Navigating The Sahara

Good afternoon everyone.  In the recent poker entries that I have made, I have been getting drummed at the tables.  Here is the post that I promised you where I will actually have some success playing Texas Hold 'Em (get your popcorn)...  :)  Real quick, I once again forget to update my fantasy baseball team's standing on Monday.  I'm still in 9th place in my 10-team league, but I am taking advantage of the system that I HATED during football season.  Our waiver order for free agents each week goes in reverse order of the standings, so I am GUARANTEED to at least get my 2nd choice from each week's free agents, and when the 10th place player doesn't take my favorite or claim any player at all, I get my 1st choice.  A few weeks ago I was 50 points behind the league-leader in batting average, and now I'm 32 points behind him, so I'm gaining...  ;)

Okay, the Sahara Tournament.  Since I returned to Texas in 2007, the Sahara has been closed, but for the 2 years that I lived in Las Vegas, the Sahara had a very popular tournament.  In this post I am going to chronicle my results from two different Sahara tournaments that I played at 11:00 a.m. with my brother.  This is the same brother who brought me into a poker room for the first time and who was already living in Las Vegas when I moved there the first time.  These specific tournaments took place in November of 2005 and June of 2006.  The November tournament had 77 players and the June tournament had 56 players, and each tournament cost me $ 62.00.

Please forgive me if I ever repeat information in this blog.  I have had some of these stories cycling through my brain, and I cannot remember if I have already given you this vital piece of information in a previous post.  After my initial lifetime Texas Hold 'Em outing at the Mirage (losing over $ 300.00 in 6 hours in a 3/6 limit game - FISH!!!), I became a very tight player as I learned the ropes and read my poker books and watched my poker on t.v.  While living in Vegas I nicknamed myself 'Traz' (short for 'Alcatraz', a.k.a., 'The Rock').  This knowledge is key to this story...  :)

The Sahara tournaments had 20-minute levels and gave you a little bit of time to play before they became "shovefests".  In the tournaments that my brother played with me, he always seemed to build up chips, and then get in with a hand like Q Q, only to be rundown by someone who got all their chips in with a hand like A 7...  As for our hero Traz, well..., I played tight as advertised, waiting for premium hands to get in with, limping cheap with good hands when I could.  In the November tournament, I navigated my way to the final table, guarding my meager little "stack" of chips with my life, and when we got down to seven players, someone suggested a chop.  NOT ONLY did we chop, we chopped the money EVENLY, 7 ways, and I received a payout of $ 497.00...  WOO HOO!!!  :)

I think that my brother was sitting around in the cash game making faces as this played-out in the November tourney, but I remember FOR A FACT that he did so in the June tournament.  Playing the same style, I had gotten close to the final table, and surviving some all-ins, I eventually made it to the final table.  Again, having a VERY, VERY MEAGER chip stack this time, we eventually reached the money, which was probably 7 or 8 players getting paid with 56 runners...  Well, a funny thing happened at this point, and I can specifically remember my brother at the nearby cash game talking to the guy on his right, pointing to our final table and laughing as I sat there with barely a couple of chips to my name as my opponents kept getting involved in hands and KNOCKING EACH OTHER OUT.  I was able climb the payout ladder by folding my trash hands, and while running on fumes I was able to finish in 4th place, which garnered me a $ 300.00 payout.  WOO HOO!!!  :)

In the near future I will chronicle my finishes in a couple of other tournaments that I played in, which had my co-workers wondering why I didn't play in MORE tournaments...  (and fewer cash games - ha ha).  Have a great day and I'll see you again on Friday.
        

TCAF Haul

My TCAF haul....well, half of it, anyway. The rest is in a box on it's way to Richmond thanks to my wonderful traveling companions Ian and Mandy, and the fine folks at the USPS!

