HOE tourney at the SHOP

I played a HOE 70+10 tournament on Saturday and actually did just about as well as I could have hoped, I think.  Early on I was seated at a table with Nelly, me, and E at one end, Stu on the other, and a bunch of people who had no clue in between.  And when I say no clue, I mean really no clue.  We were asked what cards you needed to make a low, what the nut low was, how many cards you needed to play from your hand in O8, etc.  Ummm, ship it?  LOL

I was pretty card dead, but managed to make some moves with marginal hands and pure aggression.  It was pretty awesome, actually.  I felt like I was playing really well.  I don't know why, but when I've been up for a really long time, I tend to have a 3 hour zone before I completely crash where I play awesome poker.  If only I could get in that zone every time I sit down at a table.  Ah well.

So I'm hanging tough and playing pretty aggressively...The tourney structure was pretty bad, so I think that kicked my butt to play more aggressively too.  I pussed out on one hand against Stu where I should have bet at the end and he probably would have folded to my low, but oh well.

I make it to the final table, and fold QTo under the gun to a raise in the HE round.  Pops (who is dealing) looks at my cards and scolds me...and then proceeds to put QT on the flop and another T on the river.  Well, I still stand by my decision to not waste a decent number of my chips on QTo, under the gun.  The guy to my right took out a few players and then we were down to 7 players left at the final table by the time the O8 round started.

The first hand of O8 and I get dealt a hand with some good potential.  A9h23d.  I call the blinds and the flop comes Qc4h6h.  Ummm...Bet!  By the time the turn comes off, I have a significant part of my stack in the middle and I'm thinking I'm sitting pretty.  I have the nut low draw with counterfeit protection, the nut flush draw, a gutshot straight draw...  and I'm against two other players who I feel are pretty weak.  The turn is some kind of huge blank for my hand, but it doesn't put anything out there for anyone else either.  Maybe it was a Ts or something.  Then I keep betting while saying to Pops: "I have like more than 20 outs here Pops, you better get me there!"  He looks at me like I'm fucking crazy and says: "you have like your whole stack -$300 in there, how can you not be there yet?"

The river is a puketastic board pairing 6.  I kind of wish I had said "pair the board hold the low" before it came off b/c if I had, I think I could have scooped the pot with crapola.  Trying not to look sick, I toss my last $300 into a pot that has to be at least 50x that.  Amazingly, the guy to my left auto folds.   Even more amazingly, the guy to my right who is now last to act looks like he is about to fold!  Please fold, I am saying in my head....PLEASE!!!!  I don't know why anyone in their right mind would fold for $300 more, but....  After at least 40 seconds of thought he calls.  I flip over my cards and say: "I completely missed."   The guy called me the whole way with  AKxx (if the turn was indeed a T, I guess he had a Broadway draw) and ends up scooping the pot with AK high...in O8.  And then he tells me he almost folded.  "I wish you did," I say.  That would have been so sick!

I would play it over again the same way every time, but it's beyond me how I continually brick so badly!  If I had won, I would have been the definitive chip leader.  I could have folded into the money and had a real good shot at winning.  Heck, even if I had only made a low and ended up chopping I would have doubled up.  I wish I had "bricked" by pairing one of my non Ace cards.  *sigh*

The Lives of Others

This weekend, Jeff and I went to go see The Lives of Others at AFI Silver.  It won the Oscar this year for best foreign language film, and has gotten amazing reviews.  It's also a political movie, so I was really interested to go see it.  I was kind of sleep deprived, but I dragged Jeff to go see it anyways.

Without giving too much away, the movie is about the East German Secret Police (the Stasi), their observation of an East German playwright and his girlfriend, and on a more philosophical level, what it means to be human. 

