I bought this shirt

You should buy one too!
You know you want to.
Cause they're kewl.

Welcome to Oklahoma, Land of Intolerance

Yesterday started out so nicely. I took the morning off from work so I could finish some articles that I promised to have done LAST MONDAY. They were coming along smoothly and effectively. They really are more propaganda than literature, but hey, that's what they are paying for. I got two-thirds of the way through what I needed when I got beeped on my nextel from my customer. Turns out all hell is breaking loose at work, so I need to head in immediately. It's noon and I still haven't eaten yet, so I'm desperate for some food. I drive by a BK, and bang, they've closed down the joint. I go another block to McD and there's a line around the fricking block. I don't have that kind of time, so I head to the office.

My coworkers are droning around in their usual zombie-like state. "Do you guys realize the network is down?" I ask. "Somebody's working on it," they reply. Great. Why am I the only one who has the customer ripping into me like a monkey on a cupcake? So after "somebody" gets nowhere, I dive in, basically cracking the whip on those who are supposed to care and don't. And after seven hours of troubleshooting, the problem is essentially solved. All except for the system of one guy who has turned off every phone he owns because he doesn't want to get called on his Birthday. Selfish prick.

I've got the low blood sugar shakes at this point, so I stop in a regional fast food chain to get a burger. The guy waiting for his food before me has his back to the wall, so I don't see his shirt until he takes his seat in a nearby booth facing away from me. His shirt PUBLICLY RIDICULES my beliefs. What a fucking shithead. To actually BUY A SHIRT that ridicules what someone believes. He is so fucking insecure in his faith that he has to declare anyone that believes differently a "fool." If he's so FUCKING SURE he's right about his religion, then WHY THE FUCK is it called "faith?"

I'm not positive about this, but I'm pretty sure if I wore a T-shirt that ridiculed his faith, I'd be shot by one of these fundamentalist motherfuckers with a deer rifle.

When I left the restaurant, thoroughly pissed off, he looked at me through the window and I shot him the bird. I'm sure he had no idea why. Stupid self-righteous fuck.

The only thing I am intolerant about is intolerance. I am an absolute moral relativist. The only people I think are immoral are moralizers. Fuck them. Their shit is just as fucked up as everyone else's, they just think something or someone gives them the right to tell everyone else they're fucked up.

Especially those religious fuckers. That's why the world loves it when Jimmy Swaggert gets busted with another hooker, and Jim Bakker gets exposed as a total scumbag. Because DEEP DOWN we KNOW they are fuckers, and it's nice to be proven right once in a while.

Poker Comic #18

Go Be Rude Grows Some More

Email received:

Your site has been added to our new *quality* poker links page, which can be found at www.Gutshot.co.uk/poker-links. We would be grateful if you could you reciprocate this, and link back to www.Gutshot.co.uk.

I like Gutshot a lot. I must have looked at their site 20 times a day last year to get their coverage of the WSOP. It was the only site that had hourly updates on the progress, and really candid stuff. It was fricking great.

I will check out their site for any cool graphics or banners and probably put it up. I'm pretty much a whore for anything including compliments.

Whoring Bodog

I decided to start a Poker Source Online promotion at Bodog Poker last night. It's a pretty good deal. Deposit a minimum of $50, get a 20% deposit bonus and earn 150 Bodog Points and you get $60 worth of credit in PSO points, good for chipsets, books, DVDs, poker tables or gift cards. The only catch in this deal is that you have to contribute to the pot to get a Bodog Point, and how much the pot is raked determines how much of a point you get.