L to R: Melanies by David Turgeon, Back Alleys and Urban Landscapes by Michael Cho, Le Temps des Siestes by Jimmy Beaulieu (+ a few postcards by Jimmy), In Situ No 2 by Sophie Yanow, Nine Short Works by Jon Allen, Apartment Number 3 by Pascal Girard, By This You Shall Know Him by Jesse Jacobs, Turtie Needs Work by Steve Wolfhard and Grizzly Comics by Pascal Girard

I Thought You Were Abducted By Aliens

Twelve weeks...  Saying it that way makes it seem like a shorter amount of time than three months to me.  Living in a college town as I currently do, it seems like another finite chunk of time in the countdown to moving has almost passed with the spring semester coming to an end.  The Bobcats will be finishing up their finals this week, and then San Marcos, America will be a little quieter for the following three weeks until summer school begins at the start of June (then my countdown will be at eight weeks...).  ;)  With my plan to be a much more serious sports bettor than I was when I previously lived in the desert (the sports betting was a hobby to my poker playing), I have a lot more sports viewing in my future.  For as many predictions as I throw out here on the blog, I rarely watch any primetime games because I work nights.  I currently have the Lakers/Nuggets game on as I type this...  By serious sports betting, I am not saying that I wagered outlandish amounts of money when I lived in Vegas before, or that upcoming bets will be bank-breaking for that matter, but there will be a lot more research involved before I step up to the betting windows this time.  This specific ramble should draw enough viewers that it will put 'Bikini Hill' over the 7,000 mark by the time that I make my next entry on Wednesday.  Speaking of Bikini Hill (what a segue, I know), I brought the sports betting book that I am currently reading out there last week to flip through a few more pages.  At one point I packed up my gear to use the restroom, and when I came back, the girl who had been laying out on the towel below mine was gone, but her stuff was still there.  I noticed her absence immediately because there were less than ten of us on all of Bikini Hill at the time due to the fact that it was late in the morning and the weather was overcast.  After a few minutes of reading I looked around again, and there was still no sign of her.  It's common for people to jump into the river for a quick ride downstream, but I put my head on a swivel and did not see her..., anywhere...  This was really strange because she had left her towel and a duffle bag behind.  Even the people who run across the street to get a drink from the convenience store do not disappear as long as she had been absent.  I resumed my reading for about another 5-10 minutes, and then I looked around again...  At this point, about 50 yards away, a girl that could be her was approaching, making her way up the walkway by the river, carrying flippers, a snorkel, and a diving mask.  I honestly felt relieved when I saw her, because people usually don't just vanish from the park for that long, especially if they are alone.  As she reached her towel, this girl who I had never seen before that day made eye-contact with me, and I just couldn't resist...  Thankfully she laughed a split-second after hearing the words, "I thought you were abducted by aliens..."  I went on to explain how her disappearance was baffling, and she explained how she was finally able to successfully swim against the current, navigating her way under a bridge and up the river (out of sight), where she snorkled for a while before riding the stream down the river.  I told her at this point that she was making my blog...  :)  I was watching part of a re-broadcast game on ESPN a few nights ago (which I RARELY do - I hate watching a game when I know that it's not live), and after a commercial break came the announcement, "due to time constraints, we're going to move ahead in the game" (something to that effect), and then, they showed ANOTHER BATTERY OF COMMERCIALS...  Ugghhh...  I have never used a passcode on my phone (and I don't plan on losing it - I guess that nobody does though...), and a co-worker made me feel better about not having done so this week at work.  She said that she never uses a passcode on her phone because if an honest person finds it, they will have no way of getting it back to you.  This makes perfect sense to me - if a dishonest person finds it, if it is stolen, etc..., you're just going to have the service shut off anyway, and you'll still be out the phone...  Let me end this ramble with a memo to Miracle Whip:  Yes, I've tried Miracle Whip, and I don't like it...  And I've actually tried it...  Have a good one and I'll see you again on Wednesday.
                        

Big Sports Friday

Good morning everyone.  This is an "in-between" week for predictions here as both the NHL and NBA playoffs are currently in the "middle" of series that I predicted the outcomes of last week.  Today I am going to catch you up on what's happening in hockey, basketball, baseball, and football, while throwing in my two-cents and bringing in my ongoing predictions in spots.

As things currently stand in the second-round of the NHL playoffs, I'm looking good out west and wrong in the east.  The red-hot L.A. Kings are now up 3-0 on the St. Louis Blues while the Phoenix Coyotes hold a 2-1 lead over the Nashville Predators.  I have the Kings and Coyotes winning these series in 6 and 7 games, respectively.  The New York Rangers hold a 2-1 lead over the Washington Capitals and the New Jersey Devils have a 2-1 lead over the Philadelphia Flyers right now.  I have the Capitals and Flyers both winning in 6 games.  (Again, I'm not in Las Vegas yet and there is ZERO money on any of this).  My heart hurt a few days ago as my work schedule prevented me from seeing one of my favorite hockey games yet again, the multiple-overtime playoff game between the Rangers and the Caps...  I love when it comes down to simply seeing which team can operate on their skates the longest...

