Destructive Criticism

Okay, this is meant to be constructive criticism, but undoubtedly some will take it as otherwise. I might attempt to turn the looking glass on myself to see where my most annoying aspects are, but there are probably too many to get done in one lifetime. Anyway, here goes:

The Blogfather

Iggy's blog is the best, and everyone knows it. Nothing I say is going to change that. But one thing that bugs me is his constant frequent harping on how he should be making money from his blog. His point is valid of course, because any Internet site that has as much traffic as his deserves to make some dough, but his carping about it doesn't change the fact that he is simply a value-added aggregator. The added value is usually ALWAYS extremely high to the point of being priceless, but nevertheless his original content isn't very frequent. I probably wouldn't change a thing about his blog, and I don't mind the new ads and the banners he has added. I'd just like to hear less kvetching about it. Personally I think it's a guilt complex he has for wanting to make money at all from doing something he loves.

Poker on Film

Heafy does a fantastic job of representing what it's like being a poker player down under. In fact, the more down under material he shares, the better his blog gets. Maybe he doesn't realize how ignorant we Americans are about well.....anything that's more than 50 miles away from the spot where we are sitting. The wedding details aren't so fascinating, unless there is some major difference between American Weddings and Australian Weddings, which I doubt. The most amazing thing I learn about Australia is how similar Americans and Australians really are when you look deeply. That Pioneering Spirit with the possibly shameful past. It's positively glorious.

Poker Perspectives

It's hard for me to say anything bad about Maudie, because she's such a uniquely special person, especially when it comes to poker bloggers. Her unabashed love for everything Oklahoma is annoying, but only to me because I have to deal with it on a daily basis. It would be ridiculous for her to stop that, because she is very genuine about it. I just roll my eyes and read on. Maybe she's a little bit preachy? (Pot:Kettle - Hello?)

Double As

AAs is without a doubt the best NL poker blogger I have ever read. The most fascinating part of reading him is watching his progress...from low levels of NL to heights that make me, and everyone else who reads him it seems, absolutely dizzy. What I'd like to see from Aces is more of HIM. He did a fascinating series about what his bankroll represents to him that ended up being a unique view into the mind of an NL player. And all he was talking about was buying a television. The blogging world needs more of that.

SirFWALGMan

Sir wiffle waffle is the easiest to criticize. He disappeared! I guess he quit playing, which might be a good idea considering the roller coaster ride his poker play was. It was fascinating to watch the highs and lows, but it was like watching "Titanic." As interesting as the subplots were, we knew it wasn't going to end well.

FeliciaLee

I'll tell you right now I'm not going to say anything bad about Fuh-lee-see-uh. Except that she's forsaken all of us for the O8 forum at 2+2. Please come back! There's no YOU in the O8 forums. Your blog is about YOU! Not some crappy town in Nebraska and the number after 7.

Life's A Grind

Tom simply doesn't post enough. I think his standards for post quality are WAY too high. If it's not a HUGE narrative story, he doesn't deem it postworthy. He needs to post more details BETWEEN the excellent stories and scenarios he presents occasionally.

Wow this is hard. I'm going to stop here and continue this tomorrow...

Poker Comic #34

It's Shana, not Shanna, and Hiatt, not Hyatt, you morons.

Sorry...the title is for my throng of search engine pervs.

After driving from Kansas City on Sunday I jumped into the Poker Source Online weekly freeroll at Absolute Poker. Absolute Freerolls are like slow death. The freerolls are particularly odd because of the payout schedule. $1500 prize pool is spread out among 45 players. Winner gets a measly $54, and 45th gets $25+. It's....well, it's pointless. With early work looming and scant hours of sleep so far that weekend, a 5 hour ordeal for $25 isn't what I was after. I busted early playing fast and loose. KingLucky amazingly sat at my table (after I predicted it!) but I resisted my urge to dump my chips to him and go to bed. Instead I dumped them to some moron flush chaser who caught. KL went on to win $25. $25 that Absolute won't let him cash out.

I'm thinking about my blogroll. A while earlier I did a post about each and every person in the roll, and I said what I like about their blogs and why I read them.

I don't trade links. If you want me to link you, put up some content I like to read. If you like what I rant about, then link me. Links should not be commerce. They should be endorsements. The only reason I have links on my blog is because I think those people do good work and if you want to read about poker, you should be reading these people.

That said, while I read every post in every blog I link, that doesn't mean that those folks don't do stuff that annoys me. So I think, if I get time this week, I am going to post what I DON'T like about the blogs in my roll. Hopefully it will generate some negative posts on this blog, because I hate the idea that I am annoying people but they are too nice to say anything. Hopefully it will get some people thinking about their blogs and maybe talk about some of the negative aspects of blogging.

Maybe it will just piss a whole bunch of people off. Either way, I'm good with it.

Standard Kansas City Insanity

I compressed the normal Kansas City trip into 30 hours this weekend.

I left for the Jewel of the Midwest at almost 1pm on Saturday and arrived just in time for the home game at KingLucky's house. The game wasn't noteworthy except that I won a LOT more money than I thought I had. It's a good thing because gas was $2.799 and it's 600 miles round trip. I did flop quad sevens in omaha and rivered queens full in seven card stud to win a couple of monsters.

We finished the home game up fairly early...just after midnight and made it to the Ameristar Casino by 1am. Now I know I said I don't like to play that much after midnight because there are usually more serious gamblers at those hours, but Ameristar proved me wrong. I got check raised THREE times by a guy who had nothing better than a medium pair. He came over the top of me and I thought "holy shit" the first two times, but called anyway just to see his medium pair and crappy kicker against my straight or flush. And it's not like he caught the pair on the river and thought "I just made a HUGE hand!" He flopped his shitty hand and saved it up until he was POSITIVELY beat, then check raised. I'd say he was on a bluff but he wasn't that smart. The third time I re-raised him just to get the extra $6. He called, of course, and his T6 lost to my AT when the board flopped a T and it held up for top pair. The only thing better than a moron is a moron you can count on.

KingLucky and I demolished this table. We were each up $200 within two hours, which is a pretty good feat at $3/$6 limit. Finally four people said they were leaving and I didn't like the look of the replacements. I racked up and walked over behind KingLucky. He started racking and found out his $201 profit was just ahead of my exact $200. He said he wanted to play one more hand before the big blind got to him. I said "Aha! You'll lose the $1 and I'll be ahead!" Instead he got big slick and flopped the king. Top pair held up again and he took down a $50 pot to make my stack look bad.

We played some video poker and then hit the Diner around 7am. Comped, as usual. Their breakfasts are phenomenal. The rest of their menu might be good too, I've never eaten there except in the middle of the night and early in the morning. From there I caught a few hours of sleep on KingLucky's couch and drove back to Oklahoma City by 7pm. It was a great trip, especially because I acheived my goal, which was winning more than I spent on gas.

That's three times in a row that KingLucky and I have played at the same $3/$6 table, across from each other, and we both won money. He said he thought I played better than him each time even though he won more money every time. "How can you say that?" I asked. He gave examples of hands where he got very lucky and couldn't think of any where I had similar luck. Most of my wins came through griding out bet after bet, play after play, and he just got into dream situations. Like at the T-Bird when he flopped a set the only two times the action got capped pre-flop. Or the time last night when he turned Aces full of Kings with his big slick and he had an idiot with Ace-little betting into him. ON A KILL, no less. What feels better than sitting on the nut full house and being able to say "re-raise to $48" in a $3/$6 full kill game? It gets frustrating watching things like that when you have a hard time getting paid off on your big hands.

I have been thinking about that too. Is it time for me to start playing dumb at the table? Stop with the chip shuffling and table chatter? Am I not getting called because people are afraid of me? Or am I overreacting and people just aren't getting cards they can play back at me with? I don't think I intimidate people. Maybe I am just chock full of tells? I sometimes feel like I can make a guy lay his hand down if I act correctly, but I don't ever feel like I can make a guy play back at me. Is this a skill that some folks have?

I'm probably just overreacting and I'm just getting unlucky when I hit big hands and nobody has enough to call my bets. But if someone out there has ways to get called, I'd love to hear them.

