Earning my yearly poker blog cred

With an added $325 from Full Tilt and PokerStars all thanks to the WPBT Luckbox last longer and added money by Poker From the Rail.  I hear some extremely talented writers drop by that site and write about poker, I think you should check out this post:  Aftermath of Winning for such an example of awesomeness.

Or lameness.

Because Al is downing hurricanes and stripper's g-strings while I'm hoping my car doesn't break down in the ass cold sub-human temps we are set to receive with zero lube for the next few days.  Actually the lube would turn into an icicle with painful results, so keep the Astroglide indoors for safe use with your 16 gear rabbit vibrator.

Many semi-busy bloggers *points at self* have the fancy graphic of PokerStars' World Blogger Championship of Online Poker blinking on their dusty online journals ready for the battle to see who's got game behind the swirl of horrible puns and barely readable metaphors.  Maybe a few of you can write, and some knock it out of the park with the funny (see:  Wolves by Hyperbole and a half and always tip your babysitter even they managed to not steal anything).

Pot Limit Omaha January 24     14:00 ET     Tournament ID 339187689 

No Limit Hold’em  January 25     19:00 ET    Tournament ID 339187690

PL Omaha H/L    January 26     22:00 ET    Tournament ID 339187691

No Limit Hold’em    January 27     14:00 ET    Tournament ID 339187692

8-Game Mix         January 28     17:00 ET    Tournament ID 339187695

No Limit Hold’em     January 29     15:00 ET    Tournament ID 339187696

There's your line up kids, fear not as I have zero chance of playing the first tourney because I am the lame and responsible type who will be pecking away at spreadsheets instead of winning a free trip to SCOOP.

It will be tempting to stay up for the Wednesday tourney of course because who needs sleep when a split game tourney is guaranteed to go at least 6 hours which is exactly when my alarm would ring my ass up for work. 

Story behind the story

Yeah, I need a haircut thanks for noticing.

Wow, was so busy this weekend hardly noticed that we're TWO DAYS AWAY from the 2010 WPBT Winter Classic kicking off.  Yes, I may have mentioned it here sixteen sextillion times but it bears repeating because such awesome people not named me will be there and I hope you, the reader, are one of those people.

But, first life threw me a nasty curveball, or rather Comcast did.  It looked like a waist-high batting practice pitch after leaving the lanky pitcher's hand.  The day was cold even by Nordic standards but the kids still went out to pave a decent run on the sledding hill in the backyard while mother and father enjoy Vikings football after it looked grim for the home team early on.  Favre threw one pass for an INT while taking a shot that I heard from the Metrodome Mall of America Field 15 miles away.  Then T-Jack predictably jump passed his way into a pick six.  But, the defense got its angry on and treated the Bills Quarterback Fitzpatrick like toddler toy and Sidney Rice ascended many time while coming down with the ball to play like the team they were supposed to be winning 38-14.

While the game was on, I managed to finish a project for school, and turned on the poker machine.  Full Tilt was unkind to me, or specifically PLO Rush poker was lancing my bankroll $25 a time while I dinked around in a couple of MTTs, busting early in 4 of 5 of them.  Finally, sane me stopped playing PLO while I still had chips in a $5 Rebuy PLO8 MTT before taking my handle of Captain Morgan 100 proof acquired as an early birthday present down from the cabinet.  While I didn't crack the bottle, I did crack enough aces on the way to chopping up the tourney for plane ticket type money (sorry no tourney recap, you'll have to read on for one of those...).

An hour later I tried to log into the PokerStarsBlog site and get an error message as I started my preamble and wanted to set up for the night's Sunday Warm-up that I was covering.

No bueno.

Power surge?  Na.

Complete shutdown and reboot?  Three times.

TO THE CLOUD!! *cue wavy dream music*

Instead of polishing up the final table write up while wrapped in my Captain Morgan blanket and a rough Steelers/Ravens game on, I had to throw on 15 layers because Minnesota is cold in the winter (errr, autumn, yeah right) and head over to my parent's house as they are my back-up and are used to their son stumbling in at weird hours.  However, I was stone sober and rushed to my old room to set up shop and....   NO CONNECTION!  Except for PokerStars which ran just fine, however anything thru a browser was met with an error message.

But I had an out, my dad fires up his hard-lined work computer and says to just work off of there since his browser worked just fine.  Yes!!  Victory is mine internet goblins, gimme the +4 Staff of Awesomeness!

But wait, what's this?  A firewall that doesn't like poker words?  No publishing site access, No PokerStars, back to square one. 

So I text a probably sleepy Otis about the issues (I found out this morning, all of the Twin Cities metro area was down, lucky for that hard-wired account or I'd been really FUBAR'd), and get on the phone with the one person I know would be up.  Enter Bluff Magazine nominated Short Stack Shamus into the fold.  Since I couldn't publish it, and I knew he would be up doing the Sunday Million I had a plan.  Finish the wrap on my laptop since I could watch the tourney and write it out, transfer the document and screen shots to a disc, put disc in dad's computer, then email it to Short Stack to publish. 

