Busy Day....blah

Crazy day at work....everyone's computer seems to need attention. I don't even do PC support, but suddenly I'm everybody's computer bitch.....ugh.

I might be cranky because I didn't get enough sleep last night. I played the Intertops Freeroll from 7pm to 11:30, only to go all in with A9 vs slow played AA. I got third place out of 330 or so, which is a fair accomplishment. I think I have cemented my reputation as a nut peddler there. At one point when the blinds were 1000/2000 I made a horrid call with AT vs AQ and got knocked down to 11000. From there I proceeded to quadruple up without showing down a single hand. I actually got back into second place out of the last four after being essentially out of it. I had been playing so incredibly tight that when I shifted gears, nobody could adjust. One time I went all in on my BB for another 9K after the entire table limped for 2K and some of them had stacks nearing 150K, and everyone folded. I had T6o. KingLucky was observing and laughed at that.

Normally online, especially in freerolls, if you are trying to establish a certain table image, you are just wasting your time. But at the final table with a group of people that might be decent at poker and have been seeing you showdown monster after monster all night long, you can actually get some people to fold. It's all about timing. If you show down one horrible hand, your cover will be blown. So save it up and don't blow your wad until you absolutely have to.

How's that for poker advice?

Nice

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By Popular Request

Someone suggested (and it was noted by my sponsor) that there should be an easy way to access all the poker comics without reading through my entire blog. At first I thought, screw em, they SHOULD have to read through all my blog. There's some good shit in there! Plus lots of regular shit. And some really shitty shit.

So, if you scroll down a bit and look to the right you'll see the Poker Comic listed and linked for easy access, under the heading Poker Tells. One thing I noticed when I made the link list was that I screwed up the numbering something fierce. I ended up on the right spot, but I used several numbers more than once....I think I actually used one number three times. This whole "not being able to count" thing has really hurt my poker game over the years...

I've stabilized the comic so that it appears every Wednesday. I used to just post it when the mood strikes me, but sometimes the mood would strike me twice in one day, and sometimes not for weeks. Trying to make it consistenly on Wednesdays has really made it better, I think. Not that it's anything extraordinary. If I hear a funny poker joke or occurrence while playing, and I actually remember it, I repeat it here. I suspect a lot of people have heard the jokes already. But hopefully it gives some people a chuckle.

Making the list made me really notice that some of them are really out of context when taken alone, but what can you do? Sometimes, to get the joke, you'll really have to read the blog. That's not so bad, is it? What, do you have something better to do? Like play poker or something?

I'm not sure how long the sponsorship will last anyway....I've had tons of click throughs, but they're not happy with the amount of people that actually sign up. I'm leading the horses to the water, but they ain't drinking. Not really a big deal to me, I did the comic before it was sponsored, I'll continue to do it without sponsorship, if (when) that occurs. I'll miss the money though...

Okie-Vegas Get Together Planned!

Anyone that would actually consider coming to Oklahoma City should head over to GCox's Low Limit Grinder blog and check out the Okie-Vegas get together he is assembling. It sounds like a lot of pokery fun. If any of you want to meet him and his cast of challengers, along with me and possibly Maudie, start making your plans now!

Poker Comic #40

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PSO Cruise Freeroll

Poker Source Online held their first freeroll for a Caribbean Cruise last night.

PSO runs really great freeroll tournaments. There's a chat room where an admin shows up an hour before the tournament starts to help people who have problems registering. There are still a lot of people who can't handle the registration procedure or can't find the tournament in the lobby, but 182 managed to get going last night, out of 270 registrants.

AK held up like a champ for me all night. I played it pretty strong whenever I had it, and other than the times I just stole the blinds with it, I think I doubled up with it twice.

The killer was QQ utg. There were 21 left and I had an above average stack around 25K with the blinds at 500/250 and a 50 ante. The big stack was at my table and he was trying to steal every pot with a pre-flop raise, usually all in for around 60K. I decided that I had to double up with QQ here and not just take the blinds. I was pretty sure I could count on big stack to raise, because he was in the blinds. I limped, and sure enough, it folded to the big boy who went all in. I called, and he showed 96 suited, exactly what I figured. 6 on the flop and 6 on the river and I was 21st in a tournament that only paid the first two....each got a free week-log cruise in December.

