Resting on one's Token

Whadaya know! Actually won me one of them $75 satellite tokens at Full Tilt on Monday night. Now I'm all set with the easy entry for Don's Big Game on Sunday at FTP. In the meantime, there's not much poker on the agenda until the weekend. In the immortal words of one of Mel Brooks' characters in "Blazing Saddles": "Work, work, work, work, workworkwork...!" What was that governor's name?

The last few days since Thrilling Thursday have been basically break-even. (Except for weekend football, and we are NOT going to go there! Mizzou won and rolls on toward the Kansas showdown, and that's ALL I'm gonna say. Dumb Rams...)

Friday I won six cents in a Doyle's Room Welcome Freeroll, and the wad there is up to 13 cents I think. At this rate I'll be buying back into a Doyle Bounty Tournament around mid-2009. Won a buck at Pokerstars in a Round 1 of Play in the Bahamas With Daniel Negreanu. Why do I put myself through those longshot, low-expectation contests? Guess I just loves a challenge! And no reason the game won't suddenly fall into place one of these times and I'll get the Big Enchilada; it's happened before. Meanwhile, relax, learn and play!

Saturday I was 103rd of 1,145 in the Online Forum Challenge #25 freeroll at Big Juicy Odds. Worth a whole $2.40. I needed to finish in top 60 to earn enough for Sunday's $5.50 OFC buy-in there. Attempts to deposit at BJO proved hopeless. So I took my 240 pennies to a micro ring game seeking to triple up, impatiently pushed with pocket ladies and was skewered on the turn. Back to bankruptcy at BJO. Don't think I'll be back there any time soon. They need fund-transferral abilities between their Dynamic Gaming sites members!!! Live and learn...

Before the OFC Saturday was Absolute Touchdown Week 10 at Absolute Poker. Every Saturday at noon Eastern they have "fans" of NFL teams square off, according to what the teams' real schedules are that week. Being a St. Louisan, I joined the St. Louis team midseason ... although if I was smart I shoulda chosen a team more likely to make the 16-team poker post-season. Rams slipped to 20-something in the standings after their bye. Last Saturday we played New Orleans. I went out 22/75, and only top 9 finishers score points. Absolute hasn't posted results yet. But still 7 weeks to go, so a lot of time to boost the team. I recommend joining for anyone seeking fun amongst poker-playing football fanatics; click on the Serina With Football ad to get info and sign up. Must be first-time registered by a Wednesday, or you'll have to wait until the next week to be "active." Most games are freerolls, but this Saturday will be a $5 buy-in. Who do the Rams play, San Francisco? Uh, oh; they have some tough supporters...

Saturday night at Pokerstars our Aces Cracked league wrapped up its 20-week Tournament Leader Board IV contest. Despite a heart-attack a couple weeks ago (you couldn't die and leave me the top spot??? kidding...), ol' cns (Lance Sr.) had the league and $150 bonus basically clinched going into the night, a thousand ahead of runner-up Shamster. I couldn't even get a moral victory and win the finale; third place (dunno whether cns or penfolio won after I left, grumpy me didn't care) and $10 back from a $10+$1 entry. Story of my weekend. There went Friday's Negreanu profit! TLB V should start after the first of the year; meanwhile, we'll keep playing at 8pm ET every Saturday -- come join us and have fun and learn the true meaning of pudding and taxi's theory of "rigged." More info at aces-cracked.net.

Capped Saturday with horrid midnight showing in a $6K-guaranteed bounty tournament at Ultimate Bet. Hadn't played there in a month or so. One good thing from the visit was I learned that Sunday night there'd be a tournament where top 30 could go on to LA and audition for a Hellmuth-Duke TV game in December. Sweet! So, jumping ahead, I returned to UB Sunday night, plunked down my $20+$2, played well ... but not well enough. Cards went dead, and finally so did I at 143/232. Oh well; maybe there'll be another UB Best Damn Poker Show in the future. Next time!...

Other than the UB BDPS qualifier, since I had no funds for the OPC at BJO (dontcha just love initials!), my Sunday basically revolved around chasing token and bounties at Full Tilt. Got one bounty in $24+$2 game. No token. Middle-of-the-pack rut. I blame it on football and weekend blahs. Couldn't even make the final table in Maximum Poker League's Vegas Poker Series No. 8 (which was supposed to be limit hold-em, wha' happened??). No big heartbreak, I'm already qualified for the MPL VPS post-season game. So I skipped the rebuys and add-ons, and still came close ... 11th.

And then came Monday. And a happy belated ending to the weekend. Didn't seem likely, since I modelled for three figure drawing classes at Missouri-St. Louis and got home too late for Poker Analysis Freeroll League's H.O.R.S.E. game at Ab Poke. Hemmed and hawed about what to play at Full Tilt. Didn't care too much for the fact M.A.T.H. (Monday at the Hoy, part of the Blogger Online Tournament Two aka BBT2 tour) was turbo. Noticed a bunch of bloggers enterred in the $75 Token Frenzy (yeah, also turbo, but what the hey...), so plunked down my $14+$1 and decided to give it a go. Wound up 98 enterred, which meant 18 tokens and 19th place getting cash and a small profit.

So how does the Sham start? Sitting with Riggstad on my left and Kajagugu on my right -- two of the most dangerous, most scary bloggers the world has ever seen. Pretty good with the cards, too. Somehow I held my own, and eventually sent riggs to the rail with a good read and a hand that held up for once. And that success was quickly tempered as the poker gods transferred me to a new table ... which included Astin, who has seemed to win a lot of my chips at Blogger games. Luckily Astin was a mite short on chips, and I took the rest of his in short fashion. From there it was win small pots and sit back and wait for the cards. Eventually Shamster survived the bubble, finished 13th and had his $75 token which is just the cost for enterring Don's Big Game on Sunday night. Sweet!!! And about time...

As earlier mentioned, no more online poker for most of the next 4 days. Model for sculpture group tonight and Thursday, 3 drawing classes each Wednesday and Thursday and an open drawing session at a friend's on Wednesday night. Friday brings live poker at a local restaurant (Bevo Mills): a felt battle between members of the St. Louis chapters of Missouri's and Kansas' alumni associations. That could get real ugly ... especially since it's an open bar. I am so old; can I call in Al as my Designated Liver?

If I don't catch my death of cold modelling and drink/schmooze myself into a coma, I'll be back this weekend. If not, try to think kindly when you Remember the Frog...