Even though I said I wouldn't...

I have been playing poker this week. Made a FT at Pitbull Poker last night on a $5+.50 NLHE tourney. Was playing at my girlfriends apartment while watching Monsters Inc. Unfortunately I got no payout because only the top 3 were getting paid. There weren't that many people in the tourney. I think I made 7th (but I don't remember right now). Fortunately I made some money in a ring game at the same time. Current Pitbull Poker bankroll: $64.

Also, I played the $1,500 Guaranteed R/A this afternoon on Poker.com. Played well (in my opinion) up until the 1st break. There were 40 or so remaining at the first break. Since I was 10th in chips after other people added on I opted not to add on. This may have been a mistake (I am never sure how to play these types of tournaments). The problem came immediately after the break. I flopped 2 pair from the small blind. My only caller picked up a straight on the turn and I was down to about 10xBB. I was tilting a little from the hit and donked the rest of my chips away a few hands later. Current Poker.com bankroll: $83 (approx.)



I have some (personal) Blogger Poker Tour news to report. I received my BPT coupon and am psyched about it. Unfortunately for our hero, I will be working this Saturday during the tourney. It looks like I will be blinded out for my first BPT appearance. The host blog for the upcoming event is Flopilicious.com. Good luck to all those participating.

Also BPT related is the creation of a custom BPT google search. I would like to thank Mike from the Poker Pub for the creation. I will be adding the code for the search bar after finishing this post. Terms will be searched within all of the BPT participating blogs.



I joined up with this recently created poker community. We will be playing frequent MTT's on Poker.com. The first tourney will be Friday Dec. 15th at 9pm (lobby time). The plan is to move through several different types of poker (Texas Hold'em, Omaha, etc...). Feel free to register for the forums and say hi. Things haven't really gotten into high gear yet but when the group grows things should be kicking. I post under the forum name: solitary.

Mad World

While I was watching t.v. yesterday (Friday) I saw the new (I think it's relatively new) commercial for Gears of War. I felt the need to figure out what the song used for the commercial was. The song is a cover of a 1983 song called "Mad World" by the British band Tears for Fears. It was covered by Gary Jules and Michael Andrews for the movie Donnie Darko. Embedded is the music video for the Gary Jules version. I prefer it to the original. I find the synths in the original a little off-putting for the darkness of the song. The video is fairly simple but is interesting. It goes well with the style of song.

Info stolen from the Wiki Article on "Mad World"

Ok, I guess I lied

I have been playing some poker over this here little break of mine. I have been playing tonight on PitbullPoker.com. The site is annoying but I am able to play it at home better than Poker.com. For some reason my parent's internet connections hiccups a lot (that's the best word I can think of to describe it). Because of that Poker.com software seems to get d/c a lot and it's quite annoying. Since I'm playing with "free money" at Pitbull it's not as big of a deal. Although, it did suck when it made me muck cowboys pre-flop and I would have made $5-6 off the hand (2 small stacks all-in pre-flop). Other than that not much. Current Pitbull bankroll has been upped to $55 or so. Poker.com sits at about $120 after a $100 withdrawal the other day.

Other interesting gambling events today. I won $23 at my aunt/uncles this afternoon at our Thanksgiving get together. We played a game of complete chance and I won once. The game is called Left-Center-Right. Basically you play with 3 $1 bills (or $5 or $10 or $20....) and you roll dice. The dice have an R, L, C, and dot on them (I don't remember which have 2). Basically you roll the 3 dice and do what the dice says. You pass a dollar to the right, left, or center for R, L, and C. You do nothing if you get a dot. Eventually only one person has any money in front of them and they will it all. It's fun and easy and fairly cheap. Best of all, I happened to win the second time we played. Happy Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving soon

I suppose Poker.com must be feeling holiday spirit-y because on Thanksgiving they are offering a few neat things. The following was posted by Liam in the Poker.com forums.

With Thanksgiving on Thursday, Poker.com thought we should put up an offering of our own and give you a chance to really carve a turkey.

All day we will be running the "Turkey Room", a $10 +50c heads up Sit n Go, for every Sit n Go played we will add $1 to a $100 jackpot. At the end of the day, who ever has won the most Sit n Go's will win the jackpot.