Brilliant!

Except Yahoo mail was also behind the firewall, no likey connection.  *insert John McEnroe you can't NOT be serious*

Ok, dove around in dad's computer for an email account, hack the password (shhhhhh), and mailed off the Sunday Warm-up wrap in time for consumption for the masses!

Oh, my fuel light came on, on the way home so I had to stop and catch a handful of frostbite before returning to my snoring wife who has a bit of a sore throat and slept sparingly.  Fun night?  Youbetcha!

Please enjoy the wrap, and thanks again to Short Stack!

Two days folks.

Wife Knows Best Chapter 10: He WILL Forget

After walking through the front doors after a longer-than-usual commute (a whole 15 minutes!) and missing the fine smell of bacon-wrapped steak that was promised to be pan-searing when I got home, an audiable sigh left my nose. 

"Oh, I can still throw the steaks on" said my wife, at least those were the words from her mouth. 

The actual words were "I got home and did the laundry, vacuumed the floors, pulled your daughter down from the ceiling, and rescued a bus load of 8th grade volleyball players after their driver fell asleep trying to pull an all-nighter so don't ask me to make your fuckin steak".

Calmly, I suggested Leeann Chin's and I would offer to climb right back into the car to retrieve the Sesame chicken goodness with a side of egg-fried rice and gooey cream-cheese puffs. Also, as a bonus, the mystery package I signed for yesterday happened to be a large (for me) check from my musings on PokerStarsBlog and after checking my bank balance, a wire transfer from Full Tilt also went thru so "bet more" at the WPBT may be back on (if the funds clear of course)!

A side trip to the bank was made where a cute Thai teller that would have made F-Train throw out a few suave lines, I however stumbled thru the reasons for the large foreign check and made a joke about giving it to my wife for Black Friday (which isn't entirely false, but don't let her know when she finds some extra cash in her purse from the degen fairy).  Then on to the Leeann Chin's I go to about twice a month noting the usual surly but hot blonde who wears too much makeup and a distaste for people on her face serve up some Sweet and Sour chicken for the kids, Lemon for the wife, and as an audiable, some Mongolian chicken for myself.  Wrapped up with two pairs of chopsticks for the kids to poke their food with, it was back home to a "movie night" (meaning a late-night date with "An Introduction to Literature" for daddy).

pic cred: dan-dare.org

Toy Story 3, and this one lived up to the hype, with a excellent ending, on top of an excellent ending.  Just when you thought it was over with Woody and Buzz saving the day again, it jerks your heart strings for a few minutes more. 

All the pillows and blankets were gathered up as the nightly ritual of getting the kids to brush their teeth without flinging poo at each other began.  But tonight there was no poo, perhaps after-glow from the awesome movie as they settled down quickly, got tucked in as I returned to the porch and found my fat cat Funky rightfully assuming my ass would be on the couch for the next few hours.

Just before cracking open the play "Trifles" by Susan Glaspell and later "The Cherry Orchard" by Anton Chekhov my wife came in to remind me to put away the turkey that had been thawing out in the sink before going to bed.  I looked up and nodded telling her not to worry about it.  But, my wife was not convinced.  She takes out a strategically placed chair which blocked the walkway between porch and living room (the kitchen is in-between the two) and places a pan on it.  After seeing this I raised a middle finger in salute, and got one in return with a smile.

After the required reading I was too tired for the writing portion of the assignment and shut off the lights to the porch which were the last lights on in the house and started stumbling to bed much like I do on later nights.

WHAM!  #!#$&$#!@@

My middle toe rang with pain as I slammed it into the strategically placed chair which filled the lane like Wilt Chamberlain and Shaq standing side-by-side.  As my trudged my bruised toe and ego to the kitchen light and took the medium-sized wet turkey placing it in the fridge, I could almost hear my wife down the hallway laughing in her sleep.

14 days folks.



Using a page from the whining book

Whine and thou shalt receive. 

My kids employ these method on a daily basis and once in a great while through frustration I'll give in.  Softy, I know.  Mostly because the words "daddy is working" coming out of my mouth while doing homework or describing the seventh place finisher in the Sunday Warm-Up at PokerStars, has a ghastly charcoal taste to each syllable.  Last night it was creating invoices and receiving payments for a fictional landscaping company while my son wanted a second knight to accompany him in a game called Castle Crashers on the PS3.   For the low price of $14.99 (plus some PS3 add-on cost of a buck and change) these little square-headed knights bop different ghouls and wombats Street Fighter style with a little RPG thrown in as there's leveling, gold collection, and standard strength, magic, dex, and defense add-on to improve your character. For a quick game, well worth the purchase.

