Degeneracy at 30,000 Feet

Lee Haney used to say, "Last set, best set," whenever he was referring to the last exercise of his weightlifting workouts. The reason I bring it up is because most road trips start out with such high anticipation that you could say, "First part, best part," about most of them. Last weekend was no exception for me.

TheMark and Moutray pulled into my driveway at about 10:45 am on Friday. We were running behind - we had a 1:00pm flight to catch out of Charlotte, an easy 90 minutes up Route 85. Moutray's Cadillac would provide sufficient speed to make up some of the time, but it was still going to be close. No matter though. The first words out of TheMark's mouth was, "Cocktails?"

TheMark was host for my trip. His roulette playing degeneracy has earned him legendary status among both his friends in G-Vegas and his friends at Harrah's. Harrah's was footing the bill for the round trip airfare and accommodations. I was tagging along for the ride and the $13 in taxes I had to pay. Who would say no to that?

TheMark reached down into his carry-on luggage and pulled out a bottle of Grey Goose and graciously poured a generous helping over some already iced Sugar Free Red Bull. "RBV," he said as he handed me my cup. Moutray would remain dry at least until we hit the airport. Smart. With netbooks in hand and a mifi card, TheMark and I warmed up the bankrolls with some online poker at 80mph. I think I lost $15 before we lost our connection. Technology rules.

Once in the airport, we were able to check in without much hassle and I bought the first official round of drinks at the gate. We were off to a good trip.

If you've ever taken a gambling junket before, you know that the flight out is filled with drinking and gambling. Harrah's makes sure everyone is lubed up prior to landing so that there's no shortage of inhibition removal preventing anyone from making their favorite -EV bets. Even on the flight, there are wages to be made.

For anyone who wanted to participate, you could write your seat number on a $5 bill and place it into a huge plastic garbage bag. The hostess would then take the bag up the aisle and when she got to the front, another hostess would pull out the winning bill. The winner kept the entire contents of the bag. As you'd guess, you could enter as many times as you wanted.

We summarily lost the $5 pool, the $10 pool and the $20 pool. "It don't matter," said TheMark, "we're taking down the hundo bag." Before the $100 pool went off, the hostess first had to determine if it was even viable. There were degenerates on the plane, but the question remained, how many would be willing to make a $100 wager. When prompted via intercom, all three of us in seats 16A, B, and C shot up our hands. Unfortunately, we were the only ones. I was under the impression that nobody else was willing to gamble that high on the plane ride out, so I mentally bookkept my losses thus far.

We continued to two-fist the free drinks and then, to my surprise, the trash bag made its way around the plane. The game was on after all and in went our Benjamins. We weren't sure how many in all were there, so we ran a side bet on the over under. I set the line at 14 and both TheMark and Moutray took the over.

The drawing was suspenseful, and it got delayed. As soon as the hostess stood up to make the pick, a huge burst of turbulence hit the plane and she went sprawling into her seat. I have to say, it was the worst turbulence I've ever been in. And I didn't even care. I was lit up "good fashion" as one of my co-workers used to say. The turbulence died down and the drawing was made.

"Sixteen A," came over the intercom and our row erupted. "Ship the bag o' money!" we yelled at the top of our lungs. Nobody else was laughing though because another severe batch of turbulence hit right at that moment. I bounced out of my seat and started spraying my drinks everywhere. I doused TheMark in Bloody Mary, Moutray bathed in his own Jack Daniels and coke. My jeans were soaked with vodka. It was crazy. Those less inebriated were worried, and not just a little bit. The three of us continued high-fiving each other not even caring if we were going to crash. "We're goin' down winners!" we screamed. "Trash lady, bring us our money!"

When things finally died down, we were delivered our bag and counted out the money. It wasn't as huge as we hoped, but there was $1200 in the bag and we each split it as per our agreement beforehand. We were all up over $250 and we hadn't even landed yet. Stupid, stupid fun.

Promotion

Prior to Mastodon Weekend, TheMark told me that he had a poker apparel company lined up to contribute towards our evening of poker at Azia's. Well, that company came through in a big way for us, providing additional prize pool mobney's, footing much of the bill for the food and giving out "Bustout" bounties for anyone who eliminated either Jeff or his wife Nikki from the tournament.

In return, all they wanted was some linkage and promotion. In my opinion, that's a +EV transaction. So give Bustout Poker a look-see, they've launched their official site and are offering a WSOP Main Event package giveaway to those who purchase some of their premium shirts.

Here's a shot (stolen shamelessly from Doc Chako) of me in their Suicide Kings jersey after eliminating Nikki from the tournament.

Excuse the flexing and Bobby Bracelet's indifference to my posedown.

Since Jeff is a fellow metalhead, and I'm sure that we can both appreciate some old-school Testament. Here's a bonus metal clip of one of my favorite Skolnick solo's performed live at Alcatraz. Solo hits about 0:45 into the clip. Prrrrrrreeeeeeachhhhh!

