to sleep in and it actually had his name on the side. That van had been sitting in this lot for months and nobody thought to check on it or to see if anybody was inside. Very sad way to end his life.

I see the WSOP events started yesterday in Las Vegas with the first event being a casino employees event. The first big one will be the $40,000 buy in. I was reading Daniel Negraneaus blog here and he is entering that event. It will attract a lot of the big names as I am sure with the huge buy in. Of course a lot of them will look at this 40,000 as the big one with the main event now attracting more than 6000 entrants and the likelihood of winning it decreasing each year. They figure there will only be somewhere between 200-300 entrants in this event because of the cost. Now its a lot easier to win a tournament with that many players that it will be to ever with the main event again. Looking at the structure for the main event this year which doesn't start until July they have it set up for as many as 12,000 poker players. That is just incredible. Good luck to anyone trying to win that.

Texting, Driving and Poker

I must be the only person in the Western world that doesn't have a cell phone. Really I don't own a cell phone. I had one once. Lasted for like 6 months and I threw it in a drawer never to be seen again. It's not that I can't afford a cell phone its just that I don't want to be that available. My oldest actually sells them for a living and does really well doing that so he thought a few years ago a great gift for good old dad would be a cell phone. Imagine my surprise when I opened up my gift at Christmas and there it was.

Okay so then he had to give me lesson on how to use it, he got it all set up for me to use and away I go. Then a couple days later I am driving in the car and the phone rings. I panicked how the heck am I supposed to answer this while driving. So I didn't. Then the kids started phoning me all the time. Where are you?? Umm I am the insert(gas station, grocery store, mall) here. They phoned me all the time. I always asked why they were calling. Oh we just wanted to know what you were doing. It was at this point I realized I didn't ever want a phone and it went into a dark place never to be seen again. I honestly cannot understand the fascination with talking on them. It's not that I am anti social or unfriendly but really at 7 AM in the morning while driving to work who the heck are you talking to?? Most people at 7 AM don't want to talk to anybody but are happy to chat away on their cell phone.

Why I brought all this up is it seems everyone at my live poker games has one. They are always ringing, vibrating or whatever they do. Then the texting starts. How the heck can they see the letters to text?? They text while betting, they text before the game, during the game and after the game. I wonder what they do when they are sleeping. Do they text in their dreams??

Here in B.C. it's still legal to drive and talk on your cellphone. Now that is scary. Most people have enough problems driving without having only one hand on the wheel. Oh and add texting to that. Well we have had our first confirmed fatality to someone who was texting while he was driving. He evidently was texting on his Blackberry while driving his truck, crossed the centre line and smashed into another vehicle. He didn't survive. He was 27 years old. Fortunately the other driver is okay. They evidently checked his cellphone records and this was confirmed by his mom who has come forward to let everyone know how dangerous it is.

I know on at least 3 occasions that I was nearly hit while I was out running by people talking on their phones. It's a good thing I am alert and run defensively. I always make sure drivers see me and I make eye contact even if I am in the crosswalk. I know there are hands free models that can be set up in your car. You would think people would care enough to get one of these if they really needed to talk while driving.

If anything can come out of this tragedy I hope our elected peeps get their crap together and follow the lead of a couple other provinces in Canada and a few states in the U.S. and ban them while driving. Nothing is that important that you have to chat while driving.

As for poker carry on using them. Hopefully you distracted enough that I can take your chips.

Last night was an utter disaster at my Tuesday night live game. 5 hands and I was out. Yep 5. That's it!! I won't go into any long detail but let's say I played horrible. Really bad!! Totally over played my hand and got caught..........

I have to be in Richmond next week for 3 nights so if time permits looking forward to playing again at the River Rock Casino. Try and catch a tournament and hopefully a few hours of 1-2.

Smoking and Poker

With my early exit from regular Monday night live game I went outside to chat with some of the other players who had also made an early exit and realized I was the only non smoker in the bunch. Is it my imagination or are there more smokers than the norm that play poker? It sure seems like it. Here in the part of B.C I live in it is of course illegal to smoke in bars ,casinos and basically anywhere indoors except your own home. They are also making it illegal to smoke in your car if kids are in the car. You cannot smoke in doorways to buildings either. We probably have the most restrictive smoking laws of anywhere in the country and really it seems to be working as smoking has decreased. That's a good thing. I certainly have nothing against people that smoke as I grew up in a home where my dad smoked and I realize how hard it is to quit. I just would love to see more people give up the habit. I know my dad tried several times but was unsuccessful. He used to smoke cigarettes without filters and I remember his hand was stained yellow from the nicotine. I can only imagine what his lungs must have looked like. He started when he was 14 and it is what killed him(from a heart attack).

I remember when they first brought in the laws restricting smoking in bars and casinos. There was a huge cry from the bar owners that they would go broke and there was petitions and such from them and of course anybody that smoked. There was letters to the newspapers complaining that their rights were being infringed upon etc. The government didn't give in and of course the bars never went broke and the rate of smoking has gone down.

When I go to Las Vegas where smoking is still allowed in the casinos I find its hard for the first couple days getting used to the smoke. I know they have great ventilation systems in all the casinos but when you don't smoke and you regularly run I notice it right away. I can feel it in my lungs. I wonder if they will ever ban smoking in Las Vegas casinos?? Somehow I doubt it. The one good thing is that most of the poker rooms are non smoking and that's where I spend the majority of my time when I am there.

As I mentioned above I didn't last long playing last night. The hand that eliminated me I was in the dealer position with A7h and I limped in with 4 others. Flop came A,7,9 with 2 spades. I liked the flop but was worried about the spade flush draw. Everyone checked to me so I made a pretty big bet hoping to take it down right there. Everyone folded except the SB. Thought he might have A something or possibly a flush draw. Turn came a 3s. He checked so I made another decent bet and then he pushed all in. HMMMMMM. Did he have his flush or was he trying to push me off?? I was so pot committed at this time I pushed in the rest of my chips with the comment do you have the flush?? Yep he did!! He had 2,8s. Very questionable call on my raise after the flop but he caught his flush so who am I to question. Anyways I needed a Ace or 7 to stay alive and it didn't happen. Oh well another game tonight.