As I poured some tears out on these pages way too soon about floating cash at Full Tilt the joy seeing that cash with a bonus enough to cover more than the bank fees (thank you good sirs) was back in my account by the time Michael Vick was in the middle of going All-Madden on the Redskins last night (seriously, if the Eagles played like that, can anyone beat them?).  Now with two accounts flush with online moneys, the question is:  is it safe to try to withdraw again?  One method involves several fees adding up to $60 which doesn't appeal to me but for the sake of "bet more" in Vegas a few less lap dances won't hurt the silicone and baby powder crowd too much.  The other method is wait and pray that the check clears, and with three bad checks already in the past few years I don't need my bank getting itchy to close my account that has been open since Ronnie Regan ruled the White House and I was getting my 100 pound skinny ass kicked in middle school.

For those who still drop by and play, let me know if you've had experiences (good or bad) with cashing out, and I'm not talking about getting your aces cracked five times in row while your brand new 100" 3D-HDTV blows up in the background from the cash-out curse.  Save those stories for the Geisha Bar.

22 days shopping days till my birthday folks.  Get a move on.

Checks and chips

Trying to keep my eyes open on the ice-slicked roads of Minnesota this morning thanks to winter's regurgitation of snow overnight on Friday, there was more than a few odd sights on my ass-crack of dawn commute.  The gray with white flecked bunny with ears seemingly lopped off, perhaps from a gang initiation which must have included darting out in front of a tired suburbanite at five a.m.with hopes that his green tea fix kicked in enough to dance his truck around around those short, fast legs.

No squished bunny, he'll survive enough to terrorize the neighborhood by knocking over a few gas stations before meeting his maker by a vigilante Ford Probe's front right tire. 

After avoiding animals there was the Stephen King-like mist with a 16-wheeler coming over the top of a narrow bridge that I was attempting to cross at the same time taking up the entire width.  Luckily by the time Maximum Overdrive's figure peered thru the fog it became just another commuter that probably had his eyes open no more than me.  

Sufficiently awakened by new found alertness, I see its November 15th and we're only 23 days away from the 6th installment of the WPBT Winter Classic which only half of the field has signed up for the biggest giveaway we've had thanks to the wonderful folks at PokerStars.  Be sure go to Up For Poker's for the details on the last longer, hammer challenge, and my favorite...  bust an original player from the first WPBT tourney.  No, I was not one of those folks as my bankroll was in its infancy at the time, marriage was about as stable as Brad Childress' job, head injury still kept me under supervision, and my son was just drawing his first breath so running off to Vegas that year wasn't possible.  But, those who survived the first year's drinks at Sherwood Forest will be back and guarding their bust out prizes like a child's stuffed animal. 

Lately on the online front things have not been rainbows and perky tits waiting to serve you another Jag Bomb because you're just so darn cute (or probably because you're the only one tipping consistantly).  This weekend I had not one but two checks bounce from the major sites.  Full Tilt's check bounced after waiting A MONTH for it, offered no explanation nor any forebearing that processors were having troubles.  As you know my bankroll isn't big (see: name of blog) and we're talking about enough for a plane ticket and maybe enough money to bring my golf clubs with.  It wasn't until I wrote in after my bank informed me of the NSF check that an apology was given.  PokerStars however offered a pre-emptive strike telling not to cash the check (which I didn't) and gave a bonus on top of my withdrawl and the funds are once again back in my account (unlike Full Tilt who continues to drag their feet about this...). 

In the year of "bet more" since I had been doing not-so-bad at the tables lately, there was a little extra to enjoy an upper crust dinner with good foodie friends, whiskey with a Packer Fan and a husband to a Packer Fan, golfing with a soon-to-be groom, and still have enough for playing 3am Pai Gow with Hong and Dr. Pauly at the Gold Coast.  Those things will still happen, but this extra bit was my reward to myself for the hard work over the past year.  Going back to school full time with two jobs has been tiring especially when you add a daughter who thinks it's ok to get up at 5:30am on a weekend to climb into the freezer using a chair and phone book to gobble down 2.5 bars of Hershey's then proceed to bounce off the walls for the next five hours on a sugar rush while daddy tries to book a sale of a 20-year bond bought at 102, and sold six years later at 98.5 with an interest rate of 11% and coupon rate of 12% and writing a two-page compare and contrast essay on two poems (seriously, how do ya'll read poems, I'm baffled).

As the king of the deuce-four, PokerGrump, added in a recent post about cashing out at Bodog where he was given an ATM-type card instead of cash with a bunch of loopholes and fees attached to it (read the post as he explains all the fine print).  Is this the direction we're going to avoid the UIGEA?  Or until the government finally allows us to go back to the good ol' days of NetTeller and wire MY money as quickly as needed? 

We shall see as Bodog wrote to me a few days ago telling me I had more than happy meal money in my account to cash out should I not want to play there. Thanks to the cancelled checks I feel like I had just split the uprights for the game-winning 37 yard field goal and as the guys were carrying me off the field Rex Ryan comes over to laugh in my face as he called a time-out right before I was to get in the hot tub with the Dahm triplets and I needed to compose myself for another try.

Neither site has commented on the ability to try again, and the 2+2 threads on the matter do not show much light as to people receiving and clearing a second check.  As told, I "need" those degen funds before escaping the sub-arctic temps of Minnesota for the poker felts of Vegas.  The question is, will I be on a budget and just enjoy the fact that I'm surrounded by good friends that I only get to see 2 or 3 times a year, or will "bet more" be in play making airplane noises at Excal playing 4am craps?

