Maigrey, the Poker Princess

Battle of the Bloggers

2010-04-17T06:16:00.001-07:00

So, while this blog is pretty much dead, and my poker playing schedule is rather few and far between, I am very pleased to report that I will be making a good effort to play in this year's Battle of the Blogger Tournaments.

Thanks to AlCantHang for all his work on this, and to Full Tilt for providing the crazy overlay that makes me even want to post about it.

You too, can play - Mondays and Fridays, there are open events with the winner playing in the Big Battle. Check out The Details!

I'm currently playing...

2007-12-30T22:53:00.000-08:00

I'm currently playing a Dollar Token Frenzy on FTP, but that's not the true question. The true question is: do I doble or do I not doble, or there is the $216 HORSE tonight as it's Sunday. Since I don't have to work in the morning, these are the things I ponder. listen

Powered by Jott

Sweet Baby Ricky Bobby!

2007-12-17T16:29:00.000-08:00

April relates one of the more amusing Vegas moments... This story still cracks me up reading it.

I'm saving up all my April Fast Passes, and you can't have 'em.

a post that is not twitter

2007-12-16T15:58:00.001-08:00

I feel like I should write SOMETHING about all the things that are going on in my life at this point. The trip to Vegas, the possibility of relocating back to Chicago, and the general work malaise that I am under at the moment. However, I am currently under the weather with the Vegas crud (at least I'm not in the hospital like Scooter!), and that seems to have wiped out any desire or motivation for me to post anything.

There is also the fact that it is, as usual, was so jam-packed with Sun and excitement in gambling that. It seems like to write a post that everything would be equivalent to attempting to eat an elephant in one sitting, and it as that may that you should do this one bite at a time, the task itself is pretty overwhelming.

But, the really good news for me is that I should be getting the best Christmas present ever on Monday, and hopefully by next month I will be a city girl!

p.s. - thanks to Falstaff for putting on a fantastic show!

Post Vegas

2007-12-13T15:46:00.000-08:00

... I got dealt a hand of the VegasFlu, and a whole load of work sucks, so I may never post a trip report (like that surprises the three people who still read this blog here), especially since I'm hoping to hear that I'm going to be relocating (again) in the next month or so.

Although I will just say, as I said to Marty while playing PaiGow: Vegas just isn't the same without Chilly, and he was missed.

Also, while craps with the bloggers is mucho fun, it just isn't the same as craps with the CrapsMaster. Gus, you gimpy, you were missed too, although dial-a-craps was fun, even if my hops never came in...

Keep your fingers crossed.

On the theory that I still play poker...

2007-10-03T20:19:00.001-07:00

<div style="height:140px;width:100%;"><a href="http://www.pokerstars.com/blog_tournament/"><img src="http://www.pokerstars.com/blog_tournament/images/2007-3.gif" alt="Texas Holdem Poker" width="250" height="90" border="0"></a><p>I have registered to play in the <a href="http://www.pokerstars.com/blog_tournament/">PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker</a>! </p><p>This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit <a href="http://www.pokerstars.com/">Texas Holdem</a> event exclusive to Bloggers.</p></p><p>Registration code: 5046097</p></div>

I'm not dead

2007-09-04T19:15:00.000-07:00

... but I honestly don't really have the passion for poker that I used to, which was a topic of conversation I had with Maudie and others this weekend. It's hard to write on things that don't make your heart go thumpa-thumpa for anymore.

But, speaking of this weekend, I had a fun trip down there this weekend - Saturday I played poker at the Borgata with Maudie and the Train, and Dawn and Alceste were there as well. The 10/20 game is as crazy bananas as Train has previously stated - I didn't believe him, and I was proven wrong, although my money went the way of the crazy slides. Ah well.

(and the 10/20 game is really that crazy - we had several guys who would call multiple raises with any two s00ted!)

Sunday, the desire for -EV games was too strong, and I made the 10/20 money back and more at craps, blackjack, and uber insane $25 craps. Aie-yaa! I now officially know that Gus is nutters, as he plays $50 craps!

Might as well get this in while Joe still loves me more than scotch...

2007-08-11T20:25:00.001-07:00

<JoeSpeake> FTOPS #6 tomorrow, 3 p.m. Cai[sic] time!

Cai time is pacific time for those of you who do not speak tipsy...

How's that for spontaneous?

2007-08-10T00:57:00.000-07:00

This is why I get to play tournaments on Gracie's big screen TV!

Thanks gracie for enabling me, and thank you to april, garth, ryan, drizz, speaks, chill ers, the baby daddy, sweet sweet pablo, peaks, zeem and the guy who folded a 2300 pot with 50 chips left.

AND I FORGOT SCOOTER FORGIVE MEEEEEEE

Now I go to bed and get 3 hours of sleep before my 8 am meeting.

P. S. - Dear Bloggers, I even dropped the hammer ftw.

Snape is a calling station

2007-08-04T21:17:00.001-07:00

This is priceless, and you should all read it this very minute: MudBlood

Because I am a lemming...

2007-07-09T07:52:00.001-07:00

And what Otis wants, Otis gets... Hairy gymnast

Garth is mr. TDL!

2007-06-30T06:57:00.001-07:00

Man, do I wish I were in Vegas right now? Garth is still alive after a crazy day playing Triple Draw 2-7 Low with all the pros! Keep an eye on him here.

Go Team Australia!

Calling the Blog Mafia

2007-06-06T11:05:00.000-07:00

Vote Speaker! http://texas-gal.com/hot/nlwest.html

From Chilly: that might be the biggest collection of geeks on one page in the history of the web

WPBT #4

2007-05-04T06:59:00.001-07:00

limit holdem win,
originally uploaded by maigrey.

[more details to come. meanwhile, check out 24 hours of flickr tommorow..]

Screw Steak and BJ day and PI day.

2007-03-14T07:36:00.000-07:00

I have a pi number of 0. Thus, I declare this to be PRINCESS MAIGREY BIRTH DAY instead of other lame days like steaks and pies.

P.S. - Ask Garth who first investigated probabilites. He likes flexing his Math Muscles.

I went to gracieland and all I got was this tournament win..

2007-03-06T06:12:00.000-08:00

The short version of the trip to Floridar (as my ex-boss used to pronounce it):

fly there, drive to gracieland and do what girls do in a car for a couple hours, eat at ihop (mmmm corn pancakes), play with dogs, sleep, breakfast, shop, play with dogs, poker, drink, drunken texts to garth, win poker tournament by taking out "two-outer" pablo heads up, go home, play with dogs, get FORCED TO LOSE AN HOUR OF MY LIFE WATCHING THE MOST AWFUL SHOW ON EARTH (the black donnellys), become even more emotionally scarred by creepy jake gyllenhaal's plastic face on SNL that didn't match his body any more, sleep, breakfast, drive back to orlando, shop mmm sephora shop mmm lush shop mmm bare escentuals boutique shop, fly home.

Sorry, no hot girl on girl action.

So, to put more poker content in here: Gracie had kept telling me all night to "take it dowwwn!", I kind of rolled my eyes at her since I haven't played much live poker in, well, forever. However, I did play pretty well, if I do say so myself, including this hand:

I am in the SB with 23o, there are about 20 limpers, so I complete. The flop is 3h Td 3d, I check and the BB bets pot (~150). He gets a MP caller and the button calls.

Me, being me, I check raise that sucker to T550 and get a call (but my feeling was the guy wanted to raise), and the MP guy calls, and then the button makes it 2100 to go (we started with about 5k in chips and this was reasonably early on).

Huh? I didn't like the BB calling, much less getting raised. I said "I can't believe I'm doing this," and folded. When the BB and MP people folded, I said to the button, "Oh just show me your tens..." I think he thought I meant that he had one ten in his hand, since he picked his hand up and showed me his pocket tens for a flopped full house - which was what I meant.

[as an aside - if this hand was played online? I go busto. Discuss amongst yourselves the difference.]

I got lucky - but not by ever getting all in with the worst of it; I mostly got lucky by getting good cards at the right time, like flopping trips against Pablo's aces and getting him to give me a chunk of his stack (and he played well to come back to take 2nd place!), and then getting Aces against the tournament maniac on his third hand after being moved to my table, and by making moves at the right time (like when Pablo and the guy who took third place would limp in 3 handed to me in the bb when I was short stacked - PUSH!), and by having my big hands mostly hold up instead of getting cracked.

I mentioned to Gracie that even when you play well, you still need luck like that to win.

She then mentioned to me when I got home that her friends asked her that next time she brings a friend to the tournament to make sure that they're a fish.

...

...

So, we're sending Garth down there next. :)

prelude to a florida trip report...

2007-03-06T05:50:00.000-08:00

I went to visit gracie this weekend, and upon my return I told garth that we had decided that he should write more, and it doesn't even have to be about the poker.

I think I may have said, "YES WE TALKED ABOUT YOOOOO HAHAHAHAHA"

To which he replied:

Garth's imaginary conversation between Heather and Gracie:

Heather: You know who drinks a lot? Garth. He's a total lush.
Gracie: Yeah, it's true. He should also write more on his blog.
Heather: Yeah.
<pause>
Heather: You know who's hot? Erik[sic] Lindgren.

... this is just one reason why we love the aussie with the funny.

NEWS FLASH: Girl Bloggers Invade AC

2007-02-23T10:36:00.000-08:00

March 16th. April, Kat and I are confirmed for storming the boardwalk.

Be there or be square, beetches.

Garth, you suck in advance. Boo.

omaha rockstar!

2007-02-18T12:55:00.000-08:00

omaha rockstar!,
originally uploaded by maigrey.

Nice way to spend a snowy sunday...

dude where's my boat?

2007-02-15T09:53:00.000-08:00

why i don't read blogs anymore

(ps, i live to crack AAxx, beeytches)

Looking for My Father in Las Vegas

2007-01-23T12:12:00.000-08:00

Via F-Train:"Looking for My Father in Las Vegas"

“Problem gamblers are life’s losers,” he said. “They wanna go broke. They always find a reason why they lost. I lose, I go home. Reasons are part of the equation. Once I bet, I understand I have no control, so I understand loss.” He stood up to go. He added: “Everybody can’t be winners. That’s why we need born losers.”

And yet, so true.

How to turn $8.80 into $216

2007-01-21T13:20:00.000-08:00

How to turn $8.80 into $216,
originally uploaded by maigrey.

Ok, so I'm hanging out on a lazy sunday waiting for the Bears game, and I enter into the 8+.80 satellite for the 200+16 game later tonight.

I managed to win it, after getting a huge run of cards in... hold'em.

... I also took down the $5.50 HORSE on FTP last night -- in Hold'em as well. Watch out for flying pigs and pieces of the sky falling...

Funniest post I've seen in a long while...

2007-01-20T22:19:00.000-08:00

... goes to Tom Bayes - The 2+2 Digest

The best laid plans...

2007-01-17T22:12:00.000-08:00

First, I want to say that the I had outs girls run a fine, fine, tournament.

To Jordan: let's just make it clear that there was no way I was going to fold JJ, no matter what I put your range on - I would have called the raise, hit the flop like a drunk to a bottle and gotten my double up there. And you'd be surprised what I was raising with - I think the only time I was annoyed that you reraised me was when I had a hand I had to actually think about playing. :D

To Dawn, Alceste, and anyone else who fell prey to my unusually donkish ways: turns out the best way to accumulate chips is to play like Jordan! Errrr, I mean to play pretty loosely because you NEED to get to the train stations before the last one leaves the station so you start calling any short stack with pretty much anything and you start raising every two hands. .... hmmm maybe the Jordan crack isn't too out of line ... Anyway - if you are trying to bust, you will win every time you're behind and accumulate chips. [And yet, I'm too much of a competitor to play EVERY hand, hmm]

To Jordan, Toby, Karen and Matt - thanks for being sports about the deal and letting me get home safely [I'm on the train into NYC again so I can't do linkies I don't have memorized]

love,
the suckout princess, who will be driving in next time, despite the pain of finding parking.

Now this warms the cockles of my heart...