What is with North Korea detonating atomic bombs in this day and age??? This a country where a lot of its citizens are starving and the military leaders are spending millions on the military and for what. Who are they worried about?? It can't be South Korea. China and Russia are nearby but are supposedly its friends. It was good to see that both Russia and China condemned the testing this time. I sure hope that it doesn't escalate over there.

Poker Club

Okay so my youngest son (20) who is an avid poker player now comes home and says he has rented a movie called Poker Club. Cool I thought. Looking forward to watching said movie. So the movie starts and the guys are playing poker (Texas Holdem) and I thought great start. Well the first 5 minutes was all the poker you would see in this movie. In the next 100 minutes or so there ends up with 4 guys, 1 lady all murdered and some plot where the main character had an affair with this younger girl while meanwhile his wife was sleeping with his best friend. Sounds like a soap opera and that's pretty much what this movie was. Oh yea and throw in the fact that one guy owned a strip club and you have the basic ingredients of a lot of movies today. You get murders, strippers and people sleeping around and there is your movie. So if you are expecting to see poker don't rent this movie but if you want a very sub par drama with all the above characters then it might be worth a look if you the video store has not much else.

I see Binions in Las Vegas is running a series to coincide with the World Series of Poker events that start this week at the Rio in Las Vegas. Good for them. Most of the events are of a cheaper buy in (around 100 bucks) and they run until early July.

I watched a bit of the late rounds of the 2008 Aussie Millions Main Event which was being replayed on one of our sport channels and really came away impressed how Eric Seidel plays. Here is a guy who doesn't get the publicity that some of the big names do but sure is real solid player. Love to go to Australia sometime. I have a sister in law who is an Aussie. The only thing that would kill me is the 17 hour flight there. That's a long time in the air for this guy. I am not the greatest flier but much better than I used to be. I remember flying From Vancouver to Hawaii many years ago with a company called Ward Air. They were awesome. Unlimited drinks and incredible food. Of course they are no longer in business. I was so nervous I drank enough drinks to make me relax and the 5 hour flight seemed short. Be tough to do 17 hours though.

A Perfect Table and Ugly Tattoos

Playing my regular Thursday night live game (over 60 players) last night I got seated at what I call a perfect table. I had played with all the people before and knew how they played. There was 2 very good lady players (sisters) who both at times play aggressive and the rest were fairly decent players too. You know the feeling that you get at certain tables that you know you are going to do well. That was last night. I was in seat 8 and actually folded the first few hands until the BB came around to me. With 5 limpers before me I had Q,3 off suit. Stunning hand eh!!! I just checked and then a lovely flop came of 3,3,7. Now normally with trip 3's I probably would check but I thought I would toss in the minimum and see what happened. Bingo. Guy next to me raised. Lady 2 over from him called. Everyone else folded back to me. I am thinking wow and wondering what these 2 have so I just called. The turn was the even more lovely Q which gives me a full house. I just checked, guy next to me bet, the lady called and I thought just call. The river brought a J. I was going to check again but decided to push the rest of my chips in not expecting a call from either. They both called. Bonus. I showed my full house and they of course were shocked. Turns out the guy had pocket kings and didn't raise before the flop. Thought he would slow play his kings. Not good!! He figured he was good with his two pair. Not sure why he didn't raise before or at least put me on trip 3s. Not sure what the lady had as she folded and didn't say. Great start and then just a couple hands later I got moved to another table. Boo!! Never fails you like a table and sure enough you get sent to a table where you aren't as comfortable with the players and their tendencies. But that's poker.
I did manage to hit a full house there but didn't get paid off much as everyone folded to my measly bet. I ended up going out in 12th which was a bit disappointing.

Okay so I am sitting at Starbucks typing this blog this morning and this pretty attractive lady comes in. (yea yea I still notice in my old age). I see her there a lot. She always dresses very nice. She usually walks in gets her drink and then leaves. Well the weather being warmer she was wearing a sleveless shirt. One arm was totally covered in tattoos and the other had a few also. I was floored. Now one tattoo in a certain spot looks okay but not an arm full. What was she thinking? Yea yea I know it's her body (as my daughter told me after her first tattoo) (she now has 3) but it really doesn't look good in my humble opinion. It's like that girl on American Idol this year. Very pretty girl but very ugly arm full of tattoos. Why get so many??? If you are ever at a gym you notice all the younger ones with tattoos just above their rear end. That seems to be the fad. That is okay if its small and cute. I just wish they would avoid getting so many.

Free Stuff

Did I mention how much I like free money?? Well I do. Heck I like free anything. Anyways yesterday afternoon I had a few minutes so I decided to go on Pokerstars and play in their micro cash games with my ultra huge bankroll of 2.20 (remember I have never put any of my money online and never will). This was of course money I had won at a freeroll and built up. I know my morning coffee at Starbucks costs me more than $2.20 but hey its still fun. Anyways I check my bankroll and it says I have 4.20. What's up?? Did I play and forget I had won another 2 dollars?? I decide to check my other email account (the one I use for all online stuff). There is an email from Pokerstars telling me they have given me 2 dollars. Wow. I am impressed. Did they pick my name from a hat?? It can't be from all the praise I have for online poker... Ha Ha. Anyways the only thing was sometime in the next 30 days I had to actually play once online and I could keep the 2 bucks. Unless of course I lost it.
I of course put 40 cents of it at risk and after a gruelling half hour of limit poker built that 40 to 50 cents. No memorable hands. Is there ever memorable hands playing limit?? Anyways I now have 4.30 and the saga will continue.

Speaking of free stuff about 2 months back I got a letter from one of the 2 credit card companies that I have. The letter said we notice Mr DB Cooper (yea its not my real name) that you haven't been using our card can you call us and we would like to discuss this with you. Well the reason I hadn't used this card was because my other card gave me cash for just using it. I get nothing from this company. So I called figuring I would be talking to someone in India or wherever they out source North American jobs to (sore point with me). Anyways I must have got the one agent that still works in the U.S and he was very polite and I explained why I didn't use their card anymore. He said we will gladly match that and would you like a credit increase. Sure why not. Anyways I now have 2 cards that pay me for using them. You see I never in all my years have paid a cent in interest. I pay off the cards each month and charge again. They make nothing from me. So where do they get this cash to pay me?? From the poor merchants who pay a fee each time I buy something in their store. I feel sorry for the merchants. No not sorry enough that I won't use the cards. It's a crazy world. Meanwhile credit card debt continues to rise.