Last to the party, still leaves with the hottie

I final tabled a tourney last week (possibly, maybe, don't know) anyway after watching Lady Gaga for the 16th time today while eating a box of Cheerios with hopes of soaking up my party for one last night I fired up Full Tilt after a running my mother to Grand Casino Hinkley as an upcoming birthday present.  Why yes I played slots next to women chain smoking Virgina Slims while wearing enough make-up to paint my son's second grade class as clowns for Halloween in a few weeks.

Won at slots, won with kids who enjoyed their $15/hour babysitter which included Skid Row's reminder that she ooooonly seventeen SEVENTEEN working the desk and asking if I'd like her to put my penis someplace around that severely stretched polo shirt.  After remembering that my mom was five feet away and I'm married and don't wish to go to jail or be that creepy old guy who hits on high school chicks with their mothers sitting in close proximity, I took the wristband with my children's name on it without further incident as there was some gambling to do.  Slots, slots, and more slots after seeing a sad dealer with no players at the Pai Gow table.  Pai Gow normally a degenerate activity goes to level 23 if you play alone, besides my mom needed me to needle her by winning on every other spin while she plunked down twenty after twenty while chasing Mr. Cashman.

After padding the WPBT trip roll a bit, being disappointed that Ms. Jail Bait had been replaced by a cross between Velma and Grimace, and taking down the prime rib buffet that actually doesn't suck it was time to bring the kids home and straight to bed.  "No, no booze tonight" said my body so I jumped into a play chip PLO8 game with Bluff's newest all-star KevMath and TheKeyLime.  Needed little something, I spotted my new favorite $3.5K guarantee Rush PLO8 rebuy tourney in late regs.  I almost missed the cut off but managed to plunk down two shiny dollars in time. 

Three hours later I walked a lad through the ropes of making a three-way deal...

I wonder if this is the other side of variance that I haven't seen for a couple of years.  Any how, happy.  Much.  Still not going to drink anything heavier than cherry flavored kool-aid. 

Never bet against a drunk

As noted I purchased my flight earlier in the night before getting my drink on.

I play good poker while under the influence occasionally.

Note Mr. Craig's finish in 10th, I got my first Pro bounty in four years playing at Full Tilt :)  This paid for the trip I couldn't afford easily just five hours ago.  The donkey drunk gods have provided as I start to play Rush Poker cash, and lose a flopped  straight to a rivered  boat that called all-in on the turn.

$1 to everyone and something pretty for Maigrey at Sephora.

Off to the trailer/cabin this weekend for guy's weekend and come home for a night of fun at PokerStarsBlog starting off with the Battle of the Planets, then Sunday Warm-up, and finishing with the Audi TT giveaway:  Turbo Takedown.

Peace folks.

High(er) Rolling Rant

There were no less than three posts written this weekend while driving to the trailer/cabin in Hinckley.  Since my cell phone does not double as a mobile office and can barely receive text messages but can ass-dial certain writers to remind them to eat their veggies and be sure to have a clean plate after dinner, this space remained dormant aside from a poker brag on Sunday while tooling around in the afternoon.

While my low-rolling online self will not change anytime soon since our government insist on throwing wispy laws towards the likes of PokerStars, Full Tilt, and Bodog.  Rules that make it harder, not impossible for online degens to get their fix of four card crack and mega-satellites to the World Series of Poker Main Event.  The holy grail of satellites.  The endorsements.  BJ Nemeth and Flipchip taking YOUR picture with that pile of cash along side of an increasing better Norman Chad doing the post-game interview sometime after Minnesotans return to below zero temperatures.  That's November not August despite urban legends that it's cold up here.  It is, but it's a dry cold.

The UIGEA.  Is all about what's wrong with our government and aside from the political circus going on in g-Vegas' home state, the reason why this voter without a political affliation will ever pick a party to follow.  You, Bob Goodlatte, despite taking money FROM gambling sources sneak in a line detail that threatens the employement of my friends. You whine when people who even oppose gambling say it was backhanded and terribly obtuse law, and use your poltical ties to force others into this thinking.  As my friends have toiled in the Amazon room for the past few weeks, and will continue to do so until the November Nine are named, they are working for less and less as the ambiguity of this law prevents their sites from running a business without the threat of a FBI/CIA/Starsky and Hutch ban stick being waved over their heads and make the profits that they should be. 

While James Dempsey and Sammy Farha battle it out for the $10K Omaha Hi/Lo bracelet this morning, doubts of future events being so grand are in question.  By this time next year we could have the road laid out for legalization of online poker.  You know, something that several states have done legally in brick and mortar casinos/cardrooms and had prior to your nanny state law. This this isn't meth or some hard drug that currently gets you thrown in jail for possesion, instead this is a game that is dealt 24/7 in most states and at worse you get thrown to the floor for being an asshole after slow-rolling the nuts on that 85 year old Korean War vet who caps his cards with a Purple Heart while playing $2/$4 limit daily with a huge "I'm a 10 Percenter" button over his black suspenders. 