Poker Comic #33

Sudden Death and Illegal Drugs have been very good to me

Isn't that a great subtitle for a book, like a biography?

My career (such that it is) has been greatly enhanced by being in the right place at the right time. Being that I am pathologically against hard work, this is necessarily so.

My first real career break came as a result of illegal drugs. God love 'em. I had been laid off (fired) from my latest newspaper job, and was growing increasingly unhappy with my choice of careers. Yes it was fun just running around talking to people and seeing things just so I could write about it later. But after doing it for a couple of years things start to repeat themselves, and it gets less entertaining writing a story about the women's annual "we're filthy rich and we give a shit about the community" social event EVERY FRICKING WEEK. So maybe I was getting disillusioned.

I had even gone so far as taking the county exam to become a Sheriff's Deputy. I minored in criminal justice and had some interaction with the Sheriff's Department and after a few years if you made Lieutenant you could actually investigate crimes and do real "policework." The trick was not getting killed before then.

But I had an interview with an IT company just before I was supposed to start at the academy. I was interviewing for a daytime job, which was highly unusual at this company. The company basically sold computer time, so they were a 24 hour operation. The jobs were very sought after, and you usually had to start on third shift, working midnight to 8 am. If you worked your ass off on 3rd shift, you could move to 2nd in a couple of years. If you were a real star, you would eventually get moved up to first shift. Yet I had an opportunity to skip the years of hard work and walk through the door as a first shifter. Why?

The company had just been purchased by a huge multinational conglomerate. Part of that purchase required them to drug test all of their employees. The employees were told if they failed they would have to get counseling. If you believe that one...

Apparently the place was a virtual Grateful Dead concert. The carnage was massive. Third shift was gone. Second was stripped to the bone. Even a few first shifters were shown the door. Even the site manager was unceremoniously severed. (Don't you love that word, "severed"? Odd that it's so brutal that it actually fits the situation and hasn't been euphamized.)

This place was desperate. I got the offer five minutes after I reached home. So not only did I get the choice job and the choice shift, I was a saviour to the place because I could produce from day one. I was happy because it paid more than twice what I made at my previous job.

Flash forward eight years and I am a contractor for another HUGE multinational, trying desperately to get a "permanent" position to get out of the "will I have a new contract this year?" cycle I was in for three years. A former coworker called me from his new location and asked me if I would be interested in moving to Oklahoma City in a few months, as one of his guys wanted to move back to Ohio. I said sure, as long as I get a "permanent" job out of it. He said he would work on it, but it would be difficult. I actually liked my chances because it is in a specialty that maybe two dozen people in the world have previous experience in.

Three days later he calls me in a panic and asks if I can start IMMEDIATELY. It seems the fellow (who I knew and had worked with on a project with in Shanghai China for my previous company, I told you it was an uncommon specialty) went into the hospital to have a small growth checked out. He never came out of the hospital as there were complications in the process of removing the growth. Coma for 24 hours, then death.

Duggle comes in again and saves the day! I felt a little better walking into the situation because I had known my predecessor and didn't appear like a complete vulture to the rest of the staff. But they were very glad to have me, because they were all TERRIFIED of the system I was running. So I settled right in, and here I sit.

And now I'm tryin to get out. If you have read my last few posts you probably remember that I'm not enamored with my coworkers, and my work surroundings are....well....what's the best way to put this? I'm swimming in shit. The place is filthy, and apparently nothing will ever get done about it. My pal/buddy/guy who convinced me to move down here quit several months ago. Good people are jumping ship as though they had long slimy tails and the bilge pumps are running full.

I have a plan. I just hope I don't need someone to get busted for drugs or die suddenly for my plan to reach fruition. Because if it gets worse around here, I'm not above making BOTH of those things happen.

Memory Lane

I was doing some random search engine words and old link stuff when I happened across this blast from the past from The most entertaining poker blogger alive, bar none.

Al's Major Announcement!

Including the classic line

"And of course I'll continue to play the 5 player SnG's where 3 people get paid. It's almost like the Special Olympics where everyone gets a trophy."

Too bad the Stripper stopped strippin'. Them's was good times.

Full Tilt Poker Bonus Details

The word is that the Poker Source Online bonus from Full Tilt Poker is ridiculously easy to clear.

KingLucky finished his last night. He did the entire thing playing Sit N Go tournaments. He cleared the bonus in less than a week by playing a few SNGs a day. He started poorly, finishing out of the money in his first four tournaments, but ended up ahead. He thinks he had to adjust to the different structure at Full Tilt, I think it was just normal variance.

The structure is a bit different at Full Tilt. You start at 1500 chips compared to the 800 you start with at Party Poker. Prima rooms start you at 1000. The blinds at Full Tilt go up based on a timer, instead of hands played like most other rooms. But the blinds advance very slowly.

A typical SNG at Party will be over in 35-40 minutes, while Full Tilt SNGs rarely finish in less than an hour. Full Tilt even has breaks after the first hour of a SNG, although the players can elect to skip the break, as long as everyone pushes the skip break button.

With deep stacks and slow to advance blinds, you never feel the pressure that you do at Party Poker SNGs. There is less all-in fever. There seem to be fewer all-in fishies in the Full Tilt SNGs. In a large percentage of the low level SNGs at Party, there would be at least two people all in on the first hand. Several players would be eliminated before level three.

Such is not the case with Full Tilt SNGs. While there are certainly fish that play poorly with meaningless bets like doubling the blind before the flop and betting 60 chips into pots over 1000, there are fewer than you typically find at a Party Poker SNG.

If you are a SNG specialist, give the Poker Source Online Full Tilt Poker promotion a shot. And remember to use the referral code DuggleBogey!

Poker Comic #32

Who Needs Sleep?

The weekend with KingLucky here in Oklahoma was great, and even profitable. Well for me anyway, I think KingLucky might have come out negative if you include gas.

We started out by heading for the Thunderbird Wild Wild West Casino in Norman Oklahoma, after KingLucky drove from Kansas City to my house. We stopped to fill up on the way, and I thought I didn't like paying for gas, but the 32 gallon tank in his Avalanche really takes a bite.

We arrived at the T-bird around 7:30 and got seated at $3/$6 limit around 8:30 after playing some slots and video poker. I'm pretty sure they keep the number of tables in the poker room short just so there will be long waits and people will hang around and feed the slots.

They opened a new table so KingLucky and I got seated at the same table, but we sat across from each other. If people didn't know we were friends it's their own fault, since I had to borrow his lighter every time I got up to smoke. I had my normal roller coaster of a night, getting down to the felt once (with the nut) and finishing up about $50. KingLucky went on a tear and got up $250 before leaking some away and finishing up $150. It's not that hard when the only hands that get capped pre-flop he catches a set.

I didn't see pairs all night. In the second hand I had a pair of eights that I raised and then folded when the board came with all aces and faces, and there was a bet and a raise in front of me. KingLucky split that hand when he and another guy both showed AQ. I even think they were both suited. Other than that I got a pair of fives and a pair of nines, and that was it. Big slick showed up once, and it actually came back to win when four hearts showed up and the ace was red and round. Gotta love runner runner flush when you're bluffing with ace high.

Luckily the straights came through when I needed them to. I called a raise with 54h in position. I called the flop bet when the board came Q63. Turn was another Q but the river came an innocent looking 7. The original raiser bet, re-raised me and I capped. He showed AQ and I took a pretty big pot as there was another player that called every round except the re-raise on the river.

I'm proud of the fact that I left the table when it turned bad. We were busting out players pretty frequently and at one point they filled it up with what looked to be some decent players. We got a lot out of the fishy callers up to that point, so we went back to the video poker for a bit and got out the door by 7am.

After breakfast and a few hours of sleep, we went to Ted's Cafe Escondito for some FANTASTIC tex mex food. If you're ever in or around Oklahoma City I highly recommend it. The service is usually outstanding, and the food is top notch for mexican.

