For quite a while now, I’ve wanted to get a good digital camera. I don’t use my 35mm a lot, mostly because I never bother to get the film developed after I do go shooting with it. Digital would solve that problem for me. I still wasn’t sure if I would be able to pull myself away from the poker or laziness, and actually get myself out using a camera. So my father sent me his old one (Sony DSC-F717) to see if I would.
And I did. Enough that I convinced myself I would really use a good digital camera if I had one. The one I’m borrowing from my father is good, but there are a lot of things about it I don’t like (and he wants it back, anyway). The fact that I did go out and shoot, and enjoyed it despite not liking the camera (can’t stand the electronic viewfinder!), and actually got some nice pictures out of it, convinced me that it wouldn’t be a waste of money to buy one. It won’t sit around collecting dust like my 35mm camera does now.
So, here’s a small gallery of the pictures I took with my father’s camera. I may add more to that in the future. And the 20D is on the way. ๐
Softball
My company softball team had our last game (I think) of the season last night. We were 1-6 or so, and the only game we won was the game I wasn’t at. Last night, we played against the one team we beat. They had a double header that night, their first game against the only undefeated team in the league. That team now has one loss for the season. I walked in the first inning. I don’t like walking in slow pitch softball, but only one of the pitches was even close. I ended up scoring, and after one inning we were up 6-4. Our second inning started off with two quick outs. I followed with a two out single, and we went on an 8 run two out rally. I got two hits in the inning. My next time up, I grounded into a double play (I woulda beat out the throw, but I thought there were two outs), and my last time up I lined out hard to left center. I didn’t botch anything in the field, and almost made a really nice play on a ground ball off the third baseman’s glove (I was at shortstop) to get the runner at first. Almost. We won the game, 22-9. It was a good way to end the season.
Baseball
Stupid Marlins. They signed Carlos Delgado, which means the Mets didn’t. The Mets traded for Doug Mientkiewicz instead. If he can return to his 2003 or 2001 numbers, I can deal with that, though he’s certainly no Delgado. If he hits like he did last year, they’re gonna need to get someone better. At least he’s solid in the field.
Poker
I’ve been working off another promotion through PSO, this time the Golden Palace one. I should be finished with it tonight. I’m down around $25 there, after being up around $90 my first night. I’ve just had a string of really bad luck, but I’m perfectly happy with how I’ve been playing. Last night I had AAx4, KKx2, QQ, JJ, TT and none of them held up. I think my last 7 pocket aces have been cracked there, mostly playing 6 handed. Amazingly, I’ve really gotten to the point where I can just shrug it off and move on. I’ve also gotten to the point where I can lay it down when I know it’s beat, even at 1/2 limit, which is a good thing. Unfortunately, I couldn’t lay down my AQ to the A379T board with a lot of action. I was beat by both A3 and A7. I think that was the only hand I really misplayed and cost me more than it should have. I should have folded to the flop action. Overall, I do like Golden Palace’s interface and software, though it only wants to let you play at two tables at a time. You can trick it by getting on the waiting list for a third, which will then pop up when your seat is available. I’ve read that it’s a real pain to cash out from there, though, but I don’t want to do that yet.
I also did something last night I thought I’d never do: I signed up at a regular online casino (not a poker room) similar to เธเธฒเธชเธดเนเธเธชเธ UFABET. ECD has a promotion through Music Hall Casino for 600 ECD points. The EV of meeting the wagering requirements at 50 cent blackjack was around -$6, and 600 points is the equivalent of $60, so it’s a +EV move. I had to make some changes to the autoplay strategy (check the ECD forum for details) to make it play perfectly, and then just set it to autoplay enough hands to clear the requirement. The variance worked out in my favor, and I made $75 doing it, too. I busted out my bonus money, but overall it was a good first experience at a regular online casino. I’m not against signing up for more, but will only do it when its +EV, so there needs to be a bonus or promotion that makes it worth signing up.
I got my complete set of chips through ECD and PSO now. I don’t know what I’m going to spend the rest of my points on, but I’ll figure it out. Those cards in there weren’t the ones that I got with the set; those are my Binion’s Horseshoe Kems I got in Vegas.