The turkey carving doesn't end there, Thursday night we are running the Turkey Tournament, a $1000 added tourney with a $100 bounty for busting out our Queen of Hearts Tina.

Turkey Day Tourney: Thursday 23 Nov @ 18:30 Poker.com time

Good luck!

Good luck to anyone participating is said events. I most likely will not be because I will be at home (i.e. parent's house) for the next few days. As is, I will probably not be playing much, if any, poker. I might post once or twice before next week but we'll see.

Anywho, have a great Thanksgiving

The BPT and my first Casino visit

Alright, the first order of business is an update on the Blogger Poker Tour. As I mentioned yesterday (see this post) Skinski, of The House of Poker Blues, was hosting the 5th event of the BPT Season 2. Though I wasn't able to watch any of the event (I'll say why in a bit) and I wasn't able to play (I guess my blog isn't up to snuff or something, oh well), I can certainly report the results. They money was played out to the following people:

iyatoni          $125.00
skinski          $100.00
JayNYC           $75.00
freeroll26       $55.00
Enortone         $45.00
winaa2233        $30.00
cerberi          $25.00
astinaguy        $20.00
luckylulo        $15.00
ReplicantPoker   $10.00

With Skinski finishing second in his own event he picked up an amazing 636 points to catapult himself onto the top of the leaderboard with 1002. The leaderboard looks as follows after event #5:

Skinski's Blog                1002
Irongirl01                    719
Freerollcalendar Weblog       642
Peetscheet                    598
Perfectly Beastly             597
Poker Athletes Blog           556
Poker Pub                     550
Royal Poker                   522
astinaguys poker blog         518
Gamingology                   515
Alex                          500
ReplicantPoker blog           474
elc3105s blog                 430
I hate money                  415
11ave.blogspot.com            411
5TH Street Forum              403
riverdemon                    387
free poker                    363
PearlSnapMan Plays Poker      350
the life of a don             346
Counting My Outs              344
EgonOlsenPoker                343
From school boy to pro        340

The top 20 on the leaderboard are numbered above but I thought it pertinent to show those just outside the top 20. Since they are so close all they need is a good performance in the final event and they will be in the final event. Since I wasn't able to see the final table I cannot give specific hands but I imagine it was a nice final table. I would go down the leaderboard to check those blogs for details about the FT (I know I will be).

Yesterday I went to a casino for the first time. I went with my friend Dan after work for about 4 hours or so. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. First off, we headed right to the customer service desk to sign up for our players club cards (Resort Cards at Riverside). As incentive for joining the Resort Club we were credited with $10 credit for the slots. To release this credit we had to play $1 so we did. I had not really had intention of play much (if any) slots before we got there, but to play mostly for free was worth it. My goodness are slots boring. I don't know if it's just the fact that I had no idea what the machine in front of me was doing for the most part but sitting there pressing a button over and over again was not exactly fun. However, I only lost 65¢ of my own money and still have $7 or so of the free credit they gave me. Maybe I'll go try to will that car they had on display with that $7.

Please note: I am not very good at blackjack. I sat with Dan at a blackjack table for a little bit. I figured I could at least hold my own (I know a little bit of blackjack strategy) but I was gravely mistaken. I lost $40 pretty quickly before I left the table. That is when we parted (Dan and I). I went to the poker room and he stayed on the floor. I was seated immediately at a $2/$5 table with $100 in red $5 chips. I got rags for a while and folded every hand until I got an Ace/10 offsuit. Now, I don't usually put too much stock in that hand but I hadn't seen anything playable until that. I shouldn't have played it (especially the way I did) because the BB saw a free flop and in the end came up with a full house. I was down to about $45 or so in chips and was played quite tight for some time. I picked up some blinds with an all-in and then eventually doubled up with pocket queens (who calls a $50 all-in with jack/3 of clubs. I worked my way up to about $210 before I had to leave. I was at the table for about 3 hours but I feel like I could have sat there for another 5. I learned that they have tournaments a few times a week so I might just have to play 1 or 2 of those. Overall, I had a blast. I feel much more comfortable in a live game than I did yesterday morning (I was quite nervous for a bit, which probably wasn't good) and I made a few bucks at the same time. I will certainly be heading back there again.


