3/29/2008

Belly laughs, the Hef-a-lump and.............. a Mini-Donk-EH ....

This'll be a quicky, and it has nothing to do with poker.

Last night a few of the TuckFards decided to relieve a little of the winter doldrums, by hurtling 16 lbs. of round projectile down some wood, in an attempt to destroy 10 shiney little white things.

You guessed it! The TuckFards go bowling!

What a scream! My evening was made perfect by four simple things.

1) Pebbles was not only there, but she managed to have a drink, ( or 10 ) and was in very rare form for the entire evening. A drunk Peb's is a very funny Peb's and it was great to see that side of her again. It's been awhile. Typically, these special moments are reserved for out on the deck in the Summer, while we enjoy the serenity that is the Hamlet of Bedrock.

2) Three words, ROCK AND BOWL !!!! Now I didn't expect to hear much of anything currently in the Bam-Bam collection, as that would be downright scary for the majority of the population fore sure. BUT, I was treated to some Metallica, AC/DC, Iron Maiden and just for fun, a little classic Cream. I was fully expecting to have to suffer through the likes of The Spice Girls and Britney Spears. What even made it better for me? The cutsie little 20 somethings were actually enjoying it! A group of 8 of them in the lanes next to us, actually asked if it could be turned up for me! Gives a kid hope that there just may be a chance for that generation yet!

3) The stoopid Hef-a-lump! There was one of "those" machines there. You know the one I mean. You pay $2 to move a claw around to just the right spot to try and grab a stuffed animal that's burried deep under a bunch of the stuffed animals you don't want, only to typically find out that the claw doesn't close at the right time and that it has the lifting power of a wet noodle. Well, DonKaaa and Queen-Kaaa had a treat in store for me last night. Just so I'd have someone my own age to play with, they brought out Mini-Donk-EH !! That could only mean one thing! We must get that Hef-a-lump! Granted it took six or seven tries, (but we never got skunked once and the 'Kaaa' household now has more stuffed animals than they'll know what to do with) that great big Hef-a-lump is hopefully happy to be out of that confining little machine and feeling rather comfy in the arms of my darling Mini-Donk-Eh.
The smile on her face as it slowly squished it's way through that tiny little hole and down to the prize collection door, was worth a $1,000,000 to me.

4) And finally, watching everyone come down to my level just for one night. What a cute bunch of little kids the TuckFards can be, when they just let it happen. Belly laughs that actually caused slight pain in the mid-section. Forcing me to bowl ala, "Fred 'Twinkle Toes' Flinstone." DonKaa doing his best to break the backstop at the ends of the lanes on almost every shot. QueenKaaa, Pebbles and even myself occasionally, taking that between the legs two-hander shot that can take an eternity to actually make it to the pins. Peb's pushed one down the lane that took so long to get there, I had time to get to the bar, order a round and bring the drinks back to everyone, before it knocked all ten pins down for a strike. (natch!)

Goofy grins, belly laughs and a bunch of TuckFards in their natural state.
If you can top that for a nights entertainment, good on ya'.

My sincerest thanks for dropping by....

3/28/2008

Running the "Chameleon" gambit....

In an attempt to really get inside all of my friends heads and learn why and how they play as they do, I ran a little experiment last night at the Riverchasers game.

It was really a lot of fun but I can tell you this much for certain, only some of the experiment actually worked in my favour. Other parts of it were so successful, that I may forget how to be me again if I don't revert back immediately and give myself a good scrub to boot!

Here's a short list of some of the impersonations I managed to pull off last night.

Al = I was definately in a "happy" place as far as the booze was concerned. I also occasionally let the bar maid determine the next course of action for my hand, as she was fascinated by all the commotion in the chat box. (she went 5 and 1 by the way)

Fuel = Although my friend Presto started the game pretty agro, I did my best to take it right back to him when I had the chance. Then we actually had one hand between us, that nearly went to a showdown. Having seen dozens of hands shown down in the past and knowing that Fuel probably has a note on me that say's "will fold on the river with applied pressure," I decided that a simple call when I finally rivered a pair would be sufficient. My studies told my gut I was good and I took it down like the true Donkey I am. This is in no way meant to be a slam on Fuel. He's outplayed my ass on every occasion up until that one hand. I just had to see if my gut was right this one time.

Carson = I ran into a short stack and put him all-in, while I had a decent drawing hand. A drawing hand that ended up losing to QUADS !!!

