Smile, it's the holidays

Just a couple of shots of the artificial tree in the lobby of the building I work in. And a short video clip too. I've seen it for years, but this year they seem to have added a lot more.

Chop, Chop, Chop ...

Last Monday evening's small club tournament was a strange affair. Folded most hands in the first hour and bought the super sized add-on at the break and got ready for less wild poker after the break during the next three levels. The hands actually started to get better, and the loose play evident during the re-buy period faded away. So much in fact that two hours later there were still three full tables of players after starting with only forty. Somehow in the fourth hour, we lost enough players to break the third table, and finally knock the players down to ten for the final table. Right after receiving our seat assignments, someone proposed a deal, a ten way chop. I've heard it joked that we should on these small tournaments, but now it was serious being considered by over half the table. We did agree on ten percent off the top of the prize pool for the dealers, and also to expand the prize pool from four places to ten just before this came up. No one objected, and players started to co-mingle their chips in the middle of the table. A ten way chop of the prize pool. We all went away happy, the guys who busted out in eleventh and twelfth place were not happy. As a cash game for no-limit started up, I cashed in and head home. A ten way split? Yeah, it really happened, and I have the cash in my pocket to prove one tenth of it.

10th place bubble

Big Boy was giving me trouble all last night. Every pot I entered, he raised or called. And he was hitting lucky river cards to take some big pots in this tournament against the rest of the table too. He asks a lot of silly questions acting dumb during the game, but I've heard him outside during breaks talking strategy with his buddies. I tightened up in the third hour as my stack was becoming a shrinking violet. When I did defend my big blind with King Ten spades, BB called me with queen jack of clubs. Flop comes out eight-nine-four rainbow. Not very dangerous, turn was a rag, and the river was a ten. At first I'm thinking, great I paired, he didn't. Then he says 'straight' and sure enough, I see it, put on my coat, grab my drink, get up from the table, and head for the door. The worse part it was a small field of about thirty that started, and looking around I saw a couple of dozen players I'd beaten heads up before at final tables. I have never played against this guy before, but I think I will again.

Freaky Voice Overs

Is it just me, or does anyone else see a skunk during those talking apple commercials for applebees? Wanda Sykes did a great job for both the commercials and for the movie Over the Hedge, but I just still picture the skunk with an apple, instead of the talking apple...

Wi-Fi Piggybacking Widespread: Study

By Michael Santo Executive Editor, RealTechNews
According to security firm Sophos, wi-fi piggybacking, which is jumping onto someone else’s wi-fi network and using their bandwidth, is a lot more popular than thought. A survey of 560 respondents, run from October 13 - November 6, 2007, showed that 54% had freeloaded off someone’s unprotected wi-fi.
As we know, people can be arrested for wi-fi theft. But is it really theft? Most people think it’s a victimless crime. But it’s not for the ISP, who loses revenue.
Additionally, if people leave their wi-fi routers unprotected, allowing others to piggyback onto them, the worst problem is that people can get into your network, and if you don’t have your hard drives locked down, infect your systems with malware or grab sensitive files, with perhaps enough data for ID theft to occur.
It’s been said before, but it’s good to say it again: when you get a new wi-fi router, before using it, first change your router password. This should be the first thing you do. Default passwords for specific brands of routers are well-known disable SSID broadcast. There’s no reason to broadcast it, really encrypt with WPA or WPA2 You can take further steps, like restricting access to specific MAC addresses, but personally, I thnk that’s not necessary. The above three steps should be plenty.

Thanks Mike.

Kay shots

Just putting the pictures of this silly florist up. Wonder if she's sold any?

Drawing Dead

At this morning's Omaha tournament out at the Lake, there were so many players and so few dealers that we were sitting with eleven players per table through the first break, dealing to only ten players, and letting the player on the button sit out. You could play with eleven, but every card would be dealt and the only mystery would be the burn cards and the folded hands. I think the director made a nice save instead of letting the later players waiting in a queue for a free seat at a ten handed table. All that being said, the second level after the break, blinds up to four and eight hundred, with sixteen hundred being the bet on the turn and river cards. I look down to see a pair of sixes, an ace, and a ten. Cool, I limp in late position and see a flop with four other players. King, six, Ace hit the board. Great, trip sixes and since no one raised pre-flop, I'm thinking I have the best hand [which I did at the time] and raise, then the guy to my left three bets, the rest fold and I cap it for sixty four hundred. He calls. Turn is a King, great I have a full house. little did I know, so did the guy to my left. We cap the betting again until I am all in. A four hits the river, he has an Ace and King for kings full of aces, and my sixes full of kings doesn't look so hot. I'm out in about thirtieth of seventy seven players. Maybe I'll drive back out there for tomorrow's no hold'em tournament, or stay in town for a bigger one, tough choice. Cya.

Um, 'kay

Drove by a flower shop last night on Beverly Blvd and saw a sign in the window that caused me to blink. It was a sale on arranged BOKAYs. I'm going to have to snap a picture of that tonight on the way home....

Standard

So glad to be off of savings time. Almost makes me want to move to Arizona or Hawaii to avoid it ever again. The new game I bought online finally arrived in the mail last night. Well, it's not exactly a new game, but an ongoing series of refinements to become THE space game, because Universal Combat Collectors Edition from 3000AD is the game for me. You have to want to play a game like this. It is not an arcade game, nor a series of puzzles, but more of an open universe where you can roam in one of many career paths. A diplomat, an explorer, a mercenary, a police or military commander working your way up the chain of command to obtain fleet command and control of the hundreds of ships of/as various races, in dozens of systems with planets and thousands of mission zones on those planets. You can swim underwater, walk/run to another base, drive a vehicle, pilot a fighter, shuttle, deploy mining drones, beam up to your command craft in a transporter, and involve yourself in the political history of this universe. This game is going to suck a lot of my entertainment time up. There is also work time, poker hobby time, apartment cleaning time, local politics time, Dodger time, that all have to be addressed. Is it any wonder that I do not believe in 'savings' time?

Fourteenth of Forty

Argh again. Right before the second break, I get my chip stack eaten away at. The coup de gras was the last hand of the sixth level where I was the big blind for eight hundred, ante'd a hundred and only had three hundred left after that. Four folk on my left folded and got ready for the break when a loose-agressive player went all in. The rest of the late position players folded, the cutoff and the small blind folded, and I look and find a King and a eight of different suits. I know he has a worse hand than this terrible level eight hand that I have, but how bad? It takes me a few minutes after the break started to finally call off my last three hundred. He shows a nine and a eight of diamonds and we are off to the races. The flop comes with two nines, and with a jack on the turn, I'm drawing dead. The four on the river was no help so his three nines wipe me out and I head home before making another final table. Maybe better next week.

Fortieth of Eighty

Argh. Played at the large club last night in the seven PM tourney and barely made it to the first break. I thought it would be a small halloween crowd, but no, entrants kept lining up right up to the start time. Starting to recognize half the crowd at this large club. Same entrants over and over. Two or three players from the hay days of the smaller club too. I was dealt a number of great hands during these fifteen levels, but was either raised over the top and driven out, or called by even better hands. For a few hands, we were just passing the chips around the table. Then the bets got smaller and the chip stacks evened out a bit. Three of us were larger, and two were really small with a lot of action every other hand. I didn't stop myself from calling the all-ins by the short stacks and eventually became one of them when two others doubled-up through me. No re-buys in this tournament and I was finally knocked out in about fortieth place. Lesson learned. This tournament is twice a day, everyday, but I don't think I'll be playing that often here, since it is still only a hobby that pays for itself and I do have a job that supports the rest of my life. Ramble...