2007-01-16T11:34:00.000-08:00

Hey maigrey great job in the HORSE last night. My guy [redacted] was at your table for the first hour or so, and I warned him profusely to stay the F away from any pots you were involved in. I had him on the girly chat, and it was funny to see the progression of his comments. First it was like "oh come on, a GIRL good at HORSE, give me a break", and then "wow maigrey just took a big pot off of me". Eventually it became "holy shit maigrey has more chips than the entire rest of the table combined", and finally deteriorated to "please PLEASE get me moved away from this table!". Funny stuff.

- from hoyazo

Poker After Dark

2007-01-14T08:08:00.000-08:00

I must say, except for the stupid commentators, I really like the show - I especially like the fact that they don't cut out hands and we get to hear what a table really is like with all the chattering. I also found it really interesting in last week's shows, that when it was heads up, David Grey and Daniel Negranu actually DID tell each other what their hands were.

But I think the most amusing thing is the new full tilt commercials. This one's my current favorite:

You can see it here if the above doesn't work for you.

HORSE Fun

2007-01-12T07:50:00.000-08:00

HORSE Fun,
originally uploaded by maigrey.

I (somewhat stupidly) decided to play in the HORSE tournament on full tilt last night. I managed to take a commanding chip lead and held it for a good portion of the time. I then got moved to Clonie's table and promptly went card dead.

I finished somewhere in the teens - I made the money but didn't get much for my effort except a lack of sleep.

Fun with triple draw ...

2007-01-05T09:54:00.000-08:00

... is watching Chris Fargis and Greg Raymer two-table 30/60. Crackers!

I think I may have created a monster here, so stay away from my table (if it's above $1/$2) unless you're an australian! I hate blogger tables for real money.

But here is a question for you:
In triple draw, when you draw, do you make sure to have as many suits as possible, or do you not pay attention once you have two suits?

And another:
Do you discard right to left? Or do you not care...

Some amusement while talking to St. B about TDL on the old-skool chat thing:
<maigrey> that would be what we call a #3 [23567 for those of you playing at home]
<St B> I just had the nuts :)
<maigrey> is that all?
<St B> that is how tight I am now
<maigrey> we call that a "whee"
<maigrey> er
<St B> lol
<maigrey> "wheel"
<maigrey> we call it a wheeeeee too

Triple Draw Tournaments

2007-01-04T06:56:00.000-08:00

I got the heads up that Poker Stars is running Triple Draw Tournaments, so DiscoStacks and I checked one out last night.

I'm sorry to say that the verdict is: The SUCK. There is just not enough play in the game for the number of chips you get (T$1500), and the blinds move at the same level and timeframe as HE - the problem is, you don't get good hands as often in TDL as you do in HE, so after an hour if you haven't gotten monsters, you get horked with a short stack.

Save your money for now, try again if they modify the structure to have more chips - I think running it as a doublestack tournament would be the best way to do it - $3000 chips is about right.

But at least this hasn't happened to me...

[Also, I highly recommend semagic as a blogger posting client (it does LJ too)]

My TDL lessons

2007-01-02T07:47:00.000-08:00

First off, Happy New Year, everyone. 2007 is off to an auspicious start - I went to AC for NYE and didn't put a chip on a table, AND I drank three (at least) whole beers. Gasp - what is this world coming too???

So, as promised, the TDL post. First, a primer on TDL, courtesy of BadBlood - read that first if you're not familiar before moving on.

Things I have learned about TDL, mostly courtesy of DiscoStacks:
. Playing without a 2 is very shady
. An 87 low is the DEBBIL, but sometimes evil holds up - it's like having KQ on a K 8 7 board - lots of hands out there are better than yours, but you still are likely good
. There are all sorts of crazy people playing this game - people who cap predraw and then drop 4
. nothing hurts worse than having an 8 perfect (85432) get cracked by someone who draws two on the river and hits his 76
. I need to fold much more preflop, and reraise more when I'm going to play
. 3-5-7 is really not a pretty hand to start with - it is the equivalent of KT or K9 s00ted, because of all the straight possibilities, so don't be calling it for a raise, even in the blind
. 2357, on the other hand, is like having cowboys preflop
. alcohol helps dull the variance pain
. 3456 is the A9o of TDL. Just fold it and save yourself the pain - it's not as pretty as it looks, because you're drawing to a horrible 8. [Garth prefers to fold this hand and set it on fire]
. the sweetest chips are the ones you get from running the wheel (23457 in TDL speak) into #2 (23467) and getting paid off all the way

an actual poker post

2006-12-29T07:23:00.000-08:00

[ed note: i have no idea why my template is FUBARed, if you can shed some light, please let me know]

First, to april, when she said that I was on a tournament rush and I didn't agree.

She was right:

Now that the housekeeping is out of the way, some thoughts on Triple Draw:

I've been playing a lot more triple draw these days - it's the next big thing; it's as juicy as the hold'em games used to be, back in the day. I also have the benefit of having a good TDL player (who has a milestone annual mummy tummy unzip day celebration coming up tomorrow) to barrage with questions constantly. It's also probably the easiest way to clear the pokerstars bonuses and is a sweet spot for getting at least silver star status, if not gold. Check out the math, courtesy of the degreed Australian:

Given: A TD pot has to hit $20 if there are 4 or more players to get the first FP point, and has to hit $40 to get a second FP point.
This means that almost all 5/10 hands get 1 pt, and a lot of them would get 2. But for 2/4, $40 is 10 BB. Normal action is something like: post, post, raise, one caller from the BB.

Preflop, $9
First draw: check bet. Another $4. Pot now $13
2nd draw: Check bet call. Another $8. Pot now $21 (one point!)
3rd draw: Check bet fold. Final pot: $21.

With 3 players in, it usually gets close to $40, esp if there's multiple raises predraw. We figured 5/10 accumulates points about 1.7 times faster than 2/4, and basic math with empirical data shows that to be pretty close - 5/10 is about 7/4ths faster. And that's not even counting when you get maniacs and it gets to $40 preflop.

Granted, the hands take longer to play, but at 5/10 you can get about 75 FPP/table/hour, which means it only takes 53 table hours of playing to get 4,000 points. Not too shabby. It takes about 100 table hours to do the same at 2/4, which is 4 hours of playing 25 nights a week. yowsa.

...next, what I learned about how to play TDL...

Craps is the new PAIGOW!!

2006-12-18T14:50:00.000-08:00

or, All (well, almost all) the things Garth forgot on his Vegas Vacation

by the princess

So, I've been dying to play the dice all night, but the IP had the table limits up to $10, and screw that. However, on one of my lazy circuits around the room, I saw that beeeyoooutiful red placard out - $5, babeee! And I knew JUST who to gather to come shoot with me.

... and no, it's not Garth. It's Joe Speaker - if there's one phrase that can move him away from the bar, it's "FIVE DOLLAH CRAPS LETS GO!". So saying that, we move over tht way, the lovely Dacia and Garth "Oh I don't play craps" in tow.

Speaks and I squeeze in and start rolling, and Garth protests and protests despite a spot opening up at the table. However, he is no match for Dacia and I who bump and block him into position, and the hundo just goes onto the felt on its own.

[how Garth remembered it]

And the rest, in princess bullets (tm):

Speaker: "If you're not superstitious now, you will be in about 5 minutes"

various and sundry:"you cannot talk to the shooter, and you cannot touch the shooter"

garth: "so HYPOTHETICALLY if I were talking to JOE, I would ask..."

Steve the dealer every time I made some wiseass comment (so, approximately every 3 minutes) "yes dear, whatever you say dear"

Garth and me to every blogger that passed by: "Hey, [blogger], do you know what this feels like???"

Blogger: "What?"

[princess rubbing garth's chest (be jealous ladies)] Garth & me: "It feels like VICTORYEEEEEEE"

Somehow I managed to get married to St. B. who only married me for the kid, who was walking around with an austrailian accent

"You're GOOOOOOORGEOUS"

Oh my god, did she really just lick Speaker's sleeve??

"DAMMIT just give me the $5 so I can roll! I'm not passing the dice!"

St.B, "You are NOT THE BOSS OF ME"

dealer steve: "Oooooh, I think she is"

St. B "Yeah, you're right..."

TEAM AMERICA! (and garth pleading to let us let an aussie in)

That half of the table is cursed! Here's how you bet the wrong way, garth...

Garth, to me: "you know, that guy behind me is really starting to turn me on..."

me, to Garth: *blank look*

Garth, enthusiastically, "The guy behind me, who has been rolling for 30 minutes!"

Me, laughing, "you mean, Mikey?"

Garth, "Yeah, I mean that's totally HOTT!"

Bobby Bracelet, with all his money on the table as I'm rolling for a hard 8 which comes, "Wahoooo! Wait, let me get this out of the ATM"

Bobby, attempting the ATM trick, but the craps gods are not fooled, and a seven comes up.

Garth, "I still don't know what I'm doing, but I LOVE ROLLING!!!"

Garth, "You are NOT THE BOSS OF ME" as I am putting his bets down for him

dealer steve: "Dude, she totally is. "

Garth "Yeah, you're soooo right..."

I may have possibly given Veneno the evil eyes when she made all the crazy horn bets for garth and her which all paid off.

Crazy Australian pointing to his cheek, "I need some LUCK, baby!"

"HEY the IP definitely has bust requirements" - garth

St. Kat and her coffee (Garth didn't forget this, but it deserves a repeat. THANK YOU THANK YOU)

Me dropping a chip in the April Cleavage Slot Machine, and garth going off to retrieve it

Bobby B out tipping me with the dealers, "Put a dollar down for everyone at that end of the line!" (this may have been how we got away with all the crap we got away with)

Us (and the dealers) watching the other side scoop up all the dollars as they had no clue what they were for (cheapskates)

"pseudoephedrine means it doesn't work so well down there. ... But I can work around the edges!"

as we make a big point, BobbyB: "Hear THAT, other tables??"
"Craps is the new PAIGOW!!"

We make our way up to the Imperial Theater, where we run into WeakPlayer, who asks us where we have been for the last stretch of time. Garth tells him we have been playing craps, to which we get the reply, "But I wanted to pop your craps cherry!"

Uhhhh....

Weak: "Why did you play when she asked?"
Garth: "Dude, she's female."
Princess: "And I am very persuasive with ways that you do not have."
Garth: "Like boobs."
Weak: "Oh, ok."

... at this point it's about 1:30 on Sunday and I need a two hour recharge of my batteries so I stumble off for a nap.

PSA for blogger users

2006-12-13T11:45:00.000-08:00

... we interrupt this vegas trip report for the following public service announcement ...

I was wondering why I was so bored lately.

Guess what, blogger beta dropped all of you out of my bloglines feeds when you switched over, with no warning.

So if you want to continue reading me, you will need to put the following into your favorite RSS reader as a feed: http://princessmaigrey.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

It doesn't exist yet, but I'm pretty sure it will...

... more vegas to come ....

We interrupt this vegas recap...

2006-12-12T14:45:00.000-08:00

... to remind you that tonight is the MAIGREY INVITATIONAL!

What: WWdN: maigrey Invitational
Where: PokerStars.
When: TONIGHT. 8:30 EST
Password: monkey
Buy-in: $10 +1

What I did on my Vegas Vacation

2006-12-12T12:22:00.000-08:00

by the princess

In bullet form, because that's how I roll:

got incredibly schnockered at the MGM

stacked daddy with 24d on a Kd 3s 5d board

made Joe Speaker back his $100 at HORSE

(i'm now currently wondering why I didn't play at the MGM with my money)

paigow round 1 with garth and EZ, Grubby (who wanted to marry Myung), and Gary

Gary - who was even more of an Ironman than Garth OR I

Blackjack with BobbyBlackjack, StB and Garth - gimme the hognut baby!

3/6 Limit with Marty and Chilly, who for a twist on the usual, pwned me. Snif.

meeting a dealer (Gary! Taj, you know who I mean!) who used to deal in Indiana

Dinner with April (TX), The Heads, Maudie, and Gracie at Bouchon, with divine scallops

MORE crazy Paigow with Garth, Tommy, and other bloggers I cannot remember because I was inebriated - speak up now to help my memory

Irish Jim! (See, I remembered your name)

Garth and his Cher-elvis imitations (yes, he knows all the words)

Elaine the most awesome pit boss ever - "hey wait, she has a flush!"