There's no law against being a dick, but there is one because some people choose to play virtually versus driving 45 minutes (or more) to play live.  Stop being a dick Bob and let people play how they choose versus how you and your morally twisted backers think everyone should act with THEIR MONEY.  Do I walk into congress and demand you cease plunking down $50K+ on that country club membership, or a third Porsche because I think it's a waste of money?  No.  You earned it, you get to spend it.  Just like this weekend after a friend's advice to "Bet More", I did so.  Playing $25 to $75 hands of blackjack and Pai Gow for three hours with money I earned through my second job.  The rush for someone who normally makes less than $20/hour was worth more than the $300 I took away from the high stakes area and got a touch of the high life even if it was in a backwater casino located in a fly-over state.

My money, my choice.  Your money, your choice.  This is America, land of freedom to fuck up if you want to, stop being a hypocrite.

PLO: I Fail To Suck again

Missed my son's baseball practice and was worried I was going to min-final table cash as I came into the last nine with the least amount of chippies.

Well...

We don't post pictures of min cashes here

Oberdonk had me at least four to one HUs holding just five big blinds. I took the extra $50 to chop it up and the small timer had another decent score under his belt. Sorry again for the dust rising in this space as my last week of school's first quarter ends and well, there's some work to do aside from the three jobs I've been juggling. And dropping the ball on my head this point would make those mornings of not being able to see straight all for naught.

Rawr.

Back to the Beach To drink at 5

See what I did there?

The BBT5 officially kicked off for me last night as part guilt and part degeneracy got the cards in the air at 9:00pm CST for The Mookie.  A long-standing blogger tournament named for a house which is probably rivaling the Duggars for most kids produced in shortest time frame via one birth canal.  Wherever you are Mookie, salute to you and your family in the future.

While my lack-dazzle play and catching a few cards preflop got me three hours deep and into the money, someone short stacked as I shoving Snowman-Tater Legs into my King-rag and flopping two pair was my undoing.  No fuss, no muss, little money, little sleep.  While the invitationals on the weekend seems like a better shot of earning one of 24 TOC seats in which the big prizes of WSOP seats sit, my weekends will be taken up with reporting on poker while taking a week off of "normal" work at the bullseye versus playing it.  My participation may vary to prevent burn out but kudos to Mr. Cant Hang who put together a structure to give away the awesome prizes put forth by Full Tilt.

Your participation, dear reader, should be towards the two open events during the week (see BBT5 link above for details), unless of course you are an active poker blogger yourself and have a golden ticket to the invitational.

photo cred: SI.com

Tonight is normally reserved for poker on the non-sober side but with the rabid 3am to midnight shift of human activity yesterday, I may need to be a pussy and fall asleep before sleep falls on me.  Besides my wife needs encouragement on the beach volleyball courts while various women in different stages of beachwear, bounce around with an open bar in visible crawling range. 

The things I do to keep a happy marriage, where's my "Bestest Husband EVER" award?

VIP for the Low Roller

Tried a little experiment last night.

No, it did not envolve my wife, the Adam and Eve diry schoolgirl pack, or copulous amounts of Captain Morgan "Bite" (if you like lime in your Cap'n Coke I suggest give it at least a try, but snobbish me likes the real thing if I can be bothered to quarter them after buying the $.49 pack of citrus at Target).  Since this is was a poker blog you get poker more often than poke her news which if her parents are reading happened just three times over the past 12 years.

Had to test the goods before breeding of course.

Anyhow...   this month is a slight dip back into the playing pool of FPPs, FTPs, and any other acronyms used at the various poker sites for their frequent player points/VIP programs.  My intent is to achieve SilverStar again at Stars, and some variation of Iron Man at Full Tilt (this is split into Bronze, Silver, Gold, IRON MAN *cue Ozzy to jump out of your laptop looking a bit confuzzled asking you to score some Oxycontin while the rest of Black Sabbath starts up the BBBWWWWWOOOOWWWW I. AM. IRON. MAN).  Thanks to the new heroin of poker, Rush Poker is allowing people like myself (low rollers who don't keep a lot of cash online) to achieve status at their site so I can purchase a couple of college educations from their FTP store.  Saves a lot of trouble scrapping by on ramen noodles and our new peddle-powered cars so that my kids can enjoy the wonders of Anthropology 201:  The Study of Ancient Byzantine Sponges at the college of their choice.

Or that nikon camera might come in handy hitting up the beach for the two weeks during the summer that we can be outside from 1:00-1:15pm without having to wear five layers.  I kid, its actually three weeks and thanks to global warming there's an extra five minutes of beach volleyball and sand castles.

To the poker!  Ok, I fired up the following to see which would produce the most "points" at the two sites mentioned above in beautiful blue underline because I enjoy both and have friends working there so please support them or you're responsible for pulling them away from the back row of Mr. Cashman two cent slot machines at the Four Queens as they try to win back their once stable paycheck while double fisting $.99 shrimp cocktails with the pissed off look of someone who just had their puppy kicked.  No pressure.