As with a lot of super-critically acclaimed movies I have seen recently, I think the build up kind of let me down.  It was certainly a good movie, and one worth seeing, but it wasn't one of the best movies I've ever seen.  Some parts seemed to kind of hit you over the head with the point it was trying to make (like one scene in which the main characters are discussing manipulation of their lives by the government and we see a marionette hung on the wall behind them.  Who hangs marionettes on their wall, even if they are in the theatre???  That just seemed kind of ham-handed to me).  Anyways, I would still recommend it (though be forewarned, some scenes are disturbing).  You can watch the trailer here.  It's only playing at the Silver for another week or so, and no news on when it will be released on DVD (though no doubt it will be).

On another note, I am going to see another movie with Jim and Jill on Wednesday night at the Silver called "The Guatemalan Handshake."  It's the baby of a Silver Spring resident and I guess one of Jim's friends worked on it.  Looking forward to seeing that too.

The Grand

I love Cinematical.  Mainly because I can find out about movies I never would have heard of otherwise.  There haven't been too many poker movies out in the past few years, especially considering the "poker boom" (which is now pretty much on a downswing, but I digress...).  I've been looking forward to Lucky You which is *finally* releasing this upcoming weekend against Spiderman 3 (it was supposed to be released in the Fall of 2006 and then again about a month ago...I was beginning to think it was never coming out), and I just read on Cinematical about another movie I'm going to have to try to hunt down: The Grand. 

Written by Zak Penn (of X-Men and PCU, and, if you are a complete and total film geek, Incident at Loch Ness fame), this movie looks like it could have real potential.  First of all, it's a mockumentary, a la This is Spinal Tap.  Who doesn't love a good mockumentary?  Second of all, it has a lot of poker pros as well as some fabulous actors in it.  Third, a lot of the film is improv.  Fourth, Woody Harrelson is in it playing a character called "One Eyed Jack."  Cinematical's review is promising.   What is there not to love?

The Grand premiered this weekend at Tribeca.  Hopefully it will be hitting the Silver or some other local theatre soon. 

Losing touch with old friends and the NKF

I am horrible at keeping in touch with people.  I am one of those bad friends that sends out Xmas cards once a year and maybe an email or two each year to my friends that aren't in the area.  There are even some of my friends in the area that I only see every few months.  I just get too wrapped up in school stuff, especially this time of year.  I need to make a better effort to keep in touch with people.  It's not that I don't care about people (I definitely do)...I don't really have an excuse.  It is something I need to work at.

There are unfortunately more than a few people who I was close with in college who have moved out of the DC area and that I don't even have contact info for anymore.  :(  In the unlikely event that any of you are reading this, please let me know.  I would like to get back in touch.

Anyways, the point of my posting this was that on Wednesday evening, I got an e-mail from a college acquaintance who was fraternity brothers with someone I used to be friends with in college, Kevin.  He told me that Kevin had fallen into a coma as a result of complications with his diabetes affecting his kidneys.  Kevin has since come out of the coma, but I had no idea that Kevin was so sick.  It's made me think a lot about how I need to do a better job of staying in touch with people.  My thoughts are definitely with Kevin and his family. 

Relatedly, my sorority's charity is the National Kidney Foundation and when I was in college I did a lot more charity work on behalf of the NKF (and other organizations).  This is also personal reminder to me to get out and do more volunteer work for causes that are important to me - something I haven't really been doing at all since I left college.

On the Water Again

When I was younger, we spent a lot of time on the water.  My grandparents owned a 40' Panda sailboat and we used to spend at least a few weeks every summer just cruising around on their sailboat.  Lots of good times.  I actually saw a Panda the other day (that's one above) and I did a double take. 

Now my parents seem to rent a Grand Banks every few years and cruise around British Columbia.  It's a free vacation for their lucky daughter, though being on board a boat often means its more of a working vacation as everyone needs to pitch in when leaving or entering a marina.  A few years ago, my parents rented the Claudicus for a month (that's her below with my parents standing on deck) and Jeff and Sarah and I were lucky enough to join them for a week.  We had to take a plane, train, bus, car, and three ferries to meet them, but that is definitely another story.