Garth deciding to write a Paigow blog, with his many coined phrases:

"Hey Heather, do you know what this feels like?" "What, Garth?" "It feels like VICTORYYYYY!" (this also translates well to craps)

"A push is a win!!"

"A push is a win because it buys you DRINKING TIME!"

"Bonus money is the sweeeeeeeetest money"

"Time to get my [paigow] game face on!"

"geez, I have four of everything which makes a lot of NOTHING", prompting me to start calling hands where I have 4 to a flush and 4 to a straight a "garth".

"Paigow is very good to my liver, and yet, very very bad to my liver, too"

"Wait! I need a control hand! Let's use the scientific method here!"

...Then I decided we must play craps (we've made it to Saturday evening or so now), as the IP lowered the min bet to $5. And you know who is always up for the dice? That's right ladies, Joe Speaker. And his lovely lady also is a fan. Garth insisted he didn't want to play, but tagged along to watch. This began what I like to say, the corruption of Garth, or "craps is the new paigow."
[to be continued...]

What happens in vegas...

2006-12-12T10:56:00.000-08:00

... gets blogged! And it will, eventually. I think between Garth and I we might both actually remember everything that happened.

Until then, I will leave you with this: "I still don't know what I'm doing, but I LOVE ROLLING!!"

It's almost more fun without Wil!

2006-12-05T20:13:00.000-08:00

So, CJ MADE me play the wwdn, despite feeling crummy. He said I could have the bounty on the luckbox, to which I crabbily said "I never get sat at your table anyway".

... and I didn't. But I got some cards, and some chips and on my second table change, got to the luckbox's table. CJ informed the table, and I agreed. CJ can tell you the details of the hand, but he didn't reraise and I limp-called a smallish raise with pocket twos, I hit the hammer flop, CJ bet out, and I called, and his pair of tens no good, and I get this:

Then, thanks to some super railbirding and cracking bdidde's set of queens with my pair and straight draw (to be fair, I warned people I had aquired the powers of CJ by knocking him out), I got HU to win the championship and ...

Tada. :) I get an invitational named after me AND I get to knock out Wil without getting on the list or on the roof of the escalade.

See you in VEGAS!!

Horsing around

2006-12-01T21:39:00.000-08:00

I have more to say on the poker side of things, like why I suck at 6 max, and why did I even bother? But for now I leave you with this:

Do you think they'd let me bring this on the plane to vegas?

2006-11-30T07:17:00.000-08:00

... I think I found the perfect gift for TAJ

Thanksgiving denoument

2006-11-24T20:53:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving was AWESOME - my family and friends rock, so have sympathy on those who had less fortunate thanksgivings.

My mom offered to start the green bean casserole since she gets up earlier than everyone and so I wasn't rushed to get up at 7 am. I got up leisurely at 7:15, tossed my rat's nest of sleeping-on-the-inflatable-bed-hair and went downstairs and the casserole was almost ready to go in the oven. Mom then started on the devils eggs while I dumped the scalloped taters out of the box, as Claire and Paul made their way downstairs.

They both don't like sitting around doing nothing while other people are working, so they put the couchbed away, and then started finding all the pictures I purposefully didn't hang since I knew Claire's a) better at that than I am and b) actually likes doing it while I find it to be a dreary chore. Win win situation, I say.

So, as I'm putting food together in my pajamas(how awesome that you can cook things ahead of the turkey and then put them in the fridge??), my house is getting redecorated and pictures are being hung. Yay. Then the turkey goes in the oven, and according to my timetable, it's time to take a shower!

... and I realize in the shower that I forgot to put SUGAR in the fake-sweet-potato-pie recipe. Oops. Well, if that's the only thanksgiving disaster, hey, I'll take it.

I come down and my house looks FANTASTIC. C&P have vacuumed and swept and hung EVERYTHING I didn't feel like hanging, and then proceed to tell me that they want to move some furniture for me because my beautiful antique armoire is not being shown off enough.

About this time I finally get in touch with Gus and Kat, and find out they're going to be in on the 11:40 train, which means I have to leave about 5 min from now to go get them. C&P leave about then to pick up some wine and firewood.

Despite the fact the train was late, we beat Claire and Paul back, and can't find my mother, who's disappeared somewhere upstairs. Claire and Paul come back with a mega-jug of wine that matches the size of the double sized white wine I'd bought for the gravy earlier. This turns out to be a good (or bad, depending on your view of hangovers) thing.

And hey, since it's now after noon by three minutes, it's time to start drinking!

There was only one minor snafu. The turkey was not browning. We were sure the meat was done but it "needs to look pretty" said my sister. We solved this buttering the turkey to kingdom come and turning the broiler on, and leaving it in for 5 minutes.

PERRRFECT! Claire offers to make the gravy and I'm all "go for it!" and go and drink some "Fire Engine Red" wine with my guests (which was the only normal sized bottle of wine we had).

Dinner totally rocked. Everything, even the butternut-squash-casserole turned out ok (throwing extra marshmallows on things solves most problems), and we were quite happy.

... and then we broke out Apples to Apples, attempted to teach my mom how to play poker and my sister (who understands poker rankings) the concept of "pot odds", and killed about 5 L of wine, 1.5 bottles of Jack Daniels and a bottle of vanilla rum, and realized you cannot teach euchre to drunk people. I totally wish I had a tape recorder for the poker portion, however. Priceless.

You're all invited next year.

to answer t-giving comments

2006-11-21T14:40:00.000-08:00

Taj who has no blog - I have a McDonalds right around the corner and a Kings right next to it; I'll drive there for something to microwave if I need to

Drizz - Dessert is cherry pah and chocolate cream pie from the raritan bakery, reservations already made by the illustrious BG.

StB - Sadly, BG is returning to the wild wild land of Michigan for the holiday so, HA HA HA I'M COOKING THIS ALL MYSELF WEEEEEE.

... and I have plenty of booze.

True friendship

2006-11-18T14:33:00.000-08:00

... not to discount the value of someone who lets you play craps after a 20 hour bender without complaint, or listens to you oooh and aaaaah about the latest sephora item, but, you know someone is the most awesomenest (yes that's now a word) friend when the following scenario plays out:

you (or really in this case, me): "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH my family is coming up for thanksgiving next week and I HAVEN'T EVEN STARTED PLANNING AAAAAH I'm going INSANE!"

the coolest friend EVAH: "Ok, so what are you thinking of having for dinner? Ok - and you live where in New Jersey? Ok, don't worry - here, you're picking your pies up at this bakery near your house on Wednesday, and some dinner rolls, too. [...] And here's your shopping list, and the recipies and timeline for making sure everything gets to the table on time."

Swooon. Thanks, BG. :)

mmmmmm fun

2006-11-15T13:18:00.000-08:00

[name changed to protect the innocent]: I am smarter than the average bear and would like some TD pointers so I can fleece the idiots before they are gone. Please help.

YESSSSSSssssssssssssss. There is TDL on Stars. And they all think A-high is GOOT. Catch 'em while they're jumping, kids.

If you don't know how to catch them, pick up SSII super quick.

Summary of the AC trip...

2006-11-12T21:24:00.000-08:00

Peepvestment!

2006-11-10T23:33:00.000-08:00

Not a bad effort for $8.80. Almost makes up for the fact that instead of getting my drink on in NYC, Kurt's flight was @#$@$@ cancelled and as I pulled into my driveway I got called by my boss to go run the fire brigade on an outage in LA. And then OOP! Hey, while we're at it, have three more people to manage for about 6-8 months, since you have a data center anyway. Weeee.

So, now I go to bed, to rendezvous with the Kurt later tomorrow (or really today), and the helixx for some NOOOOOODLES after that.

tee minus four and counting

2006-11-10T13:33:00.000-08:00

Woo hooooooo, here we come! T minus 4 hours until plane decendage and then tee minus 22 hours until helixx-time, or hammertime.

yay!

Fun on transatlantic flights...

2006-11-06T22:32:00.000-08:00

So when going to the UK, I've taken the Sunday night flight, landing in the UK in the morning and going right to work. Theoretically, if you can sleep on the plane, you can pretty much grit your way through the work day, then go to sleep after work and be right on schedule.

Theoretically.

If the plane doesn't have a climate control problem, and you are somewhat prone to lightheadness. Then, you will be miserable and unable to sleep and unable to deal with the lightheadedness because YOU try putting your head between your knees in COACH.

After about 3 hours, I figured maybe I was nauseous and so I got up and made my way with the intent of going to the restroom and getting rid of whatever in my stomach made me queasy. I got to the back of the plane, progressively getting more lightheaded, and the attendants immediately looked at me and asked, "Are you okay?"

... "Ummmm, no, not really."

They had me sit down and gae me some OJ and I still wasn't looking better, so then I moved to lie down in the back of the plane with a stewardess holding my feet up. I started to feel much better - I know how to deal with lightheadedness, I just wasn't able to in my teeny seat.

I guess my color still wasn't good because they then broke out the oxygen tank and said "Oh this might make you nauseous, but it'll really help, I promise!" Greaaat.

Anyway, as I was getting better, someone else was escorted back, looking pale as well. I got up and said "Don't worry, you're not the only one..."

Turns out there were six people who were feeling faint, and three of those, including me, needed oxygen.

Fun times...

Don't forget about THESE fun times:
Sunday Nov 12th at 9 Eastern
PokerStars, Private tournies,
$20+2, pass is wpbt72

[now I need to put money on stars...]

2006-11-06T14:33:00.000-08:00

I am switzerland.

I'm still alive

2006-11-02T06:35:00.000-08:00

I'm mostly playing triple-draw on UB these days, and occasionally some stud-8 on FTP. Exciting stuff, really.

I did take second in the WPBT tour, Stud, cha cha cha. And guess what's next? EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE Come one, come all, take me on at Stud/8, beetches.

I also cashed 9th in the 10k recently too - thanks to Garth and the baby Penner being bad influences and convincing me to play that silly 2 card game. I was actually pretty upset to take 9th, because there were two shorties who took 7 and 8, and I could have easily outlasted them for more money. But I suppose I'm there to win the thing, huh? Sigh, still, it makes me cranky.

And now the really important thing: I'm going to be in AC with KURRRRRRRT!! on Saturday, Nov 11th - Are YOU coming???

Or, are you going to Vegas and storming the IP with us?

This is what happens when you are friends with slightly OCD people...

2006-10-19T11:57:00.000-07:00

... my tickets for Vegas are booked. I can't believe I'm driving out to Schnecksville, only to take a BUS BACK TO NEWARK to fly out from there. But it's actually CHEAPER than taking the SAME flight from EWR to LAS. Bizarre.

I'm definitely working from home on Tuesday after we get back though. Ngh.

Pot Limit Insanity

2006-10-16T19:11:00.000-07:00

I was going to write a post about how stud variants are incredibly crazy and poor games to play as pot-limit.

Then I realized that this was stupid, because having PLAYED PL Stud, Stud 8, and any other type of crazy game you can think of (YES, PL TD was in the mix, as was PL 5 card stud), and being a winning player at these against people who knew reasonably well how to play ...

... that if a homegame includes people who think that 2 pair is GOOT in PLO when a straight draw is on board and they've been raised on the flop and bet into on the turn, plus people who insist on going only one way on Stud/8b, I should be screaming: PLEEEEEEEEEEEASE LETS PLAY STUD POT LIMIT.

So, I say, game on.

I amuse very easily

2006-10-12T12:57:00.000-07:00

... because this made me laugh, in reference to talking about something going on at my company:

"Yeah... it's a Dilbert Parade here on Sesame Street"

Apt, sadly.

Poppin' the cherry

2006-10-10T14:23:00.000-07:00

YAY! Kurt is coming out to Jersey the weekend of Nov. 10th to visit. Since he's not only one of my favorite people, he's an erstwhile degenerate gambling companion as well, there will be a trip to AC, oh yes, there will.

As of this moment, it will also be my very FIRST trip to the air conditioned city (and Kurt's as well!), I insist there be some crazy blogger celebration and that you all must come down as well. Dawn, Al, BG, Derek (and Pauly if he's in town), F-Train, Joaquin and Helixx (do you even have a blog anymore?), I'm LOOKING AT YOU. Be there. No excuses!