Full Tilt:  One famous "Rush Poker" table $.25/$.50 blinds (because I'm a BALLER!)
PokerStars:  Eight No Limit Omaha 8 or Better tables with $.25/$.50 blinds and a complete lack of bankroll management since I keep no more than $600 on the site at all times

The play lasted for about ninety minutes as AlCantHang hopped on the girly chat and Twitter with pictures of those delicious TastyKakes only found in the heavily wooded area of Pennsyltucky which made my mind wander back to the greatest convenience store in the world, and also the site where I spent a little time with two police officers and failing horribly to appear sober while slobbering on a freshly made philly cheesesteak after last call at the Boathouse.

Zero focus, good for writing, bad for poker.  Live and learn on the interwebs folks we're here for you.

Ok, after ninety minutes of half attention I manage to not blow my meager bankrolls at the respective sites and managed to shuffle cash from one site to the other as par on most nights when I play at both.

PokerStars:  +$42.89
Full Tilt:  -$29.24

Since I do not play NLHE cash games often without being surrounded by the good folks who normally come here, what's with the new "let's-limp-aces-and-call-everything" style of play seen at Full Tilt?  The monsters under the bed radar goes way up after a can of Surly Furious and seeing this passive to the extreme play no less than four times in 90 minutes.  While I never played them for stacks, I did crack the aces twice with two pair simply because check-call all the way down is better left for a limit game.  Nonetheless, there were no horrible stackings after being down over a buy-in, I only lost a little less than a buy-in thanks to a flopped set of jacks and someone who just couldn't fold his/her pocket fours in the last five minutes of the session.

PokerStars went better despite getting stacked five minutes after pouring said beer, and in puke-and-rally form made a decent profit on the night thanks to people who try playing Omaha Hi in a split game.

The important stuff:

Full Tilt:  147.16 FTPs  (last 15 minutes of play was during "Happy Hour" thus points were doubled, would have waited for Happy Hour to start, but sleep is a fun thing to do when your daughter is bound to wake you at 2am to search for her Rainbow Care Bear)
PokerStars:  225.18 VPPs

Note:  PokerStars gives you VPPs to "rank" you in their VIP hierarchy but gives you FPPs at the same rate while multiplied by your "rank".  Example:  as a "SilverStar" I get a 1.5 multipler so I received *gets calculator* 337.77 FPPs to use in their store last night.

I thought it would be a wash but mutli-tabling still held king over the crack table BUT the risk of ruin is much higher with funds so far spread out, I'll continue this little experiment throughout the month as time and cookie monster kids permit as there's a poker game in G-Vegas next month that I will flying out for and need the practice against people who treat chips like lego blocks.

Rush Poker at Full Tilt

For multi-table addicts out there, Rush Poker at FTP is your new crack pipe.

I tried it out this morning waiting for my daughter's preschool to finish up and pulled up a couple of tables with .25/.50 blinds. Managed a small profit thanks to quads and AA vs. QQ holding up, but that wasn't what I was curious about. My thoughts were on the amount of FTP points and rakeback potential.

See the picture below as I haven't been playing much/at all at FTP this month due to two impending trips and sudden addiction to other gaming (aka Dragon Age):





That was one hour on two tables. Makes getting iron man feasible again for the low-rolling guy if that is something you desire. As 4 tables of PLO8 6-max at the same blinds usually netted around 150 FTPs after 2-3 hours. If you got the need for speed this is your new Ferrari. It's not for everyone, but for the habitual multi-tabler it's a chance to pair down those 10-12 tables into 3 or 4.

Good news getting ugly

Bad News for online players:

This one is slowly leaking out and semi-troubling (or moreso in the cases of those at the WSOP or like me the low-roller needing a few bucks for the next couple of week's activities)...

Payment processor problems at Full Tilt and PokerStars causing multiple checks to bounce. Including mine.


06/08/09
RETURN ITEM FEE AZ 090608

$7.00
06/08/09
RETURN ITEM CHARGE - PAPER AZ 090608

$400.00
06/05/09
DEPOSIT #XXXXXXX
$400.00

Yes, its only seven bucks, and yes Full Tilt has returned the funds to my account but this is the first bad check I've ever cashed in the 25 years I've had this account.

Not happy.

Understanding, yes because right now there's some zealot up in New York still batting at the ghost of the UIGEA (the wrong way since tangling up WITHDRAWLS is NOT LEGAL and not covered by the UIGEA). First found at Pokerati where they had a link to the PokerStars returned checks discussion at 2+2.

I hopped on 2+2 last night after softball to see if Full Tilt had a similar thread. And they did. Sure enough my small check above crashed and burned this morning, but I was unable to find if I could request a new check, and damn skiddish about doing so as I'd rather not get this account frozen three days before a road trip to Chicago and three weeks prior to WSOP madness.

If anyone has some insight as to the smoke clearing on withdrawing funds I'll sing praises of you with the force of Pavarotti knocking out an aria in front of the New York Philharmonic.


