I know I know I know, I have let my blog go to long without updating. The very rare occasions that I get to chat with deal, this is the first thing he mentions. Even my daughter was wondering why I hadn’t updated as well. Hell I didn’t even know that she visits my blog regularly. Love you Brandy….lol.
At any rate I had a very exciting change of events to share so I figured I would force myself to spend a few minutes to share it here. Joe Dirt and the Puppy (Tinkerbelle) have finally come to terms with each other. Anyone reading this couldn’t possibly know how much this means to Suz and I. We were getting so close to giving jd away so that he could have a better life then what he has been having the last four months or so. Living in the garage is not what I would consider a happy life for a dog.
It all started a week or so ago with him actually tolerating her jumping in his face. He started off slow at first allowing only about ten or fifteen minutes of this aggravation before retreating back into the garage. Each day he gave her an even greater amount of time until which time the newness sort of wore off for Tinkerbelle as she was able to focus on other things rather then continually jumping in his face. After a few days he pretty much hung out the majority of the day with the family again. After observing his tolerance we decided to allow him to set his own limits with her where as from time to time he is just not in the mood or becomes dominant over dog treats which for the most part has little effect on her as she seems to be pretty much fearless. It usually only takes a stern voice from me to calm him down to the point that he doesn’t want to progress to a full on attack which is cool.
My last hope for the two of them was her going into heat which I figured would force him to choose pheromones over aggression. I actually pulled a loose tooth out of her mouth a week or two ago so I knew that if she was going to have a six month cycle she was getting close to ripening up. Thank god they sorted things out before she started smelling up the place and causing his horny behavior to kick in as there is nothing worse then a dude who is only interested in sex and not willing to build some kind of relationship first. We had jd fixed in his first year so there is no pressure for them to become family committed but he still has his humpy pillow (yea I know pretty sick isn’t it) that he sneaks off with on occasion and pounds the hell out of it resulting in…well you get the idea.
On another note, I will be taking my Poker Audition this week. To pass the audition I have to deal Texas Holdem $3/$6 limit, Omaha high/low, and Seven Card Stud, accurately manage multiple side pots in all three, ensure that the action is fast paced and protected at all times, calculate and retrieve the appropriate rake in a very discreet manner, remain diligent at all times to the misuse of angle shots, and to perform my responsibilities in a always friendly but quite and professionally efficient manner. I should be capable of dealing approximately 30 plus hands per hour of Texas Holdem, 20 plus per hour of Omaha, and somewhere around 16 plus an hour of 7 stud, which btw is not played in California what so ever. The only time I would ever be required to deal 7 card stud would be while working in Nevada or dealing in tournaments like the WSOP. Our school has 7 individuals who are still in Vegas dealing in this years WSOP. Their 6 to 7 week gig is supposed to gross each of them somewhere around 13K which I consider to be a pretty hardy reward when considering how up close and personal they are to some of the greatest poker players of all time
At any rate next week I begin the process of seeking employment. As of now the opportunities are not jumping out at me at all. I am going to explore all of my juice connections at first of which if none of them tend to expose some potential I will probably begin to start second guessing my decision to take this path and add a little depression to my already stressed out life. There is a new casino opening up at the end of the year which I think will pretty much pan out should I be forced to wait that long. A much more attractive opportunity is a new card room that is opening soon within miles of my house but they are experiencing some licensing issues at the moment so who knows how long that could take to pan out. July has shown to be the slowest month of the year for getting gigs dealing at parties that the colleges casino events division books. There is little money to be made dealing parties if your client does not tip but I have made upwards of $40 an hour at a few of them and gained much needed experience running live games.
Any way, I have typed my butt into being late for school now so I gotta wrap this up. I am sure once I get a real dealing job I will be using this blog to share some live game stories of which could very well be some useful information for any live game players. I found all of the angle shots to be very interesting in nature. If you do not know what they are, they are techniques used by players to deceive other players of which push the rules to the otter edges of acceptability. Players that have been deceived by an angle shots are typically the only ones who feel that the behavior is cheating. Once they have been shot they tend to employ these techniques themselves and consider them to basically fall into the category of skill and experience. My job as a dealer is to prevent them from being used in the wrong way which typically results from in an inexperienced user to commit an illegal act. The serious anger that sometimes results from being shot an angle is by far a major contributor to physical confrontations at most poker tables. For the most part, what fun is there if you can’t get a ring side seat to a fisty cuff rumble every now and then….lol.
jd
Monday, July 7, 2008
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Graduation Day Tuesday
I have put in somewhere around 50 hours now (on campus, another 20 or so at home) into my BlackJack Dealers school and believe that I now have the confidence needed to take the written test and live game audition on Tuesday. I was asked on Thursday if I would be interested in working some weekend parties dealing BJ as well so if anything I have shown enough talent to get noticed by the party director. This will be great practice which will come in handy for my real audition for a paying job at one of the Casino’s should that be the direction I decide to pursue.