We will be going sometime on Saturday, as we are not stupid and know that we will need to get any sight-seeing in NYC done on Friday because after AC we will be pretty dead to the world and will be lucky to get Kurt to the airport on time (and safely! Sorry about almost killing you Dawn!). I'm also taking suggestions for things to do in NYC as well, since - let's face it - I am a tourist as well.

To Garth, I say: BOOOOOOoooOOOOOOoooOOOO to pittsburgh (sorry kurt). Are you even real? You miss the bash, you are going to be "in pittsburgh" for the 10th, you went to Vegas without us... my goodness!

... at least now I have a good reason to unpack my boxes.

Sent to me via IM

2006-09-29T11:48:00.000-07:00

"I have nothing left to prove at cards. I'm just going to focus on being a bookie."

hee.

if you know who (whom?) I'm talking about, no fair telling him!

A house made of cardboard and paper

2006-09-27T12:52:00.000-07:00

So the movers came and now my house is an obstacle course of cardboard and paper, and bits and pieces of electronics.

I think the next east coast blogger gathering should be at my house to unpack all this stuff, for which I would provide booze and pizza. Someone else would need to bring the poker chips...

ObPokerContent: Played the wwdn, took out iggy, and then promptly gave my stack away the next hand with top two to bottom set. oop.

Don't hate me because I'm beautiful...

2006-09-25T16:04:00.000-07:00

... hate me because I don't get hangovers. It's true.

[Editor's note - I do seem to get stupid as I posted this Sunday night and was wondering what was going on. Turns out I posted it to the wrong blog. Oop.]

I'll probably get into the whole story later but the puppy and I are rather tired from all our travels cross country. But suffice it to say, if you weren't there, you definitely missed out on a grand time, and I can't think of a better way to have inaugurated my East Coast existance.

And I want to see everyone's pictures, bitches! Esp those of drizz dropping trou, gracie's pussy,and Carter letting out his bad diva self.

See what you missed?

Now I just need to wait for my furniture to get here on Tuesday, and decide what football team to root for this year - Giants or Jets. Decisions decisions.

House! (no not the dr)

2006-09-07T12:19:00.000-07:00

Dining room / Living room, originally uploaded by maigrey.
Here's my new digs - complete with a fireplace I will most likely never use...

I must say, I do love the fact that the laundry is upstairs, but I will miss my basement. I also wish I took a picture of the incredibly cute front courtyard...

ETA HA HA I found a picture of the front from the MLS listing... I R SMRT

A Response to Fwalgman

2006-07-30T11:32:00.000-07:00

FWALG says in a comment to this post: "I got an honest question and it is more because I do not play a very aggressive game and it interests me because I know you are aggressive and successfull[sic]. Please do not think this is questioning your play at all I am just trying to explore an interesting facit[sic] of the cash games.

Are hands like 55 and AK worth going all in with? Is it because of the fold equity where a good player will laydown to you? Any hand that called your 55 bet is going to be a 46% dog or something around that? Are these the margins I should be chasing in a n NL game? The AK hand you had him dominated but assuming he had QJ lets say and called your still on a coinflipish situation.

Help me understand why I should not be trying to see flops and outplaying the morons on the table instead of taking razor thin edges to the extreme. It is ok if you call me a woos. I am used to it."

I'm not sure what 55 hand you're talking about. With the TT, I'm 90% positive I have the best hand, and I'd like to take the pot down now with the $70 or so that's in there without having to see a flop, because once I see a flop, I'm going to see overcards and I don't like my TT that much. I can't really justify calling a PFR with 3 other people in with a pair of tens - I need to at least isolate because while it's the best hand now, it's probably not later. Also, if the initial raiser comes over the top of me, I can lay my hand down because I'm pretty sure I'm beat; I'm also sure with most of the table that I do have a lot of fold equity.

In fact, I limp with TT here where a lot of people raise. I often treat TT as a pair of 8s or 5s in EP, and go with the no set no bet rule.

With the AK hand, I have $96, the PFR makes it $15 so I have two options: a) call and hope for an A or K on the flop and fold if I don't get that or b) re-raise and take the aggression away from the PFR. I'm not terribly fond of a) because it induces the blinds to come in for the flop and makes my hand more vulnerable to a wacky 2 pair from the blinds, or a draw, so that leaves me with b).

Well, I have $96. Take $15 out for the call, and that leaves me with $81. I'm not minimum raising because that's just moronic, IMO. My smallest possible raise would be to $40. This leaves me with $56 left, and if I get even one caller, I'm pretty much pot committed to any bed except on an extremely scary flop. There won't be any possibility of "outplaying" anyone on the flop, because I won't have enough money to push him off a pot, and the only way I'm going to have enough money to push someone off the pot is preflop, so that's why I pushed all in.

Also, as a NB, in order to "outplay" people post flop, they actually have to know something about poker besides what they see on TV. Good luck finding that!

Note to Jim: yes, this is at Magestic, and the difference is, 6 months ago, you saw fish but even the fish would generally lay down both of these hands, although they would hate doing it. Or you'd find ONE person at the table who would do this, not 4 or 5.

Kurt and I talked about it and we figured out what the difference is - All the college kids are home from school now and they're taking their internet style of play to the casino. It's really the only explanation.

The game, it is a changing...

2006-07-28T03:32:00.000-07:00

... especially at low stakes NL Hold'em.

I refused to call these bad beat stories, because while they technically ARE, I am not lamenting the bad beat - I honestly want to try and figure out the mind set of the players that play these days and get some feedback. Is this internet play, or TV play? How have you had to adjust your game to the 'new breed' of poker players?

Does anyone know what actually caused this change? I say this because there is a definite difference in players in my card room as of say, six months ago as there was prior to that. The fish are weirder and I cannot figure them out for the life of me.

I kid you not, I spent this entire 4 hour session going "Oh man, my brain is hurting [because it's working too hard to figure this table out]"

The game is $50min / $200 max hold 'em, $2/ $5 blinds.

Hand 1:
I am UTG+1 with TT. I limp in for $5, knowing that I can fold a hand if I do not hit a set on the flop; in fact, I prefer to play tens in EP this way.

Player with vague amount of poker skills (and 3rd best at the table, after Kurt and I) two to my left makes it $20 to go. Guy to his left calls, leaving him $90 behind. Another LP player calls, and it's folded back to me.

I say "Wow, I'm really confused." And I raise to $120 (leaving me $300 or so behind), because the $70 or so in the pot is good enough for me right now and I'm pretty sure I have the best hand.

Initial raiser folds after saying "You were under the gun, right?", guy with $90 left counts down his chips and thinks, and then says "Well, I have to call you".

Everyone else folds, and guy turns up KTo. The initial raiser mentions he had KQ. I love this. Until I see the K on the flop and the case on the river, but oh well.

Questions: When did KTo become a good enough hand to call a 4x raise with to begin with, and when did it then become strong enough to pu all your chip in with? Is there some mentality I'm missing? (not to mention, what cards do you have that you think are live?)

Hand 2:
I am in MP with AKo and only $96. An EP raiser makes it $15 to go, I look down at my hand and based on the play am pretty sure I can beat the initial raiser, and that he's not going to call the raise anyway, so I push in.

Everyone else folds except the button, who calls. Initial raiser folds.

Button tables ATo. I don't suck out against that hand and lose my $96.

Questions: What's the mentality to make this call? When did ATo become a hand that could beat a raise and a reraise? Which cards do you think are live?
Granted, this same guy called a PFR and a flop bet with just a gutterball on another hand, and he hit.

No hand, but just another observation of weirdity:
There was this one guy at our table who would call ANY bet with a flush or straight draw - he had a neon light on his head saying "I'm on a draw". And then when he hit, he would NEVER BET IT if he was out of position. If he hit on the turn, he would check, and if it checked behind he would STILL check the river. If you call a pot sized bet HU just to hit a draw, you'd think you'd bet it at least once, right?

Please help me to understand, or share your insights. This isn't meant as a snark against these players, but something is playing differently these days and I'm trying to find out why.

Obligatory Poker Post

2006-07-26T10:49:00.000-07:00

[NB - this is an obligatory post in order not to be taken off blogrolls. So there. On the other hand, I can certainly use some motivation to actually write again]

I'm currently on a plane headed to New Jersey, and it looks like this is going to be my itinerary for the next several weeks. I also just talked to the realtor and she's going to be putting the house on the market tomorrow, so think good thoughts and prayers that the house sells soon.

My poker playing has been drastically cut down in recent times - I hardly played in Vegas and now that I'm back home, I'm only playing maybe once a week, and even then only when Kurt convinces me to come play cards. I just don't find that I have the desire to go play; perhaps some of that is the drive is getting to me, some of that is the fact that I have a lot of other stuff to get done in order to move out to the east coast in September-ish, but I think there's probably something else - I just don't need it to fill up time in my life anymore. That, and I'm kind of tired of getting sucked out on.

Kurt's starting to think that maybe it's time to go back to the 10/20 limit game, and I might actually have to agree. The other games at the casino are just so filled with fish, and while, yes, you want fish, I am of the mindset that you really want to limit the number of fish at the table.

Why you ask? Because yes, a fish will chase their three outers against you, and you want that. However, if you have 6 fish chasing their 3 outers against you (because no one knows how to fold), that's 18 outs against your hand and that doesn't make you as much of a favorite as you'd like to think you were, so the losses get harder.

Vegas, baby Vegas!

2006-06-28T16:10:00.000-07:00

It's almost that time - the time whereupon many crazy degenerate gamblers descend upon that mecca of felt...

... okay, yes, it's the World Series of Poker TOO, but I mean the WPBT is THIS CLOSE!

By the way, if you're not reading the WSOP coverage by Pauly or on Otis's PokerStars blog, you are missing out. Go there and come back after you're done.

Ok, so now that that's done, I believe it's time to discuss the matter of Tourney Bounties. If this is your first time to the WPBT shenanigans, then here's the scoop: a lot of people like to bring something from home, or something that signifies their poker blog as a bounty for the person who knocked them out. It's kind of a nice way to do a "pin exchange" like they did in the old days and such. I'm not sure what I'm going to put together, but I'll put something together.

And I'm personally hoping I'm going to win Dr. Chako's Stethoscope!

update from the plane

2006-06-02T20:48:00.000-07:00

The meeting in phoenix went well - it's going to mean quite a bit of work in the next month but not a big deal.

I'm currently watching the first episode of high stakes poker that I acquired the other day, and I gotta say, I'm less and less of a fan of Daniel Negranu. He reminds me of the kinds of players I want to reach over the table and strangle. I am only 2-3 minutes in, so maybe it looks up after this.

So, you'd think that being in Phoenix meant I got to see my dad, who live there, or the wonderful Heads but such was not to be. The real-estate gods decided to choose the last two days to find the heads a nice place to live, and thus I didn't get to catch up with them. Hopefully we'll meet up in Vegas, meanwhile I will be sad.

Not that sad, however, as I decided to head down to Casino Arizona. I know to hear Felicia tell it, the casino is poorly run and the rake is high, and that's all pretty true. I mean, they drop $1 for the bad beat jackpot from the small blind before the cards are even dealt - and yet people still chop, even though there's a drop! I'm guilty of it myself, but it's more for the not pissing people off aspect than anything else.

But I also have to say, the $8/$16 game is chock full of troglodytish play, and I'm going to attribute that to the fact that the game is called with $2 chips, and it plays like $3/$6 or $4/$8. You have 5-6 people seeing the flop, people staying in with a naked ace hoping to hit it on the turn, running to the river with just a gutter and thinking it's good play, people raising with A4o, and this doesn't even change when there's a kill (making it $16/$32). I took down a huge kill pot with pocket queens - granted someone flopped a set of tens, but the board got pretty scary. It was a pretty easy $300 pickup though.

I sent Kurt a page saying "I am in the most retarded 8/16 game ever", and what came back was: "8/16? WTF, have they not heard of 10/20?" I recall that they used to have 10/20, but it looks like now they just go from 8/16 to 20/40, which is a little bigger than what I brought with me to play. They had approximately 5 tables of that going so it must be a pretty good game and not filled with a bunch of rocks, but still.

Truth be told, though, I don't think they know the definition of the word "rock" at Casino Arizona.

