Nom

I've used dry macaronis as poker chips once. (And sips-of-beer once, but that didn't end well).

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The Grand

Just saw The Grand, which had been waiting in my DVD stack for a while. I thought it was a quite good poker comedy or indeed a good poker movie. A "mockumentary" in the style of A Mighty Wind or Best In Show.

Also, I've enrolled in Full Tilt Poker Academy. There's a time and place for everything - and it's called college.

Also, you have corn in your teeth.

Fizzle

Brag: In the District Championship in online Texas Hold'em at Svenska Spel Poker, I lasted longer than last year's winner. Everybody did, since he was the first one out in 40th place (two pair vs flopped flush).

Beat: AKo vs AT clubs, rereraise all in before the flop. A Ten on the flop and I'm out in 13th place.

Variance: One player was sitting out the whole tournament, seats won in satellites were not redeemable. Still, he beat more than half the starting field. 15th place, I think, since I was the one who knocked out him and one other shortstack in the same hand with a runner-runner straight making me 10th of 13 remaining.

Not bluffing

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At least a small profit

I travelled south to where I grew up last Friday to go to a kind of high school reunion. My sister and her family were going to be out of town so I would stay at their house but didn't have any particular scheduled time to be there.

So, I made a detour and left my bags in a locker at the train station and went to the casino in Malmö (one of the four legal casinos in Sweden) to play poker.

I've been there quite a few times especially this last year now and know how it works and the style of play. 20/20 (Swedish crowns, say US$2.5) blinds on NL Texas and recently they changed it so you can buy in max 200 big blinds instead of 100.

I get seated right away at a newly started table and recognize a few regulars in the room. At my table, a loose Danish "semi-pro". Several bought in short, 1100, and I don't want to risk too much, I buy in for 1500.

I'm not going to stay all night, I have to take a late connecting train onwards. I play conservatively but hope to hit my draws. The chips in play are 20, 100 and 1000 so a raise is often to 120 or above instead of 4 BB to 80 and such, like you would see online. Twenties are scarcer than hundreds, like at the Vegas $1/$2 tables where the $5s are what you play and the ones are change.

Fold, limp, fold, limp, raise, fold to big reraise. I get 44 and call a small raise, hoping to get a set. And yes, a 4 on the flop, no immediate draws. A shortstack goes all in with a bit more than 300 and I'm the only one still in, I call. I crack his KK.

QK spades, call a raise preflop and the flop is QKx, all clubs. Hmm. Guy to the right goes all in with 3000+. I decide that this is where I double up or bust in this loose-passive room. I call with my remaining 800 with the assumption that the guy to the left will fold his flush draw, which he does. Flip the cards, he has Q4, no clubs. 4 on the turn. Here, live, there must be fewer suckouts than online because there is NO 4 on the river and I get a nice pot. I leave one orbit later, up 500 gross (I had two beers, but the beer money is in another money clip).

I later see in a Swedish poker forum that one guy was there Friday and switch tables because at his table there were "six tight players and two fishes". I wonder if he was the guy to my right with Q4, he seems like the type. I also wonder if I was classed as a tight one or a fish. :-)

When I get home Sunday evening, I haven't played online for four whole days (jonesing!) so I open a €0.25/0.5 and intend to leave if and when I am up, no matter how much. €1 is enough.

KK, flop Q and I call opponent's irregular (but large) bets down all the way to the river all in. They hold up to his AQo, there was no funny business with a weird two pair Q7 or a set of rags. Out up €36.

Maybe I will repeat my casino visit next Friday, I'm going southwards again. And this summer I will repeat what I did last summer, stay in town at hotel or hostel and play several nights.

Sidenote: WSOP has started. A play money Holdem client in Facebook, Zynga, have a promotion. Win a tournament of certain ones run June 8-22 and you get entered into a draw where 18 randomly selected tournament winners will play a final tournament June 30. Up for grabs is two WSOP Main Event packages. Here's the weird part: It's open to the whole world, just meet the age limit (21 to play in USA). The winners are announced July 1. Main Event starts July 3. A bit of a tight squeeze... Also, in addition to the buyin you get travel (good luck arranging that with two days' notice) and three hotel nights at Rio. But, but, but, what if you're still in after day 2? Are you on your own then? Oh, and you get VIP Lounge and backstage passes. Uh-huh, just you and a few thousand other online qualifiers will get that same exclusive treatment. Having once won a WSOP Main Event package and having been in Vegas I can just say; YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG!