Good News for Viking Fans:


Chilly (not this one) but (this one) grows a backbone and gets The Brett a deadline!

Minnesota Vikings coach Brad Childress has imposed a deadline of this week for Brett Favre to decide whether he will be the team's quarterback for the upcoming season, according to two sources.

Favre, however, is apparently reluctant to commit to playing a 19th NFL season without first being more confident the arthroscopic surgery performed recently on his throwing shoulder has succeeded in eliminating all of the problems related to a torn biceps tendon. Dr. James Andrews performed the surgery.

It would seem reasonable that both Favre and the Vikings want to know his shoulder is healthy before reaching an agreement, and the team is virtually certain to insist on seeing the 39-year-old quarterback throw before any contract is signed. Minnesota has four organized team activity sessions this week, beginning Tuesday.

Rage unseen since Jessica Simpson couldn't fit into a size 4 jeans

According to the internets, there should be a rage flowing thru my body over Susan Boyle's "never been kissed" proclaimation. Blog buzz is reaching crest unseen since someone came up with the idea to place links from your site to one showing hardcore anal cattle prod porn.

Disclaimer:

I have never seen the video of her singing (which is supposed to be good).

There's a saying in the Fark community about women looking like Ms. Boyle (or guys, but mostly women because most internet posting trolls are men by nature and they lacked their mother's love while she always gave the extra strip of bacon to their sibling and this is their way of getting back at that salty pork fiend).

"Kill it with fire".

Except I would point the M2-2 Flamethrower at these lovely interwebs for spreading this story and make it stop before my eyes bleed and force myself to watch a replay of the most recent Victoria Secret TV special. We get it that she lacks the basic modelistic outlines one would expect in a showsinger or maybe even in a hausfrau. Stop spreading the hate and start snapping up more video of Keeley Hazell, maybe use Boyle's voice in the background singing an aria about heavenly bodies so people can appreciate both of their beauties.

----

Ok, the Mookie.

It sucked that the servers went down.

It sucked that a decent night of tournament poker did not receive its proper end.

But, dem the breaks. Full Tilt has done too much for poker bloggers over the years, and many people I'd consider friends under their employ, its hard to muster up a stupid 2006-ish rant about online poker being unstable.

Its a paper cut. With a kiss, some neosporin, and a clear Dora lined band-aid there's no reason to bemoan the fact that this was probably my best (read: only) of grabbing a BBT4 TOC seat. There's no fuel in the tank for these late nights/early mornings should luck shine a little light on my laptop for some cards.

This Sunday I was very deep in a Pot Limit Hold em/Omaha MTT and all my wife could do was ask every five minute if I was coming outside. Despite telling her there's X amount of people left, I rush through decisions based on cards versus playing back at the people I saw as weak.

Last night during the pivotal hand of the final table run, a half-awake Wyatt decided somewhere around 11 o'clock that it was a great idea to come upstairs, drop trou right in front of me and the laptop with a mini fire hose of piss ready to burst. After rushing him into bathroom, I come back to see myself holding Q-something offsuit the board showing two ladies on it and a timer ticking to fold. Nabbed quads on the turn managed to get my short-stack out of the hole and an hour later watched first time poker blogger Dr. Pauly come to the table with a decent stack when the blue final table backdrop appeared.

20 minutes later the servers went down, I had a similar stack to everyone except Pauly, after waiting about 15 minutes, shot an email to that rookie, wishing him luck as he picked up the humble job of blogging about poker and went to salvage a few hours of sleep.

Bad luck? Perhaps. But poker isn't about luck now is it? :)

----

A question to the masses: You see a pop up window in the morning after downing your third overpriced Venti triple shot espresso proclaiming your password is soon to expire. If given ten days to change it, how soon does your columbian bean filled head take to do it?

Chatting, Crying, and Truckin

A sad good-bye to Matt Birk. This move made about as much sense as signing Sage Rosenfels to the Vikes.

Sigh.

---

Saw over 100 signed up for the first Mookie of the BBT4 last night. Rock on folks.

I had zero interest in joining despite getting back from running the kids around, going to the gym, and getting home in time to watch the Gopher's Men Basketball team play an exciting game against Stinkin' Badgers for the possible NCAA at large bid bubble burst. Well, exciting for Big Ten basketball as the score at halftime showed the leading scorer for BOTH teams was 6. I think the rim was in deep thought about filing charges for assault and battery.

Long live the barn.

---

Also on a Full Tilt note, I penned a post for Al's "Poker From the Rail" describing those annoyingly funny three years olds who blow up in the chat boxes and have potential for increasing your bankroll because they can't handle the cards not falling in their favor *raises hand*.

Everyone has been guilty of a "Waffle-esque" rant. Maybe not to the point of describing the different garden tools he used to impregenate your sister and mother last night in a Motel 6, but if you haven't flipped out at the tables there's no base from to learn to control those emotions to build on.

Hop over here to the post.

---

Now that you're done with amateur hour at the ACME Comedy Club, time for the real writers to line up.