You've never seen a bigger luckbox than this guy. He played completely obviously. If he raised an amount, he had something....and boy did he get the cards. He raised 3 or 4x the blinds about 5 times in a row, and every one of those times he had JJ or BETTER. But when he went all in, he had nothing. And he showed it often. And when he got called, he usually sucked out. His T8 beat AK. His 66 rivered JJ and AA to knock out two at once. That 666 put him in the driver's seat. He had more than 100K soon after the final table began, and there was only about 180K total chips in the tourney. On the final meaningful hand of the tournament, he knocked the third place player out when his TJs caught a flush against JJ.

There are two more tournaments for this cruise, so if I were you I'd get over to Poker Source Online and do a promotion to get qualified. Tell em DuggleBogey sent ya.

Forum Fun

General whiny moron in a forum posts this:

I just think I'm unlucky.
Everytime it is ME who has a lower pocket pair, say QQ going up against a KK, I never EVER catch a set... but I've had it happen in reverse MANY times.

Yet he claims to be a winning player.....hmmmm....Here's my response:

Let me paint a picture for you.

Here's a crappy player, and he has a pair of sixes. He says "COOL! I have an unbeatable pair, I'm all in!" He gets called by you with your aces. He hits his set 1 out of 7.5 times or whatever and you're busted and pissed off because you "ALWAYS GET OUT DRAWN."

Now let's reverse the situation. You have a pair of sixes, and crappy player has aces. He doubles the blind because he's a retard, and you call. You hit nothing and he bets big. You fold. There goes all those chances you would have caught your six on the turn or river. Less suckouts.

You get a pair of sixes again in the next hand. Some other brain surgeon goess all-in pre-flop with aces. There's a call in front of you. You decide your sixes are garbage and fold. Less suckouts.

Lets say you have those damn sixes again and a good player has aces. He bets 3 or 4 times the BB and you call. You hit your six. He makes a feeler bet and you, at some point in the hand, raise. He knows he's beat and folds. There. You would have sucked out had you both gone all in, but since you both played it right, you lost another suckout opportunity. Actually you did, you just don't know it.

Okay, now you're in the tournament, you're short stacked and you get a pair of sixes. You're all in and your opponent calls with aces and you don't suck out. And it seems like you NEVER do. Why? Because you don't have nearly the opportunities to suck out that your crappy opponents do.

Here's what I don't get though. You claim to be a winning player, AND you claim you are unlucky and get sucked out on WAY too often.

Suckouts are a part of poker. If you can't handle them gracefully, try crochet.

What the?

Thanks to Shelly over at Hella Hold Em and her instructions on how to search for blogs that link to your blog, I discovered this weird blog post from yesterday:

http://bonus-codes-party-poker.blogspot.com/2005/09/poker-forum.html

It seems like a random collection of gobbledeegook with a link to my blog thrown in for no visible reason. It's obviously designed to catch google searches, but why is my link thrown in there randomly?

Odd. Any ideas?

Fucking Comment Spam

Does the wavy word thing really deter comment spam?

I just got POUNDED with comments in old posts from someone with like 12 accounts who is trying to boost his search engine scores about ACDC....what a fucktard.

Will the wavy word thing slow that fucker down, or am I just wasting my time?

UPDATE:
AHA! I dug out all of that fucker's comments and deleted them. He's not getting any search power out of this site. Too bad for him I have time at work today to do this kind of thing.

Destructive Feedback, finally

Well, I finally got some of the feedback I expected from some of the blogers that I talked about in my Destructive Criticism post.

Interestingly, the harshest feedback was from a person I DIDN'T EVEN TALK ABOUT.

This person, who read only the criticism post and didn't read the positive comments from an earlier post, even though I reference them in the post.

This person said that I "have no clue" and that I was "bashing" SirF. That they were just "defending him."

Well, thanks for TOTALLY MISSING THE POINT.