I’ve recently signed up at PokerNow (a Party skin) through ECD for their rakeback program. I’ve been wanting to get back to Party for all the bad players, but didn’t want to play anywhere that I wasn’t getting anything else back in return, since I’ve started doing all the comps at ECD and PSO. So I signed up, and started playing with the fish. I just about broke even while clearing my $100 deposit bonus, and then had an awful, awful run of cards, and some pretty bad play because of it. I lost about $360 playing 1/2 6max for three days or so. The deposit bonus helped soften that a bit, as does the rakeback, but it still stings. I’m not at all claiming I played perfectly and it was all the cards’ fault, but let me give you an idea of how bad of a run this was. At 6 handed tables, over the course of three days play, AA has held up 53% of the time, AKo 37%, AKs 23%. Shorthanded (hell, even full ring, probably) those numbers should be much higher. KK has done well, but other big pairs have awful percentages for this stretch. To make it worse, almost all of my AA that lost got rivered and I was pushing them hard when they were good, so I lost that much more with them. The awful run and terrible players that beat me put me on tilt a little bit, and my play worsened because of it, so I lost more money. I decided to take a break from the ring games for a few days, and try out the SNGs.
That turned out to be a good idea. I played 23 $10+1 SNGs, and had 4 firsts, 4 seconds, and 4 thirds, for a 58% ROI (I love PokerTracker), or $145 profit. I don’t know how I feel about Party’s SNG structure, but while it seems like it’d be too fast (start with 800 chips, and blinds go up every ten hands, I think), it’s manageable. They do turn into all-in fests towards the end, but even then, it seems to work out pretty well. Even if I don’t like the structure, if I can make money at them, I’ve gotta play them. I don’t particularly like their multitable SNGs, even though the blinds are timed instead of by handcount, because the payouts aren’t high enough for the amount of time it takes. I’d rather just play the single table ones, I think.
During one of the SNGs, I was pretty shortstacked with four players left.
Party Poker No-Limit Hold’em Tourney, Big Blind is t400 (4 handed) converter
Button (t2000)
penner4242 (t495)
BB (t2425)
UTG (t3080)
Preflop: penner4242 is SB with 7♥, 2♣.
2 folds, penner4242 raises t95 to t495, BB calls t95.
Flop: (t990) J♣, 9♣, T♦ (2 players)
Turn: (t990) 2♥ (2 players)
River: (t990) 2♦ (2 players)
Final Pot: t990
Results below:
penner4242 has 7h 2c (three of a kind, twos).
BB has Ah 8d (one pair, twos).
Outcome: penner4242 wins t990.
I pushed in from the small blind because I was already in for almost half my stack, and doubling up T295 later wouldn’t really do much for me, anyway. Plus, I’d need to do it in the next few hands. I didn’t really have much choice. The only reason I wasn’t all in on my big blind with any random hand was there was another player all in before me, so folding could have gotten me to the money (I didn’t have a good hand – if I did, I would have called). So I doubed through to T990, doubled up again two hands later with the Hilton Sisters, and then fourth place busted a few hands after that. Had I only doubled through once with QQ, I wouldn’t have survived. I owe my placing in that tourney to the Hammer.
After a few days of the SNGs, I decided to try the ring game again, and have recovered $72 of the losses there, so far, in under an hour of three tabling the 1/2 6 max (2.43 table hours). Hopefully, the cards won’t turn as bad as they were before anytime soon.
Oh, by the way, in case you couldn’t tell: I love PokerTracker. ๐
Well, it looks like the Mets actually managed to pull of (another) big free agent signing. Carlos Beltran is as good as signed. Combined with Pedro, the Mets might actually have a shot at not finishing in the cellar this year, and maybe even finishing with a winning record. Beltran is certainly a step in the right direction, but I’m still far from convinced the Mets will really be competitive. I do like the rotation, even without Leiter, but it could be better. I don’t know what’s happening at first base, but the rest of the infield should be solid (if they can stay healthy, which I doubt.) The outfield could use another big bat, but I guess it’ll have to do. Middle relief needs some serious work, but it’s possible something will get done about that.
I don’t think 2005 is the year anyone unseats the Braves, unfortunately. I’d be very happy with the wildcard, though. ๐
Hopefully, Omar Minaya is here (well, there… why did I move out to California again?) to stay.