Go get your Truckin on. Fair warning for gentlemen who can still get it up without chemicals from Pfizer, stay seated at work while reading Betty's red laced story. Wow.


March 2009, Vol. 8, Issue 3

Welcome back to the latest issue of Truckin'...

1. Lubbock's Own: Larry "the Laugher" Larson by Johnny Hughes

Large Mouth Maude Larson once beat a Hockley County man half to death at the Cotton Club with a bowling pin because she thought he stole her comb. Later, she found it in her purse, like all women do. She didn't feel a bit bad. The world-class bitch... More

2. A Good Beginning by Milton T. Burton

He bills himself as my best friend, but he's not. My best friend was a Kentucky farm boy who died in screaming agony in the Mekong Delta forty years earlier. But even aristocrats like to name-drop occasionally, and mine has been a good name to drop since not long after I came to the New York financial world out of a Cleveland blue color neighborhood by way of Vietnam decades ago... More

3. Happy Valentine's Day Tamara Johnson by Dave Peterson

I moved behind the door to investigate and possibly kill someone. I figured I was ready. The deadbolt lock was sprung with a soft – click. I heard keys jangling, a girl's voice laughing, and then the handle turned. I leveled the revolver and pulled the hammer back... More

4. Hunter Wellington by Betty Underground

Her comfort in her own skin surpasses societies modesty boundaries. It is just how she is. Most people come home from work and take off their shoes. She doesn't stop there, she takes off her pants and pulls her bra off through the sleeves of her t-shirt. Discarding them on the floor of the entrance. She prefers the freedom, and cares less about what others might think... More

5. Monroe by Paul McGuire

Monroe sat at the end of the bar on the last stool. He always did. He never left. The octogenarian arrived five minutes before O'Looney's opened and had to be carried out every night when one of his grandkids stopped by to pick him up... More

Maigrey Wins the HORSE Tiara

Congrats go out to Maigrey for leaving me with three hours of sleep today before I head up to the cabin.

She put on a H.O.R.S.E. clinic last night during the FTOPS at Full Tilt. Got called a donkey more times then I could count, but raked the chips in to take 28th out of over 1,000.

Boys just didn't learn to fear the princess :)

Dude, It Was a Nerf Ball

Frylock Bin Laden coming to a bridge near you. There's a fine line between readiness, and acting like a spaz.

Much like the arrests of the Neteller hippies causing my once liquid poker funds to become harder to move then a toddler trying to watch his morning cartoons.


Below was my first attempt of pulling some funds from ye ol' poker account since the arrest:

Hello Drizz,
Thank you for contacting Full Tilt Poker Customer Support.

Checks may be requested for amounts $300 or greater up to a maximum of $10,000, and can be requested only once every 7 days.

If you would like Full Tilt Poker to send you a check, we must first verify your account information. Please email or fax us a clear and legible copy of your photo ID along with proof of address. The name and mailing address on your ID must match your Full Tilt Poker account information.

We accept the following forms of ID:
Photo ID: Driver's License, Passport, Government-issued ID, or Student ID
Address Verification: Bank or Credit Card statement, Utility Bill, Cell Phone Bill, Home or Auto Insurance papers

You can email these documents to us at support@fulltiltpoker.com or fax to 1-877-TILT-FAX. Please use a resolution of 400 dpi or higher when sending your documents and make sure faxes are clear and legible or they will be asked to be re-sent. If you are using fax, make sure to include your Player ID on all pages.

Once you are verified for checks, you will need to request a cashout through the Cashier window.

Approved checks are delivered by regular mail in 25-35 business days.

At this time, we regret that we are temporarily unable to deliver checks by UPS to US residents. We are working speedily to have this option available to US residents again soon.

For our non-US residents, checks can be delivered by UPS for a $33.50 fee. You must have your current 10 digit telephone number entered in your account information and a street address to use UPS. UPS does not deliver to P.O. Boxes.

If you have any further questions, please feel free to email support@fulltiltpoker.com and we are happy to help.

Regards,
Colleen
Full Tilt Poker Support

Sigh.

Anyone got a better idea before I slap on the laughing gas mask and prepare for my wisdom teeth to be extracted by the Irish dentist and suck on a grape flavored popsicle to relieve the pain of the procedure? I'm not onboard to sign up for a new payment processor since the likelihood of any current processors going down soon is high enough to not bother with signing up, waiting for confirmations, and possibly have more funds suddenly locked up on the intertubes because the DOJ gets jiggy again when Master Shake goes after more strategic targets like maybe Dane Cook.

Thanks for dropping by, now head over to Pauly's site if you haven't heard about the Cardplayer/Bluff CutandPaste-gate going on. I've never been in the poker-blogging trenches (but I'm available to do so and I work for Cap'n Cokes!) but it seems to me that final table information is pretty much the same. Information posted to different sites would have their own "flava", much like 50 Cent and Snoop Dogg may rap about the same " bitches n' ho's" but do it their own voice. If the information wasn't copied word for word, what's the point of a three minute viral video shot in the context of The Blair Witch Project?