Time Shift

(Heidelberg, Germany) - It is the weekend of a business trip to Europe.  It is the part of traveling as a part of my job that sounds exciting, but right now, it is not.  I'm not making very good use of the opportunity and I know it.  There is very little I enjoy doing by myself that is offered here in Heidelberg and I'm just not up to traveling across Europe this weekend.

This is Germany in December (above is the view from my hotel room).  The sun has not shown clearly during this whole visit and it is not expected to soon.  The temperature is just above freezing.  It has also been there since I arrived.  We are only getting about 7 hours of daylight per day.  All of that combined keeps me in my hotel room except for adventures out for food or supplies.  Is beer a supply or food?

As many readers of this blog know, this is the weekend of the annual winter gathering of the poker bloggers in Vegas.  Many of my internet friends are flesh and blood and having a good time as I write. 

The really freaky part happens when I do the math and figure out what is happing in Vegas as I do my thing here in Germany.  The time difference puts me 9 hours ahead of Vegas.  Add in the time shift that one does when in Vegas (going to bed 3 to 5 hours later than usual, if at all), and the difference seems like we are on different planets.  For instance, this morning when I awoke at 9 am, it was only midnight in Vegas.  Those girls and boys were just hitting their stride and most would not even think about bed until it was lunch time for me.  Right now the sun is well past setting at 6:45 pm.  The time is 9:45 am in Vegas and few bloggers are to be found outside of their rooms (or someone's room) save those that have yet to retire.  The big tourney at the Venetian will begin in about 5 hours and I'll be awaking to a new day by the time it ends.

So best of luck to all you bloggers.  Enjoy the good times and have a free drink for me.  I'll toast you with my genuine Germany lager at dinner while you sleep.

auf Wiedersehen

Gimme Back My Bullets

It has been a pretty typical span of three weeks since I last wrote a real post.  It has been filled with travel, poker, some time at home, and a goodly amount of work.  The travel part is happening with a vengeance right now as I am typing this while sitting in my hotel room in Heidelberg, Germany.  I'll get to that in just a second.

Three weeks ago, Mr. Brown and I set out for Seattle.  We started that trip out with some poker action at the Snoqualme Casino.  That was the subject of my last post below.  The rest of that trip was a professional conference in downtown.  The information was great.  I'm still working to pull those notes together to share with my colleagues.  But if I don't have time to blog, I sure don't have time to write for work. :)

As we often do, Mr. Brown and I scheduled a long layover in Vegas on our way back from the Pac NW.  Long as in two nights.  It was a pretty wild trip.  Mr. Browns luck ran as short as it ran good in Washington.  I think he ended the trip pretty close to even.  My rough time continued.  I had a pretty good first session at the Venetian to get back my losses of earlier in the week.  Saturday morning, we entered the morning tourney at the Sahara.  I had a great early run to take the chip lead which I held for most of the tournament.  That run included a nut straight, a nice hidden full house and the following hand.  I get 77 in the big blind.  I raise 3x and get 3 callers.  The flop comes down 77K to give me quads.  I check and the player on my left raises about the size of the pot.  He gets one other caller and I come along as well.  The turn is another K.  I don't worry about this much and check.  The raiser raises about 3/4 of the pot and the late position caller goes over the top all-in.  That is exactly what I wanted to see.  I call.  The raiser goes all-in as well and I call again.  I know they each hold a king before they even show.  I rake a monster.  My luck and cards ran out with 3 players left and I took down a nice score.

The rest of the day was a nightmare.  I don't think I won a significant hand until mid-night through sessions at Harrah's and the Hard Rock and found myself down about $600 for the trip.  I headed back to the Venetian for one final session.  In a short 2 hours, I found a couple of huge hands (both huge flushes) to get back my $600 and finish the trip west just about even.

Back in the queen city, we've had 3 home games, one each at Falstaff's, BadBlood's, and Brian the Red's.  None of the three got me much in the way of cards.  I think I lost 100 points or so in those sessions.  The odd thing about all of the poker above going all the way back to Snoqualmie, is that I never saw pocket aces.  Not even once.  Not even in the 3 or 4 hours of Omaha.  In all of those hands I probably should have seen AA 5 or 6 times.  I know I've been seeing KK and QQ much less than normal as well.  I guess if I can play that much and only loose 100, I'm doing OK.

I did get to spend the last couple weeks at home which was very nice.  It seems to be just enough time to get my chores done and get ready to head out to Germany for two weeks, which is where I find myself right now.  The direct flight from CLT went well as did the train ride to Heidelberg.  I met up with colleagues who got me some lunch and took me to meet the customer.  I did get a little irritated when we were not able to leave the customer site until almost 7 pm.  At that point I had been up for about 30 hours and was ready for some sleep.  I got that done and now I think I'm ready to hit the day hard.  I hope it doesn't hit back too hard.  I hope to get some time to get out in the area of my hotel tonight and maybe get a picture or two.  The sun is just now coming up at 7:50 am and it sets around 4:30 pm, so pictures may have to wait until this weekend.

Obama, Poker and Bingo

So in the after math of the election, what with Obama in the spot light, and McCain, (well who knows exactly where he is), all the poker followers, players and experts are hoping that Obama does so something in the way of legalizing poker in the United States. This will open up so many channels for US players to partake in poker tournaments, free rolls and games small and large. There are only a select few companies which are currently taking the risk of serving US players, but so many more will diversify into the US market once OL poker. It can be practically 50% of their revenue. Incomes can practically double! Pacific Poker for one, is patiently waiting for the market to become what it once was. But Pacific Poker is just one out of the many that is waiting to steadily pounce on the new opportunities. I feel that online poker as an industry is in for some pleasant surprises in the near future. Online gaming sites have already diversified their variety of games to online bingo backgammon and even pool. The world wide web is not what it used to be!

It's that time again.

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

The WBCOOP is an online Poker tournament open to all Bloggers.

Registration code: 433101