I managed to pull out $250 from the game last night, and the table was even more nutty than the night before. However, it was less bad players thinking they're playing good, but more good players getting their gamble on. I'm not sure which I like more, really, but I managed to adjust and after losing a HUGE kill pot and going down $200, I caught some hands and managed to roar back to up $250 before I ended up leaving, but only because it was 1:30 in the morning and I had a 9.40 flight to catch and a 7 am call to take as well.

You may be thinking, "But Heather, you don't play limit anymore - why the change of heart?"

First off, I played some limit the other night at Resorts and actually had a really good time playing- it's a different game and a different mentality and it's true - it's much less stressful on my brain because it's not a pressure-cooker type of mental stress, it's more of a low simmering stress where you make decision after decision and are never risking all your chips - it's all about how to save and gain one bet.

And the other thing is the only variable-bet game at Casino Arizona is not no limit. It's some moronically stupid 5-150 spread limit game, which drives me absolutely insane because if you get a sizeable flop, you can never bet anyone out of a hand, and you'll always tend to give odds. Plus I keep saying "I'm all in" and the dealer says "well, no, you bet $150". Stupid. Frustrating. Moronic, and I've learned my lesson from past trips to just stay the hell away from that game.

(Man does Ted Forrest know that the 70s were over decades ago?)

They did constantly have a 75-150 mixed game going that was tempting; if there was a lower limit game, I would be very tempted to play, but my guess is that 8BB is not enough to enter that 150 mixed game, eh?

I'm disappointed that they're not showing many of Jen Harman's hands - just mostly Negranu Negranu Negranu. Zzz.

But I think that overall it's a good thing that I don't live in Phoenix - the casino is just way too close to where I would work, and the games are way to insane (in a good sense) to stay away from for very long.

i am a lemur, you should be too.

2006-05-30T10:15:00.000-07:00

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.

Registration code: 6409294

comedian in the hizzzzouse

2006-05-25T11:41:00.000-07:00

PokerBlogger: no, just shopped and gota wrap for lunch.
PokerBlogger: It tasted like Jay-Z but had a hint of Run-DMC.
maigrey: snkkt
maigrey: when is your show going on the road? i'll buy tickets
PokerBlogger: DEMAND ME!
maigrey: ha ha ha haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
PokerBlogger: I is the bestest, most funniest guy in this chair.
maigrey: hold on, it's the shop calling - the escalade is fixed fromthat run in with the store front
PokerBlogger: HA!
PokerBlogger: did they re-paint it pink?
PokerBlogger: You sooo need a Pink Escalade with 24 inch spinners and a bumpin' system
maigrey: and rhinestones baby

for chilly

2006-05-19T13:59:00.000-07:00

Chilly: View Link
maigrey: what, no wilmebilia?
Chilly: crusherlectables
maigrey: ha
maigrey: that's almost funny enough to blog
Chilly: yeah, but you'd have to break down and blog
maigrey: who said I'd blog it?
Chilly: I'm not gonna.
Chilly: I don't even like ST

... ok I broke down and blogged. Fire up the escalade.

A Confession or two

2006-05-09T11:58:00.000-07:00

First, let me point out, that for the most part, I love bloggers. Y'all are some of my totally favorite peoplez, and there's no one I'd rather hang out with in vegas.

But I must confess: I am so. tired. of reading poker blogs.

There are a few that I'll read here and there, but for the most part my bloglines is stuffed to bursting like Homer in a Krispy Kreme shop with unread entries.

The good news is, that means that none of you are reading me, either, ha!

Here's the second confession: I am so. tired. of hold'em.
My game of choice online these days is .04/.08 stud 8 or better. Oddly, I win as much money ($4 or so for a session) at .04/.08 than I do at .25/.50. Weird, but I'm not knockin' it. Plus, it's a chance to do something ELSE.

My Pot-Limit Dealer's choice started up a month or so ago, and it was quite fun. I lost the first time, won the second time, and lost a little at the special 2/4 limit night. But for the most part, it was tons of fun. We played five card draw, omaha hi-low (which I still suck at), crazy pineapple, stud, stud 8b, and the last time we pulled out "discard jones", which just MIGHT beat out vegas hold'em in the fun quotient.

It's somewhat like hold'em, but the dealer gets zero cards before the flop. And then the dealer plays the burn cards. as they come. EEE fun and games! More details here.

When Peep Sex goes bad...

2006-05-01T13:40:00.001-07:00

From Chilly:

the Bunnyocalypse

Make AlCantHang's dreams come true.

2006-04-26T14:30:00.000-07:00

And gracie's [whom I blatantly stole this from] too.

Bring Wil to the Bash at the Boathouse. If Wil comes, maybe he’ll bring along that funny Shane Nickerson.

Wil WheatonMalvern, Pennsylvania, USA

Demand this in another city!

Click to Demand it.

I command you!

Maigrey's lost her groove

2006-04-26T10:29:00.000-07:00

I should have listened when Pauly told me that maintaining two blogs was a pretty difficult thing to do. I'm having trouble updating either, for plenty of reasons. The reasons I'm having trouble updating here:

I'm on a losing streak, and I hate losing
I'm getting so, so tired of Hold'em
Who really wants to hear about losing streaks and hand histories anyway? I certainly don't.

However, I am actually in the office today, so I can't piddle away pennies playing .04/.08 Stud 8/b (yes, I really do play this game at this limit, thanks), which means I either need to a) work or b) write in this here blog. So of course, here I am!

I've moved back to the boat formerly known as Trump, or now MSII. The game is a lot better now that a) they have enough dealers since they've hired a few back on staff and b) all the sharks have moved to Resorts. Sadly, I am either posting losses or eeking out miniscule wins. It makes me wonder if I have a leak in my game or if I'm just running bad, or both.

Actually, I had a brief discussion with a poker buddy of mine on this topic last time I played, and one of the things he said was that I tended to play tournament hands. I don't need to play such hands because the blinds never escalate so there's often no reason to play marginal hands. This is, of course, coming from the person who's favorite hand is "the sauce" (first person to figure that out wins a gold star).

Thinking about things otherwise, I've also discovered that lately I'm terribly afraid of getting my hand caught in the cookie jar, which has cost me more than it's saved me. For example:

$2 / $5 blinds, I have probably around $240 in chips on the cutoff. There are 3 limpers in front of me and I look down and see the Jh 7h, I raise to $20 to a) build a pot and b) represent a hand to take it down on the flop, which comes down Ax Qx Xx. It's checked to me, and what do I do?

Represent an Ace? No.
Represent Kings? No.
Chicken out to the Monsters Under the Bed? Yep. I check. I guess I could be all 10th level thinking and be representing a set of Aces or Kings, but no, I am a big CHICKEN.

What the hell was I raising to take a pot down on the flop if I couldn't put in a damn continuation bet? Oh, but it gets better...

Turn comes down another blank, and it's checked around to me AGAIN. Do I: a) bet my "set of aces" now, and take down the pot? b) bet because obviously everyone else has given up on this pot and it's mine for the taking? or c) chicken out to the damn monsters under the bed and check a $100 pot that's mine for the taking?

... well since we're going to see a river, you've probably figured out by now that the correct answer is (c).

The river comes down yet another blank, and it's checked to me yet again, and yet again I do not put in a bet at all because for some reason I'm afraid I'm going to get called and I let King-high take it down. That's just poor poker play - monsters are not always under the bed, and if you've raised preflop, you just cannot give up on a hand because you missed a flop, especially when the rest of the players have basically put up little red flags saying "I have given up on this pot, you just need to bet to take it".

It's times like this that make me think I'm a much better poker coach than a poker player, which is a little odd. I really DO know what to do, and I have good instincts for the game but lately my timing seems all off. Maybe I should take my own advice from The CRUSHERER, and find someone to sweat my hands and give me that kick out of the rut and back into the groove of things.

Quick Hit

2006-04-21T06:50:00.000-07:00

Wow, I've totally neglected this here blog, and while I have a lot of posts in my head, which I may actually get to next week, this ain't it.

But, if you're in the Chicago area, do me a favor and Demand Wil Wheaton come to Chicago! Maybe we can even get him to play in a poker game...

Also on that note:

What: WWdN: N1kita Eurofriday
Where: PokerStars.
When: Friday, April 21. 1800 GMT (that's NOON CENTRAL, Ernie...)
Password: monkey
Tournament number: 23319749
Buy-in: $10 + 1

Since I'm a degenerate, I'll be playing in this myself; however since Wil has banished me to the Escalade, I never get to sit at his table anyway :)

2006-04-04T11:49:00.000-07:00

I AM POKER CHAMP.

Resorts Trumps Majestic II

2006-03-31T11:21:00.000-08:00

... or at least I assume it does. I haven't been back since the weekend before I went to Austin, because a reliable source told me that they let go 90% of their poker dealers (we knew the layoff was coming - just not how severe it was going to be), and not only did they keep the less talented dealers, they didn't keep ENOUGH dealers to spread games.

So, I knocked off work a little early last week, as I know resorts only has 16 or so tables compared to the 21 that Magestic Star II/Trump has and they only run 3 tables total of no-limit; thus you need to get there early or you're going to wait some time for a seat. I got there around 4 pm or so, and there was still quite a wait for a 5/10 seat, not to mention a NL seat. I sat down at the 5/10 game for an hour or so, and did pretty well. I guess Otis is right - I do have a scary image sitting at the felt: I was dealt AQ in late position, there was a raise, and then a tight-ish player reraised, there was a call and I called instead of capping it.

The flop came down Q high, the original raiser checks, the three-better bets, there's a call, I raise, the original raiser drops, the three better reraises me, the middle guy drops, and I call.

Turn is a blank, flop is still q high, the better bets, I raise, and he calls. River is another baby card, and it's checked to me and I bet and get called. I flip my cards over, and the other guy turns over cowboys, and says, "Man you really had me worried, I really thought you had a set!" Puhleeeeze. If I had a set or KK I'd be getting every bet in there I could!

The NL game at Resorts is a crazy structure: $200 min / $500 max with $5/$10 blinds. Yes, the blinds are way out of proportion to the buy-in, but if you could take Party Poker or Full Tilt and put it in a live game, this would be it. There are people raising and calling with TPGK, and all sorts of crazy things going on - the only issue is that raises are often $55 preflop, and there is not a lot of limping. BUT, if you can beat TPTK, you are going to get paid off - I even got paid $200 when I flopped quad kings! and I didn't slow play them preflop either, and had someone at the table saying "she's got quad kings man", as a joke.

So, this whole trump situation may be a good thing, as the game at Resorts is more aggressive and will force me to play a much better game than I'm used to - to be more aggressive in position, etc.

An Interesting Experiment

2006-03-30T11:56:00.000-08:00

First off, thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes. My birthday celebrations (yes plural) were pretty awesome.

So, some of you might have read elsewhere that I gave up the internet after 7pm CST for 6 weeks. It hasn't been quite as hard as it might be - although I have kind of missed playing poker and chatting with my friends, I've actually been pretty busy instead and have spent the time watching movies or in meetings, etc etc.

I came to a realization Sunday night that what I really need to give up is online poker itself. I really do spend too much time playing during the day while bored to tears on conference calls and there is more important stuff that needs to be done. So with that in mind, yesterday I gave it up, and will continue to do so for the next 15 or 17 days (depending on if I count the Sundays or not. I'm debating counting the Sundays since it's such a short time period, but I haven't decided yet).

Yesterday was SO HARD - I realized how much time in my day I spend playing poker instead of doing other stuff. And believe me, there's a bunch of other stuff to be done. I was counting the minutes an crawling the wall until I had to go get tires replaced in Bolingbrook (exciting), which happened to be very close to Indiana where I could justify playing some cards until the rush hour traffic dwindled. I spent the time doing work around the house and some work-work stuff too, and was amazed at how productive I felt.

This doesn't mean I will be giving up reading about poker, or live poker (obviously), but hopefully I'll get more Real Work done, and feel like I'm actually contributing to society instead of being a degenerate...

no, I'm not dead yet...

2006-03-23T14:10:00.000-08:00

I really really need to write up more of the Austin trip but I'm not in the mood for it right now - maybe later.

This is all you really need to know anyway:

I'm so excited for tonight's agenda: Pot Limit Dealer's choice in the citaaaaaah. Craziness should ensue!