I started out playing 6 max $1/$2 Limit Hold Em. I was killing that table and was up about 12 BBs when the table broke up. The only other table going was a full ring, so I jumped in there and proceded to lose my profit and another 11 BBs. I just could not hit any of my draws, and I was probably playing looser than normal because of the bonus requirements. It also could have been the semi-aggressiveness from the 6 max game putting me on a bit of tilt. At the same time I played three $10+1 SNGs. I took third in two of them for a $7 profit, plus 6 Bodog Points for each one. Both third place finishes were horrendous beats. My A9 lost to K9 and my 88 lost to A8 when he caught the wheel on the river. The other was a 4th place finish. Then I went to 5 card stud. Bad idea. I dropped $15 and only earned about 5 points before running for my life. I made a few bucks back playing Omaha Hi/Lo with some absolute donkeys. The tendency for Omaha HL players to see a flop with any four cards really helps when you need the pot to get raked at least a dollar.

I made 100+ points in one evening, which isn't too bad. I deposited $400 so I got a deposit bonus of $80 so I am still ahead, once I collet 240 Bodog Points. The $10 SNGs are very juicy, and I enjoyed them the most of any game I played there. I could pull a Poker Nerd and play 3 at a time SNGs until I get enough points, but I only need 9 SNGs to finish the promo, but 24 to finish the bonus. Maybe a combination of SNGs and Omaha HL will do the trick.

The PSO points should give me enough for an Ipod Mini, which I want to use while playing at the T-Bird. I think I'm going to go with a Rio Carbon via Amazon Gift Card instead though. I just hate how "hip" the Ipods are.

Nice Turn

This one started good and got better:

#Game No : 1952291372
***** Hand History for Game 1952291372 *****
NL Hold'em Trny:11634406 Level:2 Blinds (10/20) - Monday, April 25, 20:26:42 EDT 2005
Table $100 Freeroll(313139) Table #2 (Real Money)
Seat 10 is the button
Total number of players : 10
Seat 1: GiantHammer ( $960 )
Seat 3: RobNovice ( $1110 )
Seat 4: Walli_man ( $4770 )
Seat 5: ALICE496 ( $1445 )
Seat 6: DuggleBogey ( $2455 )
Seat 7: random1182 ( $920 )
Seat 8: AMB74241 ( $945 )
Seat 9: MEMPHISTRUE ( $890 )
Seat 2: PATRI961 ( $840 )
Seat 10: MALIZIA ( $770 )
Trny:11634406 Level:2
Blinds (10/20)
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to DuggleBogey [ Jd Qd ]
RobNovice calls [20].
Walli_man calls [20].
ALICE496 folds.
DuggleBogey calls [20].
random1182 folds.
AMB74241 folds.
MEMPHISTRUE folds.
MALIZIA folds.
GiantHammer raises [75].
PATRI961 folds.
RobNovice calls [65].
Walli_man calls [65].
DuggleBogey calls [65].
** Dealing Flop ** [ Td, 2d, Kd ]
GiantHammer bets [30].
RobNovice calls [30].
Walli_man folds.
DuggleBogey calls [30].
** Dealing Turn ** [ Ad ]
GiantHammer bets [45].
RobNovice folds.
DuggleBogey calls [45].
** Dealing River ** [ Jc ]
GiantHammer bets [60].
DuggleBogey raises [300].
GiantHammer folds.
DuggleBogey shows [ Jd, Qd ] Royal Flush.
DuggleBogey wins 900 chips from the main pot with Royal Flush.

Missed it!

Well I'm an idiot. I missed Maudie at the T-Bird on Friday night. When the friend I brought busted out and mysterously disappeared, I got up and wandered around the tables looking for someone that matched her description. What I didn't do was check the table that my friend was actually sitting at, because she was there! I knew it when she described him as "BIG GUY." My friend is HUGE. He's a former boxer and weighs in at 420 lbs. I was praying there would be a fight, because I always want there to be a fight when I have a man-mountain covering my back.

The game at the T-Bird was good. Almost all newbies and you could read everyone all the time. If you raise them, they shrink. They still call, but you could buy the bet every time. If you get re-raised, RUN! I easily took control of the table when I wanted it, and still got people to lead out when I wanted them to. And of course, plenty of people calling with absurd hands. Counterfeited pairs, straights with 4 flush cards on the board. You know. Donkey Poker.