I actually watched the last few minutes of American Idol last night and of course the wrong guy won. Not taking anything away from Kris but that Adam guy was in a class of his own. Chris appealed to the people because of his cute looks and wholesome appearance while Adam was different looking. Not saying that Kris couldn't sing but Adam was far superior. It's become a popularity contest.

You never know

About 6 weeks ago a little girl (Tori Stafford pictured above) in Ontario went missing on her way home from school and of course everyone was frantically looking for her. The parents were devastated and the search turned up nothing. There was a grainy video of a women walking with what looked like the girl but that was it. Then this morning I read that they have charged a guy and a lady with her murder.It will be interesting to see how this plays out. The people charged are supposedly friends of one of the parents.

Why I mentioned this several years ago there was a little girl (Heather Thomas) who went missing in Vancouver. We lived at the time in the Interior of B.C. We had just moved from one city (Vernon) to another (Kelowna). Anyways the news came on the TV that they had found this little girls body and that they had charged someone with her murder. Then the newscaster said the name and I just freaked out. It was the oldest son of our former next door neighbour in Vernon. They actually showed where he lived and our house next door. He had moved to Vancouver for work and had lived in the same apartment complex of the little girl. He was eventually tried and convicted. Now this kid was a normal boy who skied, played football and his 2 brothers played with my kids. The parents were/are great people. I was horrified and to this day still wonder what happened and what caused him to do this. My kids were of course freaked especially my daughter who knew this boy well.I really feel for the parents of this little girl that was killed but I also feel sorry for his parents and his 2 brothers as they have to live with this forever. Really you never know about people.

I played my regular Tuesday night game last night and ended up 12th out of 47. Not as good as the night before but other than 1 huge pot I won I couldn't get anything going. The huge hand I won I got dealt 5,6 in the BB and the flop came 4,7,8. Love it. Straight on the flop and well disguised. I managed to go all the way to the river with a guy to my right who kept calling my bets. He said he was chasing a flush. Anyways a huge pot. That basically was it. I had pocket 10's once and raised and just picked up the blinds. I folded pocket 7's before the flop when there was 2 huge raises. Then I really got blinded away as the cards just didn't come my way.

The only other interesting hand came that I wasn't involved in. A solid lady player made a decent pre flop raise, guy next to her (who will go all in with anything) went all in, went around to another lady who thought for a long time then folded. The original lady called. Turns out the guy had pocket Aces, she had pocket Kings, the lady who made a great fold had pocket Queens as she showed after folding. The Aces held up but it must be really astronomical odds on pocket Aces,Kings and Queens in the same hand.

Poker,Obama, Starbucks,Running

I was reading another blog yesterday here that was talking about politics and it got me thinking how the change in leadership in the U.S has changed the way we here in Canada think of our American neighbours. For the past 8 years all talk here in Canada has been mostly negative about their past president and the policies of his cronies. With the election of Obama all the negativity has gone away. That is a great thing. I don't think most Americans realized (maybe some didn't care) how much damage Bush did to their reputation world wide. I have always been very pro American and for the past few years its been hard listening to everybody complain about Bush but unfortunately most of it was justified.

Now I know Obama is not going to change everything but I will use his recent address at Notre Dame as an example. Prior and during his visit all the pro life abortion people were protesting his speech at a Catholic school. Now Obama who is pro choice could have just ignored the protesters and not mentioned them in his speech but he did and what he said impressed me. He said basically let's agree to disagree but do it peacefully and respectfully. I mean we can argue until the ends of time whether you think abortion is right or wrong (I am pro choice) and the debate will never end. People just need to respect that we all aren't going to think and act the same on all issues. Okay enough politics.

My youngest son works at Starbucks and one of the great things about that is he gets a free pound of coffee a week to take home. Since he doesn't drink much coffee at home as he also gets free coffee while he is working. Guess who gets that free pound? Me. Well my wife shares it too. I love it. We have a cupboard full of coffee. It also make great gifts too. Now I know some people hate Starbucks coffee saying its too strong or whatever but personally I love it and this from a guy who until a couple years never drank coffee. Seriously!! I went through most of my life without coffee and now of course I am an addict!

Well I played my usual Monday night game last night and I actually played pretty well. I think there was 40 of us. I started off well when getting dealt a couple of low pairs early 5's one time and 6's another and both times managed to bet people off the pots.. Then I went card dead for awhile until someone went all in in early position and I looked down and had A10s and I called and doubled up. He had pocket 3's. I hit my straight. After that not a lot of memorable hands but I managed to make it to the final table. I won a couple decent pots there and was looking great until I got dealt KQ. 3 of us limped in. Flop came Q63.Lady to my right immediately went all in. I had her covered and figured my hand was good so I called. The other player folded. Lady turned over QJ so I was looking great and had her covered . Yea you guessed it the lousy Jack came on the turn and she doubled up. I was crippled after that but managed to hold on and went out in 6th.

Watched a movie on the weekend called Taken with Liam Neeson. It was not bad. Lots of action although a little hard to believe that one guy could do all what he did in the movie but without giving away too much plot it certainly was worth renting. Basic storyline is his daughter gets kidnapped and he has to find her.

My running is suffering lately. I am still running 4 days a week but I used to run 6 or 7. I used to always have a running goal whether it be an upcoming marathon or half marathon now the motivation just seems to be not there. I honestly don't know whether I will ever run a race again. One thing now though is when I do run I always enjoy it now and before I used to force myself on some days to run as I knew I needed to get out there and put in the miles. Maybe that's a good thing. Running is supposed to be fun.