Austin, day one

2006-03-16T10:17:00.000-08:00

I'm online while April's in the shower before we make our way out for day two of drunken festivities.

The plane ride down was good, I got an exit seat with a window AND no one in the middle seat. Score.

Eva's got the first part of the evening written up already here, so I won't elaborate any further except to say that the ring I was wearing that night flew off my hand and landed on a shed roof and I was forced to ask a cute boy to retrieve it for me because my arms weren't long enough. And I'm sad that we didn't get any pictures of Mike, the truly awesome kind soul who kept us in our cups all night and was the cause of many many drunk voicemails.

But the question really is, why do you people never return voicemails from drunk women? You know who you are :) And I swear it wasn't me asking people to make out because I was drunk. Really. No way.

I do however, wish that helixx had vonage so he could send me the serial voicemails I left him detailing our night, which were really funny when he recounted them later:

* TXApril is not speaking to helixx
<helixx> you're never speaking to me for one reason or another
<helixx> why this time?
<TXApril> check your voice mails, butthead
<maigrey> you might hve one or two
<helixx> phone was dead. let me go get it
<helixx> oh nice. voicemails and 6 emails from my boss
<helixx> :P
<TXApril> oh quit yer bitching
<helixx> 5 MISSED CALLS wtf
<maigrey> hm
<maigrey> 5 seems maybe
<maigrey> a little low
<helixx> 7 new messages. oy vey
<helixx> i hear someone yelling "ok... guess this band!" and then hear a sound of like chickens clucking because the sound quality is so bad. next message. lol
<helixx> ok... now i'm hearing inappropriate suggestions...
<helixx> and descriptions of cowboys asses
<helixx> tattoo parlor message
<TXApril> did we leave him a message about the deaf mute lesbians?
<maigrey> the cowboys asses was me
<maigrey> hmmmm
<maigrey> probably not
<maigrey> we probably didn't mention they were having sex in the cab either
<TXApril> awww....p0 helixx
<helixx> i'm up to the deaf mute lesbian story
<TXApril> lol
<TXApril> don't tell Hanel!
<TXApril> he doesn't get to hear it
<helixx> NOW i have a call from my boss
<helixx> oh my god
<helixx> that was a real let down
<maigrey> i bet she was less interesting than deaf mute sex in a cab having lesbians

I even got a picture of a cowboy's butt, which was my mission from Eva. Added bonus, we got soco in the shot.

Ok, time to get showered and head off for bbq, shopping, spoon, echo and the bunnymen, and grand national, baby. My phone's charged and I'm ready to go.

a preview of austin

2006-03-15T20:57:00.000-08:00

cowboy butts and soco. phear us.

Is anybody out there?

2006-03-13T14:42:00.000-08:00

... no, not really. I've been playing and I have ideas of things to write about, but I'm lacking the inspiration/motivation to put them in the blog. So here are a couple quick hits:

SNGs: At first, I thought that the Nerdvice was pretty useless and wasn't improving my game (sorry nerd), but PokerTracker says otherwise. Since I got the Nerdvice, my roi is now 7.47%, as opposed to the LOSING ONE I had after buying the SNG powertools. Sadly, 7.47% translates to just about enough to cover both of these aids.

SNG stacking: Stacking is SO COOL. What's stacking you say? That's when you open 6-20 SNGs all at once, and then put all of the windows on top of one another so you can only see one table at a time. This really helps with the boredom of the first 3-5 levels and by the time you get ITM, you have a manageable level of SNGs left. When I get 4 windows left, I spread them out so I can play them HU where I keep an eye on them. The bonus of this is you really minimize tilt - you don't sweat flops (although i have been known to try and find THAT WINDOW to see some), and if you get sucked out on you don't have time to be bitter about it because some other window is beep beep beeping for your attention. Close the window and move on. NB: I cannot do continuous stacking like the nerd and some others do, but it's a nice way to build up the VPP points.

Live play: This is the subject of many posts that are in my head: a) I'm learning (slowly) that I cannot call, I must fold or raise; b) I have a serious problem with patience and pausing to review action and that has got to be fixed; c) I need to put the red-ass preflop reraise into my arsenal but I am a big chicken; d) sometimes you just gotta fold; e) if you can't put your chips in the middle when you're 90% positive you have the best hand, you should't be playing this game; e) do not even TRY to beat me when I'm playing drunken donkey 3/6 - you can't, and you'll just hurt yourself (see example 1). Not to antagonize the poker gods, but I'm doing ok in this arena

POY tourney: thanks, biggestron for putting this together. I still hate playing with bloggers. Bring on the Stud/8.

My Birthday: Is tomorrow, peoples. Gracie already bought me a sitNgo! I had to set up the webcam so she could watch the play since she signed up from work. Oop.

Austin: I leave Wednesday and I still need to get a ride to the airport. I should apply for membership in Procrastinators Anonymous.

Crazy PokerStars Request

2006-02-20T19:04:00.000-08:00

Inspired by irc and Mourn and the $0.10 tournaments on Pokerstars...

Wouldn't it be cool to have a $0.10 with rebuys? I'd drop at least $3 for the entertainment value alone! Plus, can you imagine the prizepool?

Help us out by emailing pokerstars here: support@pokerstars.com

SNOWMAN HAMMERLEGS GOOOT

2006-02-19T01:13:00.000-08:00

+236.75 BB tonight.

... at $.02/$0.04 Limit Holdem. Man, as I told G-Rob a long time back, splashing around in the microlimit waters and letting loose your inner donkey makes the game fun again and somehow this kept me up until 3 in the freaking morning laughing so hard at how we kept cracking the Geek's AA, QQ, flopped straight with such things as snowman-hammerlegs (82, for those of you who can't figure it out), or the hammer, or any number of any-twos. And I don't think there was more than 5% of the hands that were not capped preflop.

Oddly, this has given me a pretty good insight on the $20/$40 game that's played at harrah's where they all act like crazy maniacs. You can act like one, but you can still win money if you a) are SLIGHTLY selective preflop, b) don't let the dollar amounts matter and c) realize if you have absolutely no outs and then fold.

And now, it's off to bed for me.

Please help - Seeking potential bone marrow donors (Filipino, 18-61)

2006-02-14T09:40:00.000-08:00

I'm a little late on this train, and I realize that some of you who read this have no idea who StudioGlyphic is (he's one of the poker blogger folks), much less his friend Jake or Jake's girlfriend, but please read on. Even if you're not Filipino, you may know someone who is, and be able to help, so please please pass the word on, as the odds of finding a donor match are about 1:20,000, but Christine's odds are even longer because she is Fillipino.

[stealing the paraphrasing from Wil because I'm lazy]

Medically, the only option Christine has left is a Bone Marrow Transplant. The survival rate of this procedure is 30-40%. Of those who do survive the procedure itself, only 50% survive the next two years. However, if she does survive those two years, it means the cancer won't come back.

This is a pretty terrible option. However, the non medical option is also horrible. Her doctor says that if she chooses not to have the Bone Marrow Transplant, she'll be dead within a year.

This is hard enough for the average person. There are over 20,000 types of bone marrow, so the average person has a 1 in 20,000 chance of finding a match. These numbers are even worse for Christine. Because she is Filipino, she needs to find a donor of the same ethnic background, and there are hardly any Filipinos on the National Registry.
Because we caught the cancer early, right now is our best chance of having the Bone Marrow Transplant work. Every day we lose her chances of surviving drop.
So please, contact your friends, and ask them to contact their friends. Anyone you know who is Filipino and between the ages of 18 and 61 is a potential donor. The system is nationwide, so it doesn't matter where they live. Signing up on the registry is easy and painless. All it requires is a simple blood test. Some hospitals charge a small fee for this blood test, however if your friends contact me directly, I can put them in touch with one of the hundreds of local organizations that will do the blood test for free. They can use this email address:
jacobkrueger@gmail.com
You can reassure your friends that signing up for the registry does not require donating any bone marrow. If it turns out they are a match, they will be contacted, and can make the decision at that point about becoming a donor.
There are lots of misconceptions about donating bone marrow. (I know I was terrified of doing it before I learned how minor the procedure actually is.) The procedure is simple and safe. You will be anesthetized the whole time, so you will not feel anything. When the procedure is over, you may have some soreness in the area for a few days and you may feel a little tired. That's it. The bone marrow you donate is replenished within 3-4 weeks. And again, you will only undergo this procedure if your blood sample shows that you are a match and you decide to donate, in which case the slight soreness you'll be feeling will be saving someone's life.

All medical expenses for the donor will be covered by Christine's insurance. And as I mentioned before, if they contact me directly, I can put them in touch with an organization near them that will put them on the National Registry for free and also make sure they are listed as a Sponsor for Christine.

Euro WWdN

2006-02-10T07:56:00.000-08:00

Well, since Wil mentioned me by name, I suppose I'll pimp his Euro WWdN here. And, since I happen to work from home on Fridays (and most other days), I'll break my rule and pony up the $11 to play with him. (Plus, at the moment there are only 5 people signed up, so I'm liking those odds, baby).

From Wil: If you're interested in playing, head over to PokerStars, and from the lobby go to tourneys -> private, and look for tourney number 19345283. The buy-in is $10 +1, and the game starts at 1:30 PM EST (5:30 PM GMT) which should make it "friendly" for the bulk of European players.

p.s. the password is "monkey", eep eep

Also, congrats to Alan, who took 2nd in the 16k last night - he's on a rush!

The good, the bad and the

2006-02-09T07:23:00.000-08:00

I'm in a love-hate relationship these days with bloggers. Here's the love part:

I was having a conversation with helixx the other day about how he didn't think he could build his bankroll just playing SnGs. I begged to differ, because I distinctly recall reading that Mourn and TheNerd both pretty much solely play SnGs as their bankroll padding.

So, being the girl-geek wanna be, I took advantage of the fact that they were both online on the geek-chat-device at the same time, and asked if they win their money in ring games or SnGs - they both answered SnGs. Ah hah! Little did they know they would have to now put up with my incessant questions over the next few days. Poor guys.

Mourn says that the turbos are really the way to go as while you might have a drop in ROI %, it's not enough of a drop to make up for the reduced amount of time per game (and thus the number of games you can turn around per night). However, you need to understand all-in strategy and be okay with shoving in a LOT (and by that I really do mean a LOT) - pretty much it's shove time when you hit 12BB, and that can happen pretty quickly at the turbos.

Here's Mourn's advice (since he's being slow about posting a turbo strategy post, hint hint):
"well, in a SnG, when you are under about 10-12 BB, you never do anything but shove"
"and people will rip you for it"
"so you have to not care about that"
"and when you get your chips in first, you have a lot of ways to win"

And for starting to run these:
and I would practice low, and then multi-table low
then move and play singles, and then multi at that level
like play $5s
one at a time, until you're comfy, then play four x $5
then move up to 1 $15 at a time
them multi $15s
and so on

He's got lots more good advice, but I'll let Mourn post some if he wants to, otherwise I will keep him and his advice all to myself.

Here's what The Nerd says on learning how to play turbos:

nerd, do you play turbos only?
right now, yes
so where's the best place to learn how to play turbos?
other than picking your brain :)
SNG analyzer
dare i say 2+2?
at least for no limit
yeah but where? and how much chaff to good?
single-table tournament board
good players usually keep the chaff in line

So there's the good, and the love. I'm still trying to debate if the SnG analyzer is worth the $80 he's asking for it because a) the demo SUCKS so badly but b) Mourn and Nerd say it's HAWESOME, especially for late-stage play.

The bad is that I've decided that (except for a handful of folks and you know who you are) for the foreseeable future, I'm done with playing with bloggers. Multi-table Tournaments are -EV for me in general (and I'm usually out for the Tuesday WWdN, and the Thursday WWdN is too late for me), so it's just like throwing money away. Playing ring games is negative emotional EV because the level of play is annoying awful and then I probably have to read about how wonderful they were later.

Two comments from the peanut gallery that sum this up:
its expected. i expect to lose because of shit like that. it makes me waaaaay madder to lose to people who i know don't know any better
You want tougher competition? No, but at least give me the illusion that there might be a clue rattling around there somewhere.