From there KL and I went to a home game in Mustang, Oklahoma. Attendance was very poor as a group of guys got confused about what day the game was supposed to be and showed up at the host's house the night before. The host was in Texas on Friday, so he wasn't there to tell them what was going on. Another bunch of guys didn't show even though they RSVP'd that they would come. The problem is that the host was my and everybody's boss, and they don't have the balls to say no face to face when they don't want to go to his parties. They just make up some excuse after the fact. So this poor guy bought food and everything for a big crowd and barely anyone showed. Have I told you I work with a bunch of gutless pussies? Seriously, this is the worst office I have ever worked in as far as quality of personalities. Deep down they are a group of deadbeat losers. They talk negative, they act negative and they live negative. If someone went postal and wiped the place out, I can honestly say it'd be no big loss. As long as I was on a break.

KingLucky took the tournament down with little hassle, although nearly three hours for a single table tournament is pretty extreme. I was playing fast and loose trying to get to the Casino quicker as the poker at this party wasn't what I'd call a thrill a minute. It was a rock garden and I didn't want to wait for the blinds to force people to act. I called a min-raise pre-flop with 59 of spades. The flop came Q96 with two spades and I went all in with second pair and a flush draw. Both other players in the hand called. The guy just after me went over the top of my all-in with a set of sixes, and the original raiser called him with a pair of kings. I had some outs, but the queen of clubs on the turn ended my night.


From there we went to the Lucky Star Casino in El Reno, Oklahoma. It's a bit nicer place than the Thunderbird, but the play in the poker room was about the same level. The list was much longer but went very fast as they opened a new table and KingLucky and I got seated at the same table again. We were across the table from each other again too.

I got aces in my second hand, which unfortunately was the big blind. Lee Jones has reversed himself in the second edition of "Winning Low Limit Hold Em" to say that you SHOULD raise with aces if you are the big blind, so I decided Lee knows best and bumped it. Of course everyone called and I got cracked by an early position player who decided "It's just another three dollars" and called the raise with 73off and flopped two pair. The board didn't save me by pairing something else and I start the night down $21.

I got it all back a few hands later when I made a pretty dubious play. The UTG player was down to $12 so he straddled the big blind for $6. I raised to $9 and everyone at the table except KingLucky called. The straddler raised blind to $12 and the dealer said "Cap!" I said raise to $15 and the dealer politely tells me I can't because it's been capped. I politely disagree and the dealer says "Floor!" So I get my raise to $15 raise but I'm pretty sure the dealer is pissed at me.

After the flop and a lot of folds it was down to me, the still blind all-in straddler, and an ornery guy at the opposite end of the table. I never looked back at my cards as the ornery guy was watching me like a hawk. I bet the turn and he quickly called. I quickly tossed the river bet out, relieved that I made my hand when the board showed A23 and I held 45h. The ornery guy thought for a moment and folded. The straddler flipped over his 86o, and I showed...56h. OOPS! I should have looked back! But the side pot was bigger than the main pot so I did okay. And the straddler was positively GIDDY that he won the pot with 8 high. The ornery guy at the end of the table? Not quite as happy.

I figured that would guarantee me action for the rest of the night. Not so. Later on that night I called with QT only to see a flop of QQT. I was in MP so I bet. FOLD FOLD FOLD FOLD...I only got one caller. He called my turn bet and folded on the river.

You can try to make an impression on these fishies that play low limits, but you are just wasting your time. They are just playing their own cards. If one of them had a pair of threes, he would have called me to the river no matter what the board showed. I might have made more money by letting someone catch up a little bit, but it was unusual for someone to fold to the $3 flop bet if they had any hope in the world.

The biggest pot of the night was a doozie. I called a raise in MP with 35 of spades. The way this table was going you had to have a big hand to win. I like hands like suited connectors or near connectors because they have a chance to catch big, and they are easy to get away from if you don't catch perfect. Someone limp re-raised to make the bet $9 and there were a total of EIGHT players. Now I don't know a lot of hands that are favored EIGHT to ONE over 35s. The flop was very uncoordinated, 932. I call the flop bet and nobody raises. To me this is a HUGE sign of weakness, and I know the bettor has a big pair. The turn is a five, completing the rainbow. The big pair bets and I raise to $12. Most of the table is still with us, and I'm praying for the board to NOT counterfeit me. The river is a seven and it's checked to me. I might have bet, but I just showed my crappy two pair of fives and threes and took down a $144 pot when the original raiser showed kings. Wow was he steaming after that.

We really ripped through a lot of players at the Lucky Star too. There are a LOT of people who buy in for the table minimums at these tables and just keep going into their pockets when they bust out. I know the min at the T-bird is $30, so you can barely finish a hand before you need to re-buy. And they like to play every hand too. Maybe they just like being all-in and taking the pressure to make a decision off. They're calling to the river anyway, so why not get there cheaper. It's tough trying to get into the minds of these fish, but I think it's important to try and understand their rationale, or lack thereof.

Anyway, the players turned over on this table very quickly, and eventually the table turned bad again. This time it was around 1am, and KingLucky and I were both up for the night again. I have noticed that truly bad players don't usually last too far into the night. People that come to the table after midnight are usually not as fishy as the ones that have been there since 7pm who keep going into their pockets over and over again. I think I need to take this into consideration when I play live poker.

We played some slots for a couple more hours and I finished my slot play up EXACTLY nine CENTS. I tipped my nine cents to the bucket in front of the cashier cage and we headed back to the house in Edmond, arriving just after 5am. After a few more hours of sleep KingLucky headed back for Kansas City.

Poker Comic #31

Thanks for all the great responses and emails about the 100 List. Yes, the lists are self indulgent crap, but sometimes it's good to put yourself out there like that.

KingLucky arrives at OKC around 6pm, so we probably won't get out to the T-bird until after seven. I hope I run into some of you!