Here's the point, spelled out for the slow.

You weren't around when Sirf was having a lot of trouble and blowing his entire bankroll in the process. It was VERY PAINFUL to watch. I wouldn't want that to happen again, to anyone I cared about. It was very tragic, and if it took him quitting poker to keep it from happening again, I'd say that was a good thing.

My descriptions are about how difficult and tragic his bustouts were. That's all. They were not a description of him as a person. I didn't call him "Titanic" I said watching his bustout was like watching "Titanic." I understand why someone might misunderstand that though. I think I cleared that up with SirF. It's actually a credit to his ability to write and entertain that he could convey those types of feelings while going through it.

I did not say I'd rather he quit poker than be successful at it. You'd have to be a FOOL to think such a thing.

It's not like I called him an asshole or something. I actually say that he's "one of the good guys." But I'm not going to stand by and watch a guy flame out and go broke and call him a "GREAT PLAYER! KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!" That wouldn't be a friend, would it?

Anyway, SirWiffleWaffle is back posting again, and everyone should be reading him. You never know what you are going to miss.

Pay your taxes, lose your freedom

Here's another good reason to NOT pay taxes on your poker winnings if there's any way you can get away with it:

WASHINGTON, DC, United States (UPI) -- The Bush administration reportedly is getting help from the FBI in its war on porn, a campaign that has also become the subject of mischievous humor.

Early last month, the FBI`s Washington Field Office began recruiting for a new anti-obscenity squad, reports The Washington Post. The initiative has been designated as one of the top priorities of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, says the Post.

'I guess this means we`ve won the war on terror,' one exasperated FBI agent told the newspaper. 'We must not need any more resources for espionage.'

The squad will divert eight agents, a supervisor and assorted support staff to gather evidence against 'manufacturers and purveyors' of pornography directed at consenting adults.

You already knew the government would take any money you give them and piss it away, but now you know they are using it to take away some of your freedom.

Poker Comic #39

Comic sponsored by Noble Poker. 100% Match deposit up to $700!

The importance of paying attention

WARNING! There's ANOTHER HURRICANE ENTERING THE GULF OF MEXICO!

Okay, I realize that Hurricane Katrina only happened three weeks ago, and that it was one of the worst natural disasters in the history of the country.

But how many more hurricanes are we going to overreact to before we go back into normal "watching the hurricanes" mode?

I guess I'm cold hearted, but I was always a hurricane watcher. I have a lot of family in the south and in Florida so I always watched them, sometimes even staying up late at night and watching them hit land.

I've always felt that the hurricane coverage was a TEENY bit over the top, with the standard "insane weather guy" holding onto a lamp post or something, but other than that a healthy respect to hurricanes is given.

It's hard to NOT give hurricanes respect. We drove back through Mississippi and Louisiana from Florida just after Hurricane Dennis hit, and there was quite a bit of damage.

But now, it seems like mayors and governors from the ENTIRE GULF COAST are declaring mandatory evacuations, days before we even know where the potential hurricane might strike land.

I guess it doesn't do too much harm to by hyper-sensitive to a hurricane, but doesn't that inevitably lead to problems? If we pay TOO MUCH attention to the next few hurricanes, eventually we will not maintain that attention, and another one will suprise us?

Paying attention

I'm all for multi-tabling, but I don't know how some guys do it. I've seen a screenshot of someone 11 tabling tournaments. I just couldn't do it. I like to watch all the players and know how they play.

In a SNG last night there were 6 players left and I had a pretty healthy stack, maybe second in chips with around 2500. I was on the BB (120) with 55, and the UTG player goes all in for 600. The CO player thinks and thinks and thinks, and then just calls.

Against a good player, to me this means MONSTER HAND. If you aren't trying to isolate that player, and you don't mind if another player calls, with three more to act behind you, you must REALLY like your hand.

But I had been watching this player the whole tournament, and my read told me he was thinking about whether he could call with his hand. So it had to be fairly strong, but definitely not a monster. He didn't want to risk the rest of his 1800 stack on it.