On the random front:
Have you seen how PokerStars interfaces with PokerTracker for tournaments? That is the HAWESOME! Hint Hint FullTilters, this would be something uber rockin' to add, as I'm not playing any SnGs on FTP (except for peep sex) due to this feature of PokerStars, and I can't be the only one...

My friends are whackjobs but I love them...

2006-02-01T11:25:00.000-08:00

So I found out from April and Pauly that Erick Lindgren, The Grinder, and Dags are all at the final table for the Borgata WPT final table. The following ensues, which is probably only funny to me, but I'm not handcuffing you to the page to read this:

<maigrey>hmmmmm
<chrisdhal>hmm?
<maigrey>debating if I can get to the borgata by 5 pm est tonight
<chrisdhal>ahhh :)
<helixx>to airport - 1hr with traffic. assuming an immediate flight, eta in philly 4:00est, then get a car (20 minutes), drive to AC in rush hour traffic) from PHL (2 hours)
<helixx>6:30 at the earliest assuming moderate traffic and all timing re: flights are perfect
<maigrey>snif
<maigrey>but that gives me 6 hours with erick
<helixx>then you gotta get into the borgata, another 10-20
<maigrey>fine
<maigrey>5.5 hours with erick
<maigrey>that's worth it
<chrisdhal>lol
<chrisdhal>heather, you need some more work at being a stalker, you should have had this all planned out
[8 minutes pass]
* chrisdhal thinks she left already
<helixx>i know
<helixx>i plan my stalking carefully
<chrisdhal>and you're a tard, so just think what she could do if she tried
<maigrey>HA HA HA
<helixx>word up

[edit - You guyyyys! Pauly is the COOLEST! He just sent me about 5 photos of Erick to make up for the fact I couldn't get to the borgata in time. Go show him the love at his site: http://taopoker.blogspot.com]

Saturday Night Redux

2006-01-30T09:54:00.000-08:00

One thing I forgot to mention about Saturday night was that it's getting more difficult to play the 'oh I'm just a girl' card these days.

... especially when I sit down at a table and not one, but TWO of the floor managers make a beeline for my table as soon as I sit down and start chatting me up. After they'd gone back to doing poker room things, the guy next to me inquired, "So, uh, do you come here a lot then?"

I told him, "It's more like I used to be here all the time. I've only been here once a week or so these days, which is why they're making a point to say hi." And it's pretty much true.

However I think it's fishing season, at least until about May, when everyone's spent their tax refunds.

Saturday Night Poker

2006-01-29T21:29:00.000-08:00

I got a call from Mark on Friday night asking if he and the other big game players were ever going to see me again and that there were TWENTY SIX (26) people playing the $1000 min no max game and approximately 20 of them were absolutely horrible. Unfortunately I had to be somewhere at 9 am Saturday morning and I (barely) resisted the siren call.

So, Saturday after attending my morning commitments, I ran home and debated between grocery shopping and going to the boats to play some poker. Guess what won?

The must move table was, as usual, a nice soft table, and I didn't want to leave. I'd doubled up plus some there with some pretty weak calls on my opponent's part, and then managed to give that profit back when they moved me to a main game. I took one look at the table with too many regulars for my liking, looked at the other five games going and saw one that was pleasantly filled with two women with lots of chips^[1], and one of the guys from my original must-move table who was awful and also had a bunch of chips. Hello, table change!

Nick the poker manager comes up to me at one point and informs me that the big game is probably going to go tonight and do I want a seat on that list? No thanks, but I do check out the list and see that Mark, Stan and Jimmy are on it - not the lineup I'm looking for.

I sit down at this table and watch one of the women call off $200 on a gutshot straight draw that hits, and observe the guy from the must-move call off $230 preflop with AKo, and I fell in love with the table. I end up felted when I cannot get one of the ladies to lay down her JJ on a flop of 544 when it's obvious that she no longer likes my hand. The turn comes down another 5 and I bet pot into her; she thinks for a long while and then raises another $150 all in. I truly think that I have the best hand - that she has AK and thinks her A is good because she is so obvious that she doesn't like her hand. Oh well, I did play the hand well - the only thing I could have done better was raise her $25 (into a $40 pot) flop bet to $125 instead of $75.

I get up and take the open 10 seat, which is to the left of the ladies with the chips, as one truism in poker play is that the money always moves to the left - I want to be able to act after these women rather than before them. About 20 min after taking the seat, I feel someone tickling the back of my neck, I turn around and who is it but Lawyer Mark? He tells me he's gotten all the big game players to rearrange their schedules to play on Saturdays because I said I was going to be here on Saturday and not Fridays. I tell him I don't believe him for a minute, but it is a very sweet thing to say^[1]. He sure does know the way to warm this girl's heart though! :)

Eventually I run my second $200 up to about $775, when the women rack their (way too many) chips up and leave, and the pickings at the table get much more slim, so I take a look around and there's a MUCH fishier table behind me. I move to that table, and proceed to go the worse kind of card dead I've ever seen for 45 minutes - to the point where everyone at the table is asking me if I've played a hand yet? I get AQ, raise for the first time in 45 min and still get callers, and the very next hand I get TT on the button, raise again to $30 and STILL get two callers, plus one person staying in for $60 on a Jd jh 5d flop for his diamond draw. YEEESH. Luckily the turn isn't a diamond, and my next bet takes the pot down. I proceed to go back to being card dead, and when I rack up at about 12:30 am (as again I have to be up and somewhere at merely 9:30 am this time), I've made a whole $75 profit at the table.

But more importantly, I was aggressive and played well.
--
^[1] Not that women with chips is a bad thing, but stereotypes and generalities are in place because they ARE generally true - women are either rocks who play only top ten hands, or they're maniacs who play a lot of hands and play them poorly post-flop. There are exceptions, but not enough to change the generality in my mind (yet).

^[2] As of this writing, I think it's about 60% true, though, and 40% for a chance at more money from the big boys.

The state of the poker

2006-01-26T10:32:00.000-08:00

I haven't been updating much, as I've been rather "blah" on poker for the last few weeks. I've been playing a little bit here and there - mostly the Marshmallow Peep Sex tournaments on FTP, and then a few $10,500 and $16,000 guarantees when I have the tokens, but I have not had the successes that facty or gracie or even Joe Speaker have had in these.

I've also been playing in the Turbo PLO8 (yes you read that right) tournies on stars, and I am not having nearly the success rate that Drizz has, which could be explained by the fact that O8 is his game and not mine, but it's discouraging nonetheless. This is not helping my bankroll any at all.

I've also been watching helixx crush the SnGs on Party and Full Tilt, and while he'll tell you he's not crushing them because he's not winning, I'll tell you a 10 out of 12 ITM rate is 'crushing' to me. And I'm envious because I do not have that win rate - I am not nearly as good as he is in the SnG realm.

Which leaves live play, and the weather has been sucking, so I haven't been playing much there, either. I've made the decision that playing on Friday night is generally -EV for me - the games are too wild and crazy, the $400 game doesn't open because the $1000 min game generally goes instead - so I went and played on Saturday night instead. I was at the fishiest table ever, and I should have left when I was a $1300 winner, instead of with the $700 profit I did leave with - the $1300 would have helped the bankroll quite a bit, and when I was up about that much, the sharks saw my fish and started invading my table. That should have been my cue to leave, but I didn't, because it was 'too early' to go home.

I really need to work on willpower and leaving when the niggling intuition tells me to leave, instead of by my watch and my desire to keep playing.

I hear that's called 'stoploss', huh? Plus, there's always a game online to play if I want to go that route, too.

Ode to April.

2006-01-21T10:17:00.000-08:00

Seriously, I am so lucky to have a friend like April. Not only did she set up a HORSE tourney for me (I placed 8th, she bubbled in 9th, which was a good showing!), but when I realized that there was only 30 minutes until the HORSE tourney and I really wanted to DDR instead of finish the silly Marshmallow Peep Sex(MPS) tourney I'd entered in a fit of insanity/boredom, she offered to finish the tourney for me.

So she logged in, and full tilt flipped it to her in the middle of a hand which she FOLDED and I would have CALLED, but she came back from T380 (and a bit of my ire, sorry april) to win a token! And not only that, she managed to win me T300 in the HORSE tourney since that started before the MPS tourney finished - she got me my token at the expense of a bit of time in her tourney.

Also, she got quad aces as me. We rule.

So, to April, I say, MWAH! You are the definition of a true friend.

Turbooooo gamboooooool

2006-01-18T11:09:00.000-08:00

I think Drizz is right about the Stars PLO8 turbo tourneys – if I can consistently cash and even win in these things, they must be soft!

$3.40: 3/5 or so
$15+1: 1of 2 but the 1 was a big ol’ win. Chaching.

Pokerstars FT replay

2006-01-17T11:34:00.000-08:00

$500,000 Guaranteed Final Table Replay
By Brad "Otis" Willis
Want to see how PokerStars players win the big money? Tuesday and Wednesday, PokerStars will replay the final table of the January 8th $500,000 Guaranteed final table with most of the hole cards face-up! Now you can watch the big money PokerStars tournament just like it's on TV. The January 8 event will replay January 17-18 from 12pm-8pm ET. Click on Tourney/Special to watch today.

Weird. I'm watching now, and it is really very cool to see the number of bluffs, espeically short-handed, but I can't help but wonder: if I made the final table, would I want to have all my hole cards shown?

... still, it's pretty dang interesting

HORSEing around

2006-01-16T09:50:00.000-08:00

Just in case you haven’t seen it, April absolutely rules and has set up a HORSE tournament this FRIDAY (1/20/2006) at Full Tilt Poker. Come join in on the fun!

What: WPBT HORSE Tournament #2482794 (Look under Private tab or just do a find player for ‘maigrey’ and it’ll come up)
Where: Full Tilt Poker
When: Friday, Jan. 20th at 10pm EST (or 22:00)
Buy-in: $10 + 1
Format: H.O.R.S.E.
Password: princess

Hurry up and hit it while it’s hot!

2006-01-02T13:31:00.000-08:00

Hey by the way, if you haven't been getting any gracie posts in a while, that's because she changed her feeds. Go to bloglines and pick up the new feed: http://www.sheverb.com/wp-rss2.php :)

2006 begins with a junk kicking

2006-01-02T11:14:00.000-08:00

An interesting site that I was directed to by poker_snobs: Is Online Poker Safe. I haven't read anything there but it seems interesting.

It looks like 2006 will be filled with overcoming junk-kicking, if yesterday was any indication. I got knocked out of the big HORSE tourney in 90 minutes thanks to misplaying one hand, though my railbirds said I played the tourney well. Then I proceeded to drop a couple buyins at various sites playing kiddie poker by getting rivered like the nile is in style. OOF.

But that's all part of the maturing process. Here's a question I have: For those of you with multiple computers, how do you use poker tracker? Do you share databases somehow? I may have gotten my file sharing working at home so that may start to be an option - map the tower to a drive on the laptop. Anyway, just curious how all you geeks manage it.

Also, seriously, if you haven't gotten gizmo, do so. It's probably one of the funniest things to listen to people play poker online. srsly.

More fun with Phil Gordon

2006-01-01T14:54:00.000-08:00

NB: This is funnier if you've read Roshambo Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and the Appendix...

From the holidays when drizz and I caught Phil playing PLO8:

maigrey (Observer): hey phil want to roshambo so i can buy some bras?
Phil Gordon: yes
Dealer: MrGa23 has 15 seconds left to act
Phil Gordon: 1
Phil Gordon: 2
Phil Gordon: 3
Phil Gordon: paper
Dealer: MrGa23 has 15 seconds left to act
HitmanHoldem (Observer): scissors
maigrey (Observer): scissors!
HitmanHoldem (Observer): lol
maigrey (Observer): woooo bras for ME
Phil Gordon: yeah, right

Also, I'll be playing in the $200+16 HORSE event at 8:30 CST on Full Tilt Poker ^[1]; feel free to railbird me, but I warn you I'm not playing much during the first rounds of HO. (I'm not that easy)

^[1]Thanks to the generosity and faith of some really cool bloggers and the best poker cartoonist ever who are backing me into the event - what a ego boost!

Poker and JOPKES

2005-12-29T10:27:00.000-08:00

The game formerly known as the West Coast Warmup has been created at PokerStars.