The Worst Poker Player = When I reversed things and held the same pocket 10's that took me way down in chips on that last hand, of course I run into A-Q and lose my entire stack. As the deck managed to hit my opponents hand over and over again.

mookie = Knowing from experience that my friends would stick around and rail me to the end if I was still in, I was leaving the screen up and throwing in my 2 cents worth as needed in support. But I still wanted to play a little, rather than just rail. Having just read mookies recap from Wednesday night, I fired up two games and kept an eye on the Chasers tables as well. Miraculously, I cashed in both and made a few bucks on the night.

HOY = If you played against me last night, you'll just know by my bets exactly what this means. ;o)

Astin = Yes indeed! I had a run of card-rackedness that was almost Chef-boy-R-EH worthy. It was far too short to be fully worthy, but it was damn funny playing to people cheering "ELK-ELK-ELK-ELK" for a while there! Ah, good times.

Riggs = The words in the chat box read, "Phones on. Dial-a-shot me." I was out of 'the' game but still playing in the others. But when Al wants a dial-a-shot, I dropped what I was doing, grabbed the cell and a drink and found a quiet place to make the call. Funny that I felt the need to have some quiet around me, since I could barely hear Al with all the commotion coming from his local watering hole. But there I stood and even more important, the attempt was succesful. More good times! heh.

There were others as well but these were the real highlights of the gambit. It was an experiment of sorts, combining the booze and a few of my favorite personalities. I don't think I'll be trying it again in the too near future though. I read a quote from Rich Little once that went something like, "After trying to be other people all night. I need a little time to reflect on who the hell I am right now!" After last night, I think I know where he was coming from.

My sincerest thanks for dropping by....

3/27/2008

And the survey say's.....

Let's start with a special news flash. ***I-am-not-a-geek***

Well, I almost lost Bedrock and it was looking pretty gloomy for a while there. But thankfully one of the kids that works on the floor here is in fact, one of the real deal geekster's. He managed to pull a miracle out of his ass and undo everything I had done to the page as I was "making some improvements."

The false sense of security I've managed to garner from doing a little more stuff here and there on the site, OBVIOUSLY was way more false, than secure. Good lord, I-am-so-not-a-geek ! (heh)

Anywho... A while back I received a comment from a good friend, who mentioned that they could only read here in Bedrock on plain old black & white Bloglines. The reason was simple, it may be a different looking site from almost all of the others out there, but it was just too hard on the eyes in the end. This friend also has impeccable taste IMHO and it's advice I knew I should to take to heart.

So I have been playing around with colour combinations, various other fonts and even a thing-a-ma-bob here and there, and I think I've found a happy medium. But then again, I really liked it before so what the hell do I know? After all, I am not the Tiger of style.

So now I ask for your opinions. Simple answers if you get time will do just fine.
Is this better, worse or you just don't care?

I take no offense honest! Just messin'round trying to learn what works and what doesn't. Since I need to resign to the fact that I'll never reach full geek'dem status, maybe I'll learn a thing or two about taste and design! You never know.

My sincerest thanks for dropping by....

3/26/2008

I took a little RAZZ-ing....

.
Three and a ¼ hours of RAZZ, can really knock the crap out of a kid ya’ know? That’s how long I managed to hang in there last night at the Skillz game. It was interesting to say the least, but not for the normal reasons at all. No.. last night things were way more upside-down than usual.

The good news, I was surrounded by some very good friends through out the entire evening.

The bad news, I had some incredibly SICK stats on the night. Now there were 100’s of hands played obviously, so I don’t want to report on everything. But there were definitely a few low-lights that stick out in my mind when I review my notes from the game.

For example :

- 34 brings after the $200 level. totaling $7300 in chips!
- 3 hands of rolled up Aces !
- 4 hands of rolled up Threes !
- 3 hands of rolled up Fives !
- Rolled up Twos once !
- Starting hands of A-A-K in some form or another 18 times !
- Starting hands of K-K-x or Q-Q-x in some form 19 times !

I busted out to corron in the end, when my stack was in push or fold status compared to the bets required to play. I ran A-7-2 up against his ATC, (his stack size vs. mine, this was a no-brainer for both of us) and as per normal, I think I hit each of my cards through out the streets to make like a million pair or something, and I was done.
***NOTE*** Another great run to an 8th. place finish for corron.
This after a pretty big Monday. Great to see!

No cash but some more valuable BBT3 points for my efforts. Kind of amazing to me that I made the points at all considering the above stats! Oh and three pretty poorly played hands as well !