I plan on starting the poker dealing course on Wednesday which from what I understand will take twice as long as the BJ course did. In the area of California that I live in, the Casino’s (all Indian owned Casino’s) are just now beginning to expand into their poker rooms to include Texas Holdem. I have been told that getting a BJ dealing gig now will be the best way to position myself to move into the poker dealing jobs as they become available. I still plan on looking into a few of the card rooms located in my area as well, as this was my original strategy to begin with. The dealing gigs in these card rooms are so good that there is little turn over so one has to really score to get in on this action. The only draw back in working at these card rooms is the benefits are no where close to as good at the Casino’s offer.
Another draw back in working the Casino’s is the distance that they are from my home. Gas has just now reached $4.10 a gallon with a speculated peak of somewhere around $4.75 by summers end. Sixty miles one way will result in somewhere around $200 a week just in gas. That is totally wack.
Edited out some information that I have been warned could cause regular AP players to experience problems with getting their withdraws processed quickly. I in no way would ever want to be looked upon as being responsible for something like this so I have taken this commenter's recommendation and removed the content in question.
jd
I plan on starting the poker dealing course on Wednesday which from what I understand will take twice as long as the BJ course did. In the area of California that I live in, the Casino’s (all Indian owned Casino’s) are just now beginning to expand into their poker rooms to include Texas Holdem. I have been told that getting a BJ dealing gig now will be the best way to position myself to move into the poker dealing jobs as they become available. I still plan on looking into a few of the card rooms located in my area as well, as this was my original strategy to begin with. The dealing gigs in these card rooms are so good that there is little turn over so one has to really score to get in on this action. The only draw back in working at these card rooms is the benefits are no where close to as good at the Casino’s offer.
Another draw back in working the Casino’s is the distance that they are from my home. Gas has just now reached $4.10 a gallon with a speculated peak of somewhere around $4.75 by summers end. Sixty miles one way will result in somewhere around $200 a week just in gas. That is totally wack.
Edited out some information that I have been warned could cause regular AP players to experience problems with getting their withdraws processed quickly. I in no way would ever want to be looked upon as being responsible for something like this so I have taken this commenter's recommendation and removed the content in question.
jd
Sunday, May 18, 2008
My Lack of Blog Posts..
Hello to the few folks that do stop by to read my blog… And thanks again for stopping by. Just wanted to let everyone know why I haven’t been updating as much here lately. I started Dealers College last week and have been going every day to learn both Black Jack Dealing as well as Poker, including all three genres, Texas Holdem, Omaha, and 7-Stud. I initially started to go through the Poker course first as this is my primary goal to deal poker, specifically Texas Holdem, however ¾’s of the way through the first day I found out that taking the black jack school first was a much better idea. Not only will that get me hired faster then the poker school, it teaches you the basics of chip cutting, shuffling, and game protection much faster. So as a result I jumped stream the very first day. I found that the BJ Instructor is much more on the ball with instructing as compared to the Poker Instructor as well. She actually has a structured process that she takes you through, teaching small portions at a time moving up in difficulty.
This Monday we actually get to put the Ace’s into the deck and start learning how to pay out the insurance and bj hands, wooot wooot. Thus far all we have learnt and practiced is single color bets, barber poll bets (multi colored chips in one bet), shuffling, chip cutting, and payouts for those types of bets. Oh yea, and what hand to use in what position on the table. Left hand used in the first two positions, right or left optional in the third position, and right hand only in positions 4 through 7. It sounds so frickin easy until you try to train your brain to remember this crap. That is why practice is so important. I plan on being the best at what I do and this has required much more practice then the normal donk wants to put forth. Ultimately I would love to fall into a floor mans position which through a lot of extra effort on my part I figure I should be able to achieve this goal pretty easily.
As it stands right now a dealer at any of the casinos in this area typically make a little over 50K a years including tips. That’s to start so I figure a card room gig or a floor man’s position should easily take down 75K a year to start which will be fine when considering the benefits that goes with it. I have heard that the Texas Holdem and Omaha dealers at the card room where I would like to work are taking down close to 100K a year and get to keep their own tips. The larger casinos collect all tips and share them with all the dealers equally. Not sure if I like that policy or not. It just seems like the individual collecting and counting all the tips has one hell of an opportunity to skim off the top without anyone ever being able to prove a thing.
The Dealers College I am going to does weekend events every weekend as well and I have already gotten an in on that gig as the guy that runs the place use to work with my wife years ago. Two of the Poker instructors are also heading to Vegas this next week as they have gotten jobs dealing for the WSOP this year. Bob has been a dealer for the WSOP two years running now and told me that you make about 13K for the six weeks of work. There is also the possibility of getting on permanent with their traveling group if you’re good enough. They pay airfare and hotel and have events about every other six weeks.