The thing about donkey poker is that it can really frustrate better players. Especially NL and tourney players. You CANNOT just play super-tight at these games. You end up leaking money from calling with decent hands that don't hit and paying the blinds. You have to speculate a lot and put players to the test with sub-optimal hands. If one of the donkeys catches his miracles, you're screwed. I think that's what happened to the BIG GUY. The donkeys were catching, and he was going down in flames.

If you can adjust your game to donkey poker, there's a lot of money to be made there. You can just sit and count the extra bets that players are pissing away. "That was a dumb call. That was a dumb call. That was a dumb call," goes over and over in your head. They wear their tells like cheap OU shirts. They give away the strength of their hand with every grunt groan or mutter under their breath.

I'm sure there are sharks there. I'm sure Maudie, if she hasn't already, will adjust to the donkeys and start hauling money out of that place. So the most important skill you can have at these live tables is to figure out who the good players are. At the table I occupied for 3.5 hours and $157, there were none to find.

OK poker

I am going to give Oklahoma Poker a try tonight. I'll be headed to the Thunderbird Wild Wild West Casino around 4 or 5:00 this evening.

Maybe Maudie will be there! I'll be wearing a red golf shirt and tan jeans, using a gold "Bad Beat" card protector. Say hi to Duggle if you see me!

Two on One

I played another Sit N Go at Absolute Poker yesterday. These things seem almost foolproof. I haven't finished worse than fourth, EVER. Yesterday's was an adventure, however.

I did my standard fold fold fold after just stealing the blinds and a limp when I raised with QQ pre-flop. The routine idiots busted out early, and we stayed at six players for a long long time. Eventually I got down but doubled back to the starting amount, and eventually we were down to three. I hadn't been paying a lot of attention, so I didn't realize until I got the hand history that these two players never once played against each other. Even when they were both blinds, the blinds would be folded. So it was actually the two of them against me. One was a very small stack, but since he never had to pay his big blind and always got the small blind from the big stack, he was never in any jeopardy.

I finally got all in with my AT vs the small stack's A3, who had overtaken me without winning a single showdown. I got a Ten on the turn, but Four hearts came and he had the Ace of hearts so I was gone. Then the small stack went all in with garbage cards and the big stack called with slightly better garbage and the game was over. One hand after playing as tight as humanly possible.

On Absolute they don't kick you out of the room when the tourney is over, you can sit down again and join the next tourney starting at the same table. Both of them sat right down again. I asked them if they knew each other, and they didn't respond. When I said "I'm submitting this history to be reviewed for collusion," they both disappeared. They didn't go to another tourney either, I did a search for them. I wonder if Absolute support will do anything with the hand history I sent them?

$500 Deposit Bonus

Well, Poker Source Online jumped the MayDay gun and opened the Noble Poker deal today.

100% Match Bonus up to $500.

You put in $500, you get $500 in bonus money to work off $10 at a time. You have 60 days (TWO MONTHS!) to work off this bonus. You get $10 for every 125 crowns you earn. For every raked hand at $.25/$.50 you get one crown. For $.50/$1.00 you get two crowns, for $1/$2 and up you get three crowns. So that's 2084 hands to make $500.

There are conflicting reports but it looks like any hand you receive cards in that gets raked counts as a raked hand. Some are saying that you have to contribute to the pot, but one person I trust who has started this already is saying that he is getting crowns for every hand, if he contributes to the rake or not.

To do this deal you have to be a member at Poker Source Online and go through their process to sign up at Noble Poker. DO NOT GO DIRECTLY TO NOBLE and try to get this bonus. Their standard bonus is $300 for $300. If you go through Poker Source Online please use the links on this page or put "dugglebogey" in as your referral. When I get paid for your referral I will paypal you half of what I get if you let me know in comments.