Pain for Pleasure

I wrote Otis an email documenting the game last night at Gucci Rick's:

Some people find pleasure in other's pain. Not that I think you're one of those people, but if there's a small bit of yourself that does, then you'll enjoy the following. :)

The scene is Gucci Rick's, where else would it be? It's about 1:30 am and the following has already taken place. I busted my first buy-in on a semi-bluff against Buddha. He found a way to call my check-raise all-in with middle set. Neither my flush draw nor my gut-shot straight draw got there on the river, so I rebought for the requisite $600.

I then folded for much of the evening. The game was slow due to the NCAA finals; getting dealt 62o and 92o did nothing to improve my demeanor. I steered the conversation amongst a table of semi-believers towards the topic of there being no heaven. That didn't go well. Odd.

My final hand that I'd see for the night was pocket Tens. I was in the big blind and had actually built my stack back up to a profitable position, albeit barely. Among a sea of limpers, Mike Myers raised his button to $17. I called from the blinds, but so did three other people. I should have perhaps re-raised, however, I wasn't going to build a huge pot out of position with tens. I was deep stacked. Let me repeat.....I was not going to build a big pot out of position. I was not going to.....

The flop came 663. I wasn't convinced I was behind yet, however, I checked and observed the action. It checked back to Mike Myers and he continuation bet $30. This seemed weak I recall thinking. I called, so did Buddha. The turn was an 8.

I decided that it was time to flat barrel. I launched $60 into the pot and Buddha quickly called. Mike Myers, succumbing to the effects of his own weaponry, folded. My read on his c-bet was accurate. However, Buddha's smooth call was worrisome. He could easily have a 6.

The river was a ten. I now liked my hand.

About 30 minutes earlier, Buddha had check-raise bluffed the Gooch on the river. It was a paired board with 4 diamonds and Gooch laid down the Ace of diamonds. Buddha showed an off suit Queen, a well executed bluff. I was also hoping to get bluffed here, because, let's face it, I had a monster.

*pause*

I pause here because your Spidey Sense is going off. I know it is. Mine was too. But I'm not Peter Parker.

*pause*

I fired off $87 into the pot and was waiting for a call or better yet, a raise. The raise came, just like I hoped, it was $216 more for me to call. It was odd. In a way I was happy I was going to win a huge hand late in the night. But before I acted, I went over once again some of the action.

Buddha limped UTG+1. He said, prior to limping, "I don't want to have to call a re-raise pre-flop with this hand for $50 dollars, so I'm limping." He did call a raise however. When I flat barreled the turn, he said, "Mike, I figured you'd be coming along for that bet," then called quite quickly.

His river raise was consistent with him having quads. But was I really just going to call second nuts here? It's Hold 'em, not Omaha. If I re-raise, pocket 8's call. 86 calls, pocket 3's might. Am I really going to be afraid of quad sixes?

"All in." I announced, but not very emphatically.

Let me once again say, "My final hand that I'd see for the night was pocket Tens."

A Virtual Stack, A Virtual Story. Rush Poker Edition

It's been a couple of months now that Rush Poker on Full Tilt has been available. There have already been many posts by those of us who've tried it, many positive and many negative. Now, lucky reader, you get to hear my take on it.

I enjoy it. Immensely. Here's why.

To me, the most significant advantage of Rush Poker is the constant changing of players and positions for each hand. I'll be honest, for nearly the entirety of 2009, I did not play NLHE cash games online. It was strictly PLO and PLO8 for close to 100,000 hands. I made this decision because of the fact that I had not purchased "HUD" software to assist my play.

(For those of you unaware, HUD or heads-up-display software is used to overlay player statistics over their avatar at an online poker table. These statistics show player tendencies in easy to read formats that show you how tight/aggressive a player is. It essentially allows you to make "reads" based on their behavior. It's a fantastic tool for multi-tablers who are unable to make these reads by paying attention to each table visually.)

I'm on a Mac, and at this time last year, there wasn't a decent way to get the Poker Tracker software running without booting into Windows. I did not by my Macbook Pro to run WinXP, so there was some philosophical opposition that I couldn't get past. Without tracking and HUD software, I truly felt I was at a disadvantage to those who were using it. Therefore, rather than play against players with more information at their disposal about my play, I just chose not to. I understand you can run the same software for PLO and PLO8 but it's not as predominant nor do many people know exactly what to do with player stats in those games.

With Rush Poker, the tracking and "HUD-ing" were all but eliminated. Now people would need to pay attention to the action at the table for a much larger player pool, not just their 5 opponents at a 6-max table. So for a player like myself without the additional software aids, I stood a better chance against my opponents.

I won't even get into the speed of play benefits with this post except to say that with rakeback, two-tabling Rush Poker earns me about $10/hour in rakeback alone. That's not insignificant.

So how have I been running? Like with all forms of poker, hot and cold. I've had 7-10 buy-in upswings and comparable downswings. But every now and then, I'll put together a real good session where I win all my showdowns.