Long Weekend and Headsup Final

I had no poker planned for this weekend as we had a non poker playing friend in from out of town. Its a long weekend here in Canada. Its called Victoria day. Not sure why we still call it that as why honor some dead queen from another country but for the working folks it's a paid day off so they can call it anything they want.

Downtown was swarming on Saturday night. We had 3 huge cruise ships in town and there was tourists everywhere. We actually went by the cruise ship terminal and as usual I was blown away by the size of the ships. Still haven't done a cruise but it's in the plans in the next couple years. As long as I can find one that deals poker during the cruise!!!

Watched the 3 hours of the semis and finals of the NBC Headsup Challenge. The match between Farha and Seed was a marathon with Huck I think realizing that Farha was a better after the flop player because I couldn't figure out why Huck was pushing with almost every hand (why else was he pushing). I wasn't impressed with his play in that match at all and I think Farha should have won. Huck just got really lucky in my opinion. I really came away impressed with Farha's play though. Very patient and he really wanted to play poker not just let a race decide it. I think he folded K10 suited twice and he might have been getting a little frustrated with Huck's all in or nothing plays.

In the other match I thought Rousso played well against Grospellier and actually it was a pretty even match. Nice to see her win. Grospellier is very aggressive and will play any two cards.

In the final Huck played so much better and basically had Rousso wondering what he had most of the time. She actually had Quad Aces and Quad 8's during the two matches but didn't get paid off too much when Huck made a great lay down on the quad Ace hand. He just basically had her number and she knew it at the end. She did incredible in beating the competition she did in her five previous matches.

PAD

I managed to catch Poker After Dark yesterday. This weeks installment is a cash game and has its usual interesting cast of players like Phil Laak,Tom Dwan,Antonio Esfandiari, Kenny Tran, Bob Safai and Phil Hellmuth. I really like the cash game format as opposed to the usual 120,000 dollar winner take all this show usually has. There has been a lot of great interaction amongst the players and of course the usual lying about what they folded. A prime example yesterday Phil Laak who was actually on a straight flush draw and he made a huge bet around 70,000 dollars and Safai who had an open ended straight draw finally folded. Asked afterwords what he had Laak said a pair of Queens. Its so funny because they can do it with a straight face knowing that Safai will see what he had on TV. I also think Dwan was getting a little tipsy as he twice asked for another round of drinks. Anyways love the show and hope they do more cash games.

I was reading Vegas Rex's blog yesterday and I guess Las Vegas had a bikini parade down the strip yesterday. They got just under 300 ladies, gave them each a bikini and 100 bucks to parade down the strip and then the Las Vegas mayor declared summer had officially started. You gotta love Las Vegas. I also loved Rex's pictures of the event.

Yesterday I mentioned that in our recent provincial election we had only 53% of the eligible voters cast ballots. Well it appears my numbers were wrong. It was actually worse as only 48% exercised their vote. That is so pitiful.

Well the final 4 of the hockey playoffs are set and it will be Chicago against Detroit and Carolina against Pittsburgh. I would love to see a Chicago and Pittsburgh final but Detroit will be tough to beat.

I played a live game last night and once again really couldn't get anything going. Managed to steal a couple blinds and also took one guy out when he pushed with A,7 and my A,K magically held up. I lost a lot of chips chasing a flush and straight draw where the odds said I should but neither materialized so I was fairly short stacked when I got AQh in middle position. I pushed got 2 callers which surprised me and when the Q hit on the flop I figured I might triple up. They were checking it down until the river when a K hit and one lady bet , got a bit of a dirty look from the other lady and a realization from me that I was gone. She flipped over K9..A strange call but she hit her river card so who am I to question. I had the other lady beat or so she said when I showed what I had. So that's 6 games in a row were I haven't final tabled. Not the kind of streak I like!!!!

True Crime

I have always been someone who has in interest in true crime. I am not sure what fascinates me about the subject but give me a true crime novel or show on TV and I will watch. I think I have read most if not all of Ann Rules true crime stories. I have always been intrigued by what makes an average person cross that line. What made Ted Bundy do what he did?? What was the trigger that set him off? He was a fairly successful guy. What made Scott Pederson kill his wife Laci when he could have just divorced her if unhappy. What set off those boys at Columbine?? We now know it wasn't because they were bullied. What made Clifford Olsen up here in Canada kill all those kids not far from where I lived in the eighties?? He was married with a child. Did his wife have any idea of the monster she was married to?

Anyways I find the subject fascinating and recently came across a blog written by a group of women which delves into true crime in the U.S. Now this blog is definitely written with a feminist approach but the authors are all very well educated and discuss cases that are either before the courts or that are soon to be tried. Very interesting stuff. The name of the blog is Women in Crime Ink.

I played my usual Wednesday micro limit cash game at Pokerstars yesterday and managed another winning session. I have to admit that I am liking playing limit for a change. At the level I am playing I find players are really overplaying their hands and being the patient guy I am I can so far manage a profit. I won't get rich playing but its money I won playing a freeroll anyways.

With our election over and done with here in B.C the sad thing that came out was that only 53% of the people voted. What is with that?? People love to complain but when almost half the eligible voters don't even bother to get off their butts to vote there is something wrong. I am not sure what can be done other than making it compulsory to vote but that would be a nightmare and who would enforce it. I took my youngest son (his first time voting) to the polling station and got a couple of compliments from people saying that its nice to see some young people out voting. Looking around I realized that really there wasn't anyone there under the age of 30. What does that say about the future??

Reality TV and Poker

Much has been said in other blogs about Annie Duke's appearance on Celebrity Apprentice. While I have to admit I do watch two reality shows (Survivor and American Idol on occasion). I absolutely refuse to watch a reality show promoted and decided by Donald Trump. I mean cmon this is TV at its absolute worst in my opinion. One person decides who is going to win at the end?? What is that all about?? While I think it probably was good that Annie Duke appeared on this show as it will help making poker and poker pros more visible to the non poker playing public. The fact is I really wanted to see how Annie Duke was doing but the whole premise of the show is a joke and I couldn't force myself to watch even though I really like Annie and have read her book. Reading other blogs like Daniel Negraneaus here gave me a rundown on what transpired and really it seems like it was all probably pre determined who would win anyways. Now Daniel says he would go on the show if asked. Cmon Daniel put your name in for Survivor or something like that.I remember that there was a poker pro on Survivor a couple seasons back but his name escapes me. Let the Apprentice die a natural death then Trump can go back to deciding who can keep his beauty pageant crowns that he sponsors.