100 things

1. I'm 37 years old. Time for a midlife crisis, which to me means thinking about death way too much. No sports car.
2. I've been married for 8 years.
3. I graduated from a Public High school in Manassas Virginia with 1500 of my closest friends in your standard suburban warehouse of education.
4. I grew up in Manassas Virginia from age 4-18, and wouldn't live there now if it were free.
5. Since then I've lived in Spearfish South Dakota, Woodbridge Virginia, Birmingham Alabama, Albany New York, Kansas City Kansas and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, with a few little towns thrown in.
6. Of all those places, I like Kansas City the best, but Birmingham is a close second.
7. I have a Bachelors degree in Philosophy
8. When I was growing up I wanted to be a photojournalist.
9. I was drawn to photography because I couldn't draw.
10. My first car was a 1974 Chevy Monza 2+2. It was a piece of shit but I could carry like 8 of my friends in it if I left the hatch open.
11. I love music but I think people take it way too seriously. Music should be fun, that's why bands like Barenaked Ladies and Ben Folds Five are the best.
12. I still like music from the 80's when I grew up, but I realize that it is all crap.
13. Burger King has always been my favorite fast food, not because of the food but because they sponsored my Little League baseball team when I was a kid.
14. If I go to a fast food place, I always have a hamburger. Screw all that chicken sandwich crap, stop kidding yourself they're not healthy.
15. I used to boycott McDonalds because they had commercials on TV saying how much money they give away to charities, and it would piss me off if I worked there and didn't make shit, but had to watch the company give so much money away. Now I don't give a shit, because all companies fuck their employees.
16. When I was growing up I was too skinny, now I'm too fat. I don't ever remember being just right.
17. My favorite number is four, because of Lou Gehrig. I also like the number four because in Chinese the number four sounds close to the Chinese word for "death" and because of this the Chinese are superstitious about it.
18. I hate superstition. My standard response to people who have superstitions is "Being superstitious is unlucky." It stuns them for a second.
19. I have a scar under my chin that I got when I was four years old. My dad took me out to a bar when he was supposed to be babysitting me, and I fell off a step and cut my chin. He got busted when my mom found out.
20. My father is a retired Computer Analyst and my mother is a retired RN.
21. I am a huge movie fan, but it would be difficult for me to pick a favorite movie.
22. I dislike sci-fi and horror movies, because most of them are silly. Most of the time I have trouble suspending disbelief, because of #23.
23. I don't believe in anything supernatural. ANYTHING. SUPER. NATURAL. This includes beings who live in the clouds and watch everything you do to make sure you are following ten rules, and if you don't you go to a bad place for the rest of eternity. Give me a fucking break please.
24. I have memorized the lines to several HUNDRED movies, and it freaks my wife out when I repeat them. I have a slightly photographic memory when it comes to movie lines, actors and moviemakers.
25. I have a brother who is 17 months older than me. He's a turbo geek, but somehow got married and had two kids.
26. I have no kids and I never will. There are many reasons, none of which are anyone's business but my wife's.
27. I love to cook, and I dislike picky eaters. There's not really anything I won't eat, although there's a lot of things I'd prefer not to eat.
28. I think vegetarians are nuts, but I have a very close friend who is a vegetarian, and I respect him and his views.
29. I currently work as a Factory Automation Specialist in the exciting world of Manufacturing Information Technology. I make computer software that helps build cars. SUVs currently.
30. Baseball is my favorite sport, and my favorite team is the Yankees. Fuck everyone that thinks all Yankee fans just like them because they are winners. I have pictures of myself at age 5 wearing a Yankee cap, and I was born in New York. Plus I was a fan throughout the 80's and early 90's when they went 13 straight years without making the playoffs.
31. NFL is acceptable, but all other pro sports are crap. NBA is just a collection of freaks and thugs; nobody really cares about the NHL, which can't even make money and their sport runs for 11 months.
32. I was very happy when the NHL and NBA went on strike and didn't play, leaving more time for MLB highlights on “Sportscenter.”
33. College Basketball is great, and college football is okay too, although living in Alabama and Oklahoma really challenges you by constantly exposing you to retarded fans.
34. One of my biggest pet peeves is a sports fan who calls his team "We." What fucking number are you again? It's "they" you moron, you're not on the team. You probably didn't even go to that college, you just happen to live near it. I know a guy who played for the University of Kansas Basketball team, and he calls the current team "them." If he doesn't call the team "we," who the fuck are you?
35. My favorite athlete of all time is Lou Gehrig. But Babe Ruth was the greatest baseball player of all time, and will be until someone hits more than 715 home runs AND pitches more than 30 straight scoreless innings in the World Series. You're going to have to take more steroids to try that one, Barry.
36. Everyone I know wants Barry Bonds' career to be over so he doesn't break the home run record. I haven't talked to a single person that wants him to break it.
37. I played baseball in high school until I got a job at a local newspaper as a photographer and found I could make money by going to the game instead of playing in them for free.
38. I rarely drink, and I haven't been drunk since college. I don't even remember what it feels like.
39. I only smoke in Casinos and at Card Games. I can smoke for weeks and quit without any problems. I think Nicotine addiction is a hoax perpetrated by the companies that sell crap that "help you quit."
40. I'm not afraid of heights, but I am afraid of FALLING from great heights.
41. If I could have any car right now, it'd be a Mini Cooper S, maybe convertible. Maybe not.
42. In high school, I played the Viola. When I discovered that wasn't "cool" I learned guitar. I'm still not very good, because I never practice.
43. I married the only woman I ever loved. We dated for three years, broke up for four years and then got married.
44. I dated several (several, several, several) women in those four years and acted very recklessly because I never cared about any of them.
45. I can't understand guys that can't get laid. I was never good looking, but never had any problems with women. I think the trick was learning that women like sex too, and want to have it as much as men. Well...almost as much. But I'm surrounded at work by single guys who can't get laid.
46. I dislike talking on the phone; if I can get the job done another way I'll do it. I used to be far worse about this, but I'm getting better.
47. If I could wear jeans every day I would. Our company had a deal where you could donate $100 to the United Way and wear jeans every day for three months. I was first in line.
48. I used to be into Sports Jerseys. I have tons of Yankee jerseys, of course, but I also have jerseys from the Baltimore Orioles, Kansas City Royals, Tampa Bay Devil Rays, Washington Redskins, and Jacksonville Jaguars. My next will be a Washington Nationals jersey.
49. I love to wear ball caps, and I usually get my hair cut so that it will look good under a ball cap.
50. My current favorite cap is one I got in Vegas from PokerSouceOnline. It fits right, looks good and gets me referrals.
51. I'm not a neat freak, I don't mind things being "messy" but I can't stand things to be "dirty." "Dirty" and "messy" are two very different things in my world.
52. My favorite TV Show is CSI, the Las Vegas one. My wife hates it when I bitch that the other ones aren't as good as the original.
53. I like crime/evidence related shows because I minored in Criminal Justice in college. My wife has her master's degree in it.
54. I once took the test to become a Sheriff's Deputy for Jefferson County Alabama. I passed (100% actually) but didn't show up at the academy because I got an IT job just before I was supposed to start.
55. I like to bowl and golf, but I'm not great at either. The name "DuggleBogey" came from a joke my friends say when we are playing golf for money. The joke goes "Doug's on the green in regulation! But don't worry. Doug'll Bogey." I'm not the world's greatest putter. Eventually in our group, two over par became known as "DuggleBogey."
56. I've never smoked pot or done an illegal drug in my life. I once had to take a lie-detector test to get a job in a record store. All they asked me about was drugs, and I swear I failed it. Maybe not because I did get the job, and kept it for almost three months. Everyone else that worked there did drugs.
57. The reason I rarely drink is that I think if you're not going to get drunk, drinking is pointless, and I usually don't want to be drunk.
58. I've had opportunities to take every drug I can think of, from Cocaine to Heroin to Ecstasy. I've always said "No thanks," and never had a problem with anyone because of that.
59. I've been on every continent on Earth except for Antarctica. I don't imagine I'll ever go there.
60. I used to travel as part of my job. I lived in Taiwan for six months. It's horrendous. Don't take a job where you have to travel a lot. They are buying your whole life, and they are getting it too cheap.
61. I've only voted in one presidential election. I voted for Bill Clinton, but he didn't carry the state I voted in. I consider voting in elections pointless, like beating your head against a wall where the bricks are made of stupidity.
62. My political affiliation is Anarcho-Libertarian. The government is evil, and it must be stopped. My weapon is my apathy.
63. I consider good grammar and spelling to be essential. English is most people's ONLY form of communication, and if they can't be bothered to learn and use it correctly, I can't be bothered to pay attention to what they have to say.
64. I love languages and linguistics. I think language says more about a culture than anything else, and culture is endlessly fascinating.
65. I think English is the best language. It has twice as many words as the next language, with the most ways to say one thing. Each way is nuanced and subtly different from each other.
66. I abhor censorship, or any kind of societal judgementalism. I am an absolute moral relativist. The only things I think are immoral are moralists. Anyone who thinks they can speak for the morality of other people is evil.
67. I learned how to argue when I was a Philosophy student. I NEVER EVER LOSE AN ARGUMENT, even when I know I am wrong. I will argue the contrary position on any subject, just so I can make someone question their own position and be certain where they stand. Most people are absolutely unable to defend their beliefs. I do not believe in god, but have successfully convinced someone there is proof of his existence with an argument that I know to be flawed.
68. It is NOT easy being married to me.
69. I once told a girlfriend I was an atheist, and I never saw her again after that day.
70. I met my wife in college, in an Astronomy Class. It was the only useful thing I got out of that class, besides a science credit.
71. My wife's sister was born on the same day as me, same year even. I call her my twin sister in-law.
72. I like my in-laws and get along well with them, even better than my own family. I think they actually like and respect me because I take care of their daughter and try to make her happy. What a concept. Although they are entirely too religious.
73. I like to swear because I like to offend people. I like to be offended, although I think that is quite a challenge. That's why Trey Parker and Matt Stone are the biggest geniuses in the entertainment industry. They are the only filmmakers who have succeeded in offending me multiple times.
74. I don't like environmentalists, but I understand why they feel that way. I feel the same way about religious people.
75. If I were forced to eat the same food every day, it would have to be pasta.
76. I am lactose intolerant and I have been since birth. I couldn't digest breast milk, which didn't matter because my mom had a stroke shortly after I was born. She has a genetic disease called Anti-thrombin Three deficiency. Anti-thrombins are the things in your blood that break up blood clots. She can't break up blood clots so she has strokes. She has had dozens of strokes. One thing that aggravates the condition are birth control pills, which is what caused her stroke after I was born. The condition is so rare it has only been found in members of her family. It killed her father when she was four. I have been tested and I don't have it. Yet.
77. I have always hated math. I procrastinated my college math courses, but not until the end because I needed time to re-take them if I failed. I didn't, but it was close.
78. I never worked hard at school. I've never actually worked hard at anything. It's not in my nature to work hard. And yet I have always gotten everything I've ever really wanted. EVERYTHING. How many people can say that?
79. I do not have high self-esteem. I'm not good looking; I'm overweight and not at all talented. Yet I have more self-esteem than anyone I've ever met who wasn't an idiot. I discovered a long time ago that confidence would get you through almost any circumstance.
80. I can juggle pretty well. Other than that, no skills whatsoever.
81. I like to sleep seven hours a night. I used to have trouble falling asleep, because I would worry and my mind would race. But all the things I worried about actually ended up happening, and guess what? They weren't so bad, and worrying about them in advance did me no good at all when they actually happened. So I don't worry about anything anymore. Having all my worries come true was the best thing that ever happened to me.
82. I love dogs. I feel like dogs were, more than any other creature on earth, born to love. Some cats can grow to love you; some other animals can be affectionate. But dogs were born to love. It's part of their nature. I've never seen anything that wants to please me in any way that it can more than a dog.
83. If I won the lottery or otherwise became insanely rich, I would buy a huge ranch and start a dog rescue. If I could rescue a million dogs, that would be fine with me.
84. I realize it's just cultural bias, but I think that tattoos are the ultimate statement of "I'm white trash and I have no respect for myself."
85. I have small feet. Men's size 8. I like it because people with large feet look like clowns to me.
86. My hair is very very curly, but I usually have it cut so short you don't really notice. I can let it grow out into a bona fide fro. My hairline has never receded, but most of my friends are going bald.
87. My eyes are very pale blue, with flecks of yellow in them. I have had extremely good-looking women tell me they are my best feature.
88. My eyebrows and eyelids are slightly uneven so my face slightly droops on the right side. I used to like that wearing glasses would hide it, but then I got lasic surgery and everyone can see my droopy eye.
89. When I was 15 I worked clean up at a Butcher Shop and I swore I would never work in the food service industry again.
90. The best job I ever had was as a sportswriter and photographer for a weekly newspaper. I didn't pay dick, but like I used to say "It's better than working for a living."
91. I could write a newspaper story about anyone on earth. If you get someone talking about him or herself, they'll never stop until they've given you enough information to write an interesting story that anybody could enjoy.
92. I would like to move back to Kansas City, if I could find a house as cool as the house I have here. I live out in the country and deer and other wildlife come through my yard every day and night. My wife and I watch them through our picture windows in the living room and bedroom.
93. I don't have a sentimental attachment for anything physical. If a tornado carried my house away tomorrow, I wouldn't miss anything I lost, as long as my wife and dogs were okay. It would be a pain in the ass replacing a lot of that shit, but I don't own anything that couldn't be easily replaced.
94. I have two dogs, a beagle named Dervish and a Chihuahua named Jackpot. I also inherited a cat that came with our house named Jessica.
95. I love to hack my gadgets. I only buy gadgets with upgradeable firmware, or multiple uses. I love things that multi-task. I'm a sucker for any electronic device I can modify.
96. I love to write. I didn't know this until I started writing philosophy papers in college, and I didn't get any good at it until I worked as a writer for a newspaper. I love to write things that get a reaction even if it's just a giggle, or a "huh." I love to write to make people feel good, or get them riled up.
97. I think I'm funny. When people say "Do you think you're funny or something?" I say "Yes!" It's mostly smart-ass humor, but I also love satire. I love making up little melodramatic situations that are satires of statements. When someone says something absurd, I act it out, pointing out how absurd it would be in a real-life situation. It's usually just a straw man, but it makes them look foolish. I love making people look foolish, and I love being made to look foolish when I do something stupid. Doing something stupid doesn't make you a stupid person, refusing to admit you did something stupid does.
98. My wife worries that I love one of the dogs more than the other. That's because I do. But I love the other one too. Just not as much.
99. I used to hate it when people complimented me. I never knew how to take a compliment or how to react when someone was impressed with me. Then I came up with the perfect response when someone told me I was really good at something. Now I say, "I have my moments." It's the perfect compromise between "I got lucky" and "I'm really good at this, and I know it."
100. I stole a lot of ideas for this list from Shelly and I hope she's not too pissed off about the tattoo comment.

