Blogger Madness Starts Sunday

The streak is at six straight days of online profit and counting. I'll tell ya about it another time; just not very good at bragging, or at finding time amidst real life.

Had to post something, though, to try (again) to put up one of the banners about the latest Blogger Series. Starts Sunday. Holy Grail at the end is 7 WSOP seats (Holy Heck!!!!!!!!). More details to come, best info is at organizer/cat-herder Al Cant Hang's blog (link at right). I vow to win the writing contest; it's time for the sham to reveal his true skills and block the writer's block.

So here goes with the (medium) banner, more soon, I'm jealous of the Eh! Vegas survivors/victims, and have a great week!:



(Siiiiiigh!!!) Nope, blogger "banner" didn't publish. Ya have to click the link to see it. I'll have to talk to someone who knows how to do things and figure how to make it appear. I'm so hopeless at some things. Ciao...

UPDATE: As you can (hopefully) see, the blogger banner/promo now is publishing, thanks to brilliant guidance from the one-of-a-kind Sir AlCantHang. Thankee...

Must Be the Full Moon...

The full moon was beautiful last night. I didn't watch the partial eclipse, but heard it was inspiring. But, dang, why is it every time there's a full moon, people and poker seem to get even whackier than usual???

The bad news is that the "spell" didn't end by awakening this morning; if anything, seems it's getting "weirder." I won't call it "worse", that's all relative; but it's definitely uncomfortable to an overly sensitive underly confident semi-human like the shamster.

Today there's an wave of ice and snow storms rolling through St. Louis. So decided against risking the weather and road quirks, and cancelled my modelling session at Principia University up in Illinois. The beautiful Principia campus, as I've stated before, is one of my favorite places to hang out, and they pay well, so nixing this gig hurts. On the bright side, it means I get to play poker all day (seems like it's been forever!).

On the dark side, my first (and so far only) foray onto the faux felt today was at PokerStars, a $5.50 rebuy/add-on turbo super satellite to EPT-4 Monte Carlo, the final stop in this year's European Poker Tour. I followed my strategy in the early goings: no rebuys, take the single add-on for $5 and play smart and patient amidst the five-minute levels. Worked like a charm, my hands held and I won two races at the river, and come first break I was 1st of 36 left. The event had started with 63, 12 would get paid off and top 6 would advance to the Thursday afternoon EPT-4 MC satellite.

And of course you can guess how it all ended. Shamster finished 13th, bubble boy once more. Went card dead, couldn't hit when made a couple feelers, won a couple pushes after I fell out of top 10. Decisive hand, with 3K left and blinds 800/1600 (150 ante), I called table's top aggressor on my right as he tried yet again to steal pot momentum from me. I had 33, he had KT suited, and everything went nice -- until a darn cowboy rivered. (Siiiigh!!!) What's a poor shamalamadingdongdorkdonk to do? Just move on to the next challenge, I guess.

There should be quite a few of those today, as I try to make up for lost time in online poker-land. I'm aiming for the Rounders Radio freeroll at Carbon in about an hour, then tonight will drop in on league games of Poker Analysis Freeroll League (Cake), Maximum Poker League (Cake), and maybe Shark Poker Tour (Absolute Poker) and/or The Bluffers (Reefer). That last site, Reefer Poker, is a new one that's a skin of poker.com, Carbon, Nordica, etc. More on Reefer at another time, though know that since I can't deposit there until probably next month I intend to freeroll a lot of Reefer to build my roll. (That sounds bad, and I love it!)

Got a poker scare earlier this week when a co-owner said he was going to have to close my home forum, Poker Analysis. The other co-owner, his estranged wife, said she wouldn't let that happen to PA, so things go on fairly normally as the soap opera plays out. I will still play for PA in the next Online Forum Challenge, set for mid-March at Reefer. A lot of good players are at and have come through PA, including Mike Sowers (SowersUNCC), a recent preliminary event winner live at Borgata on the WPT Tour (or was it WSOP? I'm always a confused shamster...).

Another poker "scare" earlier this came when the two February posts in Doyle Brunson's blog disappeared. Happily, they're back today, with new entries; seems he's changed the look/set-up of his blog. And now it allows comments. Doyle's Blog (link at right) is still one of my absolute must-reads on the web.

Modelling Tuesday at St. Louis Science Center with the "Body Worlds 3" exhibition was fun, though not as much as the first time. The initial newness and thrill were lessened, making it more just a job. And one of the other models got his picture in the paper today with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's article on the exhibition. Pooh. Oh well, SLSC curators promised they'd send us models a CD of pictures they took of us at work, so I'll get to share that with y'all eventually.

Yesterday night I lost my temper for a moment with an extremely talented artist, Metra Mitchell, who works as T.A. for the class I was doing at Fontbonne University. Long story short I can sometimes get paranoid when someone uses a laser pointer on me unexpectedly, especially on my face. We had a little cry and I think got over it. I figured later it must be partially the full moon's fault. That also explains Monday and Tuesday and today. Gotta hope the waves mellow soon ... and meanwhile try to flow with them and adapt.

OK, tables, I'm coming, moon or no moon. Brace yourselves...

Small Victories Still Feel Good

I hope it's an omen for a good week. I'm as computer-inept and technophobic as they come, but I got the Adobe Reader update to download and actually work on my computer! Yeah, yeah, it's a simple thing ... but that hasn't stopped me from messing it up in the past. Now I can see pdfs!!! Now I'll know how yesterday's Horse Race of the Day turned out without going to Equibase's results! Now the world is at my fingertips! (Not really, but I'm an easy guy to please; I'll take any tiny victories life hands me!)