TwoBlackAces and I were involved in one fairly classic RAZZ hand that I ended up getting the short end of the stick on. We were both holding decent hole cards and our door and street cards all ran low. I had a tough time letting go of my hand and went all the way with it, hoping for that one card difference that would allow me the win. It didn’t happen and I lost a few two many chips on a decent chase, but a chase just the same. Then I tilted away a few chips to him about an hour or so later as well. Not really the classic “I’m just pissed about everything” tilt, just a sick of not getting cards to play and now I’m on brain-dead tilt. This hand I was able to let go of on 6th. street. This was one of those hand situations that I should have known was not only coming, but I was right in the middle of and needed to get out of it now. (Read PATIENCE) But I happily clicked call and clicked raise, with no regard to the boards or my stack until I finally snapped out of it. At least I provided TBA with a little giggle to go along with my chips.

Then I let go of one hand where by my math, I pretty much had to be ahead. I’ll never really know for sure since ANIguy wasn’t kind enough to show.
(don’t blame him at all but NO! I will not believe anything about whatever you say your cards were! Heh) But even though I was getting tired and not necessarily playing at my best, by my count at the time I think the probability was strong that I was good at the time and should have at least called. I reviewed that hand for some time.

But to go with these hands of course, I had to also have some decent ones to make it as far as I did. I did bust three players for 1/2 my buy-in back. There was also an early bonus getting all the way to 6th. street while jamming the entire time with this hand.

There were a few others where I just had the right hand design to get paid off. Three that come to mind were all fairly similar in nature and classic for the game of RAZZ. With me holding hands like (A-2) 4-6-9-3-(x) against hands of (5-6) A-4-10-7-(x) where I frequently managed to get call downs to the end and get paid very well.

So in the end, no I didn’t really bring my very best “EH” game to the madness that is the Skillz series with a bunch of fun blogger folk. But I do have to admit that I can still manage to see a few of the brighter spots from last night, and I always consider that to be a bonus for the evening.

Thanks to all my cheerin’ & railin’ pals as always!
It's always great to see a bunch of sick degenerates and hooligans…..

Whom I adore immensely! ;o)

My sincerest thanks for dropping by….

3/24/2008

Another comment that went way tooooooooo long....

First things first. This fired my ass up so.... GO READ IT !

Has the thought ever crossed my mind that players in the same room, same city or same family for that matter, are cheating against me? It's happened exactly once! And let me tell you something. The tone of the voice in question when I made my comment regarding it, told me everything I needed to know. I felt like shit for saying anything at all. Still in this day and age of wireless Internet, wireless communication, Internet gambling, Friends and family playing and the worst of all the evils out there, MONEY INVOLVED, I can see where one might wonder. I know that these are all things that crossed my mind, before I verbalized how I felt about 4 players in one house playing against me in an event. But then I made the right decision. I took a good look at the Friends I was thinking all of this about. I took a good look at the game we were playing, and then at what stakes were involved at any given time. Do I think my friends need my $11 so damn bad, that they'd need to create a cheat to get them from me in a poker game? Not a chance in hell!

There's some facts that I need to get out there. I not only am-not-a-geek, but I choose to live in the peace and serenity, that is Bedrock. I drive about 120 miles round trip to work by choice. I have hills, valleys and even a mountain to prevent that outer world from encroaching on my chosen lifestyle. That means I live with the choice, no matter what. When I want to play a game on-line, I dial up from 79 miles away and can barely keep up with the play at the tables. Yet I wouldn't miss it for the world!

Because I like to:

a) See my friends.
b) Play against the best.
c) Compete at any level.
d) Challenge myself at the damnedest of odds.

I won't speak of any deal, no matter what. That's between the players involved and that's all there is to it. I've seen deals that compared to this one, would make your head spin. I've also watched a man go damn near broke, (for his 2nd. time) to a former friend that wouldn't chop when 5 spots paid and he was busted out in 6th. The players can do whatever the hell they want. They earned it, by being in that position.

As for collusion efforts. I've played less than half of the BBT3 events and I'm in 30'ish place in points on 79 miles of dial-up. If someones doin' it, they ain't very good and I see no need to worry about it. Hell! If it happens and I'm kickin' their asses, 2 F'n funny !

I like to play, I love to laugh and in my eyes, I pay my bucks and takes my chances like everyone else out there. If that makes me naive beyond the capability of most, then I stand guilty as charged.

