Getting Ready

I am starting to get things ready for deer season. The gun has been sighted in for a long time and I was able to get a little trigger time in the offseason. Not as much in years past but I'm confident in my gun. If I miss it won't be because my rifle failed me, it will be all my fault. I picked up the fifth wheel Saturday. For some reason I couldn't get the slideout to work so I spent some time working on that. I finally gave up on it and read the manual. Apparently a low battery will cause the slideout to not function even if I'm plugged in. Well, the battery I had in there is from a boat since I think I gave my brother the RV battery when I sold him my old "boat". So I went to Sears and bought a new battery for the RV. Once I installed that, my problems were fixed. I decided to get a new battery since I had some issues with using the landing gear last year where the motor didn't seem to have enough juice to deploy or lift the trailer. I think the new battery should take care of that and I will no longer have to manually crank them up and down which is a pain.

Well, all that messing around with the RV on Saturday had me on Post and Fold in the annual member's event. Apparently you can post and fold all the way into 60th place. I played the annual member's event then on Sunday and finished either 21 or 22nd. I don't remember exactly and it doesn't matter since 21 and 22 both got me an "A" qual. Had I finished 20th or better I would have got a "B" qualification. I played a decent tournament. I got some cards early on and built my stack. Then the deck went cold on me. I made some moves to survive and try to maintain my stack size. Early after getting moved to another table I raised with AQs and the guy 3 to my left moved all-in which would put me all-in. I didn't know this guy or how he played so I folded when it got back around to me. I wasn't desperate or anything and not knowing the guy, I had to give him credit. Later I will learn that maybe I should have made this call. The blinds are at 800/1600 with 200 ante's and I'm sitting at about 19k. I get ppT in early/mid position and make it 4k to go. The guy immediatly to my left calls and the same guy moves in. If I call, I'm left with about 4k, basically crippled. We both have the guy to my left covered. I decide to call with my tens as I feel he either has AceRag or a smaller pair. The guy to my left calls for all his chips. Cards turne over and I have ppT, guy to my left has AT and the guy that moved all-in first turns over QT?!? Well, I'm fairly happy about this since I have about a 40% chance to win vs 32 and 27% for their hands. Each only has 3 outs, 6 outs total. Of course if either hit a Q or an A I have no outs unless I can backdoor a straight. Of course Mr. QT hits a Q, busts the one guy and cripples me. I'm out a few hands later. I'm sure he was real proud of his great play.

The Minnesota Vikings won yesterday. Three special teams/defense touchdowns is what it took since our offense could only muster 3 points. Terrible offensive showing yesterday. While I like Brad Johsnon, as I have said before if our O line can't block for Culpepper, Brad isn't going to fair any better. Our line couldn't open up any holes for Michael Bennet either. IMO, all the Vikings problems this year go straight to the substandard play of our offensive line.

Oh, and I didn't win the home event Friday. My co-worker busted me when I was getting short, he raised from the SB, I look down at KQ and go all-in, he calls with AJ and I'm done. He went on to win it after getting lucky heads up with pp3 against Jordan's ppKs when he spiked a 3 on the river!

Very little poker

Yay! I finally got to play a little poker last night. Very little mind you. I played a heads up match against Sailor Moe. It was a fun match as it usually is against Leon and I was able to come out ahead. I had him down to about 1500 in chips (5k starting) when he moved in. I had K6o and thought my K might be good and if not, I would just double him to around 3k and still have a 4k lead so I made a pretty loose call. He had KJ and had me dominated. I sucked out by hitting a 6 on the flop though. Sometimes getting lucky is necessary!

Tonight I get to play in our regular home game and I'm really looking forward to it. The competition is always topnotch and the people are great. You can't help but learn when you play a home game with these people! Maybe tomorrow I can post on how I won it tonight......

The best of the lousiest and the lousiest of the best.

No Time = No Poker

Even though I want to play more this month it seems things are transpiring against me. Monday nights I play in the bar league so that is out. Yesterday I got a call from my realtor to inform me that they were putting on a seminar on one of the properties I am trying to purchase so I attended that last night. I got home around 9:30 and didn't want to get involved in a tournament that could keep me up all night. Tonight I am going to fix the brakes in my truck since I am of the understanding that being able to stop is a good thing. If that doesn't take me too late into the night maybe I can play. I have to play a few heads up matches so if nothing else maybe I can get a couple of them taken care of. Then on Friday I have a home game to play so I won't be online then either. I really have no idea how you folks with kids find time to play poker....

Tueday Good enough?

Well, I missed yesterday but didn't have much to post. I was in Northern Wisconsin Friday night and Saturday then tailgating and going to the Vikings game on Sunday. So that equated to zero poker for me. Well, that's not entirely true. I won a small 5 person tournament at the cabin at deer camp. I was able to destroy three people new to the game and a weak/passive calling station. The CS and I got heads and he had a chip lead. I slowly whittled him down and won! Yeah, not much to brag about but I'll take it right now!

I played at Jimmy's last nigt for the Minnesota Poker Leauge . I can't say I played horrible but I'm pretty sure I didn't play good last night. Going into last night I was in second place, trailing by 8 points. I saw that the guy in first had busted and I had a great opportunity to take over first. I of course busted out without any points either. The person in third closed the gap and should be only 30 points behind me now. I guess next week I won't drink and try to play serious which is hard to do in this type or tourney. It will be hard to pass up the 2 for 1 happy hour special though! mmmmm, beer.....

I'm really looking forward to deer season as well. Less than two weeks now before the opener. My friend's Dad said he was going to have me sit in the Oaks again on the opener which is an excellent spot and where I shot my eight pointer last year. I'm glad but also want to sit in my stand as there is a scrape line leading back to my and my friends stand on the opposite side of the land. Within 30-40 yds of my stand there is a nice scrape and rub as well. I'm hoping that we don't drive that area opening weekend and that I can sit there Monday or Tuesday after opening weekend. This way the deer won't feel pressured and maybe I can get a look/shot at the deer that tore up that 8" diameter tree. I know there's a big boy back there and I just need to be in the right place.

Unintended break

Well, my non posting has been semi-unintentional as I've had plenty to write about but have been to lazy to post. The unintended break I am referring to is online poker. I realized last night that I have not played many tournaments online and very few at PSO over the last few months. I will try to rectify this in November but will have to deal with the 10 days I am gone for deer season. Hopefully I can get in 3 or 4 tournaments a week on PSO. I played on Tuesday and Wednesday nights finishing 20th and 9th respectively. I didn't play real good on Tuesday (not bad but not good) but I feel I played pretty well on Wednesday. Not great, but not bad. I still can't stay focused for some reason. I'm out reading on geocaching or trying to figure out why the Vikings suck so bad instead of focusing on poker. On Tuesday I got to entertain myself by watching the WSOP on ESPN .

I'm starting to think that Stacked is going to be vaporware with the release date now pushed back to February 2006. Will we ever see this game? The "it will be released when its done" is BS. Set a schedule and deliver as promised. I have preordered the game and with the delay it is a waste of money.

Well, at least I get to go to the northwoods this weekend. It will be nice to be out in the woods again. Perhaps this is what I need to recharge my focus. Have to get the treestands and such ready for deer season in two weeks. Minnesotans are out deer hunting this weekend but since I hunt in Wisconsin, I have to wait two more weeks. I think from my discussion of my lack of focus you might have an understanding of what a patient guy I am! Well, maybe see ya on Monday with another post!

The best of the lousiest, and the lousiest of the best!