EDIT
Notes about the poker room:

• 14 tables
• Texas Hold'em, Omaha, Omaha Hi/Low, 7 Card Stud, 7 Card Stud Hi/Low
• tournaments Sun/Mon/Wed/Thurs
• not in a separate room (but in a nook as to reduce noise from the rest of the floor)
• there were about 6 or 7 full tables going on a Sat. afternoon
• some dealers better than others but none were incompetent (not major mistakes and all personable)
• rules loosely enforced (swearing, player mistakes, etc.) but dependent on the dealer
  

Going to Riverside

Today I will be trying my hand, for the first time, at poker in a casino. I will be going to Riverside Casino & Golf Resort. [Evil] Dan and I will be heading there after I get off of work today (1pm). I'm hoping to get a few hours of poker in. Although I have not been able to find any reviews of the poker room (or the casino in itself) it is a basically brand new casino. The resort opened September 1st of this year. They have 14 poker tables (so I've read) and I hope to have a seat at one of them for some time. I assume that Dan will be sitting at the blackjack tables so I may join him for a bit. I am not a particularly good blackjack player, but I enjoy it and will be more than willing to give it a shot. I'll post again later with the results.




Today is the 5th event in this season of the Blogger Poker Tour. Today's event is Shorthanded No-Limit Texas Hold'em. It is hosted by Skinski and The House of Poker Blues. Head over there for info and password (password is "bbking"). This is the current top 10 as it stands after 4 events.

Irongirl01	637
Poker Athletes Blog	506
Peetscheet	501
Poker Pub	452
Royal Poker	439
Gamingology	429
Freerollcalendar Weblog	416
Alex	410
11ave.blogspot.com	374
Skinski's Blog	366

With Skinski currently sitting at 10th overall, look for him to move up the leaderboard after this event. With his bonus for hosting, a good placement should help him move up the ranks. A final table could easily put him in the 3. Also, 11th - 14th places are tightly packed and most likely eagerly awaiting a chance at the top 10. With how close the points are between these players and Skinski in 10th, this event could be essential.

elc3105s blog	360
astinaguys poker blog	354
Counting My Outs	344
5TH Street Forum	340

Also, there are currently 2 people tied for 20th place with 265 points (EgonOlsen and BobbyOlsen). These 2, along some others that trail by only a few points, will need to place well to ensure their place in the top 20. With only 2 events left it is essential that they play well enough if they wish to compete in the grand final on Dec. 23rd.


My Exploits
Yesterday I was the runner up in one of the $10 NLHE tournaments. There were 59 competitors and a first place prize of $170. Overall my play was pretty solid. I made a few bad calls and got lucky, but I feel happy with how I played. HOWEVER.... the one hand that I am steamed about came during heads up play. I had my opponent covered in chips +8k or so and I picked up pocket queens (no doubt I was quite pleased). I raised (but not too much) and was called. Flop came ace, 8, 6 rainbow. I bet out. I wanted to check for an ace (fold to a re-raise here). I was simply called. Turn gives me a third queen. Planning to check-raise,I check to my opponent thinking he has an ace. He checks as well (which surprises me). When the river brings a 5, I think I'm golden. I bet out with my set and am immediately re-raised all in. I call without hesitation and am very dismayed when he flips over his 79 and shows a straight. I hadn't even considered the possibility that he was on a draw. I don't think I gave him odds to call on the flop. I know (now) that I should have bet out again on the turn, but remember I have him pegged for an ace. There wasn't too much left for me after that. He had my little stack of about 8k dwarfed by 40k plus. I doubled up a hand or two later but it was just not to be. Lost when my pocket sevens ran into a higher pair. Oh well, $118 for a second place is nice for my bankroll which currently sits at about $220.

Among other things.....

I really donked around today. Lost $30 in $10 buy-ins and some more in ring games. Ick, not my day. At first I just wasn't playing well and to top it off the deck was probably at about 16°F (I don't remember off-hand but 52off comes to mind). Also, both times I had cowboys the flop contained an ace (and so did my opponents hand). Oh well...

