Yes We Can

Amazing what a week in 80 degree weather can do for your spirits. I miss it already. Here it is 20 and snowing. I have this picture as my laptop desktop and if I stare at it long enough, I feel returned.

I did play poker before I left and lost $110. I am up over $100 for the year. Really didn't do anything bad, just wasn't getting cards and was getting drawn out on. But I do feel I am playing more aggressively, especially with hands like AJo early.

Saw this link to the Obama song Yes We Can in Daniel Negraneau's blog. He does seem to inspire people more than anyone else has in a long time. I think that is exactly what this country needs: inspiration and hope. I hope he wins.

In Florida we went looking for dolphins. They ended up following the boat and playing in the wake, and we took this shot. It was pretty amazing.

Won Big Saturday

Big win. I won $233 Sat., in 2 ½ hours. That’s pretty good. It was a soft table, but I was also playing very well. Playing very tight pre-flop. I was raising early with hands like A10 and AJ suited. Won them all. Hit a few sets which was key. I think the only showdown I lost was to a higher flush, when I made a straight on the turn, and it went runner-runner flush. The set hand was great, as I called 2 bets in MP with 77. The flop came down A-7-X. The preflop raiser bet, and I raised. I had a pretty good table image at this point. I think everyone else folded, and he called. The turn was another A and now I know he has a hand he can't get rid of. I put him on something like AQ. He bet into me with the big bet, and I raised again. He called, but what was surpring is that he bet into me again at the river; I again raised, and he turned over AJ.

As I said, I’ll be keeping very tight records for 2008. My current win rate is 15.53 BB/hr, where BB stands for the big bet. This is very deceiving for only 2.5 hours of play, but the goal will be to calculate a cumulative win rate over time to gauge my overall win rate. I'll to estimate how many hands are dealt in an hour to get a sense of how many hands I play over time.

I played horribly at our monthly game

I think the loose atmosphere and the drinking contributed, but my concentration was clearly off. I misread my hand twice, although it was in my favor and I won the hand both times. But it is poor etiquette and embarrassing to call out the wrong hand. And I missed opportunities to raise. I kept forgetting that the final bet is double. In one high/low game, when I was heads up, I made the huge blunder of going high, when going low would have guaranteed my half the pot.

The buy-in for these games is $40, and I went into the well for another $25. By the end, I was down a total of $25 which isn’t too bad. We again played 3-5-7 guts. It is a match the pot game with a $20 cap. Anyone staying in that loses pays half of the pot to the winner and half to the pot. The pot was about $146 when someone finally won it. Kind of a lottery game that I don’t really like, but it is nice to have the opportunity to win a lot.

The big winner of the night won about $216, and I think the big loser lost about $84. Didn’t get a chance to go to the casino on MLK day, but hope to soon.

Get busy living or get busy dying

That's Goddamn right. I love this scene from Shawshank Redemption. Haven't played since the last post, but I am playing tonight in my monthly home game. I'll be tracking my progrerss in this game as well throughout the year. I suggested we make a bonus jackpot for the player that wins the most during the year (minimum 80% attendance in sessions), but they didn't go for it. It's fun to play in this game, but the stakes are so low. We upped the last bet to $2. Still, I won $169 in 2007, so it's not too bad. Pretty soft. Really can't win without cards as you can't bluff someone out for a $1 call. Am hoping to celebrate MLK day at the casino.