I went up to the singles tournament at Ocean Lanes in Lompoc again last night. It’s a handicap tournament, where you bowl four games and get to drop the lowest one. I went in with a 173 average, and shot a 247, 214, 188, 189. With the lowest dropped, that’s a 650 scratch series, and with my handicap, 776. That was good enough for fifth place, or $32. I also won the first game sidepot, worth $34, and four outta my five brackets for $60. Overall, $91 profit ($20 tournament entry+sidepots, $15 brackets). I really shoulda been able to do better my last two games and move up a couple of spots in the tournament, but overall I’m pretty happy with how I did, and amazed that those last two games held up for my brackets.
Somehow, I managed to avoid the urge to go to Chumash and play some poker afterwards. Instead, I just drove straight home, in the downpour. It’s pretty crazy driving in as much rain as was coming down last night. The PCH (Pacific Coast Highway, CA-1) was closed, so I had to take a slightly (10 or 15 miles) out of the way route to get there and back. On the way back, while I was driving along in the left lane, I passed a huge boulder just sitting out there in the road in the right lane. Apparently, there had been a mudslide or rockslide, probably similar to what closed highway 101 a few weeks ago (Search that page for 101). In fact, I passed it in pretty much the exact same spot that happened, just north of the Gaviota tunnel.
It’s still raining today, though not nearly as hard. Makes it really annoying for me to do my laundry in another building. Unfortunately, the constant three weeks of rain has led a a big pileup of dirty clothes, and it needs to get done. Damn laundry.
It’s been quite a while since I played a multitable tournament, so I figured I’d do that tonight instead of my usual three tabling the 1/2 games somewhere. It was mostly because I don’t have any pending bonuses anywhere right now. I figured I’d play for an hour or so, get knocked out, and stop. I kinda wish I was right, because playing for 4 hours, beating out 595 players, and only coming in 6th for $84 was a bit disappointing. Still, $84 on $5.50 isn’t bad. I don’t really have much in the way of interesting hands to talk about, except the first two hands of the tournament.
The very first hand, I get dealt A4o in the big blind. UTG raises the minimum, a few people call, as do I. The flop is a wonderful 235. I don’t remember exactly how the rest of the hand played out, but I took down a pretty decent pot on it. Next hand, I get dealt KK in the small blind. There’s a raise and a call before me, so I reraise. The original raiser goes all in (on the second hand of the tournament – no rebuys), and I call. He turns over KJ. The flop is a scary AQx, but no ten hits the board, and I end up with around 5000 chips on my starting 1500 after two hands.
I would stay at around 5000 for the next two and half hours or so, before finally getting some hands and building my stack up. I made the final table in third place with $149k, but just couldn’t hit a flop with my AK and AQ, and had to fold JJ to a bad board. I lost most of my chips when I had 88 somewhat shortstacked and it ran into QQ. Very next hand, my A3 ran into AQ, and I was out in 6th. Not bad for my first tournament in months, though.
I just finished playing the hands required to get my 6000 points (use promo code PSO) at Poker Source Online at Bodog Poker. It was pretty quick, three tabling the 1/2 game. Not quite as quick as it could’ve been, since they don’t have 6 handed tables, only full ring, but quick enough. I only signed up Monday night. ๐
When I started, I deposited $100 in there, and quickly lost $50 of it Monday. Tuesday, I put in $200 more so I’d have enough to play three tables at once, and now I’m up $140 overall there. It took a while getting used to ten handed tables again, but they were plenty profitable once I did. I like the interface, and although they have some network problems that cause slowdowns at times, I have a feeling I’ll probably be playing there more in the future. They have an unlimited 10% deposit bonus, too, apparently. I got my initial $10 bonus, but haven’t seen the next $20 one yet, though.
Anyway, PSO is pretty similar to ECD as far as how the signups and playing out the requirements work. You sign up at the site, sign up at the poker site through their link, deposit $100, and play the required hands. Not much to it. 6000 PSO points (use promo is roughly equivalent to 600 ECD points, or $60 (or 300 chips). Remember to tell them that metsfan sent you. ๐
If you have a hard drive that you know is going to die, don’t wait until your day off to back it up and replace it.
It will die the day before.
Or maybe that’s just me.
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