Midwest Bloggers Unite!

I am officially announcing my Poker Plans for the weekend, if anyone (Hint: Maudie and GaryC) cares.

On Friday, KingLucky is driving down from Kansas City and we will be hitting the T-Bird on Friday night. No idea what game we will be playing, but odds favor $4/$8 Limit or $100NL. On saturday we are playing in a home tournament at 7:00 in Mustang, and then going to The Lucky Star Casino in Concho.

I expect to see Maudie Friday night, as that is her usual haunt. My guess is that we won't get to the Lucky Star until after 10:00pm so I'm not sure if Gary would want to make it out there.

But that's where we will be if anyone wants to meet KingLucky or take some more of my money by calling with 78o when I raise with AQs.

New Look

Spent some time screwing around with the blogger template yesterday....what do you think? The inverse of the T-shirt graphic looks pretty damn cool, doesn't it? If I had any talent at all I'd be able to figure out a way to keep the colors of the suits correct instead of green and white for red and black. Oh well...

Word is that the Full Tilt bonus is only difficult to work off at the low levels like $.50/$1.00. Unfortunately the bulk of PSO's customers like that level or lower, so I will likely hear a lot of complaining in the forums about that. Knowing myself (as only I do) I will be repeating over and over "Play at a higher level! If you were any good and not just a bonus whore you'd just make more money!" But no, they'd probably rather play a zillion hands for four bits as the big bet, then complain endlessly about the incredible suck-outs. Can there really be suck-outs at no-foldem-holdem? Why don't they just put $2.50 each in the pot and then just flip the hole cards and run em?

I shouldn't make fun of the micro limits, since I'm not that far removed from them. It's funny how $3/$6 live plays EXACTLY the same as $.50/$1.00 online. There are a few people at the table who will lay down a hand, but there's always a couple, maybe four, that are going to draw at anything, even if it's runner runner gutshot.

I got two emails this morning about poker. One was from PSO telling me I had been approved for my prize from Poker Rewards. I bought in for $200, Made $190 playing $1/$2 got $100 in bonus and $90 from PSO. I signed up exactly two weeks ago today.

The other was from The Gaming Club Poker saying they have deposited $15 in my account for no reason. Maybe the reason is I haven't played there in a year. $15 ain't much. I don't even know the T&Cs on the $15, I'm sure you can't cash it out without making some deposit or playing a certain number of hands at a certain level. Knowing TGC it's a bunch of levels. But $15 presents a challenge to me. I'll probably move my cash from Poker Rewards to Neteller today, leaving just the $15 to play with in TGC and the $23 I have at Absolute Poker to screw around with until it clears.

Then it's Full Tilt here I come!

Full Tilt Finally Arrives

Poker Source Online has finally added a promotion with Full Tilt Poker.

The timing is perfect, since Full Tilt just added hand histories with Poker Tracker support.

All you need to complete the promotion is 200 "Full Tilt Points," whatever they are.

I like the Full Tilt software, and I like gawking at the Pros that are playing on there. This should increase the traffic somewhat as there are a LOT of PSO customers who have been waiting for this promotion for a long time. They've hinted at it and rumored around it, but today it's finally real.

There is a 100% Match bonus included along with the PSO Prize, but I've heard Full Tilt bonuses are like slow death to work off.

I'll probably let you know pretty quick if that's true!

Speaking of Donkeys...

Speaking of Donkeys, I made the mistake of playing in the Poker News Daily $1000 Freeroll last night. Now I don't think I'm anything special as a poker player, but I know dumbasses when I see em. And this tourney was full of dumbasses.