I played my usual Tuesday night game last night and really had a very unspectacular night again. Card dead wouldn't fully describe my game last night. The only face cards I saw all night were KQ 3 times. Yep not once Ace all night. I won twice with KQ but one was a split pot. I limped in with 4 others early on when I was dealt KQ and and the flop came 10,10,Q. Pretty good flop. One guy bet and I called along with 1 other. The turn was another Q...... I am liking this. The original bettor then made a huge bet which told me he probably had the other Q but I hoped he was instead betting on his 10. Anyways I pushed all in. The third guy folded and the original raiser called and he had AQ. We split and good thing that other Q came on the turn or I was in big trouble. I manged to triple up later when I was short stacked and pushed with KQ. My KQ held up when nobody paired. They both had Ace something. Then when we were down to 18 players from our original 38 I decided to push again with KQ and the BB called with A7 (he had a pretty decent chip stack). Nobody paired anything and his Ace held up. Sometimes when you are that card dead you can steal some pots with marginal cards but it seemed like last night everytime someone was raising preflop and my hands were so mediocre that I just just mucked.

Well the election is over and basically nothing changed. The Liberals go back in with about the same amount of seats here in B.C and the STV went down to defeat. The one good thing I do like now that we have here in B.C as opposed to other provinces is that we have a fixed election date. That way we only go through this exercise every 4 years. Previously provincial governments could call an election at anytime and it still works that way federally. I prefer the American system of set election dates. Makes way more sense.

Slow Playing

No not that kind of slow playing. I mean playing slow. So I was at my regular Monday night game and I think there was 45 or so there. Most of them I have played with before at some point but there is always a couple different or new people. Anyways there was this new guy there. He said before we started that he had played a lot on the Internet in cash games at Fulltilt and Party Poker. I thought great. Its always nice to get new faces and really even if they haven't played much most of us are a patient bunch and will explain rules if someone does something that's not right. The way this guy talked it looked like he would fit in perfectly. uMMMMMMMM no. The cards were dealt and when it was his turn to act he would just stare at everybodys chips for like it seemed forever before he either bet or folded. At first I thought it was he wasn't sure what to do which is common for the Internet folks who haven't played live. On the Internet of course everything is basically down for you except clicking an option. Anyways after a few hands I could see other people getting frustrated so I said a couple times the action is on you. That didn't help. I can understand after the flop if you take time to make a decision occasionally or when you are making a decision which can cost you all or most of your chips but this was before the flop everytime. The thing was this guy was winning. Not with any degree of skill either he was just hitting the cards and rivered a couple people. He was still in last night after I got eliminated. It was going to be a long night with his chip stack unless someone took a huge pot from him. I know a lot of people made comments to me afterwords wishing he would speed up. It was literally putting me to sleep waiting for him to play.

Things didn't fall right for the Canucks last night either. Getting beat 7-5 is unbelievable. They had the lead like 3 times and gave it up. Who would have thought 7 goals would get by Luongo who many consider to be the best goalie in the league. So its to the golf course for them. They have some major decisions to make in the off season. Do they resign Ohlund and Sundin. Are the twins worth 6.5 million each with the current salary cap?? Luongo is going into his option year do they try and resign him or trade him?? I know he has a no trade clause in his contract but those can be waived by the player. Should be an interesting off season

Election day here in B. C. I don't think there will be much change in who gets elected if you listen to the election polls. The most interesting thing will be the referendum on changing how we count votes. The current system is what they call first past the post. You get the most votes in a riding you are elected. Now they want to bring in a system called the STV which stands for the single transferable vote. What it would do is allow parties who say got like 18% of the vote possibly get someone elected. You would vote for your first, second and third choices. The problem is most people (me included) don't fully understand it.
What happened a few years ago was one part got like 45% of the overall vote but elected 95% of the people. This new idea would not allow that to happen. Anyways I voted for change but I doubt very much if it will pass.

Venetian

I was on the All Vegas Poker site this morning and I see that the Venetian in Las Vegas has come aboard as a sponsor of the site. Kudos to them for doing that. It certainly is in my mind the best site for information on poker even if its just Las Vegas related. I actually check the site every day and read the trip reports and discussion on hands. They are actually getting 100,000 hits per month on the site which is tremendous. I hope that even with a sponsor like the Venetian that they will still be able to post balanced poker room reviews because as a twice yearly visitor to Las Vegas I always count on what they are saying as to where I play when I visit Las Vegas. My visits are always with my non poker playing wife (she is very understanding) so my poker hours are somewhat limited so I usually have a couple tournaments picked out before and of course as many hours of cash games as time permits. It will be interesting to see if other rooms also decide to take out ads.

I was down on the waterfront this weekend and it seemed really busy. Lots of tourists in town and lots of people walking around. I know that a lot of the cruise ships have stopped visiting ports in Mexico because of the current swine flu crisis and have diverted some of the ships north. Ports in Seattle and San Francisco and of course Vancouver and Victoria will benefit from this. On Wednesday we had 2 huge ships in town and that certainly helps our tourist count and I know the restaurants and shops are grateful but you certainly have to feel sorry for the Mexican resorts as all reports say they are hurting big time. I think it will take months if not years for them to recover. One really cool thing was seeing all the vintage cars driving around. Its a tradition on mothers day weekend for them to do that. I have never been a car buff but I certainly admire all the guys that spend hours on their cars. They all looked great.

Game 6 tonight for the Canucks. There was a lot of whining about the refereeing after game 5 but I thought all the calls against the Canucks were good calls and they have to stop taking stupid penalties. They have beaten Chicago before in Chicago and they just have to play smart tonight.