It's been a truly hectic week in the first-round of the NBA playoffs.  In every series which is not currently tied, the team that I predicted to win the series is currently leading the series.  Starting in the east, the Miami Heat have a 3-0 lead on the New York Knicks, and the Indiana Pacers hold a 2-1 edge over the Orlando Magic.  I called the Heat in 5 games, but with all of the injuries that New York has suffered, including Amare Stoudemire's knockout-punch of a glass fire-extinguisher case, this series is likely to end in a sweep.  (I have the Pacers in 6 games).  Both the Bulls/76ers and Hawks/Celtics series are tied at a game apiece.  I have the Hawks in 6 games, and this should be a good series.  Unfortunately for the Chicago Bulls, their series with the 76ers is going to be a lot more competitive than most people thought it would be.  I called the Bulls in 5 games, but the season-ending knee-injury suffered by Derrick Rose has tossed this series into turmoil.  Philadelphia took advantage of a seemingly still shaken Bulls squad to win game 2 in Chicago, and although I think that it's still possible for the Bulls to win this series, I would not be surprised if the 76ers took them now.  In the west, the Oklahoma City Thunder now hold a 3-0 lead over the Mavericks.  My prediction for this series going the full seven games looked great after the first couple of games, but after last night the Mavs will have to regroup just to avoid being swept.  (I can't believe that the Mavs fans are AGAIN being given the blue t-shirts to wear at home, mirroring the jersey color of their opposition - brilliant...).  The Spurs and Lakers both hold 2-0 leads over the Jazz and Nuggets, respectively.  The Spurs looked more dominant than I imagined they would in the first 2 games of this series.  I called San Antonio in 6 games, and I am a Spurs fan for those of you who don't know that.  The regular season games were pretty competitive, but Utah needs to figure something out quick to stay in the series.  I predicted that the Lakers and Nuggets will go the full 7 games, and game 2 of this series was the type of battle I envisioned when I made this prediction.  Denver played L.A. tough this season, and they will have the altitude back in Colorado.  Game three will obviously be huge for the Nuggets.  The Clippers and Grizzlies are currently tied at 1-1.  I called the Clippers in seven games, and they are very lucky not to be down 0-2 at this point.  With that being said, you have to respect Memphis for bouncing back to win game 2 after choking up a 27-point lead in game 1.

The following is the list of the current division leaders in Major League Baseball, with the lead in their division in parentheses:  Tampa Bay Rays (1.5); Cleveland Indians (1.5); Texas Rangers (4.5); Washington Nationals (1.5); St. Louis Cardinals (3.5); Los Angeles (4.5).  Pretty surprising list, BUT it is only the first week of May, and there is A LOT of baseball left to be played.

And I just went through a 45-minute internet outage delay, for those of you keeping score at home...

I'm not sure which football team you follow, but I think that my Pittsburgh Steelers drafted very well.  We definitely had a huge need in our offensive line, and we drafted three players for to fill that need.  In one primetime game against Indianapolis last season, we sent an injured lineman back into the game because he was less injured than another lineman.  I have to be honest with you - just watching the draft has me itching even more for the start of the football season.  I really need to get the NFL Network again when I return to the desert...  :)  On a more somber note, R.I.P. Junior Seau...

I hope that all of you have a great weekend and I will see you again on Monday.

Toronto Comic Arts Festival, May 5-6

As far back as 2003, I can remember chatting on the phone with Chris Pitzer about this show in Toronto called TCAF, and how I'd reeeeally like to exhibit there one day. Well, it took almost a decade... I was all planning to go in 2007 and 2011, but we had to go and have a kid each of those years... but I'll finally be making my TCAF debut this weekend!

The staff of the show, Christopher Butcher in particular, have been astoundingly cool in helping artists prepare for the trip, with advice on dealing with customs, exchanging currency and any other question you could ask. They also gave me a pretty incredible table space, right near my pals Michael Cho and Jimmy Beaulieu, and smack in the middle of everything. First floor, Table 111...and here's a little visual reference, just in case you find yourself overwhelmed by what's sure to be a busy crowd all weekend!

I have plans to check out the Hockey Hall of Fame on Friday, do a little sightseeing and a lot of hanging out! Really, REALLY excited about this trip...Hope to see you there!