Last night was one of them. KK > 99 in blind vs. blind all-in-pre. Set of 66's > TPTK. AA > KK and AA > QJ on a QT9 flop. That's my story. Here's my stack:

Mastodon / Metal

Let me just say Mastodon Weekend was a resounding success. From Thursday's 5-star dinner at Rick Erwins, to Friday's poker marathon at Azia's, to Saturday's Trivia Contest / Bar Crawl, not a whole helluva lot could have gone any better.

Shout out to the BustoutPoker.com folks who added to the prize pool and paid for the food. Jeff and Nikki - we both know who the poker player among you guys is. :)

(Also - special thanks to the experts who helped my wife's uber-drunk friend into our minivan. All was well by Sunday. Except for the smell...)

I have tons of video to post and hopefully I can put it all together somewhat coherently. In the meantime, I leave you with a Metal Monday video and a snippet from the bar crawl.

This band could easily remind you of some old Pantera. Check out Throwdown's This Continuum:

And lastly, just to show you all how low-brow our humor is at Mastodon, I call this next snippet "Gastodon:"

State of the G-Game

No, I'm not stuttering. The G-Game is simply a reference to our lovely town of G-Vegas and the poker community herein. It's now been about four years or so since I started playing semi-seriously in various games around town. Those include home games, away games, and the slightly infamous underground scene that was in its hey-day back in 2007. To say the environment has changed would be a pretty large understatement. What follows is simply my own personal musings on the matter. Take them for what they're worth.

The game I've played in most consistently has been Monday Night at GucciRick's. The people attending have slowly changed over the years as new folks who get the highly-coveted invite replace those who either are no longer interested in playing as much or who simply cannot afford to. The stakes are not high, at least not upon initial inspection. The blinds remain $1/$2 with a $5 straddle put on roughly 30% of the time. You can buy-in for $300 and re-buy for $600 should you get stacked. This doubling of the re-buy makes the game rather deep in the late stages of the evening and it's not uncommon for players to post four-figure profits and losses. It's this latter fact that has had the most impact on the game as the swings can get large. Enduring a loss of $1000 or more takes some getting used to and not everyone does. As such, some players no longer play and some take occasional breaks. With all that said, in the end it is Gucci Rick's game and he manages it very well. It's lasted as long as it has due directly to some decisions he's made about the game and hopefully the game will continue to blossom.

The old Thursday night crew I believe still plays quite regularly. I've not been to one of those games in a while mainly due to other players having dibs on seats once I could no longer commit to a weekly attendance. That game is structured a bit lower in steaks which is probably why it is still going very strong.

The always insightful Peter Birks has frequently made comments about skinning and shearing a sheep and how the longevity of a poker community could very well depend on such decisions. The player turnover on Monday night vs. that of Thursday night could be an example of such a notion. I used to think that accelerated re-distribution of poker money would not ever effect the landscape of our local scene, but that was before the economy took such a downswing. There are many players who no longer have the expendable money they used to dedicate to poker.

Other home games I've played in have been my own, one up in Charlotte, and one hosted by Lee Jones in Asheville. Besides my love for playing poker, my primary reason for trying to get to these out of town games as often as I can is because of the reciprocity in player base. Lately, if I want to host a game at my house, I depend on some out of towner's making the trip so that my game is viable. Without them, there have been multiple occasions where I've not had enough people willing to play and had to cancel a game. I do enjoy hosting and cancelling a game is something I'm loathe to do.

The underground scene has also had some consolidation. I'm not as much of a regular as I used to be. After the issues that occurred in late 2007 (if you're a long-time reader, you know what I'm talking about), I ceased playing in a raked environment. Late last year however, one of the games moved from its location inside an abandoned commercial building to a residential location. The new setup is more amenable to my preferences and I was able to convince my better half to allow me to play there once again.

But even then, the games are not necessarily as busy as they used to be. Many of the other underground games around town are no longer operating. The environment is certainly not conducive to the longevity of an underground game. You still need to dodge the legal aspects and the rake-induced acceleration of alleviating the poorer players from their money.

I recently got invited to another home game locally and had a great time. I'm hoping that the player base of that game will mix into the player bases of the other games I play in as the new blood, so to speak, could really be helpful in keeping the life of the games going. Getting to play live, local poker a couple of times a week is a luxury I don't want to give up.

And Toby, if you're reading this, hopefully someday I can play a pot with the best player in South Carolina.

Welcome to eBlood

Before I go eBay or craigslist this stuff, I figured I'd post here about a couple of items I have for sale. No reasonable offer refused and I'll take PayPal, Stars, or Tilt transfers. Just looking to get rid of things I no longer need:

1. 160GB iPod classic. 2 years old, very good condition, great battery life and black silicone protector. (UPDATE: SOLD)

2. Blackberry Curve 8330. Just under 2 years old, excellent condition, car charger, wall charger, USB cable and black silicone skin.

Shoot me an email if you're interested with your offer and proposed method of payment. I'll update this post should anything sell. Thanks for looking.