Random Thoughts on AC

1) I have been in three different hotel rooms in the same hotel over the past week, and all three have had different fixtures.  One had an awesome tub, one had a horrible shower head (like top five worst I've ever seen, and I've seen a lot of hotel rooms), and the one I'm in now has an average shower head and a different tub than either of the first two.  I also think it should be mandatory to have a double sink in every hotel room with two beds, but hey - what do I know?

2) Yesterday marked only the second time I've ever been given keys to a room that was already occupied.  So now I'm in a not as nice room, but I guess I'm paying $13/night so can't complain.

3) You hear a lot about the NJ Casino Control Commission, but I actually saw one of their uniformed officers in the Showboat poker room last night, checking things out.

4) Thank god for my ipod.  I have never done a good job of tuning people out very well without it.  Plus, alleviates boredom.

5) I need to remember that there is such a thing as fold equity.  I need to play certain hands more aggressively.  I was doing really well with this last week and then somewhere between Sunday and last night fell into my old trap of not driving the action in any given hand.  Need to get back to this. 

I am destined to bubble...sigh

League tourney standings.  I bubbled after overplaying a hand in Stud.  I still lack the feel to know when certain hands are good heads up in Stud high.  I gotta get in a lot more hands before this summer...and maybe re-read a few chapters in some of the books I own.  To make matters worse I am now 1 point out of the top 8 (top 8 bubble!!!).  Hopefully I can remedy this next week.

When in doubt, place a phone call

I'm on my way up to AC for spring break... Harrahs loves me for some reason, and I can usually get free rooms Sunday-Thursday but in checking their website last night, it looked like they wanted me to pay $200. Thinking that was still not bad for the rest of the week, I decided to head up but was having difficulty on their website with my phone so I called...and got a free room for the whole week! (side note: bad economy= better perks for players; case in point, Harrahs is offering 3x comps mid week all march) Yeehaw. Will be in ac at Showboat at least til Friday afternoon...still undecided if I'll still be there through Sunday or if I'm gonna head home for a few days.

And oh yeah...happy st. Patricks day!

ATLARGE this weekend - hooray!

I will be on the road a lot on the next few weeks...  leaving tomorrow for ATLARGE in AC (spring break for degenerates, as I like to call it), then my cousin's wedding.  I've been playing good and running pretty averagely overall recently, so I hope the trend continues on both fronts while in AC.  I play the ATLARGE tournaments like donkaments, but I would like to try to make some $$$ at the cash tables.  I managed to freeroll my tourney buyins last night at the Monday game, so I'm happy about that.

Poker Terms

A lot of my non-poker friends (especially my mom) are continuously amused/baffled/exasperated by poker terminology they don't understand. 

I came across this site today: http://pokerterms.com/  Maybe it will help people.

Yes, FINALLY, a poker related post again!

I haven't been posting about poker recently for a couple reasons.  Not because I don't have anything to say or because I haven't been playing, though I did take a hiatus from many of the local games for awhile. I have been playing up in AC with 4 trips there already since Jan 1 (all of which at least covered expenses, most of which made me some money on top of that).  Happily, after getting my head on straight at most local games, I have booked wins at the last several no limit local games I have played, as well.  I actually have gotten quite a few good idea for posts recently but
have chosen not to either due to lack of time, or for other reasons. 

But I digress.

I've been trying to take poker more seriously (with varying degrees of success) for the past year+.  Part of this means tracking sessions.  I've been doing this for the past year+ also (again with varying degrees of success).  When I got my iphone, I was really excited and had dreams of all the things I'd easily be able to record since I would have my phone with me at the table, instead of having to record things in my spreadsheet at the end of a session.  Sadly, the functionality of google docs in iphone land is the one google/iphone app that just SUCKS.

Then I stumbled upon this post from Otis.  $12.99 is a lot for an app, but this app literally does almost everything I would include if I was designing this app myself.  It is awesome.  When playing, it will record time live if you hit an on/off switch, or you can retroactively import stuff.  And it is customizable.  It also shows you charts of your play which you can filter by game, limit, etc.

Anyways, to anyone with an iphone who is interested in tracking their play, I recommend this app!

Things I (surprisingly) use a lot

...when cooking:

1) my mandolin (slicing veggies)

2) stick blender

3) kitchenaid mixer