Holy crap what a donkfest. 122 entries, there were 75 gone in the first 25 minutes. Incredibly retarded plays, like re-raising a pot committed player with 97 (oh yeah, do I need to mention SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOTED?) and hitting a straight.

The worst part was these donks complimenting each other. "Nice play, I'll see you at the final table!" after making a retarded play that worked because their opponent was somehow MORE retarded. To be dumber than these guys, you'd have to be rated somewhere near the intelligence of a tree.

They were so busy chatting in near illiteracy about what EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEXPERT poker players they were, they would often time out on their next hand. I made the mistake of saying "shut up and play," so they decided it would be fun to use every second of every hand, since they believed they had fairly large stacks and felt like they could stall their way into the money. Of course this was also retarded because only nine places paid, and they were only hurting themselves by costing themselves chances to make money. You can't stall to the money when you are below average in chips!

When the stalling started, I decided to give up. I can't play too late on Sunday night with my alarm going off at 4:30 on Monday morning, so I went all in the next decent hand I saw, which was AK. Of course some donk called me with two suited cards and hit his flush.

It was fun hanging out in PSO chat and laughing at the AWFUL plays we were all seeing. The most commonly typed word in chat was "OMG!" One of the players said "One of us should win this, these players are horrible."

I disagreed. Even if you can get a ten to one advantage every time, when you are called down with it twenty times, you are going to LOSE. Sure enough, every one of us got eliminated in supreme suck-out fashion.

At least we all had some laughs. Mostly at fools who deluded themselves into thinking they were good poker players.

Better Look

The small picture of the T-shirt looks kind of crappy, so I'm trying to come up with a better way to show how good it looks. Here's a bigger view of the design.



Click on the picture and select "all sizes" from the menu if you want to see it even bigger. The suits are a really nice design, and should look good on a T-shirt.

The "zazzle" is put in to prevent people copying the image and won't appear on the T-shirt. The site is zazzle.com if you want to design your own.

Buy this shirt instead!

In spite of the difficulties with the shirt I ordered below, I still think this is a great idea. I have come up with the following shirt, inspired by the immortal Phil Hellmuth:



These are available in the following colors:

Ash
Gold (pictured)
Grey
Light Blue
Lime
Natural
Orange
Pink
Stone Green
White
Yellow

Cost is around $22 with shipping, but goes down if you buy multiples, even if they are different colors. You order it yourself, I just did the design.

If anyone else wants one, just send me an email. I'm getting one in Ash.

I thought I bought this shirt

I guess I only paid for it, but I never received it..

Did anyone else get their shirt?

I left a comment on his blog, but I guess he missed it...

??

Thinking About Fuh-Lee-See-Uh

DLK9S: Did the FEDEX guy wake you up when he rang the doorbell?
Dugglebogey: No, I've been up for half an hour, looking for the monkey that took a shit in my mouth...

Me in Vegas

Everyone send good thoughts to Felicia today.

I only got to talk to her for a little while when I was at the WSOP before I was urgently called away to a NL game, and she was really stressed out because Charlie had just died and she was trying to get ahold of people to tell them.

But this is my overall impression of Felicia. She worries a LOT more about other people's feelings than she does her own. The last thing in the world she'd want is sympathy, so I'm sending her empathy. Feel better. We all love you.

Every Blog Has It's Day

First a message for all the perverts who find my blog by searching for Shana Hiatt, or Shanna Hyatt, or Shawna Hyitt, or however else you can misspell that name that makes up for 70% of the searches that hit this blog.

From Richard Brodie's Site (along with his link to Amazon)

Now available on DVD: The original Shana Hiatt nude video "Playboy Presents the girls of Hawaiian Tropic." Shana Hiatt made this when she was barely legal and made the cover of Playboy for her work on it.

Warning: the Shana Hiatt segment is about as explicit as soft-core porn gets.

No links or way for me to make money off your desire to see Shana in all her glory, just a public service for all the pervs out there. And you know who you are.

How I read blogs

I used to read blogs by storing them in my favorites in Microsoft Internet Explorer in a folder called "Blogs." Not creative, but effective. I read ten or twelve, so it wasn't a big deal keeping track of them. I'd just open each one, one at a time, and read it. If it began sounding familiar or the date looked too old, I'd move on to the next one. This wasn't every day reading, just when I got bored with forums or whatever else I was reading.

One folder called "Blogs" held the ones I checked every day, another called "Blogs 2" (I know, very creative) held the ones I checked maybe once a week.

From there I switched to Mozilla Firefox. The only real difference there was you could open every page in the folder by clicking on "Open In Tabs." So I would open all the pages in tabs, and click off the tabs one by one as I read them or saw that they were old.

This started to get cumbersome. I like reading blogs in their native format, but would love it if they were aggregated into one big page for me to read.

Enter BlogLines. I don't even know where I heard of Bloglines, but I embraced it right away. I started adding blogs to Bloglines, until I got to where I am now, with around 40 blogs to read. Few of them are posted in every day, and it keeps track of who has new posts for you, so you don't spend all your time trying to figure out if you read this post before.

The problem with Bloglines is, on half the blogs I read Bloglines just gives me the first paragraph. So I have to open the blog and read it in it's native page. Which is nice sometimes, especially if there is some formatting or pictures that blogger doesn't pick up. But it beats checking each and every one every day to see if something is new, not including the ones I would check multiple times every day.

Every blog from "Blogs" got into Bloglines, but very few from "Blogs 2" made the cut.

I went through "Blogs 2" today and most of them have languished, but all of them are really complete crap. Most of them have a months old post that says "I know I haven't posted in a while, but I promise to start posting three times a week from now on..." and then nothing. Others have turned into linkfests where the blogger, who assumes he once had an audience, has put up a bunch of ads for rip-off sites, hoping to make a buck. How sad.

Is this how all blogs die?

Poker Comic #30

Poker Comic #29

Okie-Vegas rules

Okie-Vegas was a ton of fun.

I got to the T-bird around 4:00 and signed up for $3/$6 Limit, $1/$2NL, Got on the Omaha8 $4/$8 Interest list and started a new interest list for $4/$8 Limit Hold Em. After about a half hour I got called for $3/$6 Limit. Fifiteen minutes later I got called to $1/$2NL, but after watching 10 hands, every one with at least one all-in idiot, I decided to stay away, especially since I was already killing the $3/$6 game for $60.

Finally a $4/$8 Hold Em game formed, and I moved to the slowest forming game ever.

GaryC and Maudie showed up right about then, and Maudie waited for a seat at the $4/$8 game. The best way to get into these games is for someone to bust out. Which would have happened if we had played ANY HANDS. I only played one blind in an hour, with all the confusion, deck changes, dealer changes, chip runners and just general dealer slowness.

YES I am spoiled by playing online, just like everyone else, but this was ridiculous by slow Casino standards.

Finally Maudie got seated, and she talked Gary into sitting next to her. We jawed it up and had a great time, although I was as card dead as I have ever been in a Casino. Never saw a pair bigger than 9s the whole night. Never saw big slick even. AQ once got folded to me when I raised pre-flop, another time AQ go cracked by Maudie's 67o. The only two memorable payoffs were when I caught a Ten while holding AT and somehow top pair held up despite two callers to the river, and 45s flopped an open ended straight flush draw which I bet the whole way and connected....with a pair of 5s which was good enough even to beat the pre-flop raiser.

Maudie played well, mabye just the SLIGHTEST bit weak/tight. I'd like to see her play a bit more aggressive with her draws, but maybe that's just not her game. Gary was tough to read because he was as card dead as me. I did make a good read when he called a pre-flop raise to a flop of QJT. He took it down with his big slick.

Next Okie-Vegas outing will be at Lucky Star Casino in Concho. Any local Okies are welcome, as well as anyone else. Maudie talked about heading up to Tulsa to play at Cherokee Casino, and since they have a spa for Mrs. Bogey to enjoy, I am up for that as well.

In the meantime, I am KILLING the Poker Rewards promotion I am doing at Poker Source Online I have more than doubled my buy in, not including pending bonuses of $100 and $90 worth of PSO points. I've always done well in the Prima rooms, but either I am catching perfect cards lately, or the players are really bad. The tables seem extraordinarily tight for a change, frustrating me when I am looking for others to build pots for raked hands. But I have hit some big hands and made some really great reads on the few crazy raisers on there.