Pocket Tens

Good morning everyone.  It seems like I just posted...  :)  Before I get to today's topic, let me throw out some miscellaneous tidbits that I wouldn't have been able to hit you with yesterday.  I forgot my weekly Monday fantasy baseball update, which has the Bikini Hill Giants sitting in 9th place in a 10-team league.  What I wouldn't have been able to tell you yesterday morning is that last night, my team (boasting a "stellar" .233 batting average for the month of April), hit .415, scored 8 runs, and had 4 stolen bases...  Hitting their stride in May?  Hopefully...  There is also some buzz now that my alma mater will be joining the Sun Belt Conference after they compete in the WAC for only one year (which begins this fall).

The subject of today's poker post is my least favorite hand to play, pocket tens.  Since I wrote about the 'evil hand' recently, I thought that I might as well address this particular hand now.  I promise that in the near future I will write about a poker outing where I actually won some money...  If you believe Phil Hellmuth's list of 'Top 10 Hands', you pretty much have to play pocket tens, as they are his 6th-ranked hand (AA, KK, AK, QQ, JJ, 10 10)...  I no longer have the particular poker book that I read this in, so I don't remember if Phil created this list or if he just passed along the findings of a group of anonymous poker scientists somewhere...  Anyway, the first thing that I don't like about 10's is that there is a group of 4 overcards that can appear on the board (A, K, Q, J - okay, hopefully you knew the 4 overcards).  If you are facing multiple opponents and one of those cards show up, pfffttt...

The second thing that I don't like about the tens is the potential straight disaster that you can face if you hit your set.  I did not consciously recognize this next fact until I read it in a poker book.  If someone would have quizzed me on it, I am sure that I would have been able to figure it out, and it's like a little lightbulb came on when I read it.  To make a straight, it is NECESSARY to have either one of these two cards?  Think about it for a second - avoid the temptation the scan down in the text - in Texas Hold 'Em, either in your hand or on the board, you HAVE TO HAVE 1 of these 2 cards to make a straight.  It's impossible to do so without having either a ___ or a ___ in your hand or on the board...  (that is 'Jeopardy' music that you hear in the background...).  Okay, you have to have either a 5 or a 10 in your hand or on the board to make a straight in Texas Hold 'Em.  (If you didn't know that already, try to make a straight in your head without those cards - c'mon, I know you want to...).  So your ten hits the board, giving you a set - yippee...  If your hand doesn't fill up, the board doesn't pair giving you a full house, there are going to be all kinds of straight possibilities out there.  The one time that sticks out in my mind occurred during a 1/2 NL session at the Red Rock Casino (Red Rock was my favorite Station's Casino for accumulating freeroll hours in the desert).  We had a donk at the table.  Let me tell you right now that if there is a donk at the table, he will eventually hit a hand against me (it's about the same odds as having an ace show up on the flop if you hold pocket kings).  Anyway, I'm up for the session after grinding for multiple hours, and I still ended up winning for the session, but I flop a set of 10's.  There might be three of us after the flop, and the turn card makes a possible GUTSHOT straight...  I bet, he raises all-in.  He was short-stacked, and I had the odds (or really close) to call even if he did make the miracle straight, because I still have ten outs to make my full house in the worst-case scenario.  I called, hoping my read was wrong, but OF COURSE he hit his four-outer and I didn't catch on the river...  GRRRRRR...

The third thing that I don't like about pocket tens is that they will hurt me if somebody else is holding them.  This is the most memorable hand that I've lost playing at the Winstar Casino in Oklahoma.  For you Vegas junkies, this place has a 46-table poker room.  It's not Foxwoods, but it's still pretty impressive, and if Oklahoma had sports betting, I might be moving closer to the Oklahoma border (Winstar is LITERALLY located off of Exit 1 when you cross the Red River from Texas - YES, EXIT ONE).  Anyway, in a 1/2 NL game, I have A Q, and the flop come K J 10 (not bad)...  I'm in with two other opponents.  My opponents go nuts (well, for having about 100 each in chips), and the only reason that they both don't get all-in is that one makes a mistake in poker protocol (he tries to raise all-in, but makes a string bet).  I know his intentions, and am mentally BEGGING the board not to pair.  Turn card, another 10.  This second opponent gets his chips all-in and I proceed to fold my nut straight, face up...  My opponents flip over J J and 10 10...  PFFFTTT...  The table is AMAZED that I could fold my straight there - I told them that based on the action, someone SURELY had AT LEAST J 10, let alone...  Yeah...

