Frantic Friday : The Christmas Edition....

I'd worked for about a week now on another lengthy Christmas Wishlist to follow up on last year's effort. But a funny thing happened as I was working out all of the things I was hoping for everyone. They all ran into each other and blended together into the same basic thing.

See, after reading the WBPT Winter gathering trip reports, I came to the realization just how much I missed getting out to Vegas to see all of my friends. I think this greatly influenced how my Christmas Wishlist shaped up this time around. So I've come up with the same wish for each of you out there.

For all of my friends out there, currently invisible or not-so-much...... I wish for us to get together during at least one Blogger get together in 2009.

If it helps you at all, Peb's and I have penciled in EH-Vegas, (if Kat will have us!) Al's BASH, (we'll never miss another one again!) and next year's WBPT Winter gathering. Also, if the Tuckfards are going to continue our Feed the Monkey tradition, we'd be glad to host the event once again as well.

There's also the potential for a couple of Bam-Bam rages solo trips, as W.A.M. has held my serious interest for two years, only to not work out in either. Anyone in their right mind would want to meet Mookie. And that goes double for those of us who are not so much! Then there's Okie-Vegas. I miss my man G and could use a little quality time with him, to improve the person I currently am. These unfortunately, are not "locks." But there is a great deal of potential and I'm going to put the push on to get to at least one of them. When the trigger is pulled on either, it won't be about preference at all. It's all about timing these days for this kid.

So there you have it! A ton of notice to make my Christmas Wishlist come true. Now be a good little Santa's helper, try and see which event we may be able to hoist a glass, sling some chips or spend a little quality/degeneracy time together at. Now I figure there's about 70 friends or so associated with that list of links over there to the right, that means I'm wishing for about 70 face-to-face Merry Christmas' throughout the year 2009! Be it February, June, August, September or December. I'm making my list.... and to check off each name, would be far better than nice!

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Just completely random...... Here's two of my favorite Christmas Carols. As always with me, there's a, "fun factor" to go along with some pretty great talent.





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Lastly I need a Christmas Wish for my baby. I had to break it down into two.

I wish for a happy AND healthy Fred. We've all been through a lot, but I know how hard this has been on you and how it's taking it's toll at times, when you'd normally have a big laugh and smile with the ones you love.

Speaking of which, I also wish for a lifetime of moments just like this with you.


Great friends, big laughs, total comfort and the strongest Love imaginable. I may make a Wishlist and ask for this and that my Love, but in all honesty since I've been lucky enough to have you in my life, this kid wants for nothing else.

My sincerest thanks for dropping by....

Stupid decisions....

Occasionally, I've been known to make one or two stupid decisions. I'm not real proud of that fact but being human, I've learned to accept that it is going to happen.

Two perfect examples from last night.

1) Despite having been up since 3:45am., I signed up last minute for the 10:00pm. WBCOOP PLO HI/LO game. I was awake and why not take a crack at it, I thought.

Despite my half closed eyes and a brain incapable of processing information with any type of accuracy, I managed to get myself into the top 10 with a couple of pretty good hands.


Despite playing way more hands than normal for me, I managed to keep my stack around that $5000 mark throughout the session, until first break. That was good enough to keep me in the payout position.


Then it just all started falling apart. My thought process that is! Two miss-clicks cost me some chips. A bad gamble with less than a stellar hand to draw to cost me some chips. Getting up for a drink, thinking I could stop by and give my Sleeping Beauty Peb's a peck on the forehead and stretch my legs for a bit, all without remembering to click on 'sit out next hand' cost me my time bank. The list is actually a bit longer than this, but I think you get the point.

Then comes....

2) With a very healthy stack and a lot of time left to build it up even more, I am dealt one of my favorite starting hands. Besides myself, there are four stacks of equal or slightly larger chip counts interested in the hand. I actually talked to myself out loud and said, "here's how you win one of these things Bam! To win one, you have to get lucky at some point." There's proof positive that my head was not screwed on just right! I was listening to my own advice! Sheeeeeesh....

So I jammed the pot, crossed my fingers and toes and took a deep breath to see what would unfold. The very next player jammed them all in for a raise and one other player made the call. I got what I wanted, a race for a monster stack or, it was time for some sleep! I got the rest of my chips in and found myself with nothing to worry about except the pair of Aces to my left. I have by far the best draw and the most outs available to me.