High Roller

I finally got around to watching the movie High Roller which is a dramatised version of the Stu Ungar story. I had read a lot about Stu so the movie itself was just okay. It flashed back and forth from near the end of his life to how it all started. I would like to have seen more poker scenes in the movie and had more content about his WSOP wins but I think the intent was more of the hard life he swirled into. I read that they figured he won somewhere around 32 million but he blew it all through sports betting and drugs. It's kind of sad to see someone who had so much talent die at such a young age. I know that it is very unlikely that anyone will ever win the main event 3 times like he did. The fields are too deep and too good now. That's not to take anything away from Stu who was a one of kind guy.

I watched the quarter finals of the NBC Heads Up Championship on TV this morning. always nice to watch how the hands played out. Big moments today were:

1. Hellmuth going all in with pocket queens and getting called by Grospellier with pocket Aces and that was it for Phil.
2. Negraneau making a questionable call playing Rousso which he lost and let her back in the game. She then got on fire and beat him.
3. Hard luck loss to David Williams when he flopped a full house and then got beat by Farhas higher full house which he caught on the river. Williams was shocked to say the least.
Semifinals and finals next week.

I haven't played any poker all weekend. Not even one game on the Internet. Nice to take a break after having less than satisfying week playing. I have another live game tomorrow night so hopefully things will improve.

Lady Luck

Luck plays a part in any poker players game. We all know this. To think it doesn't is a bit misguided. Some nights she's smiling on us and some nights you can't win. To get anywhere in a tournament whether it be a major WSOP event, WPT event or a tournament at your local casino a few times during that tournament you will need Lady Luck smiling down on you. We all try to play smart ABC poker to advance in tournaments and after playing for over 30 years I know playing smart doesn't always win. You still need that luck factor. We all have gone in with hands that were huge favourites and watched someone get their one or two outer to win the pot. We have also been on the other end too where we have called an all in and been the distinct dog on the hand and watched a beautiful turn or river come up.

Luck seems to come in streaks to me. When I am running good my hands hold up but of course that's not always the case. The hardest thing to learn is not to let the times they don't get under your skin. It's one of the things about this game that I still deal with today. You can't let it affect your game.

My youngest son plays and plays fairly well but he tends to let the so called (bad beats) get to him. I keep reinforcing that just to play his game and not to let one hand affect his game for the rest of the evening. Its a learning process and I have already noticed a huge improvement on his part. Before if someone got that one outer he would then go on tilt and that's not good. We both discuss the hands later and analyze what we did right and of course what we did wrong. I keep emphasizing to him that even if you did everything right in the hand sometimes luck just isn't with you.

Why I decided to write this post was that back on March 19th I made this post about how Frank Calo won a NLH event at Atlantic City. He called an all in with AJ and the other player had KK. The flop came K,5,2. That gave the other player top set but the turn brought a 4 and the magical 3 fell on the river. Before the flop he was a 70 to 28% dog. After the flop he was only a 6% favourite to win the hand. The 4 on the turn brought him up to 9%. Yet luck was on his side and he won.

Would he have won this tournament if he had lost this hand? Probably. He had obviously played really well and was the chip leader at this point in the tournament but he still needed that luck to be on his side in this particular hand. I had the pot size wrong in my original post as Frank pointed out to me in a comment that was submitted today and for that I apologize. I had gotten the pot size from another site and obviously it was wrong but the cards weren't. As he said in his comment that even if he had lost this race he would still have been the chip leader. The point I was making was that we all know that in tournaments you need that luck at times to be on your side and Frank certainly had it in this case.

I am not sure how Frank Calo (pictured above) found my blog amongst the thousands of poker blogs out there but thanks for reading and I look forward to seeing you win more.

On a totally unrelated topic to the poker world is something as a Canadian I am embarrassed to say still happens in our country. That is the seal hunt. This happens mainly in Newfoundland and has been a way of life for ever but it must stop. They club the seals over the head to kill them. If you have a squeamish stomach don't google it as it will sicken you. Can we not retrain these people in other jobs?? I honestly can not believe that we still allow this to happen. Very sad. It is so barbaric.

Game 5 tonight. Canucks/Blackhawks. Should be a good one!!

Bad Night

Boy did I play bad last night. I am not sure what I was thinking but it certainly wasn't playing smart. I think I should have just stayed home and watched the hockey game.

Anyways a synopsis of the night. We actually had over 50 playing last night which surprised me with the game on. It shows us poker people are a dedicated bunch. The night for me started out good. I liked the table I was at and won the first hand when my Q10 held up on a board of K,10,7,3,2. Not a huge pot but a good way to start. That was the last bright spot for the night. Got a bit card dead and then with some early knockouts they broke down my table and got seated at another table.

I was still card dead and usually I have excellent patience but for some reason I decided to play A5d from middle position with one limper already in. I really hate that hand. Why am I in there?? oh and to boot with the blinds at 200-400 I decided to min raise to 800. What was I thinking? The only good thing that happened was that everyone except the original limper folded and the flop came A,J,7 rainbow. He checked and I thought he whiffed on the flop so I made another bet of 800. He re raised me to 1600. Okay so now what do I do. Somebody at the table who knows how I play made a comment I bet you didn't expect that. Yea surprise was written over my face I am sure. Well the smart thing here would have been to get out. Notice I said the smart thing. Anyways I made the dumb call. The turn was a blank. He bet like 2000 and fortunately this time I folded. That's the problem playing those kind of hands you don't have a lot of wiggle room after the flop unless its a good flop for you and only you. Even then its so risky.

Well that certainly crippled me but I had a chance to get back those chips and more when just after getting moved again I got dealt Q8c in the BB. Just one limper to me after the SB folded. Flop came K,8,4. No clubs. The limper made a bet which would put me all in. Why would he bet so high if he hit his K unless he had a small kicker? I thought maybe he he had A4?? What would he have limped in with?? I was convinced I was good and then at the last minute mucked my hand. Sure enough my read was right as he had J8 as he showed.Wow J8. He just bought himself the pot and shortly after I was out anyways when my pocket 7's got beaten. It certainly was a very forgettable night.

It was a forgettable night for the Canucks too as they decided their 1-0 lead was good and went into a defensive shell and even with the best goalie in hockey you can't do that. It cost them when Chicago scored late and won in overtime.