So I pushed all in with my 55, hoping he would fold when suddenly his tournament was on the line. This is a risk because while a good player would fold, a good player probably wouldn't be in this position in the first place.

He called, and I got lucky when both opponents showed AJ. The original raiser showed AJ of clubs, and two clubs hit the flop. But I stood to win the larger pot as long as no A or J fell on the turn or river.

No A, J or club fell, and I was leading the tournament, going away.

If I had been multi-tabling 11 tables, I doubt I could have put that player on a weak hand. But I don't know what I would have done in that situation.

Daytime T-Bird

Saturday at the T-bird was......interesting.

The only time I've played casino poker during the day is when I've been there all night. This was the first time I've walked into a casino during daylight and tried to get a seat.

I say "tried" to get a seat because when I arrived around noon (work took three hours instead of 30 minutes) to see one table of $3/$6 going, and it was full. I put my name on the list and went to the old standby, 100 Play Video Poker. Deuces Wild. I prefer Deuces Bonus, but this casino's machines don't feature the Deuces Bonus or the Triple Double Bonus games....not coincedentally the best games for the player who plays correctly.

After 10 minutes and $10 at the video poker machine, which felt strangely like a monkey pressing a button for a pellet of food, I heard my name, along with three or four others, called for my poker seat.

They had started a $1/$2 No Limit game, because apparently 70% of the people playing $3/$6 were actually there to play No Limit. We started with just four players, but it soon filled up and we were nine strong.

I played for almost exactly two hours. In those two hours, I got Aces, Kings, Queens, Jacks and Tens, once each.

The Aces held up for a small pot when everyone folded on the turn.
The Kings Got Cracked by A7 when an ace flopped.
The Queens Got Cracked By J8. Two ladies (ironic?) stayed despite the raise with J8 and flopped top pair with the Jacks and rivered two pair with an 8 to split the pot.
The Jacks got Cracked by J9. He flopped a straight.
The Tens got cracked by 89, he rivered two pair.

That was all my big hands for two hours, yet I still doubled my buy in of $100. In fact, I got up to about $180, lost my way back down to $105, then won up to $200 and quit.

Sure I got beat with my big hands, but with so many players in the pots I didn't expect to win them, so I minimized the damage. But there were also so many players on the pots I did win, and they chased all the way down to the river so often, the pots were HUGE. Some dipshit was raising with any two suited and then getting destroyed. So he was just constantly building pots for someone else. That someone else was often ME.

Plus there was a guy at the table who kept saying "I call....I have nothing." That is the most incredible phrase I hear at live poker, and I'll never get over it. Does he just want to see your cards SO BADLY that he can't fold? Of course he even did it with multiple people in the pot, so that doesn't explain it either. I could understand "I raise....I have nothing," but what do you get with calling? I used to call this "The lesser known 'Call Bluff'". Ridiculous, but I'll take his money. And so will everyone else. I don't recall this guy winning ONE POT in two hours. For a guy that plays every one and calls almost all of them down to the river, that's almost impossible.

So that's another round of monkey poker I ended up positive. Twenty-three more to go and I'll think I'm pretty good at limit poker. If I really thought these wins were sustainable and I were single, I'd go every day! And change my name to Shelly.

Oh yeah, after the poker I decided to play out the string (My ticket had $10 left on it) at video poker, and I held three to the royal (AJT) and drew a natural royal, paying $40 on a one penny bet. I figure the odds are around 2200 to one on that draw, but since it pays 4000 to one, you gotta take it. I took my 50 bucks and ran.

Other blogs

One of the things that I detest worst in other poker players is how they have the ability to blame their losing on something other than bad play or randomness. Even if it was just superstition, I wouldn't have as much of a problem as I do with these retards to think things are somehow "rigged." Be it a doom switch, or a cashout curse, or what have you.

I detest it in players, but it is ABSOLUTELY UNACCEPABLE in a blog. I recently read a blog where the player, in complete sincerity, was talking along about how he has this much of a bankroll at a site, and how "the site" will not allow him to succeed, and how "the site" is determining his level of success, not how he is playing.