All in all I think this is going to be a great way to spend my last ten years of working. I haven’t had a lot of luck finding a job doing what I have done for the last 20 years feeling that my age has had something to do with that. At age 52 with no college degree I am not as hirable as these young whipper snappers fresh out of college.
On another note I have taken all my cash off of AP this week. I am totally tired of their lack luster performance which continues to grow worse and worse. I am the type of person that feels that if you receive bad service from a company the best way to express your dissatisfaction with that company is to not buy their products or use their services any longer. This is where the form of advertising called Word of Mouth became such an important factor years ago because companies actually worked very hard to ensure that they received as little negative word of mouth advertising as possible. AP shows no signs of improvement imo, nor do they appear to be doing much about all of their fuck ups. They can’t even setup a tournament correctly these days. I stopped going to McDonalds years ago because it seemed like every single order I placed there was given to me incorrectly. You can only Say God Damn McDonalds so many times before you discover that in order to reduce the number of times one uses God’s name in vane is to stop eating at McDonalds. I can’t wait to see how long it takes to get my check from AP in the mail. I am sure that I have not uttered the phrase God Damn AP for the last time.
Well enough on that subject. I figure I will be pretty much done with the Black Jack portion by the end of this next week. I just missed a group audition date last week at one of the bigger casinos in our area. Our instructor showed us a prime example of what most people do after completing their course. Many of the graduates showed up the day before their audition to practice, expecting the instructor to be at their beckoned call to help them get ready for their interview. She clearly illustrated the reason to return to the school and practice continuously until you find your job as she had no time for these idiots who completed their training months ago and never once returned to practice until the day before their audition.
Individuals who have played the game for years still have problems when it comes to protecting the game and mentally calculating 2 to 1 odds to pay a bj, never mind even thinking about how to figure insurance amounts when the dealer has an ace. BJ dealers are responsible to nine separate individuals when dealing to a full table, the seven players, the floor boss, and the eye in the sky and as such must perform all requirements in such a way that each and everyone one of those individuals has no problem at all observing every single movement made at the table. In a sense you have a total of 18 plus eyes on every move you make at all times. Thus far this has been one hell of a lot of pressure to deal with let alone remembering the exact method of which to do 100% of every action you will be confronted with while dealing at a table. There are no less then 1000 moves required of which all must be memorized and practiced until you can do them all without thinking. Much tougher then I would have ever thought this was going to be.
At any rate, enough rambling. I will try to get back to post an update when ever possible. Thanks again for stopping by. I have about $4 left on AP which I will try to roll into a forum tourney buyin but if not good luck to all you forum brothers and sisters. I will continue to stop by the forum from time to time to see what kind of trouble I can cause.
Until then…. jd
This Monday we actually get to put the Ace’s into the deck and start learning how to pay out the insurance and bj hands, wooot wooot. Thus far all we have learnt and practiced is single color bets, barber poll bets (multi colored chips in one bet), shuffling, chip cutting, and payouts for those types of bets. Oh yea, and what hand to use in what position on the table. Left hand used in the first two positions, right or left optional in the third position, and right hand only in positions 4 through 7. It sounds so frickin easy until you try to train your brain to remember this crap. That is why practice is so important. I plan on being the best at what I do and this has required much more practice then the normal donk wants to put forth. Ultimately I would love to fall into a floor mans position which through a lot of extra effort on my part I figure I should be able to achieve this goal pretty easily.
As it stands right now a dealer at any of the casinos in this area typically make a little over 50K a years including tips. That’s to start so I figure a card room gig or a floor man’s position should easily take down 75K a year to start which will be fine when considering the benefits that goes with it. I have heard that the Texas Holdem and Omaha dealers at the card room where I would like to work are taking down close to 100K a year and get to keep their own tips. The larger casinos collect all tips and share them with all the dealers equally. Not sure if I like that policy or not. It just seems like the individual collecting and counting all the tips has one hell of an opportunity to skim off the top without anyone ever being able to prove a thing.
The Dealers College I am going to does weekend events every weekend as well and I have already gotten an in on that gig as the guy that runs the place use to work with my wife years ago. Two of the Poker instructors are also heading to Vegas this next week as they have gotten jobs dealing for the WSOP this year. Bob has been a dealer for the WSOP two years running now and told me that you make about 13K for the six weeks of work. There is also the possibility of getting on permanent with their traveling group if you’re good enough. They pay airfare and hotel and have events about every other six weeks.
All in all I think this is going to be a great way to spend my last ten years of working. I haven’t had a lot of luck finding a job doing what I have done for the last 20 years feeling that my age has had something to do with that. At age 52 with no college degree I am not as hirable as these young whipper snappers fresh out of college.