Insanity

Things are completely insane at work as we are upgrading servers and trying to get our old ass applications to upgrade to the newest and lamest versions. It sucks ass and it is taking all my time at work, which is when I usually blog. Sucks for me, sucks for you.

The Kansas City trip was great as usual. I lost at everything except poker, which begs the question, why play anything except poker? Not so for King Lucky, who WON at everything except poker and Wild Aruba Stud. I frigging hate that Wild Aruba Stud game. The goddamn dealer never qualifies when you have a decent hand. KL hit it big on a slot machine and turned it into a mountain at craps. Then he put the snowcap on the mountain at video poker. If there is such a thing as a video poker shark. He's the guy. Way to turn $.50 into nearly $2000.

There are some HUGE things happening over at Poker Source Online in May. A bunch of new promotions, including the possiblity of a 100% match up to $500 at a new site. Check there or back here on Mayday for more details.


Felicia IM'd me last night to tell me she's still alive. Unfortunately I wasn't online to catch her, but it's good to see she is actually in good enough spirits to risk another conversation with me. That HAS to be a good sign!

Ides...continued

I see that part of Iggy's uber post of the day is about taxes and I want to be sure he doesn't think I'm talking about his post here. He actually gives one of the reasons for NOT evading what taxes you can, the fact that you might get anally raped in an audit.

No, I'm referring to the self-righteous 2+2ers out there, one of which he quoted in his blog who is the perfect example

People properly avoiding taxes and using a place like Antigua to do it usually deal in the millions of dollars and have better structures set up than this. Even if they're caught, they have plenty of legal outs. You have none, no excuse except greediness.

Wanting to keep the money you earned is "greedy?"

The GOVERNMENT are the greedy motherfuckers here. It's not like they are going to use the money for anything USEFUL. They are going to piss it away on some shit pork barrel project that is really just a kickback to someone in their district or fucking FAMILY.

Paying your taxes doesn't make you a GOOD PERSON. It makes you a FUCKING SAP. If you have a surefire way of avoiding them, you're a DUMBASS if you don't. I wish I did.

P.S. Martha Stewart got FUCKED. And she will come out smelling like a rose anyway.

The Ides of April

Tax day seems to be a day of moralizing by poker players.

One of the great things about poker and the poker community is the "outlaw image" associated with it. Players tend not to get very self-righteous about moral issues, since the game they are dealing with it has some connection to illegality in most places, especially Internet poker players.

But then bring up the subject of paying taxes on your poker winnings, and suddenly all these lowlife alcoholic scumbags get all ethical about how you should stop being greedy and "do your duty" by paying your taxes.

Bullshit. Keep your fucking selective morals to yourself.

There is ONE and ONLY ONE reason to pay your taxes. TO KEEP FROM GETTING YOUR ASS THROWN IN JAIL. Or to keep the mafia Government from forcibly taking more from you at a later date.

Voluntarily giving your money to the government is like giving a bottle of liquor to a homeless person based on his promise to sell it and buy a meal. It's not going to happen, and you must be FUCKING HIGH to believe it will. The governemnt is an addict, and YOU are the enabler. It's a codependant relationships, and you are as much to blame as the government is.

I don't like to get policital in this blog, but reading all these fucking assholes who would check raise their grandmother to get another big bet out of her moralize about how people who want to avoid paying taxes are "greedy" makes me ill.

Poker Comic #17

Thunderbird....it's not just for drinking

Maudie tells me that Central Oklahoma finally has an operating Poker Room at the Thuderbird Wild Wild West Casino. That's a mouthful, and every time you type it, Microsoft Word hates you for using a repeated word. I'll have to talk to Richard Brodie about it. Anyway, Maudie wants to go on Friday but I am headed to Kansas City so I'll try to put her off by a week.