Tourney#: 17214575
Buy-in: $10+1
Time: 7PM Pacific (2200 in the lobby clock) tonight
Password: monkey

Best of the poker princess, 2005

2005-12-28T09:11:00.000-08:00

The beginning - I get suckered into playing the "big game"

The one where I bust the jerky drunk lawyer

You can't be a winning player if you don't ever fold winning hands

How a bad call turned into a good call

Mmmm baby pairs (or, some tips on how to play NL)

Them's QUADS, Bitches!

Yes, Virginia, Girls can have penis envy too.

The loosest 10-20 game ever

Tips for playing in a live casino

You know you're too involved with poker when...

The boys would be so proud of me for making a fantastic move with my super laser reading skeels

Them's QUADS beeetches, redux

My thoughts on women in poker

The Journey of a Poker Princess - The Beginning (part one in an unfinished series)

A tale of three flops

No-Limit knitting

Out of Character?

know when to hold 'em and know when to fold 'em

Why do it?

Why do it, part two, angle shooting

The Story of the Longest Final Table Ever

Random updates

2005-12-24T15:45:00.000-08:00

I went to trump last night and had a FANTASTIC session, despite giving up a $400 pot when I flopped trips and would have turned a boat except the turn came out prematurely but only so I could see. Dammit. Hopefully that $400 is going to come back in karmic form like hitting a bad beat jackpot. A girl can hope, right?
--
Full tilt is running $200 HORSE tourneys on Christmas and new years with satellites the day before. Drool. I can't make tonight's satellite, because of other commitments, but there's one at 3:30 CST on Christmas that looks doable.
--
Speaking of poker weirdness, I was racking up to move tables last night as my table was breaking, and was the last one left due to the massive amount of chips, when the dealer said to me, "So, do you know where I could find a nice Christian woman?" My response was, "Well, probably not at a poker room!" he laughed and then I told him actually that I was Christian though there was some debate about the 'good' part. He laughed and said he couldn't believe that, with me being a poker player.

I said, "Hey, I'm not baptist! My priest even knows about my poker playing!"

Still. Weird.
--

The Story of the Longest Final Table Ever

2005-12-16T15:44:00.000-08:00

click here to listen to the audio.

Figure 1

Figure 2

WBPT and flicker

2005-12-16T15:43:00.000-08:00

Thanks to fhwrdh: you can keep an rss feed of all the WBPT pics on flicker, so tag them beetches!

(Stolen right from fhwrdh's post:

just a quick tip for those who like the rss.
it seems that lots of folks are using flickr to upload pics from the recent wpbt excursion. most (all?) of those photos appear to be tagged with 'wpbt'. this is nice because onyone can go to flickr and search on this tag to see all the photos. whats nicer for the rss-friendly is that you can turn a search into an rss feed. for instance, this url will give you all the photos with the wpbt tag. pop that in bloglines or your rss 2.0 reader of choice and bingo, you can keep track of all the drunk and tilting pics people took of you.

)

2005-12-14T15:41:00.000-08:00

Thursday and Friday are here

Saturday

Get a phone call at 6pm from helixx informing me he cannot remember quite a lot of the previous night. I laugh and go back to sleep.

Awake 2 hours later or so, shower, and head downstairs to see what the state of the tournament is

Start to walk out of the elevator and run into gracie, pablo and others who inform me that we're going to pauly's room. I am a lemming so I go as well.

Eventually I can't take the smoke any more and go collect the not-quite-passed out helixx, and bring him back down to meet everyone he's missed during the day

We then storm the castle, but I don't exactly feel like playing poker, so instead April and I lose money at blackjack, and then paigow

Finally I get the urge to play poker, so go take a seat with Chilly at the $2-$6 spread table and run up $100 until my name is called for the "donkey table"

I take my seat at the "donkey table" which consists of Chilly, Michael Craig, Gamec, Otis, Marty, Wil, a full tilter, and BadBlood

As soon as I sit down with a "helloooooo boys," the table lets out a collective sigh, and gamec says to Michael, "Well, the aggression level has gone up a notch now."

I get to play my first couple games of Vegas Hold 'em, awesome.

Totally out of the blue, Otis says to me: "Want to make out?" I laugh and say, "I might, if I didn't adore your wife so much." He says, "Oh good point, good point", and goes back to prop betting blue on the wheel spins.

Seriously, I adore Otis and wish I could have lunch with him every day, too.

As the 1 seat, my job was to introduce each new dealer to the table so they could pre tip them to warm them up to our antics.

Our second dealer was a girl named Michelle, and after we ribbed Wil for a little bit, she leaned over and asked me, "Do you just call him Wil because he looks like the actor or is he..." I replied that yes, that was Wil Wheaton. She then gushed and said, "I have such a crush on him!"

At some point after a round of shenanigans, during which Otis was pushed a pot, I told Michelle that if she was really good, Otis would offer to make out with her too, to which she replied, "Well I'd rather make out with him" and nods to Wil
Wil then says that she can get on the list, and the dealer turns to me and asks, "What list? His "s" list?"

We then hear Wil say, "That would be the RIDE THE WIL MACHINE list!"

I'm just starting to pick up my jaw from the floor when I hear him add, "And that's a pretty LONG list!"

I don't think I've laughed so hard in a very long time

I lost quite a bit of money betting on yellow for the wheel spins; thank goodness for "against blue" prop bets!

However, my late night the night before started catching up with me, and despite the generous offers from Otis to stay, it was off to the IP with me and my aching feet

Although as coincidence would have it, as we were getting out of the cab, who should pop out of the cab behind us but Chad and Spaceman, who were on their way to casino royale to play craps.

My feet were blistered all OVER so I asked how far away was it? To which they replied, "Oh just over there"

After we walked down a courtyard, into the Harrahs, I didn't see any casino royale in sight, so I stated that this did NOT seem just over there, and when I found out it was the next casino over, my feet and I gave up and turned back to the IP to head to an early bed.

Sunday

I wake up about 7 am and I know helixx is probably the only person awake and ring his room. He suggests breakfast at the Pinot Brasserie in the Venetian, and I agree

Mindful of my torn up feet we take a cab down there, and I am stunned at the opulence of it all - it's gorgeous - painted ceilings and the river in the hotel?

I totally want to stay there some day, even if it's only for one night

The food is good, and we meander around the casino before heading to Mandalay Bay to meet up for the football games

We find Al and BG and take a seat and watch BG and CJ bet the horsies

I'm overwhelmed when the games start up, but I finally understand how the betting works for football and realize that I cannot watch four football games at once

My bears lose, sad.

I do notice the horse named "Too Drunk to Call", and get everyone to bet on it except me - of course it comes in first

After a while, I get tired of football, tired in general, and the -EV blackjack game is calling my name, so I give in and sit down

I'm doing ok even with the automatic shufflers and hanging around my $100 buyin until CoolerSpeaker and Bobby Blackjack pass by and sit down

I'm out $300 in the next 40 min, jerks

It's then time to go play at the MGM before a bunch of the bloggers need to leave for their flights

I'm exhausted and at this point, all I want to do is get on a plane and go home, and I say good bye to Otis, Dr Jeff, Helixx, GameC among others.

Instead of going right back to the IP to help Al and Eva finish the liquor in their bar, we ended up hanging at the MGM bar, and I must admit, I got more cranky

Until BigMikeTheAngel bought me two redbull and vodkas, and then I forgot all the cranky

I even started chatting up Joe Speaker's wife Mari and Ms. Head as well, about how much I love being a woman poker player (in between checking on CJ and Joe Speaker in the tournament)

Mrs Speaker and Mrs Head are like, so rockin' cool, it must be said

I also lost to iggy in roshambo, because I didn't listen to my instincts; however, I got my pride back later in Al's suite

CJ won the whole tournament, and we all meandered back to the IP

Where Al made really strong drinks

And I whooped Al's beeeeehind in Chinese Poker

And then I wanted to go play craps, but no one wanted to play in the IP which is the furthest my feet would go, so instead I wandered to bed and crashed out.

After calling the desk and asking for a late checkout of ... noon

Monday

Wake up about 10, call CJ to find out if he was the one who text paged me last night as it wasn't April (who I called when I got it), turns out it was him and they had fun at craps while I was sleeping

Hang out with April until we check out, and then go grab dinner with Alan and Travis in the buffet, which was ok

I'm determined to win $50 at blackjack so that I can tell h that I'm even at blackjack, so April and I leave Chad and Bobby in the poker room and go play blackjack

We get the craziest chatty dealer, which wouldn't be so bad if she could deal and talk AT THE SAME TIME

I manage to make $65, netting me $15 at +EV games, when it's time to go.

Chad and I grab a cab, since our flights leave at roughly the same time, and that's all Vegas wrote for this trip

(except I broke a nail getting my bags on the plane. Ow.)

when's the next one? can I get on the ride the wil machine list?

Viva Las Vegas

2005-12-14T15:36:00.000-08:00

I'm back, and I think I'm also a victim of the avian flu. I also think that too many wonderful things happened during this trip to actually do justice in a write up, so it's back to my bulleted list to mark the highlights of the trip.

Thursday:

9 hours in a plane to get to Vegas, of which only 4 were spent in the air

Catch up with April at the hotel and then make our way to the MGM to catch up with the bloggers

Move to the Excalibur for some prestorming the castle, and then grab Marty and Otis and a few others for some -EV paigow playing, and greyhound drinking

Otis even got his salty dog.

Meander back to the IP, and find the full tilters playing blackjack.

Decide that since I've never played this before, that I want to learn how to play.

End up $80, and steal RickWfromFullTiltFame's BJ card for future use

Make plans to play the horsies with BG and April the next day

Friday:

Get lost trying to find the sports book, and instead of playing horsies, the three of us decide to get lunch instead, because I'm starving

Somehow we pick up , daddy, and ryan and decide on the forum shops for lunch and have a fine lunch at bertolinis.

Realize while walking there that I'm wearing incredibly cute but very PAINFUL shoes - don't do this in vegas.

Get teased about a) needing to be right while b) being directionally challenged about how to get out of the shops and to the mirage

The group meanders to the Mirage to play poker, and we get on the list.

The list is really really long, though and I decide to take my lucky blackjack card and lucky charm to the blackjack table and proceed to go on a $200 rush when all I wanted was free drinks.

Run into more full tilters and we decide that there's a better chance to play poker at the MGM and get in before the mixed games start so most of us take a cab there; helixx decides to walk.

Play HORSE and make back most of what I lost at $2/$4

Meet change100! She is awesomely cool!
Wil and Paul Phillips make a subtle appearance, and since I've seen helixx point me out already, I go up to Wil and say: "I'm so going to CRUSHER YOU!"

I believe at this point that Wil rolled his eyes and told Paul, "I told you so."

I then turned to Paul and asked innocently, "Do you have a blog too?" He smiled sheepishly and said, "Well, kind of." I laughed and said, "Seriously, I'm kidding, I know who you are. But you know what would be the most awesome? If you were wearing your JOPKE hat"

At this point Paul's face lights up and he turns his baseball cap to face forwards, and dang if it isn't THE HAT. He adds, "It's not every day I can fulfill requests in an instant like that!" Awesome.

Eventually I give up my HORSE seat, as it's time to make our way to N9NE for a pretty awesome meal with even better company.

Helixx and I manage to coordinate meeting up at Drai's with his buddy Mikey (after I change out of the PAINFUL SHOES), who knows EVERYONE in vegas. The music is rocking, the drinks are free flowing, and a really good time is had.

I eventually manage to get a very drunken helixx to his hotel room and tell him not to go NEAR the bed or we're never going to make the tournament which starts in about an hour, and take his room key to go grab him later.

He went near the bed. No tournament for him!

Make it downstairs, showered and looking reasonably fresh (I've been practicing poker benders for the last few months), and end up in the last longer bet with Pauly, and Mrs. Hdouble.

I also tell GameC he's now helixx for the duration because if I drag someone's drunk butt home, I get to pick his replacement

I end up at the killer G-Vegas table, which sucks - since I've got G-Rob and TheMark to my left

TheMark ends up knocking me out on "an out of position blind steal" when his QJ flops two pair to my KK.

Bedtime for me at 1pm on Saturday which is why I'm not in the group photo which was taken after the event and not before it.

This is getting long so I'll pick up Saturday (part two) and Sunday in another post.