I see it all the time in the forums. "I hate that site and I'm never going back." Especially in Poker Source Online where people play a lot of different sites. Inevitably they dislike the site for ONE reason. They LOST MONEY THERE. They could blame it on "bad luck." That would probably be a mistake, but an understandable one that could be true, it just "probably" isn't. They could blame it on the quality of the opposition. But that would be somehow admitting they aren't the BEST $.50/$1.00 PLAYER ON EARTH. Not gonna happen. They don't blame it on these actually plausible, but not probable possiblities. They ACTUALLY BLAME it on the site. Somehow the SOFTWARE has conspired to betray them.

I've never heard someone say "I don't like the site because I don't feel like I play my best game there." Mostly because that doesn't make sense. What about a certain software package would prevent you from playing your best game? I would also accept they don't spread enough games at the level that I like. Or, I get better bonuses somewhere else. These are acceptable excuses for not wanting to return to a poker site. But to say "The site is responsible for my winning and losing, and I might as well not even play correctly," is just complete rubbish.

If you do not believe in the absolute integrity of a site, then you are a moron. But even more than an ordinary moron for believing something that is obviously not true, but CONTINUING TO PLAY when you believe it is rigged, is just plain psychotic.

There's a lot of fucking psychos out there in pokerland.

To play or not to play...

Wow, talk about a blog that should never paraphrase Shakespeare...

At first I was going to head to the T-bird on Thursday, because Mrs. Bogey works on Thursday nights....but then I thought that would be bad because I have to work on Friday early and I would be tempted to stay out too late.

So then I decided Friday would be better, but then when I found out I had to come into work for about an hour Saturday morning, I decided Saturday would be perfect.

Then I remembered the real reason I wanted to play on Thursday was because I had some match play coupons for the T-bird. Doh!

I will still probably play for a few hours after work on Saturday at the T-bird, since I have to spend the gas money to get most of the way there anyway. Maybe get to see how the Saturday afternoon fishies taste. That is if I still have money left after the guy who's looking at my well gets done. Living out in the country has a lot of expenses I hadn't anticipated. Home ownership in general is a scam...But that's a different blog.

More Politics

I couldn't agree more.

Poker Comic #38

Hammered

I got much more sleep last night. I fell asleep at 8:30 (halfway through Prison Break) and slept straight through to 4:30am.

At the Poker Room on Saturday Night/Sunday Morning I sat for two hours at a loose $3/$6 game where a drunk was taking everyone's money. Constantly catching the anti-christ with 83o and endless wheels with his 23o. I got down to the felt with AQ and luckily caught a queen on the river to split the pot with another AQ. My half was $24 and I worked that back up to $74 before I left the table, which was breaking anyway.

After a few games of Video Poker ("Jacks or Better" needs to be renamed "Slow Death") KingLucky went to shoot some craps. Since I have sworn off craps like 12-stepper swears off booze, I returned to the poker room.

First hand, AA. I raise it up from MP and manage to get it capped. Luckily the board pairs threes on the river so I took down a $114 pot, minus the $2 tip. About ten hands later the rockets make another appearance between my fingers, this time on my button. This time they got cracked by 98 when a K95 flopped and donktard on my right got all the way to the river, which was an 8. I did foil his check raise when I just showed after the river, so the hand only cost me $15.

At that point I had played a couple times around the table, and had only showed two hands, AA and AA. So I thought it might be a good idea to mix it up a little. The perfect hand came when I got into MP, the glorious HAMMER. 7 of hearts, 2 of clubs. This is the perfect hand to play because A.) It never loses, B) If it does, it puts the table on tilt and gets you action, and C) It NEVER LOSES.

I raise from MP and the table, predictably, folds to the blinds. The BB calls and the donktard on my right calls. I think because he played every hand, raised, capped, whatever, he was in. The flop misses completely and it checks to me, so I bet. Both call. The turn misses too, but puts the third club on the board. I fire another bullet, and both call again. Uh-oh. The river comes the fourth club, it checks to me and I turn over the club flush, two kicker, and my opponents both muck.