I went to Thunderbird once in June of 2003. I just got my job in OKC and was living in Corporate Housing and wanted to check out the local "action." Or lack thereof. All they had at the time was slot machines, bingo and OTB. I did win $100 in a slot machine in the 10 minutes I was there, but never expected to go back. They had blackjack tables set up, but there were signs on them that said they were shut down by some state organization and that I should write my congressman about it.

Now their web page says they are offering both BJ and Poker. Hold Em, Stud and Omaha. But that's it for the details on the web site. No idea on what limits they spread, what the rake structure is like or anything. It does say they take a $.50 commission from every $50 bet in Blackjack, so I fear for the rake structure. You never know though, they might be okay. There's a phone number to call for details, so I may call today and get the 411. [/ebonics]

WSOP

I found out yesterday if I can get myself to Vegas on June 22nd, I can get half my entry into the $1,500 NLHE event in the WSOP paid for. So I can play for $750. Not a bad deal. I was planning on being in Vegas from June 16-20, so I would have to alter those plans to make it. Maybe if I crank up the serious sit n goes on Party Poker, I can afford it.

Speaking of Sit N Goes...

I played in the oddest sit n go yesterday on Party. I didn't play a hand outside the blinds for the first 4 rounds. That's pretty much 40 straight folds. But when I shifted gears and started going all-in with any face card, my opponents had no idea what to do. Usually they folded to the unexpected aggression, because I was not low enough for desperation and picked opponents that my stack could still hurt.

I think this is the ideal way to play sit n goes, especially if you are cold decked for the whole thing. The maniacs who call anything have been long since knocked out, and the players left might have an idea about fold equity.

I took second when the chip leader had a 500 chip lead on me and my KK got cracked by his AT. Had the kings held up I would have had a 7500 to 500 chip adavantage, having seen less than 4 showdowns in the entire game.

Snoooooch

Not much action yesterday. I was playing $1/$2 at Absolute yesterday, which was totally retarded because I'm not working on a bonus there, and anyone playing at Absolute that isn't working on a bonus is a CHUMP.

But, I was waiting for someone to IM me back, which he didn't do until a couple of hours after I left.....quite frustrating.

I was getting destroyed on the river with every big pair I held. Some idiot would bluff the whole way with ace high and catch the wheel on fifth street. It was very ugly. What sucks about limit poker is it is hard to make up for a lot of losses in one hand...unless...

That's right, about 7 people came along with my Jack-Nine of diamonds. The flop held a Queen of diamonds and the Eight of diamonds. Turn was the nine of hearts and I was betting out, hoping one of my zillion outs would come. The beautiful blue TEN came on the river (four-color deck is an addiction) and suddenly I was ahead for the day. I guess someone had a suited ace of diamonds because they took me to the cap, and another person came along for the ride. A 28 BB pot.

I requested the history from Absolute, but it never came. I wish I had gotten a screenshot. I haven't had a straight flush get paid off outside of Omaha in a LONG ass time.

Fuck Me Running

I arrived at work today to a fucking disaster. My company has finally blocked access to PokerSourceOnline and their forum through the firewall.

If anyone out there knows any way to penetrate a corporate firewall, I'm all ears. I'm a geek, but not that much of a geek. I haven't started searching the net yet...I guess it depends on how desperate I get.

Update: I can read the forums through a web proxy, but I can't post. I will try to set up an HTTP host from my home computer tonight and try to use it tomorrow. Isn't the Internet wonderful for education on illegal information?

The worst part about learning as a poker player is that you know how you screwed up. I played in an Absolute tournament yesterday and while I'm not good enough to keep from making mistakes, I'm good enough to realize after that fact what a huge blunder I made. I guess it's part of the process, but I really beat myself up about it. It's way too easy to say "I know this is the wrong move, but I am going to do it anyway, because these guys are such idiots I can get away with it."

