They all end the same

Poker tournaments, that is. I'll get to that in a sec.

Life must have really slowed down. I'm not posting nearly as much as I was back in Oct-Nov. I've not been traveling as much is one reason. At least I've not been traveling any where that I care to write about or anyone would care to read about. Atlanta and Durham just don't get my fingers excited. In the next three weeks I'm slated to go to Atlanta (again), Redmond, WA, and Las Vegas. The first one is a working customer visit, the second is training for me, and the last is just for fun or at least lots of poker.

Before I get to Vegas I really need to find a better way to end my poker tourneys. It's not that my chips all go to somebody else and I walk away. No, that would be normal. In my case it seem they all end by me calling some small all-in as a big favorite and getting some 2 or 4 out suckout on the river followed almost immediately by a big pre-flop hand that I go all in with as a big favorite to (you're way ahead of me by now) get sucked-out on by a 2 or 4 out suckout on the river.

Tonight's pub poker was no exception. Well, maybe not strictly as described above, but close enough. I played pretty straight up except for throwing down a suited hammer (7h2h) to steal some blinds and one other junk hand to take a small pot. I couldn't get paid on my premium hands. I really should have pushed this table harder, but I didn't. That's my falut.

Four hands from the end I'm sitting on a pretty average stack in the big blind. With 3 limpers, I go raise 3x the big blind with AKo. I get two folds and an all in that was for about half my stack. She shows 10h9h. Naw, I don't get it either. Long story short, she flops nothing and catches a 10 on the river. Crap! Three hands later I'm hurting and I look down at 1010. All in (about 3x BB). I get 2 callers. The flop comes J 8 5. Check, push for another 3 BBs and a fold, so I'm heads up. The other player turns over 66. Cool. "It's a good time to triple up", I think. Hell no. The turn is a 4 and the river a 7 for her straight and my walking papers.

That's poker, or so I'm told.

Otherwise I'm a happy guy. My father-in-law is feeling so much better that he is attending our poker game this weekend. I know that he has missed getting out. My friends who are in their 30's mostly are really looking forward to Mr. C's (in his 70's) return. I think that is a testament to the quality of my friends and Mr. C. I'm still employed, coming up on 12 years at MS. My wife is still beautiful and my dogs are healthy. Even my grandmother's condition is stable.

My wife had a good idea tonight. Let's go kick Iran's ass. That new president of theirs is turning out to be a real loon with ideas of the end of the world. President Bush has done a fine job so far so let's really finish the job of taking out the terrorist by cutting off their benefactors at the knees.

I know there is a lot of disagreement on that score (Bush as President), but the folks you hear crying about everything Bush has done were the same ones crying about everything he did from the time he was born leading all the way up the his first inauguration.

When reading opinion, I have a simple test which you may want to use: Does the writer have good and bad to say about the subject? If so I give it some weight. If it is all praise or all bitch, I throw it out unless I already thought that to begin with, of course. Case in point, if the writer is working over the President, does he mention that the economy is doing great (Clinton would characterize it as the best economy in 550 years!). Or does he write that Bush should be impeached for wiretapping terrorists (which is probably legal)? If you want to change my mind, show some thought by showing some balance.

Here are a few facts that I have recently had friends get wrong:

Costa Rica is not an Island.
Cyprus is an Island.
The first definition of celibate is not married (I got this one wrong). Not having sex was second.
Israel is close to Lebanon