On another note I have taken all my cash off of AP this week. I am totally tired of their lack luster performance which continues to grow worse and worse. I am the type of person that feels that if you receive bad service from a company the best way to express your dissatisfaction with that company is to not buy their products or use their services any longer. This is where the form of advertising called Word of Mouth became such an important factor years ago because companies actually worked very hard to ensure that they received as little negative word of mouth advertising as possible. AP shows no signs of improvement imo, nor do they appear to be doing much about all of their fuck ups. They can’t even setup a tournament correctly these days. I stopped going to McDonalds years ago because it seemed like every single order I placed there was given to me incorrectly. You can only Say God Damn McDonalds so many times before you discover that in order to reduce the number of times one uses God’s name in vane is to stop eating at McDonalds. I can’t wait to see how long it takes to get my check from AP in the mail. I am sure that I have not uttered the phrase God Damn AP for the last time.
Well enough on that subject. I figure I will be pretty much done with the Black Jack portion by the end of this next week. I just missed a group audition date last week at one of the bigger casinos in our area. Our instructor showed us a prime example of what most people do after completing their course. Many of the graduates showed up the day before their audition to practice, expecting the instructor to be at their beckoned call to help them get ready for their interview. She clearly illustrated the reason to return to the school and practice continuously until you find your job as she had no time for these idiots who completed their training months ago and never once returned to practice until the day before their audition.
Individuals who have played the game for years still have problems when it comes to protecting the game and mentally calculating 2 to 1 odds to pay a bj, never mind even thinking about how to figure insurance amounts when the dealer has an ace. BJ dealers are responsible to nine separate individuals when dealing to a full table, the seven players, the floor boss, and the eye in the sky and as such must perform all requirements in such a way that each and everyone one of those individuals has no problem at all observing every single movement made at the table. In a sense you have a total of 18 plus eyes on every move you make at all times. Thus far this has been one hell of a lot of pressure to deal with let alone remembering the exact method of which to do 100% of every action you will be confronted with while dealing at a table. There are no less then 1000 moves required of which all must be memorized and practiced until you can do them all without thinking. Much tougher then I would have ever thought this was going to be.
At any rate, enough rambling. I will try to get back to post an update when ever possible. Thanks again for stopping by. I have about $4 left on AP which I will try to roll into a forum tourney buyin but if not good luck to all you forum brothers and sisters. I will continue to stop by the forum from time to time to see what kind of trouble I can cause.
Until then…. jd
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Hopefully three’s a Charm
I truly impressed myself last Thursday by winning the AP Forum tournament yet again. This was my second win in three weeks which in my opinion screams that I am getting much better at this game. The forum tourney is filled with many great players from the forum as well as some unknowns new to both the forum and tourney itself. The match is played using the Turbo Blind Structure, second only to the Ultra Turbo, with blinds increasing every five minutes. The $10+$1 buyin forum tourney field remains quite small with only the top three positions getting paid, however, when you consider the top prize of this weeks tourney was $95 added to the $150+$12 seat to the weekly AP 75K guaranteed tourney awarded to the winner, the risk reward factor is huge.
I was very fortunate to have not been seated at the same table as my mentor and best buddy dealace1 as he has taught me just about everything I know and can easily exploit my weaknesses without hardly any effort at all. It was only fitting that I give myself a better chance at the match by placing a bounty on his head early on in the match only to have him place a bigger bounty on my head. Although all in fun, the prospect of having everyone gunning for you does indeed reduce your chances tremendously. I finished the match heads up with Vikesfan whom I have never played heads up before but was able to get the cards needed to slowly shred his stack down to nothing.
After my first forum win I was able to cash in the 75k tourney taking 37th for a payday of $265. This week’s tourney I felt that I played much better and shoved my AJ with a small M for the purpose of stealing the blinds but ran into two additional shove playing an AK and JJ. There were three hearts flopped and I had the nut heart but never found the fourth heart on the turn or river. Had I hit that hand I would have easily placed not only in the money but probably been able to score my biggest cash ever. This is the element of the game that I believe luck plays such a big roll because I got my money in correctly and luck could have gone either way for me there. I went out in 87th place just thirty three places out of the cash but felt like I could not have played any better then I did. With my cash in my first attempt at this tourney I went into this last weeks tourney with not only a well selected strategy, but for the first time ever the confidence that I have the skills to play at this level with a very good percentage of not only cashing but going very deep as well. The 75K tourney draws a very large number of online pro’s so to cash in this match is not just a fluke or luck by any means.
I am now looking to my next opportunity to play in this tourney which hopefully three’s a charm….
I was very fortunate to have not been seated at the same table as my mentor and best buddy dealace1 as he has taught me just about everything I know and can easily exploit my weaknesses without hardly any effort at all. It was only fitting that I give myself a better chance at the match by placing a bounty on his head early on in the match only to have him place a bigger bounty on my head. Although all in fun, the prospect of having everyone gunning for you does indeed reduce your chances tremendously. I finished the match heads up with Vikesfan whom I have never played heads up before but was able to get the cards needed to slowly shred his stack down to nothing.