Yesterday's Absolute tournament was a joke. I am going to save the hand history, because I swear to God every STUPID NEWBIE mistake was made at my table. I could write a book called "The Top 100 STUPID Mistakes new poker players make" based on the play of a couple of complete idiots at the table. One of them named "Mouser" pissed away his chips with one HUGE mistake after the other. The other made almost the same mistakes but built up a huge stack with suckouts and poor play by his opponents.

Here's an example: I make the nut flush on the turn in the BB and slow play to the river. The pot is already HUGE and I'm pretty confident the better who has been throwing T250 into the pot on every street is going to continue his dumb bets on the river so I check. But he CHECKS! But I get lucky and this aformentioned "Mouser" is in position and min bets...T20 into a pot over T1000, and reopens the betting for me. This is such a monstrously dumb move. Is it a bluff? T20 into a pot of a thousand won't even bluff jack high out of the hand. Did he really have a hand? If so it had to be worth more than T20, didn't it? I cannot even fathom what motivated this bet, other than sheer stupidity.

The cover of the movie "The Sting" (Best Picture, 1973)has a picture of Paul Newman lighting a cigar with paper money. I'd say Paul got more value for his money than this guy.

Poker Comic #16

AP Contest

About a week ago I got an email from Absolute Poker telling me about all the tournaments they run, and deposit bonuses available. Kind of a weekly newsletter. Part of the email told about a contest of sorts they were running. Submit "the funniest thing you ever heard at a poker table" to a certain email address, and if it is selected you win a prize.

I submitted the joke from the very first Poker Comic, but I didn't like my chances because I got an automated reply that said "We're sorry for your problems, a support person will review your case and get back to you as soon as possible."

But lo and behold, in the next week's email, I read this:

Congratulations to the following winners of the DVD promotion. Your DVD has been shipped!
• JwlD1
• Scotsman65
• DuggleBogey
• Ciaobby
• Mongoose

Based on a true story, High Roller is a hard-edged drama about legendary card prodigy Stu Ungar, one of the youngest players ever to win Las Vegas’ World Series of Poker. Stu (Emmy Award-winner Michael Imperioli of The Sopranos) had a meteoric rise through the back-room card parlors of New York City to the glamorous casinos of Las Vegas. A life of promise was quickly wasted as his greed and obsession paved the way to a stunning downward spiral into drugs, womanizing and high-stakes gambling.

I haven't heard very much positive about the movie, but I think that's just from disappointed poker junkies who wanted a hand by hand portrayal of his life. I really appreciate films like "Wonderland" and other films about people who acheived some fame but self destructed in a blaze of glory. Anyway, I was going to rent it from Netflix, but now it's free!

Man I love free shit.

Apparently, 74o makes you a homosexual

I was playing in a SitnGo at Absolute yesterday when I learned I was a homosexual. While I previously thought that having sex with your same gender made you a homosexual, apparently sucking out on someone with 74o also qualifies you for this distinction that our society values SO much.

We're down to three. I'm in the small blind with 74o and the dealer folds. I call, and the BB checks. The flop is 872, and I wish for a moment that I was holding the hammer. I wish even more when I check and the BB puts me all in. I thought for a moment, not long enough apparently, and called, figuring him for a bluff. I was dead wrong, as he flipped T8 for the top pair. A four on the river and I am chip leader while he is crippled.

I say "Sorry, that was gross," and he replies with "fag."

My fear is that he knows whereof he speaks, after all HE has a picture of TOM CRUISE as his avatar. What is more homosexual than that? I'm going to hate to break this news to my wife. She will be heartbroken, if not ASTOUNDED.

Crunch Time

I'm playing in an MTT with more than 900 of my closest friends. Pays at 70. There are 72 people left in the tournament. I have T4800 and I'm in the small blind with A5o. It's folded around to me and the Big Blind, who has T7600 and is already in for T600.

I complete, tossing another T300 into the pot. King Lucky says "Slow down, even if you lose this hand, if you take enough time two people will go out and you will make the money."

The big blind pops it, but only for another T600. I call. "Take more time," King Lucky says.

