Back to normalcy

At last, I'm able to win again!

Nice bookmark to just a ridiculous week:

Redline still sexy tho:

Finally, a winning session

$3.70? I'll take it!!

Doomswitch still in full effect at hand #84:

Poker Stars $0.10/$0.25 No Limit Hold'em - 5 players

The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

Hero (CO): $25.00
BTN: $25.00
SB: $25.00
BB: $25.00
UTG: $25.60

Pre Flop: ($0.35) Hero is CO with 8 J

1 fold, Hero raises to $0.75, 1 fold, SB raises to $3, 1 fold, Hero calls $2.25

Flop: ($6.25) 7 5 2 (2 players)

SB bets $3.50, Hero calls $3.50

Turn: ($13.25) 4 (2 players)

SB bets $6.25, Hero raises to $13.25, SB raises to $18.50 all in, Hero calls $5.25 all in

Hero shows 8 J (a flush, Jack high)

SB shows 7 7 (a set of sevens)

Don't pair the...

River: ($50.25) 4 (2 players - 2 are all in)

... board :(

Final Pot: $50.25

Hero shows 8 J (a flush, Jack high)

SB shows 7 7 (a full house, Sevens full of Fours)

SB wins $48.25

(Rake: $2.00)

Aw well, I got most of that back from him:

Poker Stars $0.10/$0.25 No Limit Hold'em - 8 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BB: $40.55
UTG: $25.00
Hero (UTG+1): $36.30
MP1: $25.35
MP2: $48.65
CO: $25.55
BTN: $25.00
SB: $25.15

Pre Flop: ($0.35) Hero is UTG+1 with J J

1 fold, Hero raises to $1, 1 fold, MP2 raises to $3.50, 4 folds, Hero calls $2.50

Flop: ($7.35) J 9 K (2 players)

Hero checks, MP2 bets $4.50, Hero raises to $10, MP2 calls $5.50

Turn: ($27.35) 8 (2 players)

Hero checks, MP2 checks

River: ($27.35) 3 (2 players)

Hero bets $9.50, MP2 calls $9.50

Final Pot: $46.35

Hero shows J J (three of a kind, Jacks)
MP2 mucks A A

Hero wins $44.10

(Rake: $2.25)

And I finally cleared another chunk of the New Years Reload bonus in the amount of $50.25, so my roll is a little healthier.

Another day, another runbad session

Holy heck. And hand ~#200 was a cooler: blind versus blind QQ vs AA where we got in in on a J high flop.

Someone teach me to fade two outers!! Or catch 2 outers... or even 12 outers. Somebody kill me.

SophieRoxanne (Hole cover) -- I'm Miss World

Happy Harvard Extension School Day!

My school celebrates its centennial today. Happy Birthday!

That's an old photograph of Harvard Station, some time after its completion in 1912. It was completely rebuilt in the 1980s when the MBTA extended the Red Line to Alewife Brook. The trolleys are trackless (i.e. trolley buses) and dip through underground now but it's odd in a way that point in space is a part of my daily commute.

Here's what the same intersection looked like last summer, via Panorama. (Note the same brick exterior on the building to the far left in both pictures; the current entrance to Harvard station is in the background below a sign marked with a long red line. And no, it hasn't been still under construction all that time, that was just some road work,)

Bulldozer meme crossed over?

What would Hevad Khan do?

MOSCOW, Ohio -- An Ohio man says he bulldozed his $350,000 home to keep a bank from foreclosing on it.

more via the AP

full story and video via WLWT 

Terry Hoskins was ordered by the court to come up with $365,000 in 30 days to settle a civil suit. And he did that, as a responsible citizen. He worked out a deal with the bank where he could put up his business as collateral. However, at the last hour (of the court imposed deadline) the bank presented him with a new loan contract, including the house, which he did not have time to get reviewed by a lawyer.

So at some point, he offered to pay off the loan in order to keep his house, which is what he thought the contract said he could do, but the bank decided they could make more money by seizing the collateral and apparently language permitting this was buried in the contract; that was arguably the bank's plan all along.

He warned the bank that he wasn't going to let them screw him over like that, and would just bulldoze the house. They called his bluff. He wasn't bluffing.