The bonus at Poker Rewards is 50% up to $200, although I only did half that much, since I crippled my Netteller account with my Vegas trip. If you don't want to do the promotion at Poker Source Online. (if you do it in July you get $90 worth of points instead of the standard $60), consider doing it through Poker on Film so you can play for free in Heafy's Honeymoon Tournament.

Okie-Vegas day, baby!

To those participating in Okie-Vegas - I have decided on the INCREDIBLY Cobalt Blue Hawaiian shirt...It's so gaudy I'm suprised you can't see it from where you are right now. The black PokerSourceOnline.com hat is a dead giveaway, but I also have on blue jeans and blue suede shoes....Thankyouverymuch...

My costume is completed by my copper/brown shades, Sony wraparound headphones attached to my Rio Carbon Pearl MP3 player, and a Ten Dollar .999 Solid Silver Gaming Token from the Mirage casino with the likeness of Danny Gans on it for my card protector.

Just look for the guy dressed like a total poker tool.

Women in Poker

I've commented on a lot of blogs, especially Maudie's, that women's tournaments are a sham and an insult.

I don't have too much more to say about the subject that hasn't been eloquently stated by folks like Fred.

But here's the bottom line.

Folks that think women need their own tournament are saying that they honestly feel that women aren't as intelligent as men. That being born female is akin to being born with a learning disability.

Anyone that thinks that women are disadvantaged against men in a contest that pits absolutely NO OTHER ABILITY besides intelligence and creativity is saying EXACTLY that.

They are prejudiced. They are sexist. They are bigots. They deserve no more of our attention.

Being Recognized

I actually got recognized while playing at Poker Rewards. I was playing through my Poker Source Online bonus when someone at the table said "Only 490 more hands to complete my promotion."

I asked in chat "PSO" and he said "No".

I thought that was the end of it, but FOUR other people at the table said "I'm doing the PSO promotion." I told them I was DuggleBogey (my alias at Prima Sites is OklahomaDug) and three of them admitted to being blog readers.

One of them thought I also posted at the PSO forums as DLK9S. I figured out why he thought that. DLK9S has a quote from me in his signature that says "Min Raises Make The Baby Jesus Cry" and then has my name after it. So apparently this guy, and possibly some other folks, think I post there as DuggleBogey when I want to start trouble, and post as DLK9S when I want to post as a moderator.

It's such a good idea I wish it were true! I met DLK9S when I was in Vegas, and he's a really good guy. He did a fantastic job covering the WSOP for Poker News Daily and I was extremely jealous of him and his work.

Poker Rewards

Speaking of Poker Rewards, anyone that wants to join but doesn't want to go through Poker Source Online should consider joining to play in Heafy's tournament, called "Heafy's Honeymoon Classic".

It's a $20+2 tournament for bloggers and readers. He's not making any money on the tournament, but people can sign up as new players over at Poker Rewards using Heafy's Affiliate code and he will freeroll you into the tournament. Go to his blog at Poker on Film and get the details.

Poker Comic #28

Hat tip: Double As

Anonymity is for PUSSIES

Wow, I have a lot of blog entries to catch up on. I've been reading constantly for three days, and I have still only gotten through about six blogs worth of posts.

But first, I want to thank everyone that has signed up under my referral ID at Poker Source Online. The referral money has been a real shock, and everyone has thanked me for getting them involved in a place that really helps poker players get something in return for playing poker online.

The real danger of PSO is the disappointing feeling you get when playing in Vegas. Where are the comps? Where are the bonuses? I WANT FREE SHIT!! All I can say is, load up on the free drinks.

Speaking of playing live, we have three players lined up for the Okie-Vegas experience. I will be wearing a Poker Source Online black baseball cap, and I will post friday on which incredibly garrish poker shirt I have decided on.

Maudie will be the only good-looking chick playing poker at a $4/$8 table. I know this because I know they don't have a lot of $4/$8 Tables, and I have seen the poker players at the T-Bird.

GaryC will have to give a description of what he is wearing or some other way to recognize him, or he will have to find us. This should not be hard, Maudie and I stick out like a sore thumb.

Pussy Bloggers

BG over at Random Thoughts and Thoroughbred Selections has an interesting idea. He calls it "Anonyblogging" and the title is "Stuff You Didn't Want To Post Yourself." While there are times that I probably SHOULD have posted stuff anonymously, I still think anyone who takes advantage of this, with the exception of posting something ILLEGAL, is a HUGE PUSSY. And if you use it to post something illegal, you're just plain stupid.

If you have something to say, have the balls to say it in your own blog. If you're afraid of what will happen, or that you might offend someone, then don't post it at all. This anonymous posting thing is half-assed. Either you're brave or you're not.

Bottom line is, if you don't have the character to withstand the repercussions of your words, then you don't really deserve to have those words published anywhere.

No offense BG, I'm sure you thought you were doing something nice. But your posts are so open, honest and unforgiving, I would think that you of all people would have no tolerance for people who won't stand behind what they say.

Notice to Okie Vegas-ers!

I will be playing at the Thunderbird Wild Wild West Casino this Friday!

I will be playing either $4/$8 Limit or NL (depending mostly on what I see at the NL tables.)

From what Maudie says there's been some changes to the ol Poker Room at the T-Bird, one being that you can now smoke at the tables. This sounds good to me. I'm not a big smoker, but I do occasionally like to smoke one after taking a bad beat. Like King Lucky says "I need a smoke after that sex."

Reminds me of one of my favorite jokes.

Lady to man: "Do you smoke after sex?"
Man: "I dunno, I never looked."

Speaking of KingLucky, he has been very active in the Online Pokering while I was out of town. After winning a satellite to the $350K guarantee tournament at Party Poker, they cancelled the tournament. He wanted his buy in refunded as he will be out of town when they re-scheduled the tournament. They would only give him a free entry into another tournament. I think the bulk of the confusion came from the fact that they thought he won a freeroll satellite, when he actually bought into the satellite. They finally gave him the $215 entry, but sufficiently pissed him off so that he withdrew every dime and went elsewhere.

Elsewhere was Paradise Poker. He was playing Sit N Go's there when he accidentally picked at $15+1 that was a satellite. He didn't even know it was a winner take all until he won the thing and the win banner said "Congratulations, you win an entry into a $150 tournament." So he plays the $150 tournament and takes 2nd place, netting $2900+...not bad for a tournament he never intended to play in the first place. He was so jazzed he went to the Casino and won another $1000.

I need more accidents like that.

What is your favorite poker room?

Someone on the PSO Forum asked what your favorite online poker room is, and there were many answers, most of them stupid. I put a little thought into it, and I came up with this stupid response of my own.

I don't have a favorite, because they all suck.

Paradise is cool because of the way the players disappear in a cloud of smoke when you eliminate them from tournaments.

Party Poker will always have the most fish, but more fish equals more suckouts, so Party will always be suckout central. Party Poker's table selection will never be equalled until some other site generates 70 thousand users at one site.

Pacific is the only place that rivals Party with sheer ineptitude of fish. It is still astounding to me how easy it is to haul money out of that place.

Absolute has the best bonus/rakeback program on the internet. The software is the software. Everyone hates it at first and then gets accustomed to it. Eventually good players grow to like it, not because of it really, but because they can be a break even player and still make lots of money at Absolute.

Bodog and PokerRoom have really slick software packages. Those are the "coolest" places to play.

Full Tilt is fun because you can gawk at the celebrities. If they only had games going....

Prima rooms are great moneymakers...european fish tastes slightly different, doesn't it?

Poker Vacation - TOTAL

Well, it was a nearly TOTAL poker vacation after all. I didn't play one hand in anger while I was away. I never got to a Jacksonville Poker Room. I was struggling against a cold the entire time I was there. It began to clear up just as I was leaving.

I did teach my in-laws how to play. My rewared was when my father-in-law cracked my pocket aces with his pocket deuces. Whee!

Amazingly, I got TWO separate offers for advertisements on this here blog! Who would want to advertise on this silly thing?