After my first forum win I was able to cash in the 75k tourney taking 37th for a payday of $265. This week’s tourney I felt that I played much better and shoved my AJ with a small M for the purpose of stealing the blinds but ran into two additional shove playing an AK and JJ. There were three hearts flopped and I had the nut heart but never found the fourth heart on the turn or river. Had I hit that hand I would have easily placed not only in the money but probably been able to score my biggest cash ever. This is the element of the game that I believe luck plays such a big roll because I got my money in correctly and luck could have gone either way for me there. I went out in 87th place just thirty three places out of the cash but felt like I could not have played any better then I did. With my cash in my first attempt at this tourney I went into this last weeks tourney with not only a well selected strategy, but for the first time ever the confidence that I have the skills to play at this level with a very good percentage of not only cashing but going very deep as well. The 75K tourney draws a very large number of online pro’s so to cash in this match is not just a fluke or luck by any means.
I am now looking to my next opportunity to play in this tourney which hopefully three’s a charm….
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
This frickin game is really pissin me off
Playing in a satty to the 100K on stars tonight and doing ok. Took a couple small pots to get my stack up to around 2.4K and followed a few hands later with QQ bringing me to 6.5K, two hands later I am dealt AA from mid pos. I check my coast potential and I am in 11th place with 42 to go, top 27 qual, so I still have to play some poker before coasting. The villain from utg shoves in with a little over 4k, 2 folds and I feel that I have to call. Rather then have someone else come along I decide to shove instead of call. Villain flips up 88 to my AA and hit a set on the flop crippling me to around 2k in chips. Exactly four hands later from utg I get AA again. I feel like folding the facking cards right there. I totally felt that a 23 off was a better hand at that very moment. I raise 3x to $450 from the utg pos all along while chat is still going on from my last adventure with this same hand so I figure cool it will be a funny hand once I get my money back. co+1 calls my raise, and the bb goes all in with 1875 in chips, the caller has 750 left so I do the exact same thing thinking the exact same thoughts in regards to the number of players in the hand and shove hoping that the caller will go away, but now we have three all in the hand. I turn up the AA, the caller in the co+1 turns up KQ, and the bb turns up JJ. The board comes out 7,7,3,6, (party starting to get louder in my pants) facking J.
This is what causes the typical beginner to on line poker the most problems and pretty much restricts their ability to get any better at the game. I no for a fact that I will not call a shove with AA again for a very long time or at least until which time I can feel confident that my opponent has some sort of a brain. I would just a soon go blind then to play a hand that has so few ways of being played only to have it repeat itself as a failure multiple times in a row. There is just no way to play these donks and win from skills alone. At this level of play the entire game is nothing but luck because the players are playing in ways impossible to predict. I truly think that I need to move up to a level that will allow for skill as compared to luck and see what happens. A level where the player have been playing for a year or two and has at least a clue as what not to take chances with. The methods taught and written in books come from many years of playing the game at a level of which everyone at the table have a working knowledge of how to play a hand and are not the methods proven to work in the micro levels filled with players who haven't the slightest idea of how to play. I am now beginning to understand why the chat box fills with negative banter after a donk plays so stupid and yet still wins the pot. I find it very frustrating that I have given so much time to learning the proper way to play only to be beat up again and again by these thoughtless, lucky ass donks. There should be a skills test you have to take before getting into any match and the results of that test determine what type of players your matched against.
End of rant.
jd
This is what causes the typical beginner to on line poker the most problems and pretty much restricts their ability to get any better at the game. I no for a fact that I will not call a shove with AA again for a very long time or at least until which time I can feel confident that my opponent has some sort of a brain. I would just a soon go blind then to play a hand that has so few ways of being played only to have it repeat itself as a failure multiple times in a row. There is just no way to play these donks and win from skills alone. At this level of play the entire game is nothing but luck because the players are playing in ways impossible to predict. I truly think that I need to move up to a level that will allow for skill as compared to luck and see what happens. A level where the player have been playing for a year or two and has at least a clue as what not to take chances with. The methods taught and written in books come from many years of playing the game at a level of which everyone at the table have a working knowledge of how to play a hand and are not the methods proven to work in the micro levels filled with players who haven't the slightest idea of how to play. I am now beginning to understand why the chat box fills with negative banter after a donk plays so stupid and yet still wins the pot. I find it very frustrating that I have given so much time to learning the proper way to play only to be beat up again and again by these thoughtless, lucky ass donks. There should be a skills test you have to take before getting into any match and the results of that test determine what type of players your matched against.
End of rant.
jd
Monday, April 28, 2008
Have we lost one of the greats?