One thing to remember above all else, what do you want out of the BBT3? If it's actually fame and riches, I highly recommend taking the bankroll and tucking it away. Once it's of the correct size, go make it in Vegas during the WSOP! That's got to be a hell of a lot easier than making it $11 - $26 at a time while sitting with friends ready to throw the "Hammer" or "Bammer" at you.

I play the game for the love of friends and the love of the game. I've taken a crack or two and come up empty in the bigs. My lot in life is the game with friends and a belly full of laughter. I'll play those friends while a family of 3 is all sitting in the same house, I'll even play 'em when 4 or 5 of them are in the same house with headsets on and "chat" takes on a whole new meaning. I'll play 'em 'cause they're friends playing a game that we all love to play. They'd no sooner rook me out of my cash by cheatin' me, than build a shopping mall on my back 40 acres where we party.

Look around the blogger world! Homes made available to complete strangers, travel plans altered to pick up a straggler friend. Rooms split in Vegas by two players that took each other out in back-to-back blogger events. How many times do you read about these things happening? How about backing someone, who's been on the variance low express? It's a great world. You just gotta' open your heart and eyes to see it.

Kaja, I don't know exactly the right thing to say here, 'cause I don't exactly get where you were going with your thoughts. But when you read back into my post here, and then re-read your own, at least you can always say,

"Look-what-wee-todd-did!"

I just don't know what one of us we'd be talking about anymore!

My sincerest thanks for dropping by....

Vegas and Bloggers anyone.....

The Summer gathering is in the works and I know that Pebbles and I will be working out the details that will hopefully, let us attend. Falstaff has sent out the mass notifications and I see the responses are already starting to pour in. I personally think he's insane to try and be responsible for hearding a bunch of degenerates together for another go. But a very wise and wealthy man once said, "Crazy's a skill just like anything else!" and who am I to argue with Mr. Hughes?

We had such a blast at the last one despite it being shortened to a measly weekend of fun for us, it would be a real shame to have to miss out on this one. So that's my excitement for the day! Trying to figure out how to get in on the WBPT Summer gathering. I think I need a checklist.

- Convince Pebbles we should go. - No brainer! She wants to go as bad as I do.
- Arrange time off. - YIKES! Peb's new job could pose an issue.
- Arrange for funds. - YIKES! I better review all of the other expensive things I've slated to be doing this Summer. (Let's see, new clubs? Nah, my old ones are fine! Cancel trying to make Al's bash..... I don't think so!)
- Convince others, (cough*Carson*cough) that they should go, even if we can't.
- Book time off now, just in case! - Done.
- See how well this coordinates with the semi-planned TuckFard Vegas trip.
- Start contacting others to see who's in, and who needs to be talked into it.
- Man there's a ton of things to do still! I better just get to it!

My sincerest thanks for dropping by....

3/23/2008

The Easter Bunny degenerate....

Not exactly sure what to do with my time on a beautiful Easter Sunday, I fired up Stars and joined in the fun that is the Brit Blogament. I figure degenerate's unite, when not sure what to do at the time! I had a chance to see some good friends, and meet some new ones as well. It was just a little short-lived! (heh)

I Gigli'd the friggin' thing after flopping TPTK, only to see the board bring a very obvious set where I knew I was beat. The hand was shown and I was relieved to have only lost only 1/4 of my stack. Then I played a hand of 2-5 sooted for free in my BB, that hit a set to my top card! My ever-so-cute check raise was then met with a bet of extrodinary preportions and I decided to let it go. Thankfully, I was shown the same made set, with an ever so 'slightly' bigger kicker. Another loss of less than 1/4 of my meagher little stack, and I feel like I'm playing some good cards on the evening, despite losing 1/2 of my starting chips.

You all know me! ....... Weeeeeeeeeee !

Then for the third hand I decided to play, I hit top two pair on the flop to a board with not much going dangerously against me. There are four players in the hand and I see the lights light up saying, "Dinner or big-stack Bam-Bam." Of course it quickly became Dinner. As the un-yet hit hand of Q-8 of hearts, was way to sexy to lay down with all of the betting that had occurred pre and post flop. I simply get runner-runner "flushed" away, by some stellar play on the part of my opponent.

Aaaaaahhhhhhhh, that was fun !

But then again as I always say, you pay and pick cards as you see fit.
All in good fun I guess. I think it always pay's to be the bigger person.
It just doesn't pay you in chips!

My sincerest thanks for dropping by....