I played pretty well in the 1k freeroll today (Poker.com). I only made 2 real bad calls. One where I had a open-ended straight draw (that I caught) and the other with pocket aces. I picked up aces and had one person call my raise. Flop was Kd, Qd, 7(not sure what the suit was but it wasn't diamonds. Bet 4xBB on the flop. Turn was a rag (4 of clubs maybe). Bet again, called again. When the diamond hit on the turn I knew I was beat. However, since it was a freeroll and I was going to have to go to work soon anyways I called. He showed a J7 of diamonds and I was out.



I joined this poker site today. I joined it for a few reasons. Mainly because they give you $10 for just signing up. The clearing requirements are pretty steep (200 of their comp points)and you have to deposit to withdraw), but it's free. The other nice thing about this site is that there is no software. It is a completely flash based platform. Now, it's not really the best platform (it has been kinda sluggish on both computers if played on), but it's nice because I'm playing poker at work (and I'll be able to play on the girlfriend's computer after she goes to bed).

All in all, the site really isn't that great. I wouldn't recommend it for regular play. However, for someone who doesn't play often or just wants to play for free, it's nice. I can't see myself depositing any money there unless I happen to make a bunch from the free $10. If that does happen though, they do have a 200% deposit bonus that I found at wsop.com. They have $50 freerolls every hour and they offer $1 MTT's. While you can make much off of them they're nice for playing at work (I won one while writing this post). Since they're only $1 (+25¢) you can leave them if you get busy doing something else without losing much.

If you decide to join you should let me know. I'd like to refer you (I can make some money if you deposit and the play enough) so you should either:

• e-mail/aim/msn/smoke signals or otherwise contact me you register and I will send you a refer-a-friend e-mail

or

• make an account and let customer suppost know that I refered you and they can link you to my account(not sure what info they'll want about me)
  

caffeine/poker/vegas

I think I'm becoming addicted to caffeine again. If the late afternoon/early evening comes and I haven't had any caffeine start to get a headache (like right now). I was severely addicted at the end of this previous spring semester but when summer came around I got over it. I had no need to drink coffee and do homework. I don't know what happened this past week or two but I've been getting headaches again. I'm not sure if it's the caffeine but it usually helps get rid of them, so I'll go with that.


Poker.
Let's see, where do I stand right now. Current Poker.com balance is about $150. I with drew $50 this past weekend after a rush on Saturday. I played in my first $10 NLHE MTT (placed 4th: $59). Also, I hit my first royal flush on Saturday. With king/jack of clubs in the hole I picked up ace/queen/rag all clubs on the flop. I already had the nut flush and I was hoping people would be into me. Two people to the turn (some card not of note) and then to the river. Picked up the ten of clubs on the river to complete the royal. I didn't even bet because I was willing to take the royal flush bonus (I wasn't going to get 100bb out of them). Since I was on a 10¢/25¢ table I picked up $25 for my royal. The royal and the $10 NL tourney combined with some money I made on the 10¢/25¢ tables I was up about $120 on Saturday.

Went down some on Sunday and Monday and the picked up about $30 yesterday (Tuesday) morning before work. Ended up cracking aces with pocket 10's (got real lucky) and then picked up a straight against the same persons 2 pair later on. While the calls I made weren't too terrible, thinking back on them, I probably shouldn't have made them.

Since I started online I've been mostly playing the 10¢/25¢ tables. Since my place in the money on Saturday (was my first $10 tourney) I've decieded to play a bit more tourney poker. I enjoy it more and I think (when playing in the right state of mind) I'm better at it. I don't have class tomorrow and I don't work untill 5pm so I'll be hitting the internet felt for much of the day.


Vegas.
I need $300. Anyone got any spare change?
A few of my roommates and I are planning on going to Las Vegas at some point over winter break. I figure I need about $300 for airfare/hotel/foodstuffs. So far, the airfare/hotel packages we've looked at have been about $230 or so per person for 2-3 days. I plan on taking a hit to my Poker.com bankroll to help fund this trip. I'm hoping to have about $200 - $300 to gamble with. I will be looking on the internet for reviews of poker rooms. I'm thinking that $1/$2 and $2/$4 tables would probably be about right. If anyone has any suggestions about low limit poker in Vegas let me know. Also, any suggestions on places to stay for cheap and/or cheap airfare would be nice.