Well I just went over to Freddy's blog today and found that it has either been closed or restricted. This concerns me big time. I chatted with Freddy today for well over an hour or two and boy did I have allot to say. It reminded me of my getting stoned days where as you get really deep into thought and try to figure out the meaning of life. At any rate I was able to express some of the reasons I feel that he needs to pack up his shit and come to America but he still seems hesitant. All I know is that Suzanne and I have pretty much happily put some plans that we just came up with last week on hold in order to fulfill our promise of showing Freddy around America as well as work on our goal of working on his depression.
Suzanne and I have become so very close with Freddy in the last few months. Suzanne went from never ever using IM Chat to spending hours in her office chatting with Freddy so we both feel that we have known Freddy for many years now and have pretty much had to sit by and watch his life continue to spiral downward on a daily basis. Day after day Suzanne and I watched as his spirit was being eaten away resulting in his only working harder and harder, giving even more of himself looking for the end of the negative swing that everyone around him assured him was there.
I can only imagine the tremendously empty feeling that he must have in the pit of his stomach on a daily basis after going from such a profitable professional poker player, making every single penny of his income through grinding a huge number of hours each week sitting in the same uncomfortable chair hour after hour day after day month after month playing poker and having pretty much the lead way to make as much or as little as he needed to fulfill his lifestyle and reward himself just enough to start it all over again the following week. He is by far the most goal oriented individual that I have ever come across in the poker community, every Sunday planning his week, setting his weekly hours and calculating to within a few dollars his weekly take home pay, and for years achieving the expected results each and every time without fail. I feel that now something has changed and no matter what he try’s to do to fix the problem it only seems to grow worse. In this case the years of experience has been his worst enemy, well that and coupled with the fact that all of his closest friends are also poker players who have all come to understand that no matter what, a bad swing will eventually bottom out and return to normal just as sure as the sun will shine tomorrow. Not sure that I believe that as a rule etched in stone any more and I am certain that Freddy has second thoughts about that rule as well.
I definitely feel that his game is broken and have railed Freddy hundreds of times in the last few months and I too notice the plain and simple fact that his game has turned so fucking unlucky that there just seems to be some outside powers at work here. Lord knows that he has tried to fix the problem in every imaginable way possible and even has had a strong pool to pull from leaving no shortage of suggestions coming from some pretty dam great players all with negative results. Now you take all of this and consider that not one individual that he comes into contact with on a daily basis has suggested that he quite playing poker and get a real job, all except for my wife but she would just a soon see poker go away forever anyway. Each and every individual pleaded with Freddy to not just walk away from his poker and to just hang in there until it turns around, of which they all promise will happen eventually. Hell Freddy and Deal are the ones that have taught me this rule of the game.
Wow that was a lot of writing just to get to my point that this has to be the reason for shutting down his blog, not playing one hand of poker in four days now, and walking a thin line to fading into the woodwork never to be heard from again. I feel that Freddy will indeed survive and do what ever it takes to not end up homeless. I am just sorry that I, one of his closest friends never opened up my eyes until now and continued to push him on and on and on and on to keep at it well beyond the stopping point, or more appropriately the point of no return. Freddy told me over a week ago that he had really done it now and had no idea what the hell he was going to do now. Hell that could very well have been two weeks ago. I am so blind.
Freddy my man I am here for you brother, oops my bad, Suzanne and I are here for you brother. Please do not just disappear from all of the people who love you bro. Allow us all or at least Suzanne and I to join you on your path back to the land of sanity where the simple things are all we need to be happy. I know you probably feel pretty darn defeated, beat up, unsure of what to do and when, or whether you are even capable of doing anything at all without falling square on your ass, but just know I have been there before as well (and not to sound so sure that things will get better, similar to the same thing everyone said about the reversal of your down swing) and can assure you, no wait, I feel confident when I say that tomorrow will still come no matter what and by taking baby steps at first you will find the confidence to widen your stride in time. Tomorrow is the first day of a new direction my friend of which I would love to explore along with you, not in front of you nor behind but with you step for step side by side, for once we get to where ever we are going we both will be stronger and wiser and ready to take on anything that this dam life can throw at us in the future.
Luv u my Brother!
Steve and Suzanne
Suzanne and I have become so very close with Freddy in the last few months. Suzanne went from never ever using IM Chat to spending hours in her office chatting with Freddy so we both feel that we have known Freddy for many years now and have pretty much had to sit by and watch his life continue to spiral downward on a daily basis. Day after day Suzanne and I watched as his spirit was being eaten away resulting in his only working harder and harder, giving even more of himself looking for the end of the negative swing that everyone around him assured him was there.