It NEVER loses. The table exploded in laughter when I showed the hand. "If you're going to play them, you gotta play them for a raise, right?" I said, as I swept the chips to my growing stack.

Game. Fucking. On.

The Casino Business

The reason a casino is the best and most successful entertainment business is one simple fact:

It's very difficult to leave the casino when you are winning.

When you're winning you want to stay and continue to gamble. Especially when you are playing with "house money." Dude, that's not house money. You won it, it's YOUR money.

A friend of mine theorizes that you could have every game in the casino favor the player over the house mathematically, and yet the house would still make money because of the unlimited bankroll and the psychology involved in human decision making. I think he may be right about that.

I only say this because I had a really good trip to the Casino this weekend, and it was tough to leave because I was winning and having so much fun. This meant I only got an hour and forty-five minutes of sleep before driving back to Oklahoma City.

Ironically, when I arrived home at 11pm Sunday night, knowing that my alarm clock was going to beep at 4:30am the next morning, I still could not fall asleep.

I'm not sure why I couldn't fall asleep. I arrived home to find out that one of my dogs was having health problems and was unable to walk. She was obviously uncomfortable because she whined every few seconds. I felt really bad for her, and it's very frustrating when you try to communicate with an animal that is OBVIOUSLY trying to tell you something but you just cannot get it. (She felt better and was walking by morning.)

But most of all I didn't feel tired. I drove to Kansas City Saturday afternoon, played in a home game until midnight, played poker at Ameristar Casino until 7am, then played video poker and ate some comped food until just after 2pm. I got to sleep at KingLucky's house at 3:15 after watching the end of the Kansas City Chiefs game and awoke at 5pm to head back to OKC. I assumed I'd fall asleep before my head completed contact with the pillow, but that wasn't happening.

But I arose this morning, without any difficulty. This isn't unusual since I normally don't start feeling the effects of these weekend sleepless trips until the middle of the week.

The good news is I stayed ahead of the gas/tolls nut I had to cover. I lost in the home game but not a significant amount, and thanks to a perfectly placed AA in a capped hand pre-flop, I finished way up at $3/$6 limit at Ameristar. Even Video Poker was profitable. That makes six straight live poker experiences that ended in positive figures. A few more and I'll start thinking I'm pretty good at donkey poker. Maybe a few dozen more.

KC Weekend

Another trip to Kansas City this weekend. It should be fun.

It's about 600 miles round trip. Luckily I have access to a car that gets 30 MPG, so that's 20 gallons of gas. So I'll be starting out $60 in the hole.

Wish me luck!

Poker Comic #37

Okay Okay, I know I've posted too much about non-poker topics lately. I said before I didn't want to post about political shit in this blog, but sometimes I can't help myself.

Iggy, of course took four paragraphs at the beginning of his post yesterday to point out how important it is for a Poker Blog to have "consistency of content that makes their respective sites worthwhile," and that topical blogs are good because "Their adherance to a topic is one of the key qualities that makes their respective sites valuable."

But then he goes on to do a movie review, so I don't feel so bad.

I got my bonus from The Gaming Club Poker, so I'm happy. I heard from some people that they got an extra $50 because of all the problems, but I wasn't one of the lucky ones to get that. I'm kind of anxious to see what they come up with on Friday after the last two deals. I took $100 and made it $200, then took $200 and made it $500. So I'll happily play for whatever bonuses they have, as long as they keep providing the fish that allow me to make a profit while working on the bonus.

Poker Source Online has some new offers, including Titan Poker and Cribbean Sun Poker. Titan is controlled by the folks that used to own Noble Poker, which was purchased by Empire Poker. They are on the same network as Noble, so it's basically the same place with a new hue. Blue instead of green. Caribbean Sun Poker is on the Interpoker network, which many bonus chasers love because of their monthly raked hand offers.

PSO is also having freerolls for their poker cruise again this year. This time they are having four tournaments at Absolute Poker, and the cruise will be on Royal Caribbean. So I expect it will be much nicer than the cruise I won from them last year, which was a BLAST. If you join up with PSO after September first, you get into the freerolls. That's a shot at a $1500+ cruise for two for NOTHING. Those guys are amazing.