Life didn't hand me tiny victories on the poker tables over the weekend. My play was OK, occasionally sterling, but the results were ... I don't think that disgusting sound translates into letters for a printed page. No wins. Only one cash. Only three final tables. Blah!

This week will be light on online poker once again; work gigs run into the evening, and with modelling every day it doesn't give a lot of time or energy to devote to the felt wars. Things will improve a tad the last week of February when I model afternoons and get my nights back; cannot wait to resume playing in leagues with my friends at Poker Analysis, Real Poker Players, TheBluffers, etc. -- not to mention the Blogger Circuit.

Speaking of the Blogger Circuit, there is one game written in RED INK on my calendar this week that I will definitely play. (Thanks for the heads-up, Dr. Pauly!) Author Anthony Holden hosts the Tuesday Night Game once a month at PokerStars. Holden wrote "Big Deal" and "Bigger Deal", two of the best poker books ever. This tournament commemorates the legendary live Tuesday Night Game in England that attracted many top authors, artistes, etc. The online version plays at 3 pm ET Tuesday Feb. 19 for $10+$1, with $2,700 added and many other prizes. I can only play for about 3 hours. I intend to last that long, and hope it's enough to at least reach the money and the final table; FT players get an autographed copy of one of Holden's books. And he'll be playing. It will be fun. I was the first player registered, a couple weeks back. For more info and the password, check out http://www.biggerdeal.com/ -- and enjoy!

The reason I can only play until about 5 pm my time? Work. But a special gig. Ever hear of Body Worlds, the traveling exhibit of real human bodies treated by the process of plastination into works of art that are like skinless bodies posed in athletic and other activities? (Look it up at http://www.bodyworlds.com/; awesome, though not for the squeamish.) Well, Body Worlds 3 has been at the St. Louis Science Center for months, and with the exhibit almost over they held an "Artists Night" last Wednesday where people could come in and draw the exhibits, with four live human models thrown in for comparitive purposes. I was one of the four live human models. It went over so well, they've asked us for an encore performance this Tuesday from 7-9 pm my time -- thus my time limit in playing Holden's poker game. (www.slsc.org/content.aspx?id=4077) They will have photographers this time (they weren't allowed last week, only sketch artists and painters), so I'll try to post photos from this gig (or a link) after we get prints-for-time trade. Yeah, I'll even try to include the female live models in the pix, just for Uncle Al.

Today, time to get to Fontbonne University and Victor's painting class; they're doing my portrait today and Wednesday. And sitting there will give me good time to ponder ways to tweak the poker game. Needs much pondering. "Is a puzzlement!!!"

Let The Fun Begin!

OK, I am ready for some online poker! After dropping about $100 in live 3-6 LHE mid-week in a short 3-hour session on my first playing expedition to St. Louis' newest casino, Lumiere, and getting to play little on the faux felt all week, I'm eager to get at it!

After much deliberation, the chosen agenda includes: The Bloggers League buy-in at 1 p.m. (all times St. Louis) at Vegas Poker 247; a Poker After Dark Round 2 endeavor at 2:05 pm at Full Tilt (hey, JJ Liu is registered, and you know how I am about Asian beauties); TPFC Finals at 7 pm at Iron Duke (maybe finally get some cash at that site); Aces Cracked League at 7 pm at PokerStars (one of my home groups, gotta contribute, even though TPFC may get more of my attention, plus I won AC game last week); and QuickDraw Turbo Freeroll at 11 pm at Doyle's Room (pick up a few more pennies, won't take long and good practice in patience and maniac-management).

This leaves out tourneys that are still options that I often play and/or like, such as 3:20 pm Saturdays with Dr. Pauly at PStars (PL Omaha), 7 pm Poker Analysis Buy-In League at Absolute Poker, 8 pm Real Poker Players League at Ultimate Bet (Omaha 8/b), and games hosted by Online Poker Tour, Rounders Radio and Holdem Radio, plus my "final day" as an "Exclusive Member" of SpadeClub (they opened this site too quickly and too expensively). Hey, I learned the hard way not to try to do everything! These events will stay options, but don't look playable right now (RPP best possibility of the bunch).

Wish me luck, and hope to see y'all at some of the games! More late tonight, or else Sunday morning. Peace out...

Happy Valentine's Day!

OK, so maybe technically it's not Valentine's Day any more as I write this. At least not here, or where you are. But somewhere (Hawaii?) it's still Feb. 14, so the wish is truthful, timely and stands. Just sorry your cards and flowers and chocolates and spa passes will have to wait for another day. If there are any left when I'm done "testing" them.

I'm in a very good mood, which is why I'm writing this (yeah, I know, finally!) instead of diving right into bed. Gotta start trying to follow Doyle's example and post a couple times a week (at least!), even if they are only short snapshots of my life and feelings.

What has me hepped up right now is that I just got 12th in a tournaments at Full Tilt. The $1 Rebuy tournament, to be exact. With 446 entrants and a pool of $1,552 -- and me no rebuys or add-on! Eighty-one got paid, but I played smart and steady and successful for almost 4 1/2 hours. Finally hit the wall when my JJ ran into bullets shortly after break No. 4, when I was 7th/12 left. The jacks never caught up, I plunged from about 110K to 13K, and a couple hands later was out on a 3-way all-in. Still, a very good tourney and a big boost to my confidence after mostly treading water since the Super Bowl debacle.

Big weekend coming up. Last week was full of minor traumas, and haven't played much this week due to work, so I'm going to be real hungry for faux felt chips come Saturday. I'll be back to tell ya about it. Meanwhile, once again, Happy Valentine's Day all, and especially to my favorite ladies (you know who you are!). Peace and happiness.