I can only imagine the tremendously empty feeling that he must have in the pit of his stomach on a daily basis after going from such a profitable professional poker player, making every single penny of his income through grinding a huge number of hours each week sitting in the same uncomfortable chair hour after hour day after day month after month playing poker and having pretty much the lead way to make as much or as little as he needed to fulfill his lifestyle and reward himself just enough to start it all over again the following week. He is by far the most goal oriented individual that I have ever come across in the poker community, every Sunday planning his week, setting his weekly hours and calculating to within a few dollars his weekly take home pay, and for years achieving the expected results each and every time without fail. I feel that now something has changed and no matter what he try’s to do to fix the problem it only seems to grow worse. In this case the years of experience has been his worst enemy, well that and coupled with the fact that all of his closest friends are also poker players who have all come to understand that no matter what, a bad swing will eventually bottom out and return to normal just as sure as the sun will shine tomorrow. Not sure that I believe that as a rule etched in stone any more and I am certain that Freddy has second thoughts about that rule as well.
I definitely feel that his game is broken and have railed Freddy hundreds of times in the last few months and I too notice the plain and simple fact that his game has turned so fucking unlucky that there just seems to be some outside powers at work here. Lord knows that he has tried to fix the problem in every imaginable way possible and even has had a strong pool to pull from leaving no shortage of suggestions coming from some pretty dam great players all with negative results. Now you take all of this and consider that not one individual that he comes into contact with on a daily basis has suggested that he quite playing poker and get a real job, all except for my wife but she would just a soon see poker go away forever anyway. Each and every individual pleaded with Freddy to not just walk away from his poker and to just hang in there until it turns around, of which they all promise will happen eventually. Hell Freddy and Deal are the ones that have taught me this rule of the game.
Wow that was a lot of writing just to get to my point that this has to be the reason for shutting down his blog, not playing one hand of poker in four days now, and walking a thin line to fading into the woodwork never to be heard from again. I feel that Freddy will indeed survive and do what ever it takes to not end up homeless. I am just sorry that I, one of his closest friends never opened up my eyes until now and continued to push him on and on and on and on to keep at it well beyond the stopping point, or more appropriately the point of no return. Freddy told me over a week ago that he had really done it now and had no idea what the hell he was going to do now. Hell that could very well have been two weeks ago. I am so blind.
Freddy my man I am here for you brother, oops my bad, Suzanne and I are here for you brother. Please do not just disappear from all of the people who love you bro. Allow us all or at least Suzanne and I to join you on your path back to the land of sanity where the simple things are all we need to be happy. I know you probably feel pretty darn defeated, beat up, unsure of what to do and when, or whether you are even capable of doing anything at all without falling square on your ass, but just know I have been there before as well (and not to sound so sure that things will get better, similar to the same thing everyone said about the reversal of your down swing) and can assure you, no wait, I feel confident when I say that tomorrow will still come no matter what and by taking baby steps at first you will find the confidence to widen your stride in time. Tomorrow is the first day of a new direction my friend of which I would love to explore along with you, not in front of you nor behind but with you step for step side by side, for once we get to where ever we are going we both will be stronger and wiser and ready to take on anything that this dam life can throw at us in the future.
Luv u my Brother!
Steve and Suzanne
Monday, April 14, 2008
Exciting live game last night
So Suz has been out of town since last Friday and comes home tonight. I figured last night would be a great time to head over to the card room before she comes home. I arrived later then I would have liked but had to go to the bank, Walmart and get my car washed before heading over. I get to the Phoenix and there are 7 names on the list for the 4/8 tables so I tell myself I will give it an hour to see if I get on or not. One nice thing about playing there is that you can eat for free while playing at the tables. I have Robert serve me a Tangery Tonic and sit back and observe all the activity in the room. I know all of the employees there as this is the place my wife worked at for years so I have an advantage of getting the inside scoop on what is going on around the place. Nicole and Robert are discussing how many Patron Shots the one table has had and Robert is thinking of cutting them off. It appears that there are three low twenty’s kids at the table trying to get this Asian gal drunk off her ass. Fifteen minutes later Nicole mention that the Asian gal’s husband has just gotten involved by coming over and drinking her shots before she gets a chance to drink any more. This started some banter back and forth between her and her husband and the three yahoos at the table. Robert decides that is enough for now but allows one more drink to be served to the gal because she missed her last one.
I think all this is great stuff to watch and decided that I would like to get a closer seat to the action. I ask Steve the floor man to get me to that table which is a 4/8 kill table and slipped him a $5 to ensure quick placement. Ten minutes later I am being seated in the #5 seat directly across from the dealer. The number one seat was the drunker then hell Asian gal and to her right a mouthy drunk regular who was about 24ish, and to his right two more drunk early twenty something’s. In seat eight was this very large African American fellow who was playing a very lose aggressive game and taking down quite a few pots. The guy to his right had a stack of chips reminiscent to Jamey Gold and was playing pretty tight.
