Poker as Usual

I almost didn't play tonight. I was really tired after a long day at work, and I was running late for the tournament, but I decided at the last minute to get off at Exit 9 on 400 and play at Sidelines Grill. It was fun, but I ended up busting out around 15th of about 35 total players or so.

It started off great. I was sitting to the right of a regular named Brian who plays every week but usually shows up drunk. He's got a good knowledge of the game, but he really likes to bluff a lot and I'm pretty sure I've got a tell on him. On the second hand of the tournament I drew pocket 10's and raised 1000 out of the big blind. Brian and another guy call me. The flop is low garbage, so I bet 500. Brian pushes all in and the other guy folds. I look at Brian for about 20 seconds and he's just staring down at his hole cards. Normally he's laughing it up and talking a lot. I ask "So Brian, you got a high pair or a low pair? Gimme a hint here." He doesn't say anything and just slowly shakes his head. At this point I'm pretty sure he's blowing smoke, so I call him. He flips up his 89o and says something about it "mostly being a bluff and at leasts he's on a straight draw." Fourth and fifth are garbage and I double up early in the tournament.

A few hands later I got the only hand I was really proud of. I had A5 of clubs and limped in as first to act. There was a small raise of about 400 and I was the only caller. The flop had 3 clubs and I had flopped the nut flush! At this point I decided to try sell the hand and did something I don't normally do and threw in a bit of acting. I looked at my cards for about 10 seconds, sighed a little, and checked. The other guy checked me pretty quick. Fourth street was garbage and I looked at my cards, sighed a little, and checked. He checked as well. The fifth card was no help and I knew I had the nuts at that point. I didn't want to risk him checking out on me so I threw in 500 chips. He reraised another 500 and I reraised 1000. He called and I showed him the nut flush. He wouldn't even show me his cards. Heh. At that point I had close to 15k in chips and you start with 5k, so I was sitting pretty. So of course it was time for me to go on tilt.

I switched tables and still had a good many chips left, even though I had lost quite a bit chasing draws, which is a bad habit I need to get out of. I was soon down to 2000 in chips and went all in with 89o. I had two callers and ended up winning the main pot with a pair of 9's. The next hand I had pocket 10's and got in a betting war after the flop. I was really tired by this point and just didn't put him on the top pair with a Queen showing on the flop. He put me all in and that was that.

I-24 Nightmare

A Limerick For St. Patrick's Day

There was once a dumb brute named Heff,
Who puffed til he had no breath left.
He gave up the smokes, but still takes some tokes,
So Hatch thinks Heff's groin has a cleft.

Sunday Poker

The ESPN.com Tournament today was a drag. I lost two fairly large hands early on because the server kicked me off. I finally went all in with a pair of 8's mostly out of frustration. Someone called me with a K9o and pulled K on the river to knock me out. I finished 860 out of 1257. Hopefully they'll do something about their servers or bandwidth by the next time. There were a lot of angry people today.

Voicemail

No idea if this voicemail is real or not, but if it's late and you're tired it's pretty amusing. Thanks to old buddy Tim from Mallet for the link.

Thursday Night

I made it to the final table of 8 people at Startime in Roswell tonight. I ended up going out in 6th place. My final hand I went all in after a garbage flop with a pair of Queens. I got called by pocket Kings. Two more garbage cards and that was all she wrote for Hatch that night. I had enough chips that I probably could have made it to 3rd place, but it was after 11 and I was just getting tired.

My progress to the final table was pretty cool. I pulled two straights on the river on all-in hands, and I sold a full house on the flop beautifully to build up a fairly nice stack of chips. Actually I can't claim too much credit on that hand since the guy that I won against in that hand was pretty much a newbie calling station.

On another note, I've been stood up two nights in a row by Best Friend #3 Brian Spisak, who was in Atlanta from Chicago for the SEC Basketball tournament. Because of this, I've decided to move him down to Best Friend #4, moving Jay into third place. Way to go Jay!

On a sad note, Burt's father passed away last night in Evergreen, Alabama. He had apparently been bed-ridden in a nursing home for some time, so it wasn't completely unexpected. Condolences to Burt and his family from the Hatcher family. The father of Rogers Alley, another Malleteer buddy, also passed away this week in Virginia. Sort of creepy.

Weekly Poker Results

This week has been better for me I suppose. I was the 1st out of the main tournament last night at Startime, but I won the consolation game and a free pitcher of beer. Tonight at Sidelines in Alpharetta I did better than I ever have there, finishing about 8th or 9th. I went all in after the flop with a Q10c after the flop showed another Q as high card. A girl I've played against a few times called me since she had a monster stack. She had a pair of Jacks, and hit the 3rd Jack on the Turn to knock me out of the tournament. I've almost qualified for the Sunday tournament on ESPN, but it probably starts too early for me to get home in time after church.

More Free Poker

ESPN.com is hosting a contest in which you can win a free buy-in and all expenses paid to the World Series of Poker for 2005. You have to qualify each week for a Sunday afternoon tournament, and the top 50 people each Sunday are qualified for the final tournament in May, the winner of which wins the trip to Vegas to play poker with someone else's money.

Beating Down the Honda

Audio Blog - Part Deux



It appears there's a bit of a delay in how fast audio gets posted to the blog. I'm not sure if I really needed to change the blog format now, but I guess it's OK since it was starting to not behave well with the new Blogger interface. At least now when I'm bored while I'm stuck in traffic in Atlanta I can entertain my pair of blog readers.

Audio Blog - First Attempt

Empty Throne

I don't get to enjoy it as much since I'm in Atlanta a lot now, but I am a proud owner of the American Standard Champion model, which is mentioned in this article about The King of Thrones. I have to admit that the article gave me a morbid curiousity about how many grams the Dumb Brute is able to plop out, but I'm afraid to get him started on yet another feces tangent.