The reunion
I showed up at the auditorum of my old high school and was greeted by a woman I then realized was the current principal. I introduced myself with name and graduation year, 1989. "Oh, great that you youngsters come too." Uh oh.

Inside, I see name lists of those who accepted the invitation, which this year was those who graduated in a year ending with 4 or 9 (i.e. it's a multiple-of-five anniversary). I knew that, that was what the invitation said. What it didn't say was that the invitation went out to only "20 years and up". Some ceremonies and stuff and at one time those from each year stood up. Quite a few 50 years anniversarians stood up. There were a handful of 1979 and 1984. I was the only one there from 1989... Toootally the wrong intended audience. I thought this was going to be more of a class reunion opportunity, not a historical society.

In the evening there was a dinner, and there two girls from my class showed up (the meeting in the auditorium wasn't "mandatory"), and one's parents were there (graduated in 1959 from the same school, and were high school sweethearts). From my year in total, seven had accepted the invitation but I don't think all showed up. Some gossip, some eating and drinking and an early exit. Sure, let's do this again in twenty years.

Both too tired to sleep

Guitar Hero is fun. Rock Band is fun. Poker is fun.

The Gambler, with Kenny Rogers, is kinda the anthem of poker players.

Therefore, this recent Penny Arcade webcomic panel is fitting:

Cradle-Song of The Chickenman.

No dogs playing poker

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Too easy

So, I've bet on nine preseason Major League Baseball games in the last weeks of the Cactus and Grapefruit Leagues.

Result: One lost, one stopped at a draw after the 10th inning (money back) and seven won . Suspiciously easy...

My highly scientific method: If one team gives about 1.7 times the bet or lower and is above the other with >2 times the bet in the rankings (Won - Lost), bet. Just win or lose, no tricky over/under bets ("Well, Billy Bob Pugwash is probably pitching for the San Angeles Demons and it's partially cloudy so I don't think there will be many runs.") or messy parlays.

It goes better than my poker. No long-winded bad beat stories but: Several KK vs AA. Good hits vs better hits like JK (the very first hand after my quad Kings) flop QJJ, turn blank, river K for a full house... vs QQ for a flopped boat.

Let's see - I play poker, drink bourbon, follow baseball, have a lucky dollar bill in my wallet and a lucky halfdollar in my pocket sometimes. Is my honorary US citizenship in the mail already? Of course, weigh that against the fact that I've made jokes about the governor of Alaska and that my Delta Airmiles have expired (and that I got 4 S'ed once).

W Innings

I'm reading Baseball For Dummies. I've verified that my TV channel package will show Major League Baseball this year as well (it was last year I saw some games on one of the sports channels and got hooked). I created an additional fantasy baseball lineup.

In preseason betting, I'm two out of three. I only make "surebets", low odds on favorites. Damn KC Royals. Go Cubs and Yankees.

I haven't found any cheap bats, balls or gloves yet.

Pass the beer and pretzels.

Batter up

I wrote earlier that I was getting hooked on baseball.

Opening Day is approaching, and I've even created a fantasy baseball lineup at MLB.com, the Swedish Meatballs.

Even before I got interested in baseball, I bought an MLB baseball cap. A Yankees one. I don't have any particular team preference, I just like the design. Also, good luck finding anything other than a Yankees cap in Sweden, because it's more of a (hip hop?) fashion item/accessory. I think in stores, it's 90% NY or more, and a few of the other well-known Major League teams (Angels, both Sox). More for the look of the logo than any geographical preference. Something like Arizona Diamondbacks or Seattle Mariners would be a rare find.

I think I'll try to find a Mets cap and let it fight it out with my Yankees cap.

Also, maybe I should try to scrounge some equipment and get some people to play ball, or at least catch. That could be fun. But official baseball equipment is expensive, and there's not a lot of second hand stuff (other than bats from our local variation brennball and retired streetfighters). Also, I'm doublehanded. I would be a right-handed hitter but a left-handed pitcher. Gloves are hard to find, and then gloves for the right hand would be even harder to come by.

Too keep my Blogspot "active", here's how I feel at the tables sometimes.

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The last holdout

Just before 2008 ended, I was the last person in the northern hemisphere with Internet to get a Facebook account.