Thursday, November 30, 2006

Couldn't Stay Away

Well, is anybody surprised that I couldn't stay away. While things have changed on the home front, I'm still getting my poker in and as long as I am awake late at night, I'm going to try and keep up with the blogging.

To make things worse (probably); I'm going to again attempt to qualify for the Full Tilt Iron Man Challenge for December. I'm going to go about it differently than I have in the past. Instead of almost exclusively playing ring games, I'm going the other direction and I am going back focusing on SNGs (ala my SNG Fest that I did way back in July of 2005). This accomplishes a couple of things. I get back to playing SNGs which I really enjoy; however, this time around I am going to start at the $33+3 Turbo level (as opposed to the $50+5 levels like last time).

I may search or come up with a schedule for possible moving up if and when I get to a certain level... whatever that might be. At the $33 level, it will take about 10 a day which is certainly not out of the question even given the time constraints.

I might also look into some SNG tools this time around such as SNG Power Tools. I may or may not use sharkscope. I'm not sure that it is worth it. Has anybody used these tools or any others with any success?

I started warming up the last week of November playing 35 SNGs with a little success (51.43 ITM and a 45.47% ROI). Those numbers are of course not sustainable; but we will see how it goes.

One thing with doing a SNG Challenge, it will be easy to blog if I use the same type template that I used last time. I probably won't update daily like last time as I am still in the poker doghouse with Mrs Wonka. She hasn't taken my keyboard and mouse lately and hidden it so it must be better.

So not much to say really other than I couldn't stay away.

By the way, for any of you Mid Westerners out there, this weather is just crazy... 71 one day and the next day it sleets 1/2 inch and then we are supposed to get 5.9 inches of snow tonight. Crazy!!!!

Peace!!!!

Friday, November 10, 2006

Number 200 and Forced Changes

Longevity in any activity is something to be impressed with whatever the activity might be. I recall my beginning days of playing poker that eventually led to blogging. This here post marks my 200th post which in reality is really nothing to be impressed with as it took about a year and a half to get there. I remember my first days of blogging how exciting it was to talk poker (especially when there is nobody to really talk poker around me). I would make a post and check back often to see if someone had replied or commented and low and behold on the 11th post, I got some comments. Happy Days... especially when it was from people that I had been reading. Hella Holdem was my very first commenter followed closed by Mourn who has sense stop blogging. Soon after that, I met some great blogger friends and the rest is pretty much history. I remember the days of blogging and then getting into chatting and the whole nine yards and it was awesome. There have also been some blogger heavyweights that have been instrumental in me keeping up the habit. One thing is for sure, blogging seems to be a continuing cycle which is great. Every few months, a new wave of new poker bloggers show up and it definitely keeps things refreshing. On the other hand, there are bloggers that seem to quit. I'm quite positive they all had their reasons and that they were good ones.

One thing that has not been nice about poker and blogging is the un-support (for lack of better words) that I was/am getting from my wife. Well, the fit hit the shan last week. One promise that I had made was that I wouldn't play poker until the kids were in bed. That was a pretty easy promise as I love staying up with the kids and spending time with my wife watching shows are whatever. Really kid, at this point. The two year old takes most of my time while the 3 month old spends most of her time with Mrs Wonka. Anyway, rewind back to last Wed. I actually decided to sign up for the Mook early, which I rarely do as I don't always get up to the computer early in the evening and if I do, it is only to check email. So I signed up around dinner time and told Mrs Wonka that I would be playing around 9PM Central Time. Around 7:30, after I had given Toddler Wonka a bath, she got pretty zoned in on movie (Toy Story I believe which she calls Woody) so I decided to decided to go check on things upstairs. I told her that I would be right back. I didn't have much email so for whatever reason, I decided to open a poker table and as we all know by now, the Mook started one hour early this night so I never did make it down to put her to bed and Mrs Wonka had to do it. Well, suffice it to say, she wasn't very happy and certainly wasn't enthuised when I told her that I won it. Anyway, that was pretty much the beginning of the end. Couple that with her actually taking my keyboard and mouse and hiding it the next morning (which I did find with out too much problem; but that is besides the point), we have definitely reached a crossroads. Of course, it is a no brainer as to who/what is going to win. I knew the problem had climaxed as I offered to feed Baby Wonka around 11PM the next night. Rewind a bit, for whatever reason, Baby Wonka this time around does not want to sleep through the night so my wife is getting up multiple times to feed and she was obviously complaining about being tired. By this time, here 12 weeks were up and she was already back to work so the lack of sleep was definitely not a good thing. Anyway, when I said that I would feed her in return for telling me where the keyboard and mouse was and she said no, that told me the extremity of the problem. So things changed the next day.

So, blogging is probably, most likely going to be the one thing that I will give up. As I mentioned above, the early days was exciting and I sure didn't have much trouble coming up with things to write about. Well, that has certainly ended as I struggle all the time and pretty much just crank out very similar posts regarding my play for that week which must get very boring over time. Will my poker playing go down? Most likely; but probably not a whole lot. I still enjoy playing very much. I just won't blog about it as often. I don't plan to go completely away; but will again be taking a little break around it until we get settled more around the house with the kids.

So last Wed night had emotions to both extremes. It was very exciting winning my first Mook; but the cost might not have been worth it. It will be OK as we have gone through this before. I was just a little more hard headed on the compromises that I/we had to make. I realize now that I have not be holding up my part of the bargain in helping out with the kids and household chores and hopefully things will improve.

I will still will be making it when I can to blogger events such as the Hoy and Mook and DADI, when possible. I will be defending my title in the Heads Up Challenge which starts this week so I will be around and look forward to contiuing to read about how things are going.

So for now,

See you later!!!

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Please Shoot Me

This has not been a very fun week and a half. Luckily, it hasn't been due to poker playing. I got some bacterial infection that totally kicked my butt. I was totally useless. Everything hurt. After 4 days, I finally broke down and went to the doctor and he gave me some drugs. They seem to be slowly but surely working; but the bad news is that my little 2 month old now seems to have the same thing.

I also had some surgery done to my ailing wrist (tendonitus). I still have a a wrist bandage on and will have it until early next week which stinks. Having to cover it up when you takes showers is a pain in the butt. So the last time that I played poker was last Friday and I tried doing it left handed on the mouse. It just didn't feel right so I ended up going back to using my right hand. It was one of those sessions that you just couldn't really believe your eyes . If I hit top pair, then it held up. Two pair on flop. Good!!! Etc, Etc... I'll take thame when I can get them.

So besides that, I haven't played any poker in a week. I am ready to get back to the action.

I did play in the 2nd chance Mookie last night. I don't know if it is legal to play in the 2nd chance when you didn't play in the first chance. Anyway, there were 4 tokens available and was lucky enough to make it to the final 4. I had gotten a little unlucky prior to that with the big stack losing on the river when I had people dominitated; but they hit their off card. Towards the bubble, I'm the one that got lucky when my flopped top pair wasn't good enough for someone's flopped two pair. The board paired and I ended up with a bigger two pair. That's Poker. We pretty much all went all in when we got down to final 4 and we all had tokens. My powerful 86o got 2 pair for the win. We are now heads up and my TT luckily caught a nice river against JJ and I took it down. Some are now saying that they would rather this continue to be money tournaments instead of token tournaments. While I understand why they feel this way, Mookie is just trying to help others make it to the big game and for that, my vote continues for the token 2nd chance tourney.

I did win my way to the Iron Man Freeroll this month and as always am looking forward to that.

Have a good day.
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