Great Hands

I was reading Cardgirls blog yesterday (always a good read) and she was talking about hitting another Royal Flush online. I am not sure exactly how long she has been playing but this is her fourth Royal with 3 of them being online. I congratulated her of course as its always great to get the ultimate hand but it got me thinking about the amount of great hands that appear to happen in the online world. Is it out of kilter to what happens in the real world?? Cardgirl said a Royal Flush happens every 1 hand out of every 650,000 approximately. She said she has played over 2 million online hands which would equate to getting her 3 online Royal flushes.

Now I have only hit one Royal in my life and it was live. I have hit straight flushes online a couple times and this week in consecutive days hit quad jacks and quad tens. In fact online I have hit quad everything I think yet I play a live game 3 times a week and have been playing poker live for over 30 years and haven't hit the same kind of hands and quantity that I hit online and I play way more hours live than I do online. I know my son who has only been playing for a year has hit a Royal and a couple straight flushes online already. That seems pretty high to me. Not to mention the amount of quads he has hit. Now I know all the pros contend the online game card sequence is similar to the live game but hey they have a monetary reason to say that. The big argument of course is that with the amount of rooms and hands being dealt that these big hands are going to fall way more often.

That may be true but how do we really know that they have it programmed to be correct. I know reading different forums on poker the people that play for cash online having differing views on this. Some say the big hands fall more often so that the poker sites get a higher rake?? Is that possible?? Who is actually monitoring the poker sites?? How much are they making yearly?? What are they paying to the pros that they sponsor??

Its probably a discussion that will never be resolved as there is no way of really telling if high hands fall more often in online poker but this guy will always be a skeptic. Meanwhile I wait for my next Royal flush to hit.

Pokerstars WSOP freerolls

Pokerstars is running freerolls 14 times a day from now until April 26th until June 20th these are shootout formula where you win your table and move on to the next table. The eventual winner long ways down the road gets a free entry into the WSOP Main Event.

I played in one this afternoon and there was somewhere around 9300 entrants (maximum10000). This was divided into 1000 tables and you had to win your table to get through. I was at a very competitive table but thanks to getting decent cards including quad jacks I managed to out last everyone and moved on. Second round action was even tougher. We were down to 3 at my second round table when after the flop I was looking at trip kings when I pushed. The chip leader called chasing a flush and rivered it. I was out but still a fun formula. The other interesting hand in the second round also involved kings. I was dealt pocket kings. I bumped it up 3 times the BB. Got one caller. Flop came QQ10.. HMMM not the best. I thought he might have a pocket pair or something like A10. I pushed and he immediately called . I had him covered but he flipped over 10,10. Yikes I was in big trouble. The turn was a blank but the river brought me another Q. Love it. Bad news for him as my Queens over Kings beat his Queens over 10s. I might check them out again when I have some time in the next couple weeks.

I Played my usual Wednesday cash limit game with my 40 cent buy in. As usual I played until either I lost the 40 cents made a buck or 45 minutes passed. Well after 45 minutes I had 42 cents....... I am getting rich......... 2 more cents to the bankroll. I now have 1.86.........

I played my P league live tournament last night and really played horrible. I made a very weak decision early (calling when I had a straight and knew he had a higher one) got short stacked and was out early. Oh well. Playing another game tomorrow night.

Game 3 of Vancouver/ Chicago series ended in a great result for us. Vancouver played their best game of the series so far and Chicago played their worst. Game 4 should be awesome on Thursday night.

Pub League Poker

In the past few years with the surge in popularity of poker there has been an ever increasing demand for places to play the game. Of course we can all go online and play 24 hours a day (not my favourite), we can head down to our local casinos (if you have one in your city or town) or what has evolved across Canada and some places in the U.S. is pub poker.

How this works is a company comes in to your local pub , provides the cards, poker chips, table covers and a host and charges the bar a fee for doing this. Players come in and must purchase at least one drink (doesn't have to be alcoholic) in order to play. Now of course a lot purchase more than one drink. The bars usually run these poker nights on the slower nights Monday to Thursday.It can be a tremendous boom to their bottom line on quiet nights. There is no other cost to the players and no entry fee is collected. The players play for points which are allocated according to your finish during the night. Each player is given 5000 chips to start and there is an add on of 1000 chips if you purchase food in the pub. The winning player gets 750 points, second 400 and it goes down from there. Everyone gets 20 points just for showing up. Generally on any given night you will see anywhere from 40-65 players.

The league I play in compiles the points during the season which runs around 15 weeks. At the end of the regular season these points determine your chip allocation at our final tournament which awards prizes. Some prizes in the past have been an entry into a WSOP event in Las Vegas or an entry into the local poker Championships plus other prizes. The league has around 300 or so active players.

The quality of play would be very similar to your average 1-2 NL game at your casino. A great way to improve your poker skills at really no cost other than what you drink or eat. I usually play 2-3 times a week at different locations.
I was reading Cardgirls blog and she mentioned her B.league poker and I wondered if she had somewhat the same format.

I find it has improved my game considerably and now when I go to my local casino or Las Vegas I feel confident in my ability to play well. I know that I may not always win (who does) but I know that if I make the right decisions more often than not I will log a winning session. I mean where would you rather play staring at a computer screen with computer generated cards or play with other people live. To me its a no brainer. The quality of the play is much higher than you see in the free games online. I know the young internet people who come out and play take a few weeks to adjust to the live game. It's so different.

So I played last night in the P. League poker. I had a young, loose aggressive guy (good player) to my left. I really prefer having passive people to my left. Great to steal blinds off of. I knew this player would have none of that. First hand I got deal AK. Raised it up. He called. I whiffed on the flop, thought about a continuation bet but checked and of course he bet and I folded. (yea he probably had nothing either). Anyways a few hands later I get pocket 6's in Early position. I bumped it up and he immediately re raised me. Everyone else folded and so did I. Good fold he had pocket queens.
A few hands later I got pocket 3's. I just limped in but he put in a big raise, got one caller (not me I folded). Turned out he had Kings this time. Not looking good.