Flop comes 467, two spades. I check, hoping for a freebie to complete my straight. BB will have none of it, and bets T1200. I look at the pot, figuring I need at least T3600 in the pot to call it. My T1200 would make it T4800, I call.

Turn is an offsuit 3. My joker. I check. I figure if he really has that flush draw, he will pop it again, continuing the semi-bluff. Then I can come over the top and put him to a decision. To my suprise, he checks.

River is the 9 of spades. I bet T1200, he goes all in over the top.

What do I do? There are still two places to the money. Cashing isn't the biggest deal in the world, but it is three times my buy-in amount. If I fold, I will make the money, but I won't make it any farther without a miracle comeback.

More importantly, do I trust my read? I was sure the guy would pop the turn if he had a flush draw, but now he is representing one. Or the guy could have 85 and have slow played the turn. But I seriously doubt he would have doubled the big blind pre-flop with 85. A bluff would have been more than T600.

I trust my read, and he shows an offsuit KQ. "You'll make the money now," says King Lucky.

I ended up in 33rd place after calling off most of my chips with an OESD after 5 people limped on my big blind. Odds were easily there. I missed the straight but hit top pair, losing to a pocket pair of nines. I did get six times my buy in, so I wasn't unhappy with the outcome.

Random hammer victims

This was randomly posted at the PSO forums, and I had to laugh.

Hey, to everyone who's sick from a bad beat...remember that in Hold 'Em, ANY TWO CARDS CAN WIN!!!!!!!! AA isn't worth the cards they're printed on if the board comes 7772 and someone cold-called your raises with 72o. Get used to it, get over it, and move on.
rhys

Gotta love it.

Who did it? Fess up!

Quality writing is a gift that shouldn't be taken for granted

I really appreciate bloggers, more than ever. Why? Because most of them can WRITE. Ugh.

I am currently employed as a computer progammer specializing in Factory Automation software. Slow manufacturing is my genre. But it wasn't always so.

When I was young and deluded, I wanted to be a journalist. Even before college I wanted to be in newspapers. I begged a job as a sports photographer at a local newspaper in my hometown when I was still in high school. When I went to college the first time, I learned something about how to write, and when I quit, I became a "journalist." Specifically a sports journalist. I prided myself on being able to photograph and write about a sports event.

When I got turned down for a staff position on that newspaper because of a lack of a certain piece of paper, I decided I should get my degree. My first year of classes for my communications degree told me that I would learn nothing practical from the school of communications. It was truly pointless.

So I went a different direction, towards something that was far more interesting and more challenging. I got my degree in Philosophy. Believe it or not, there's not a lot of call for Philosophers these days. The school I attended actively encouraged Philosophy students to double major in something slightly more....marketable. I noticed that a lot of logic classes could be used for math in computer science classes.

I had been interested in computer programming as a hobby, but never thought I had the patience to actually earn a degree in computer science. The obvious compromise; I got my double major in Philosopy and Management Information Science. And what did I do with these expensive skills of Philosophizing and Computerizing? I got a job working at a newspaper, of course.

Full time sportswriter, this time. I worked my way up from a small weekly to a small daily newspaper. It's a crazy world. You work basically 16-18 hour days, and get paid almost nothing. You bust your ass to fill a daily piece of fish wrap with decent content, and get to watch the ad salespeople get rich off your labor. It's not exacly hard work, because basically all you do is go around and talk to people or call them on the phone, then write something about it. But it is awfully time consuming. And awfully NOT rewarding. I don't believe I ever actually earned above minimum wage if you counted my actual hours versus what I got paid. Newspaper publishers are very creative in getting around labor laws and overtime pay. I was ALWAYS broke.