When you go sign up, be sure to use the referral code "DuggleBogey."

This blog is Rated R for RESTRICTED

Fuck.

That's right, I said "FUCK."

Now this blog entry would be rated R by the MPAA, if this blog were a movie. Had I only said "fuck" once, then this blog would be rated PG-13 by the MPAA, if this blog were a movie.

The "PG" part of "PG-13" means parental guidance is recommended. Because it's easy for parents to explain the word "fuck" once, but if a 13-year old hears it twice? No way, the teenager would be forever traumatized.

Maybe they think that 13-year old kids are so MTV addled that they will miss the first "fuck?" But not 12-year olds. Those little bastards will watch you like a HAWK. You utter one "fuck," and those 12-year olds are on you like a pack of hyenas. Laughing hyenas. Maybe more like giggling hyenas.

I just don't understand how would-be censors think. Why is one "fuck" okay, but two "fucks" objectionable? Are they trying to be accomodating to moviemakers? "You can use ONE "fuck" but after that you gotta say "fudge." If so, aren't they betraying the trust of the people who are supposedly counting on them to protect their children's ears from words that are objectionable? Don't those people want to keep their children from hearing "fuck" at all, not more than once?

Now if you have a guy's head explode, splashing blood all over the dinner guests as his severed nose falls into his tomato soup, that's still PG-13...

When I was 13 years old, I would have said "Fuck, that was cool!"

In Poker News...

In the last two weeks, I've taken advantage of two bonuses from The Gaming Club Poker.

One week ago last Friday they sent me an email that said if I deposited EXACTLY $100, I would get a bonus of $50 after playing 350 raked hands. That's a pretty good clearance rate, although I found it odd that you could only deposit exactly $100, no more. Why discourage people from depositing more?

I finished the 350 hands before Monday, and the $50 was in my account almost immediately. The promotion went very well as I won $50 completing the requirements.

The next Friday they sent me another email that said because I completed last weeks promotion, if I deposited EXACTLY $200, I would get a bonus of $100 after completing 700 raked hands.

This one has not gone as smoothly. I completed the raked hands on Saturday Night, but I never received a confirmation email like I did for the first deposit, and I still haven't gotten my bonus yet. The terms and conditions say that it might take up to 72 hours to receive the bonus, but with no confirmation email, I am sceptical.

I did make contact with my guy at TGC, and he said if I didn't hear anything within 72 hours that he would start "employee hunting." That is MUCH MORE encouraging.

"A Blessing in Disgise"

Well it's a fucking GREAT disguise!

I just fixed a radio that I was having problems with, and scanning through an AM station I heard some religious show for about 30 seconds. Maybe I didn't hear the entire context of what was going on, but the part I did hear almost made me VOMIT.

The two fucktards talking were discussing how the abortion clinics in New Orleans were not operating. One of them said "Maybe this hurricane was a BLESSING IN DISGUISE."

What the fuck are these people thinking? They are willing to trade THOUSANDS OF INNOCENT LIVES so that their agenda on abortion can have some light shed on it? Not even a meaningfull amount of attention will be given to their cause, but in their TINY little minds, this is a GOOD THING!

How do people who are actually GOOD CHRISTIANS associate themselves with bottom scraping SCUM like this?

Again, they are taking advantage of the worst natural disaster in the history of this country to PROMOTE THEIR OWN AGENDA. They're worse than looters.

Warning Signs

A lot of people should move up in limits. I read the comments of a TON of people about their online poker play, both in forums and in blogs, and most of them are playing below the level they should.

Whether to change levels at which you play is a dangerous subject. A lot of people playing at low levels feel inadequate, but are scared of playing for higher dollar amounts. They can be very defensive about it. A lot of people are very comfortable at the level they are playing, and don't want to change anything to take them out of the comfort zone.

Which is fine to me, actually. I know that "stasis = death," but if playing for more money is going to make you play differently because you are afraid of going broke, then you probably shouldn't move up.

But the flipside is MUCH WORSE. If you move up in levels because the level you are playing at "just doesn't do it anymore," you might be looking at a much more serious problem.

