A Different Skill Set

We interrupt this post for some cold weather whining:

Shoveling snow at 4:45am FUCKING SUCKS.

Now on to the program.

If you’re not filling out your bracket this morning or trying to get the skinny on Dick Vitale’s diaper dandies this morning then you’re either:

a) reading this from outside the continental US and are more concerned about Footie on the pitch or something like that

b) got so drunk in Austin last night that you’re trying to figure out how that new tattoo of David Sklansky got on your chest and why there’s bars on the window of your bedroom

c) haven’t read Tom Bayes’ break down of why UCONN will win this year (a must read for college hoops fans)

I filled out about five brackets and just picked random teams except to make sure that Syracuse lost in the first round of each one of them out of spite. GO BIG TEN!!! WHOO WHOO!! Indiana vs. Ohio State final? You know it!

That’s as about as likely to happen as Al refusing a shot of SoCo during a Philadelphia Eagles Super Bowl party. Or Lindsay Lohan eating a sandwich. Have I mention she should eat a little? Please. Curves good, Twiggy bad. Sloppy joes Ms. Lohan?

Speaking of eats, I dropped by one of my favorite restaurant/bars in Maple Grove last night. The Lookout has a happy hour special menu you can’t beat. I got 2 pounds of full size broasted chicken wings, excellent BBQ sauce, while the wife got a plate of mini burgers and fries, and Little Drizz got a full basket of chicken fingers for… three bucks a plate. Add in a stiff Cap’n Coke (now I have a tolerance for Captain Morgan not-even-close to Al’s tolerance for SoCo but to the amateur alcohol consumer it would seem vast) for $2.50 and you’ve got a deliciously filling dinner for under $15 even with tip. As we were leaving the bar was setting up for their weekly poker tournament and I pondered about partaking in this, but the wife’s “don’t piss me off I’m pregnant and you’re an asshole for even looking at that felt” eyes and Little Drizz’s ass informed us that we should be moving along… quickly before the toddler turned into a stink bomb. Did I mention potty training is getting better? He actually told us BEFORE taking a dump in his Bob the Builder underoos that he needed go.

Small steps.

The little one went to bed after a story was read about Tigger trying to find a bouncing partner (cause that’s what Tiggers do best) I fired up my email to see that I reached someone at PartyPoker without a Hindu name (not that Shiejvkani V. couldn’t help just as much) and she actually answered my question about how many raked hands I’ve completed. Well done ma’am, now if you answer my second email without a canned response, I just may leave my money at the site for future play.

The Hold Em’ multi-tabling went fairly well as I managed a small profit of $20 after 8-10 tabling for 2.5 hours. Yes, aces were cracked twice, and someone managed a runner runner or two, but them are the breaks and a profit is a profit. It was a little bit of adjustment from the nut sitting ways of O8 as I cranked up the aggression in spots and was awarded with several uncontested pots. The only problem was I did not get paid off on pots were I hit sets or a nut straight, yes I even tried slowplaying once or twice. Did the low stakes PP players suddenly receive a fold button? Granted there were a couple of times I wish I’d found my fold button when betting top two into a flopped set.

Well played Drizz.

It’s nice to switch up to the game after grinding away on the PLO8 tables for several months. Bonus whoring is just that, it’s not actually poker, because you’re only concerned with two things: Raked hands and Not losing more then what the bonus is worth. Granted you TRY to be profitable but blowing thru those raked hands at max speed is the goal. I may even visit my old friend Interpoker and scoop up their monthly bonus despite only running two PLO8 games on the site.

Taking a break by playing more? I never said I made sense, in fact if you understand the scribbling that I put on these pages for mass internet consumption give yourself a gold star and a waffle cone of mint ice cream with a Kit-Kat and Heath bar mashed into it at Coldstone. I heard its good eats.

PLO8 plays itself out 95% of the time, got the nuts, bet, don’t and are bet into, fold, have a big draw, call. But that will net you a break-even player as the cards will smooth out over time and you’ll need to semi-bluff a little, build a pot while chasing draws, and call down that maniac with only two pair when you would normally fold. To me the game is much more thinking then just “wait for the nuts and bet”, but in the same regards its not “run over the table with wild potpotpotpotpotpotpotpotpot all in” type betting. Somewhere there’s a happy medium of aggression and rockishness. When I find it, I’ll be sure to throw it on here for the few Omatards that want to play this silly game.

Thanks for dropping by, now head over to Pauly’s site and join up with Pauly’s Pub (payment coming tonight sir!) on ESPN… you’ve got a few hours left till Syracuse loses err… till the NCAA tournament officially begins and people start hating Billy Packer for being Billy Packer.