This year my parents are renting another boat, The Lady of Shalott (why an owner would name their boat after a poem about a woman who kills herself in a boat is WAY beyond me, but...) and I'm really looking forward to the trip this July/August.  Hopefully we can get in some good fishing and crabbing.  I'd also like to try to get to one of my favorite museums in the world, the Royal British Columbia Museum, in Victoria, BC.  Of course, getting in some high tea at the Empress Hotel wouldn't be a bad thing either.  I can hardly wait to be on the water again.

Harry Potter Trailer and other British Film News

Jeff and I used to go to the movies every week.  Since I started school and Jeff started his new job, we are lucky if we go once a month.  But I know we will make priority to go see the new HP movie.  Check out the trailer here.  Blather about the trailer from Cinematical can be found here.  Even more Harry Potter stuff here and here. 

In other news, British Airways decides to be super petty.  Not that I am a Richard Branson fan (though I do like flying Virgin), but sometimes American celebrity gossip just can't compare to the craziness of the Brits.

Happy 30th Birthday Star Wars

Star Wars' 30th birthday is May 25th.  Enjoy these "making of" pictures courtesy of Wired.

Poker Newsflash

Apparently playing tight and right = a winning strategy.  Who knew poker was so easy.

On Friday I had sat on a little over a rack (i.e. $250 in pink chips) profit all night only to start shipping it back until I was down to about $25 (i.e. half a stack of pinks).  Two hours later after telling myself I was going to stop being my own worst enemy at the poker table - I was back where I started - I had a rack in profit. 

Something to think about for next week.

I'm finally getting to the place where I think my pink game is pretty good.  At least relative to the majority of other players.  The past few weeks I have been able to accumulate a pretty decent pile of chips.  Unfortunately come around 2am, I start shipping it back.  It might start with boredom, or I take a bad beat, or my bajillion outs don't get there.  And then my whole game changes.  Got to keep an eye out for that so I can hang on to my chips.

PHD comics

I think I might have posted about piled higher and deeper (get it, PHD?, LOL) on here before.  Given that I am in the midst of trying to finish a research paper that is due today (ummm, it is 4am and I am in the grad lab at school taking a break.  I think I only have a few pages left....  And guess what - I am not alone!  Melissa is here too!  :) ) I found this PHD comic apropos.

Google has a good sense of humor

A friend told me about this, so now I'm passing it on.  Those crazy people over at google.  Check out Step 23 of these googlemaps directions (click for a bigger image):

Still pulling through this semester

The semester is winding down and I am still hanging in there.  Got an A on my statistics final and along with my homework grade, I should have a solid A in that class unless I screw up my final paper.

The only other class i have had any graded work in so far I have an A- in right now.

So far, so good, and only about a month left to go.

Unexploded Ordinance in London

If you know me (and I doubt anyone is reading this who doesn't) you know I live and breath for all things London.  It is the best city in the world as far as I am concerned.  It has all the best parts of NYC, LA, and DC, and more.  I digress.

Anyways, I ocassionally read Londonist, the London counter-part of DC's DCist and found this recent post to be interesting.  Guess I never really gave a second thought to how much ordinance was still lurking from WW2. 

Edith Piaf

I'm sitting here doing some school work and listening to my Edith Piaf cd.  Am I the only 20 something who listens to this kind of stuff?  LOL  I first bought the cd when I was in college and when I bought it the guy at Tower (good times spent at that Tower on 21st st which is now closed :( ) kinda looked at me funny.  I'm guessing not many 18 year olds walked into Tower asking for a recommendation for an Edith Piaf cd. 

Kaiser Chiefs "Yours Truly, Angry Mob"

I've been a fan of the Kaiser Chiefs for a few years now.  I kinda like their new album, esp the single "Ruby" which sounds like it could be at home on my "Best of New Wave Dance Party" cd full of 80s music (despite sounding like it might be, that is not a slam). 

Pitchfork panned this album and only gave it a 5, and from a critical standpoint that is where it might belong, but a lot of the music is very listenable.  Good music for rocking out in your car.

Music + Hitch = True Love

*sigh*

And it's over at pitchfork!

Very Bizarre Article from Slate

Should Democrats take cues from GTA?????