OK, I know, I know: that has nothing to do with Hevad Khan's use of the word bulldozer. Why so serious?

OK, so I decided to play one more tournament

Here's my tourney graph for the month. Those 40 man Sit-and-goes killed me, and you can see why I decided to go back to the cash games around #82.

But, I still had stored away a Sunday Million ticket from when PokerStars had their VIP store sale back in January, which was a no-brainer -- I had a ton of player points just sitting around from grinding 50NL last fall. (I never cash them in, since it's nice to know if I go life busto I can use them to grind up a bankroll from scratch.)

So, today's special $4 million guarantee was tough to resist. I almost didn't play -- I was dog tired going on 5 hours sleep and I woke up at 7AM, but for some reason but I got up, popped a 5-hour energy drink, and traded in my ticket.

Oh, now I remember the reason: with a prize pool at 5.5 million and climbing (via late registration) who can resist that.

I definitely played horribad towards the end, and thought I was flipping in a few spots where I was completely dominated. Of course, after 5 hours the energy drink was starting to wear off a little, just as advertised. (Final hand with only ~3 blinds left my Kh7c << Jc3s after I called all-in in a blind versus blind battle when the board ran 8hAh5dJh and couldn't catch the redraw to any heart or king. Why the villain shoved when I was pot committed is anyone's guess!)

Still, 2,015th place out of 36,169 players was OK for a nice score, since I was almost freerolling. Good use of 10,000 Frequent Player Points in any case. So while I guess over all this 40 Billionth hand promo was a wash, it's still about time for the:

BANKWIRE > ATM > ETC.

(Of course, the payout for first place will be $1.14 million, but I've always abided by the wisdom of the Boston Driver's Handbook, which should be on any poker player's bookshelf, imo. To paraphrase: when you're in a traffic jam, don't go on tilt thinking about all those lucky people ahead of you, but instead laugh merrily at all those poor suckers stuck behind you!)

P.S. A shout out back to 2+2er "Don Melchor", who placed 650th, just as I came back to the rail. Sick way to go out, I hate those spots. But I has three pair! gg sir!! Some day we'll all get our LOLbanHammerments sorted out!

Dinosaur Jr -- Feel the Pain

The redline is not supposed to do that!

My God, I do believe 25NL players have finally learned to fold. As this is surely a sign of the End Times,  I expect to be live-blogging the Apocalypse before the month is out. So stay tuned!

Aside from the crazy 6 hour 7-8 tabling session I played on Thursday night, just trying to bink the jackpot promotion -- I'm pretty sure I lost a 400 big blind stack more than once lol -- this is my graph so far since I switched back to the cash games.

I'm not sure what I've changed since September, other than some good advice I picked up from Improva.

Oh well. Just keep swimming, just keep swimming...

I was right, dead right

Here lies the body of William Jay,
Who died maintaining his right of way.
He was right, dead right, as he sped along,
But he’s just as dead as if he'd been dead wrong.

Poker Stars $0.10/$0.25 No Limit Hold'em - 7 players

The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BTN: $27.10
Hero (SB): $39.65
BB: $25.00
UTG: $29.30
UTG+1: $25.20
MP: $8.10
CO: $26.30

Pre Flop: ($0.35) Hero is SB with 8 9

2 folds, MP raises to $0.75, 2 folds, Hero calls $0.65, BB raises to $4, MP calls $3.25, Hero calls $3.25

Flop: ($12.00) 9 5 J (3 players)

Hero checks, BB bets $6, MP calls $4.10 all in, Hero calls $6

Turn: ($28.10) 6 (3 players - 1 is all in)

Hero checks, BB bets $15 all in, Hero calls $15

River: ($58.10) K (3 players - 2 are all in)

Final Pot: $58.10

Hero shows 8 9 (a pair of Nines)

BB shows A K (a pair of Kings)

MP shows Q K (a pair of Kings - lower kicker)

BB wins $32.15
BB wins $23.15
(Rake: $2.80)

For some reason I decided to start talking to the villain, who insisted he was 60% ahead on the turn. Math is hard.