I'm hoping to get in some live poker room practice at the Riverside Casino near here (Iowa City) before I go to Vegas. Since I've only played home games and online I'm thinking it might be a good idea. Any tips for a first time casino poker trip would be appreciated.

Poker related

Alright, I have a few poker-related comments to make. First, play poker at www.poker.com. I've played at a couple poker sites. I played at Titan Poker before they banned U.S. players. I actually liked Titan Poker quite a bit and probably would still play there if I could. However, since I no longer can I have moved to Poker.com. I rather like their software and even as I will probably clear bonuses at other sites I intend to play at Poker.com for quite a while. I started playing at PokerStars a week or two ago because I had cleared my current bonus at Poker.com. I don't like the software at PokerStars one bit. It's playable but in no way enjoyable. Also, since I usually play with headphones, the alert (short on time) noise seems really loud and can be quite startling if you're looking at another table.

If you join poker.com I would love it if you would do so from the above link. You can help me out by joining through my referral. When you play 100 raked hands (easy to do in one sitting) I get $50 deposited into my account. You can still use coupon codes/first deposit bonuses.

Current first deposit bonus code: AUSSIEFREEROLL

• 100% deposit bonus
• a week of new depositor $500 freerolls
• a month of new player freerolls
• entry into the next Aussie Millions freeroll (you could win a package to play in the Aussie Millions....free)

Also poker related and Poker.com related is the North American College Poker Championship. Offered by College Poker Life the NACPC consists of weekly FREE satellite tournaments every Tuesday at Poker.com. Since I'm at work this evening I am unfortunately missing this weeks but I won one a few weeks ago so that's ok. You can win a semester of your college tuition (up to $9,000 I believe). The top three finishers in each satellite tourney are issued a coupon to enter the NACPC semi-finals that will take place on March 31, 2007. The players in the semi-final will play until there are 6 people remaining at which point the game will stop. Those 6 people will be flown to a city in Canada to film the final table live. The 6th qualifier was/is this evening (I believe it starts at 7pm) so you still have 18 more Tuesdays to play.

The qualifiers are $200 freerolls open only to those who are CollegePokerLife players. $50 to the first place finisher isn't too bad for a freeroll. Plus the field usually isn't too big. Also, they usually give away other stuff to the top 3 finishers. For the past few weeks it has been subscriptions to Bluff Magazine. I haven't seen my first issue yet but I await it eagerly.

Also, this month College Poker Life is giving away $5,000 to the person who gets the most referals for the NACPC. Sooooo....if you want to help a person (i.e.- me) out you could click here or the banner I put above. It doesn't cost you anything but some of your time. So, if you have a few minutes to spare it would be nice even if you don't play poker. They don't send out too much spam (usually about 1 or 2 e-mails per week that you could easily trash).

Who is solitary?

I am solitary!

My name is John and I am an engineering student at the University of Iowa. I am studying (from time to time) computer engineering. Any opinions stated herein are my opinions (unless otherwise stated). Also, while I will attempt to tell the truth, this blog is by no means necessarily factual.

I took the internet tag 'solitary' from Xbox Live. I was hoping to use 'ph34r' (yeah it's really lame I know) as my xbl tag but was not able to. One of the suggested names given by Xbox Live was SolitaryPh34r. I took that as my xbl tag. In order to shorten my name on xbl I was simply called, for the most part, solitary. I have grown accustomed to this tag and taken it to be my name on the internet.

If you want to contact me, talk to me, chat, rendezvous, scream at me, congratulate me, or otherwise make something know to me you can do so these ways.

e-mail: xjohng (AT) gmail.com
aim: xjohng
msn: gooliquer (AT) msn.com (though I prefer aim)
icq: 215127009 (aim prefered)

Also, my new xbox live tag is "IAmSolitary". So if you want to play just go ahead and add me. My friends list isn't full yet so I'll probably add you even if I don't know who you are. If my friends list fills up you might have to message me elsewhere if you want to play.

that's all for now.

Welcome to The Hole

Hi there folks. Somehow you have managed to stumble across this little section of the grandiose world wide web. I just started this little blog of mine and will be most likely changing it quite a bit in the next few days (weeks....?). Since this is my first foray into the blog multiverse it may be a bit rocky. Oh, well. I suppose we'll see how it goes.