We all love the "action." We get a thrill out of playing poker, even if that thrill is diminished over the tens of thousands of hands we play. Having the hard decisions, making great moves, and outlasting the suckouts to be a profitable player is an exciting proposition for us. But if you have to increase the stakes just to "keep it exciting," then you are in a scary cycle.

Many of us have experienced this when trying out a new game. How do we play micro-limit Omaha Eight to try and learn the game when we are accustomed to $5/$10 limit hold em? It's not in us to play a lower level just because we "expect to lose." We NEVER expect to lose!

So what are the good reasons for moving up? Well, the obvious one is that your bankroll isn't increasing (percentage wise) like it has. There's a very fine line between this and "keeping it exciting," but it's a very real one.

A lot of us move up because we want to "see what it's like." We inevitably discover that it's exactly the same. There are rocks and maniacs at every level, and if we practice good table selection and play our own game, we can succeed. The danger of this "experiment" at the higher level is that we will always feel like a failure if we drop back down to the previous level.

The best reason to move up is simply that our bankroll dictates it. If you're sitting on $3000 in neteller, you probably shouldn't be toiling away at the $1/$2 game anymore, griding out those bonuses.

But wouldn't it be much easier to reduce your bankroll and buy yourself something nice, than it would to explore the world of higher limits? Like one commenter said "I don't understand why you'd move up in limits, just so you can keep moving up in limits." This can be a losing game, kind of like the Peter Principle. If you keep rising until you reach your level of incompetence, you can only go broke. What is the point of that?

Some of us play just to PLAY. We can play a freeroll just as fervently as the Party Poker Million. We can agonize over a $.10/$.20 decision as hard as we would over a $30/$60 decision. We can't say "fuck it, it's only $.20." We want to make the right decision. We want to play POKER, damn the stakes.

What level to play is the hardest decision in poker. The two most common questions poker players ask me are "What is your Favorite Online Poker Room" and "What Levels do you like to play?" The answer to both questions is always, "I have no idea."

Katrina's Side Effects

One of the things I hate MOST about when disasters like Hurricane Katrina happen is the blatantly DISGUSTING opportunism that occurs in the aftermath.

And I'm NOT talking about looters. Yes, looting is awful. But that's a bunch of broke people who are barely surviving life anyway who are taking advantage of a situation that allows them to act less than lawfully. They suck, but at least I understand why they are doing what they are doing.

I'm talking about opportunistic scumbags that use the disaster to obtain some kind of political gains.

Scumbags like Neil Cavuto of FOX News, who says things like:

When this kind of stuff happens to other folks, we're there. When this kind of stuff happens to us, who's here?

I know we're a rich country. But I think it a bit rich so few call to wish us well in this country.

Not only are you a scumbag, Neil, you're a bad journalist who doesn't check out your bullshit before you spread it. Aid and empathy have been offered and expressed by DOZENS of foreign countries. Neil may not have seen it, as it was hidden in such secretive publications as "The USA Today." Offers came pouring in from Venezuela, China, France, Germany, The Vatican, The Swiss, The British....the list goes on and on.

What political gains does Neil hope to get from this outright LIE? Does he hope to make Americans even MORE xenophobic? Fuck you, Neil. Americans are hated in other countries enough without meat popsicles like you.

But what's even worse than jerks like Cavuto, are the organizations that proclaim that "God handed out this punishment" because people affected might have misbehaved. Like the Christian group "Repent America" who says that God destroyed New Orleans because of "Girls Gone Wild" and a gay pride parade that was to occur on Labor Day Weekend.

If that's what your God can do, he's pretty impotent. Since all the rich, decadent folks evacuated New Orleans and left 70% black and 99% poor people there, God seems to have it in for the poor minorities of the area.

I'm not sure what these whacko conservative Christian groups are after either. They've always wanted to enforce some kind of societal engineering according to their agenda, but do they really think taking advantage of the death and destruction really gets people on their side?

Whether you're using a disaster to promote your own political agenda, or your using the opportunity to loot, you're scum.