IS THIS THING ON?

People tell me they read this blog, but very rarely does somebody leave a shoutout. If you read this, leave a comment, even if it is just your initials, so I know whether or not I am a tree falling in the forest. It's fun to write just for my own future perusal and I know my buddy, Tom reads my entries, so I'll keep it up even if it's just the two of us and our future selves enjoying The Nuts.

Yesterday, the kids and I went to Malibu to join some friends who are camping there over the weekend. I had told them weeks ago to count us in for the campout, but after two weeks of entertaining the extended family, I was in no condition for three days of roughing it. I lost a tent pole a few weeks ago when the elastic cord snapped and I was waiting for a chance to get by Costco to pick up a tent I had seen there. By the time I got around to it, the tents were sold out and I was out of luck. So, we went by for dinner and Rummikub, but we wound up spending the night when everyone was so accommodating. I had the PJs and lovies in the car for the return trip, so the kids got jammies while I "slept" in my clothes.

It was about the worst night of "sleep" in my entire life. The only thing that compares is when I used to pull all-nighters at Disney World, setting up for a morning conference, and working so late into the night that there was only two hours to sleep before I needed to shower for the next day. Once, I was lucky enough to get a room in the hotel, but usually, I would just crawl under the stage and make do. The horrible thing was that 10-15 minutes of brain activity before I fell asleep. Nothing sucks more than knowing you have 120 minutes to sleep and you are 12 minutes in already as you are too uncomfortable to drift off.

Well, last night, I wound up sharing a twin blow-up mattress with Mason. There was one pillow, which I gave to him. All night I tried to horn in on it, but kept getting the elbow in return. There was no sheet over the mattress and it was made of some back-engineered alien fabric that sticks to my pants like Velcro. I couldn't just turn over without lifting my entire body off the mattress and repositioning it before lying back down. At one point, I had to spin the mattress around to align with the contour of the slope so the blood would pool in the right places. The buttons on my back pockets felt like miniature maces and it was altogether an unpleasant night.

So, this morning I got out of there and granted myself an hour in the jacuzzi even though it's running well over 100 degrees in the Valley. I read ESPN Magazine in 99-degree bubbles. At the time, my pool water was 87, and I was in it soon enough. I have a dark pebble-coated pool which is doing a marvelous job holding heat. Yesterday, it got up to 91, which is as high as I've seen it. But now, on to poker:

I played the 5000-point final shot tourney for a WSOP seat at Full Tilt. I doubled up early with aces, then got rags for a long time and wound up riding a $1400 stack in the middle stages. With blinds at $60/120, there was a limp, then a call, and I was in the cutoff with AJ. I am not normally raising with AJ, but I thought it was the best hand in this case, and I was happy to pick up the dead money, so I raised to $560. Right behind me, the button raises me and I knew the end was near. I folded that hand, to the jeers of the limpers, but there was no way he was going to flip over a hand I was happy to see. The best I could hope for was tens, but surely some of my outs were in the hands of the limpers, so I considered it an easy fold. That pretty much crippled me and I was out soon after when I pushed with A2 and got looked up by pocket sixes.

I plunked $150+13 down for a cash tourney and survived awhile but lost it all in successive hands that didn't work out. I lost the first to a horrible suckout - I raised in LP with QQ and KQs pushed from the small blind and rivered a straight on me. Then I pushed what remained into QQ which finished me off. I had taken a long nap after my swim, so I was playing well with no fatigue factor. After dinner, I entered the $75 Full Tilt 8PM. I went over to PokerRoom to see if I wanted to enter their Long Kiss Goodnight. Whenever I fire up PokerRoom lately, I check the Poker Classic SNG Qualifiers because I have a Stage 2 ticket sitting in my Full Contact Poker account. I had won the Stage 1 awhile back, but I never see any Stage 2 events going. There was one that was half full, so I quit out of PokerRoom and fired up FCP and joined up. I won the table and earned a ticket for the Stage 3 Qualifier and a shot at the $5k entry and a trip to Barcelona. I'm not sure if I will play that before I go to Vegas. Tomorrow, I have a full day of poker slated, and I doubt I will play much this next week.

Back to the $75, I played fairly conservatively early on. At one point, I raised a limper with my aces and he called and we saw a 9c6c3d flop. He checked and I bet 3/4 pot. He thought awhile and I grew concerned that he could have a set. I finally told myself that if he raises, I'm going all-in, since he could have any pair and just figures I missed the flop, or he could have a flush or straight draw. If he's got trips, so be it. He wound up folding, but then confessed that he had trip sixes and the fold was a misclick. TWO HOURS LATER...I am at the final table looking to turn that good fortune into a $4600 pay day.

The payout structure kicked in at 27 and once the bubble was burst, this scenario arose: I was on the big blind with QJ and a stack of around $16k. It folded around to the small blind, who pushed all in for just over $5k. I thought a moment and wound up making the call. I didn't expect to be a huge favorite, although I considered it possible that I could be in the lead. I found it more likely he had an over and an under, which is what he had - A7. All I knew for sure was that he didn't really want to play the hand, but he thought it was good enough to steal the blinds. Obviously, I don't have the odds to make that call, but the fact that we were already in the money and I would still have chips if I lost pushed me towards making the gamble. He could have shown me 98 as easily as A7. Even if I was behind, I have a great drawing hand which can easily catch up to an ace/rag type hand. I am a player who will make a gamble like this because the chips I stand to lose are not nearly as important as the chips I stand to gain, which could propel me to the final table if the gamble pays off. Well, I wound up making a straight on the river to knock him out, which was followed by ten minutes of abuse from the rail. I stand by my decsion and guess what - I made the final table. Your comments on this hand are appreciated.

So, with six players remaining, I got JJ in first position and raised it up. The chip leader called from the BB and the flop brought two queens with a flush draw. He check-called and I should have shut down, but I got stubborn and called his bet on the turn. When he bet $12k into the $24k river, I should have just given up, but the board read QQ746 and I had myself convinced that he could have tens, nines or eights, so I called off half my stack to see his KQ. The next hand, it folded to him and he put in a token little raise, to which I responded all-in with K6. He called and showed T6 but caught the ten and knocked me out in 6th place. A nice $963 cash, but oh, what could have been.