Long story short the punk next to the Asian gal was a very mouthy sort of dude and continually used the f word which many called foul on of which he would reply I don’t give a shit I will leave any time and would repeat the f bomb over and over just to be an ass. Play went on for quite some time and I pretty much got into only two hands blinding away at least half my stack. After many hands with the mouth stating he had a set and everyone should fold but showed crap hands this setup some hellasish bantering between the black guy and the mouth. They would continue to chase hands with each other only to say things like you just got punked etc…
Well on one hand the mouth stood up when winning a hand and said take that bitch at which time many at the table said hey watch your language. Fuck that he said the dude is a bitch and I will say what ever I want. Steve the floor man said oh no you wont followed by the guy stating that he would just cash out and leave. That is when the black guy said I am gonna cash out as well meaning that he was going to go outside with the guy. Well the mouth proceeded to repeat the bitch word yet again and that is when the very large African American walked around the back of the table and let him have it. One punch almost put the dude over the rail. All I remember after that was the whole place coming to their feet and two very small security guards running into the door. The mouth started yelling that he wanted the cops called so that he could press charges. No one seemed to be on his side at all. I had already picked up all of my chips and figured that this match was not going to go well for quite some time and decided to leave. Before I walked away for the table I made it a point to get the mouth to look me right in the eye and said you my friend are one dumb ass bitch and you got what you had coming dude.
I went to the bar and let Kim the new bar tender and Nicole know exactly what had happened and told them good bye. In my opinion the staff did not act appropriately or early enough to defuse this situation. Early on when I first sat down and heard and saw how this guy was behaving I asked him what online site he played at. His answer was I don’t play at any online sites only live games. He reminded me of many of the loud mouthed ass holes you run into online. He also reminded me of the young blond headed kid I seen playing in the wsop on tv as well. Can’t nor would I ever want to remember his name so that last line is hit or miss as far as you knowing who I might be talking about. Who ever said drunks and Holdem is +ev for the other players. Well I obviously haven’t learnt enough about the game to work that kind of atmosphere to my advantage. But then again I didn’t really sit down with enough cash to make an honest go of it. I sat down with $100 and left with around $30 after the entertainment was over. I did have a front row seat for the fight though and a very nice dinner so fight and a dinner is worth $70 to me any day.
jd
I think all this is great stuff to watch and decided that I would like to get a closer seat to the action. I ask Steve the floor man to get me to that table which is a 4/8 kill table and slipped him a $5 to ensure quick placement. Ten minutes later I am being seated in the #5 seat directly across from the dealer. The number one seat was the drunker then hell Asian gal and to her right a mouthy drunk regular who was about 24ish, and to his right two more drunk early twenty something’s. In seat eight was this very large African American fellow who was playing a very lose aggressive game and taking down quite a few pots. The guy to his right had a stack of chips reminiscent to Jamey Gold and was playing pretty tight.
Long story short the punk next to the Asian gal was a very mouthy sort of dude and continually used the f word which many called foul on of which he would reply I don’t give a shit I will leave any time and would repeat the f bomb over and over just to be an ass. Play went on for quite some time and I pretty much got into only two hands blinding away at least half my stack. After many hands with the mouth stating he had a set and everyone should fold but showed crap hands this setup some hellasish bantering between the black guy and the mouth. They would continue to chase hands with each other only to say things like you just got punked etc…
Well on one hand the mouth stood up when winning a hand and said take that bitch at which time many at the table said hey watch your language. Fuck that he said the dude is a bitch and I will say what ever I want. Steve the floor man said oh no you wont followed by the guy stating that he would just cash out and leave. That is when the black guy said I am gonna cash out as well meaning that he was going to go outside with the guy. Well the mouth proceeded to repeat the bitch word yet again and that is when the very large African American walked around the back of the table and let him have it. One punch almost put the dude over the rail. All I remember after that was the whole place coming to their feet and two very small security guards running into the door. The mouth started yelling that he wanted the cops called so that he could press charges. No one seemed to be on his side at all. I had already picked up all of my chips and figured that this match was not going to go well for quite some time and decided to leave. Before I walked away for the table I made it a point to get the mouth to look me right in the eye and said you my friend are one dumb ass bitch and you got what you had coming dude.
I went to the bar and let Kim the new bar tender and Nicole know exactly what had happened and told them good bye. In my opinion the staff did not act appropriately or early enough to defuse this situation. Early on when I first sat down and heard and saw how this guy was behaving I asked him what online site he played at. His answer was I don’t play at any online sites only live games. He reminded me of many of the loud mouthed ass holes you run into online. He also reminded me of the young blond headed kid I seen playing in the wsop on tv as well. Can’t nor would I ever want to remember his name so that last line is hit or miss as far as you knowing who I might be talking about. Who ever said drunks and Holdem is +ev for the other players. Well I obviously haven’t learnt enough about the game to work that kind of atmosphere to my advantage. But then again I didn’t really sit down with enough cash to make an honest go of it. I sat down with $100 and left with around $30 after the entertainment was over. I did have a front row seat for the fight though and a very nice dinner so fight and a dinner is worth $70 to me any day.
jd
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)