N-A-D-A !! Not Anything, Damn Air! Unbelievably I didn't hit a card, a connector a suit..... NOTHING! I could deal out that hand over and over again and I'd have to put the odds at 80-1, that I couldn't completely whiff all four cards I was holding again.

It was a stupid decision to race in the first place I know, that's the point of all of this. But to see the two hands that were being played back at me, I had by far the best of it in the right situation. I just didn't hit in that right situation, it's that simple.

HEE-HAW...... YAWN.......

My sincerest thanks for dropping by....

Half-assed reporting and my stupid EGO....

559 !

That's how many came out for last nights WBCOOP event.

Just as the event was about to start, I asked Peb's if she'd like to play the game with me. Her natural instinct was to say, "No, I just can't sit there and watch you play hun!" I told her I didn't expect her to just watch, I wanted her to play with me. I even promised her final say on any decision. That won her over.

Now as I've mentioned several times in the past, playing together isn't always the easiest thing for us to do. We have very different styles and thoughts about the game. Her's mostly succesful and correct, mine........... well let's just leave it at they're mine OK!

During the first hour, we communicated our thoughts very well and both made what ended up being great decisions. After watching two seperate players at our table, I believed that I'd found the chips that should make their way into my stack. I just needed the opportunity and I told Peb's as much. She had been focussed on another player entirely and made a decision to call a bet he'd made, "because it was an obvious steal!" She was right and our pair of Queens, was plenty good enough to win that hand.

With a healthy but still only average chip stack, we were shuffled off to a new table. We found ourselves at a table with Baywolf and Lightning. The first words out of Peb's mouth were, "stay focussed. Don't go getting all chat distracted!" You'd think she'd seen me play with my friends before or something! Sheeeeeesh.....

My personal favorite hand of the night? I think I was on or near the cut-off and holding pocket Kings. The player to my left had been playing the part of calling station ATM and I had a good hunch that he may just get sick of spewing them slowly, and make a big play with the last 900 or so. I made it 4x the BB to go and he instantly went all-in for the rest. It folded back around to me and it was a no brainer call. My K-K managed to hold against his 9-9 and another one was out of the game. That was fine and all, but the best part came when that player came back in the chat and called me a "fishie." Peb's ranted at the screen, calling the guy, "a Donk-assed idiot" I believe was the term! I just laughed and said, "Honey, I am a fishie. A fishie with about 75% of that Donk-assed idiots starting stack!"

And then we LOL'd. :)

Part of the title for this post comes from this scenario. After putting about 10% of my stack into the pot post-flop with an incredibly strong draw, my C-bet did nothing to deter my opponent who raised it up immediately after. Peb's said fold, I said he's stealing. Peb's said, "Fine, let him steal when you have nothing." I should've folded! I made the decision to call off a little more than 1/2 my stack and try to set up the hand for the Turn or River. Remember the part about Peb's having final say on a decision? Yeah..... I forgot that part for a split second. It cost me about 3/4 of my chips in the end, to come to the decision to fold after all and I was down to scraps. I'm actually not as mad about my decision in the hand and what it cost, as I am about breaking a promise to my Peb's. Now THAT's a Donkey play!

It came down to Bay's BB and me holding the Kd-Qd with only about 1000 chips back. My only chance to make it any further in the game, was to push and pray. Bay had a no brainer call and off we went..... and out I went! At least my chips went to a friend. :)

Speaking of friends, I had a ton of them in this game. So the first part of today's title, is what comes up next. I couldn't watch them all of course, but I did try to keep track of all my friends as best I could. Here's what I know about the ones I could keep an eye on.

Top finishers that I knew,

MEMPHIS MOJO in 4th. ! WooOOOooT Memphis!
Numbono ran all the way up to 17th.
Gadzooks had another impressive finish in 42nd.
Bay took my chips to an 80th. place finish.
Lightning busted out just ahead, in 85th.
MiamiDon out in 168th.
IronGirl in 177th.
Your's truly out in 181st.
Change100 busted 187th.
Spaceman 199th.
Julius Goat at 202nd.
Astin ran out of Aces in 224th.
AlCantHang in 275th.
Schaubs out in 331st.
BuddyDank in 380th.
MeanhappyGuy just before in 384th.
CKBWoP out 392nd.
and my fellow BB, felted in 456th.

I also want to throw a shout out to Grouse. Thanks for taking the time to stop by and say hey. Of course I remember you! I never forget any Blogger cherry I pop Sir!

My sincerest thanks for dropping by....