Only other memorable hands of the night I got dealt J,10h. I limped in with 2 others. Flop was 678 rainbow. Everyone checked. Turn was a 10. I bet to see where I was at and both called. River was a nice 9 giving me a jack high straight. I bet and they both folded. Just an okay pot.
The only other hand of note was in the dealer position I got dealt 9,5. Everyone had folded to me so I just limped in. SB and BB both came along. Flop was 655. Great flop. I checked hoping someone caught something. No such luck. Turn was a 9 giving me the boat. Checked again and so did everyone else.. River was a 3 I think. Anyways I bet a small amount and of course they both folded. Figures.

The night came to and end when I was in the BB and getting really short stacked and and a early position player shoved all in with what I correctly thought was a low pocket pair. I had A5. Not a stunning hand but considering my chips and what was already in the pot with ante's etc. I called. He had pocket 4's. Two over cards for me but I couldn't catch and I was out. Still as always a fun night.

I was playing online yesterday in just a fun game and got dealt J10. I love this hand. Over the years I have won great pots with it in live action. Its also an easy hand to get away from and if you can get in cheap it can be very profitable. Anyways the flop came 10,10,10. Quads on the flop. I have had quads lots online over the years(way more than you should but that's a different rant). First time though that I got it on the flop. Turns out 2 other players had pocket pairs. One with 7's and the other had 8's. I just called all their bets to the river of course. That's the kind of hand you want in a money game especially with both of them having a full house on the flop too.

Game 3 tonight in the hockey playoffs. Canucks are in Chicago. It's going to be tough winning in their building. Caught a bit of the Pitsburgh, Washington game last night. What a great show by both teams. Both Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin got 3 goals each and showed why they are 2 of the premier players in the league today.

Heads up

Well we only got to see part of the quarter finals of the NBC Heads up Poker today on tv (long hockey game) but the matches they did show were entertaining. Even though I knew the results its still fun watching them.

The highlights for me were
1.Negraneau dressing like Scotty Nguyen. Now that was priceless. Negraneau won

2. Hellmuth saying Dwan is one of the best poker players in the world. Um well Phil he may be good online but until he wins a lot live he's just another guy and I don't mean the huge cash games that the average guy can't buy in. Last year Phil lost to Dwan when his aces didn't hold up when Dwan who had pocket 10's got his trips on the turn. Of course Phil then said Dwan had played it wrong. Whatever that's Phil.

3. Vanessa Rousso winning her match. Only complaint is I wish Vanessa would lose the hat because she's got great hair. Good win though.

Looking forward to the round of 8.

Watched the Canucks lose on Saturday night. Had a bad feeling right from the start even though they were up 2-0. They were getting out skated and outplayed. Game 3 is Tuesday night in Chicago

I watched the Kentucky Derby on Saturday. Great to see a horse that did not cost millions win it. I love horse racing but I always love to see the underdog win. It was also really great to see the jockeys reaction. I know he won 2 years ago but there is a guy who loves what he is doing. That horse was flying in the stretch.
I remember going as a little kid with my dad to the track in Vancouver. My dad never bet large sums of money but he loved going and I loved going with him.

Tipping

I generally regard myself as a fairly generous person who when he goes out to dinner or the bar I almost always tip. I know the folks that work in the service industry for the most part depend on their tips. If the wife and I have dinner and the service is pretty good I usually leave somewhere between a 10 and 15% tip. I know some people say you should tip 20% but I feel that the amount I tip is still fairly generous. What I have a problem figuring out is where do you stop tipping. I quite often throw some change in the tip jar at Starbucks, I toke the dealer after a winning hand playing at the casino, heck I even tip the bartender who brings the wife a drink if we are sitting at the bar. Now I am starting to see tip jars at fast food places where you go to order get pick up. I know the wife tips her hairdresser.When you go on holidays you are supposed to tip the room attendants who clean your room every morning. That's a lot of tipping. I know we have gone out with people who don't tip which means when the bill comes having to make up for that persons tip.You read some message boards and the subject of tipping is always a very volatile one. Some people say they never tip because they don't receive tips in their job.

Years ago I worked as a limo driver on weekends to make some extra money when my kids were young. I got some pretty decent tips for basically doing my job and being friendly. Of course it helped that I was born in Vancouver and when I had tourists in the limo I gave them lots of interesting facts about Vancouver. I have to admit I loved the tips.

Someday I am going to start keeping track of how much I have tipped on a monthly basis. I bet its a lot. My question is maybe we should start paying our service people more and then we aren't always struggling to figure out what and who to tip. I know some countries like Australia and New Zealand you don't see tipping like you do here.

I went and played a live game last night. There was about 45 of us. Early on I wasn't getting hands and when I did get something (which wasn't much) I completely whiffed on the flops. Looked like it was going to be an early exit until I hit a flush and 2 people played it to the river with me (not sure why) and I won a decent pot which gave me some breathing room for awhile. Still it was one of those nights where I was folding almost everything. Then I finally got some decent cards. I hit AK and pocket aces and managed to win a couple smaller pots. It was enough to get me to the final table. There I was one of the 2 short stacks when I got dealt pocket jacks. I immediately pushed (although I hate jacks). Got one caller who had A 10. Some how my jacks held up which isn't usually the case. Two hands later I got dealt A10h. I was going to limp in but decided on a min raise. Guy next to me went and reraised. Having played with him before I thought he had a small pocket pair. Then the guy in the BB went all in. This guy is really loose and plays incredibly let us say different cards. Anyways looking down at what I had left I was getting the right odds to call. I did and guy next to me flipped over pocket 4's and the BB had AQ (that was a shock) as he would call with just about anything). Not looking good. Got an Ace on the flop but couldn't hit the 10 and I was out in 8th.
Still pretty happy considering the cards I had early on. One thing about this game is learning patience when you are card dead.

While I was playing last night I was keeping one eye on the hockey game. Helped that I was folding a lot . Anyways pretty decent result. Canucks had a 3-0 lead, went into the tank a bit in the third period and the Hawks tied it up but they showed great character and managed a 2 late goals and won 5-3. Looking forward to game 2 Saturday night.