In summary, pocket tens are worse than the evil hand...  :)  I hope that you have a great day and I will see you again on Friday.

                

Take It Back

Good morning everyone.  It looks like I'll be posting two days in a row this week...  Sorry that I didn't make it yesterday.  I was really sick this weekend, going to work on Saturday when most people probably would have called in feeling as badly as I did, and then I finished off my sixth straight day of work on Sunday.  Yesterday was one of those days that I went back to bed ANYTIME that I felt tired.  So here you go, your Tuesday ramble, my 100th post at 'Bikini Hill'...  I would start this ramble off with a joke about pizza, but thinking about it, it's kind of cheesy, so...  (think about it..., think about it..., AH... there you go).  ;)  Stole that from one of the bands who played at our venue on Saturday night.  For all of the Boise State 'bashing' that I do because of my strong belief that they NEVER PLAY ANYBODY, it seems that 32 NFL teams agreed with me during the NFL draft, as everyone passed on quarterback Kellen Moore, who led the Broncos to a 50-2 record as a starter.  Moore has been signed as an undrafted free agent by the Detroit Lions.  The band Jars of Clay played at our venue on Sunday night.  They are a Christian rock band from Nashville, Tennessee, and are best known for their song 'Flood', which was the lead track from the 1998 movie 'Hard Rain' starring Morgan Freeman and Christian Slater.  Freeman and Slater are part of a group of armored car drivers who take part in a heist in this movie.  It did not occur to me until I prepared to do this ramble that Slater (who actually tries to do the right thing - I was bluffing a minute ago...) hides out in a church that ends up being torched in an effort to get him to vacate it - a church is burned in the movie whose lead track is performed by a Christian rock band...  Go figure...  I actually liked the song 'Flood' so much at the time the movie was released that I bought the Jars of Clay CD it was recorded on.  I enjoyed seeing the band perform it, and I do have one funny moment to pass along from the show.  At one point during the evening I looked up into our VIP section and saw a guy performing on his own set of 'air drums', having a great time...  I don't know if I've developed a 'sixth sense' working this job for 9 months now, but something prompted me to look to the stage, where of the 5 musicians performing at the time, none of them was currently playing the drums...  :)  It's good to see that the folks in Oklahoma City have figured things out now.  Last year I was crying on my facebook because the home fans in the Thunder/Mavericks series kept wearing blue t-shirts, which was the color of the OPPOSING TEAM'S uniform.  It did my heart good to see the Thunder fans all sporting their white t-shirts last night.  And I'm sure that some people thought that I was crazy predicting that this series would go seven games.  We've had a one-point buzzer-beating game and a three-point game.  ;)  So, I've mentioned here before that the Texas State Bobcats will be joining the Western Athletic Conference this fall.  The university has a sign with the letters WAC capitalized, headlining the words 'We Are Coming'.  It's unfortunate for my alma mater that the rest of the conference appears to be leaving...  UTSA has announced that they will be leaving the WAC after this season to join Conference USA, and it's rumored that Louisiana Tech will be following them.  Two of the current WAC members have announced that they will be bolting to join the Mountain West Conference.  It will be very interesting to see where the Bobcats end up...  For all of the commercials that I bash here on Mondays, I have found another one that I like.  Have you seen the ESPN commercial where the balding white guy keeps showing up to places where he has made reservations, is getting picked up at the airport, etc..., and keeps getting responses of disappointment?  His name - Michael Jordan...  :)  At work early last week I heard the most unusual response to a statement that I've ever heard, and it keeps making me smile thinking about it...  After my shift I was involved in some banter with my friend Megan (this is the same Megan who completed her first half-marathon a few posts back).  I do have a tendency to pick on people that I like in case I have never stated that here before...  ;)  Anyway, I'm walking away from Megan toward the end of this banter when I turn and express, "I'm an ANGEL..." (letting the word 'angel' just ROLL off my lips...).  I'm out of sight now walking up the stairs when I hear the shouted response, "TAKE IT BACK!!"...  :)  Really, I am one of the good guys, just ask me...  ;)  I wonder why something as fragile as the toe is located on the end of your foot...  Yeah, I JUST got up to get something to drink and JAMMED my toe into a bookshelf...  GRRRRRRRR...  On that note, since it IS Tuesday, I will be back with a poker story for ya tomorrow.  Have a great day!