Here's an extreme example of a pretty often occuring day at my old newspaper job. I would get up at 4am on a Friday morning and develop film for the morning paper. I would select pictures based on the editors requirements print them, then go out and finish my story for the Friday afternoon edition. Deadline was 10am. Then I would make some phone calls and arrange my stringers for the Friday night football games. There were 12 games to cover, so I would go to one featured game and send 11 "stringers" out to the other games to take pictures and take notes. By 5pm I was on the road to some podunk town to try and locate the high school. Game time was 7pm, and I would take pictures and notes of the game. After assaulting the coaches post game with questions, I would rush back to the newspaper and write my game story. While that was going on my stringers would wander in around 10pm with their film and notes. I would call the coaches from those games at home and write a game story for all 11 games, based on the notes from my stringers. Then I would do the layout for the sports section after developing the film from the stringers and my own game. Eight to ten pages of photos, copy and ads. Done by a deadline of 2am.

For all this, I got paid about $60 a day. Before taxes. If that. It might have been less. Fortunately I escaped this world of low level pointlessness and servitude for the greener pastures of more pointlessness and servitude in the IT world.

Anyway, all this is to show that I used to be a writer (among many other things) for a living, and that I used to write stuff based on the notes/writings of others.

Flash to present day. PokerSourceOnline is having a contest of sorts where readers can submit articles to be published on the site. If your article gets published, you get a free 300 piece poker chip set. (If anyone reading is interested, go to PSO and submit some ideas for articles.) I volunteered to edit the articles, because of my background in writing and editing. I am sort of the unofficial staff writer for PSO. If they need something written for the website, they call me first. I have somewhat of a stake in the quality of the articles, since I have written a lot of the stuff on the site. I don't want to see a lot of CRAP published next to mine, making mine look bad.

I have gotten more than a dozen submissions so far, and most of them have been HORRIBLE. The ideas are okay, and some of them are even trying to get good ideas through, but they cannot penetrate the inability to convey a decent idea through words and phrases. They are submitted via Microsoft Word, so the spelling has been adequate, but the writing is just HORRENDOUS. Every other sentence is a cliche, every lead is buried, and the use of punctuation is ridiculous. WHEN YOU GET TO THE ELEVENTH COMMA IN A SENTENCE, IT MAY BE TIME FOR A PERIOD.

I read your blogs, and I see the ability to form cogent sentences. Thoughts are expressed and ideas are transferred. It's a beautiful thing. I think we all take for granted the amount of good writing that is out there.

Card Protectors

I decided to start collecting card protectors a while ago, and placed an order for some from places I found on the Internet. I had some money in my PayPal account from referrals at PokerSourceOnline, so I figured this was the best way to blow it on useless poker crap.



The picture is of the three most recent additions to the collection. I put a quarter on there so you could get a better idea of the size of these things.

The first one says "All-In" on the front and "Bite Me" on the back. People usually laugh when they see it, so it's worth it for a giggle. I got it from www.holdemmarkers.com for $9 plus shipping.

The middle one came from www.PokerCoin.com and says "I'm not bluffing, read em and weep" on it. The back is completely blank, which is kind of disappointing. It was $18.95. I also got a Hold Em keychain there that costs $10.95. The keychain is much cooler than the card protector, and all you would have to do is remove the chain to use it as a card protector.

The third one is the nicest one. I got it on the Poker Cruise in December for $15 from a player there who was selling them. There were all kinds of varieties, but I liked the "Bad Beat" one the best. I also got one that had "Ladies" on it for King Lucky, since his worst beats always seem to come with queens. It came in a hard plastic case but I like it better outside of the case. Anyone who wants one can find them easily on Ebay or by doing a google search.

For you online only players, Card Protectors are especially important when you play in a casino and you sit in the one or ten seat. If you don't protect your cards by putting something on them, the dealer can accidentally take them, or another player could accidentally think your cards are the muck pile and send his cards into yours. Once your cards touch other muck cards, your hand, if not protected, is dead. Even if you had AA, and even though it's not your fault.

Other than that they are just for fun, they start converstations at a poker table.