I was actually THINKING about trying to avoid the WSOP Main Event results (would be quite a challenge with all the blog reading I do) when I saw a WSOP Highlight (!) on ESPN Sportscenter that showed the winner. Ain't that something? Poker Highlights on a sports show. What a world.

My in-laws have digital cable. Every channel in existance, except for Travel Channel, apparently. But a search for keword "Poker" produced almost ROUND THE CLOCK results. I didn't play any poker, but I watched A TON. The Ultimate Poker Challenge is hilarious. Ordinary people playing poker. BADLY. It should be called "How to make poker the LEAST compelling thing on a sports channel." I thought these people had to win a tournament to get on TV? It looked like they pulled some of them off the street and told them what beats what. Ridiculous.

Poker Vacation

Now that I've recently finished my "Poker Vacation" which was nothing but eating, sleeping and mostly POKER, I am now taking a Vacation FROM poker.

Maybe not intentionally, but I haven't played a hand of poker in over a week, not since playing the incredibly juicy $2-6 Spread game at the Excal.

I almost moved some money from Neteller into a poker room and started another PSO promotion (PSO just added Noble Poker and Poker Rewards [a prima room, very juicy] to their eligible promotions, and I still haven't done anything with their UB promotion) but I am going to Jacksonville Florida for two weeks and I doubt I would get much playing time in. Since there is a time limit to these promotions, usually 60 days, I didn't want to cost myself two weeks of possible qualifying hand requirements time. Plus I don't know how things will be at work when I get back.

Of course I could have just thrown some money back into Party or Absolute and gotten some ring game or SNG action in. But whenever I thought about it, I found someone on IM or KingLucky would tell me about a tournament and I would sweat them instead. It's slightly less maddening to watch someone else get knocked out of a big multi when a donkey calls with Q3o. It's almost comforting to see that it happens to other people, until you start thinking that you're not only a sufferer, but a carrier of the "bad luck" virus.

I'm not sure what form the blog will take in the next two weeks while I'm out of town. Hopefully I will be able to come up with something creative for the comic and at least keep that going.

Maybe I will venture to one of the Jacksonville dog tracks that I hear spreads Hold Em games now. I'm not sure what limits they spread, I've heard they are restricted by law to only micro limit games, but I'm bringing my sunglasses just in case!

Poker Comic #26

Lesson Learned in Vegas

No, this is not a post about not mixing hard liquor with beer or wine.

I learned something about my live poker play while in Vegas. Disturbingly, it is the fact that I play better poker with sunglasses.

And MAN, do I hate guys who play poker with sunglasses.

I never wore sunglasses when playing live poker, mostly because I played limit poker and I didn't think sunglasses would make any difference. In my opinion, the only reason people wore them was to "look cool." I think they look retarded wearing sunglasses inside, so "looking cool" would be difficult.

But I decided to wear them in Vegas at the NL tournament at Mandalay Bay. It was reasonably bright in there, and there were a half a dozen other players wearing them. Granted most of them were donkeys wearing "Party Poker" hats (I kept thinking of ParPo and Fish from my comic) but I wouldn't be completely off base because a few of these guys seemed to be decent players.

Immediately the entire table said they were afraid of me because I was shuffling a stack of 20 and had a PokerSourceOnline Hat and glasses on. This might have been a good thing, people were actually laying hands down to me.

But what I really noticed is that the glasses made it MUCH easier to study other players as they were making decisions, especially in hands where I wasn't involved.

Maybe I am too self conscious to stare at a player when he knows I am staring at him. But I actually studied the players, looking longer than I would normally feel comfortable doing without sunglasses. And the info definitely helped me make decisions later in the game.

I continued wearing the glasses in the $200 NL game after the tournament, and it again helped me observe other players at the table.

I still never wore the glasses at a limit or spread limit game. I don't know if it would have made much difference, but it's something that I need to think about.

Screw G-Vegas

We're talking Okie-Vegas here, baby.

A hearty welcome to the blogging community goes to Oklahoma City blogger GaryC over at Low Limit Grinder.

Gary is already a better bogger than most of the rest of you, because he used my Referral ID at Poker Source Online !!!

I'll leave it to Maudie over at Poker Perspectives to arrange the first meet up, maybe at the T-bird or at Lucky Star.

Wait, I have an even better idea! SNGs at Maudie's house!

While I'm pimping, I'd be extremely remiss in not mentioning the fantastic job Pauly is doing over at Tao of Poker with live WSOP updates. I honestly don't know how he does it. I was there for hours at a time last week, and the only thing that kept me going was meeting people like him and Felicia. I mean, I used to do that sort of thing for a living, so maybe I have a particular dread of being stuck in that convention hall until 3 or 4 in the morning every day when the rest of Vegas is constantly calling out your name...It can't be easy.

I think all poker bloggers should meet at the end of the Main Event at the WSOP, that way we'll all be there for Pauly's funeral.

Vegas Days 5, 6 and 7

I found that increasingly things that happened in Vegas had to stay in Vegas, so the blogging kind of trailed off...

A sort of Poker Status Report:

I played at the Rio, The Palms, The Excalibur, Binion's, The Orleans and Mandalay Bay. The best experience was the Excal, even though I got killed at No Limit there.

$2/$4 at The Orleans: Up $44
$2/$4 at The Palms: Up $65
$200 NL at Excal: Down $200
$2/$4 at Binions: Up ~$50
$2/$4 at Mandalay Bay: Up $72
$500 NL at Rio: Up $25
$200 NL at Mandalay Bay: Up $150
$2/$6 Spread at Excalibur: Up $110

2 $60 Tournaments at Mandalay Bay: Down $120
2 $30+3 Tournaments at Party Poker: Down $66

The cash games are definitely where it's at in Vegas. Tournaments are fun, but the fish die off early and it becomes a crap shoot with the better players when it comes time to get into the money. At the cash games, the fish just keep donating and donating, and when they bust out they just keep going into their pocket. "Set up on table six!"

Reviews:

The Orleans was great. Plenty of tables and the play wasn't too crazy. There were actually some complete bricks at the table. We didn't start until well after midnight, but there were plenty of games to choose from.

The Palms is kind of a pit, this tiny little dungeon off the main casino. The players there were fun, with a lot of people who stayed on the river with any diamond trying to draw a diamond flush so they could get into a $200 drawing the next day. So there were some incredible suckouts that always seemed to involve a diamond or two. Everybody laughed it up at our table, but some of the other tables seemed to be very intense. There is a separate tournament room that isn't quite the dungeon that the cash game room is, but I didn't play there.

The Excalibur was my favorite room of the trip. You could park right by the Poker Room, the games were always running and always fun. The $2-$6 spread game was really a great variation that punishes the fish and rewards the more experienced players. Making it $8 pre-flop actually scares away the "I call any raise because the pot is bigger" low-limit morons who seem to suck out every hands by sheer force of numbers. If you get AA cracked or get quads you get to spin a wheel for cash. I got Aces four times in one night but they never got cracked. I got Kings cracked big time when I made my set on the turn but TT made his flush on the river. No spin for Kings Cracked, unfortunately.

Binions is a pit. Sorry Rooster, but the place is really old and run down. The table I was on was so over foamed you couldn't stack chips on it. But you couldn't play from a rack either. When I racked up my chips to leave but wanted to play one more hand, the dealer refused to deal me cards unless I took ALL my chips out of the rack. Either have a decent table or let players play from racks. The $60 tournament looked pretty good though.

Mandalay Bay was No Fold Em to the Extreme. Not only did every hand reach a showdown, every one had 3 or 4 players to a showdown, no matter what. You could have a royal flush and show your hand, and someone would call "just in case." Smallish room cut into the sports book, so if you like to watch sports on TV while you play, it had it's benefits.

The Rio was incredible. The poker room was closed due to the WSOP, but there were usually HUNDREDS of side games going. I only played in the $500 NL game but there were games spread all the way down to $4/$8 Limit and going all the way up to unbelievable amounts. Yes the gray chips that look exactly like $1 Imperial Palace chips are actually Rio $500 chips. First time I have ever seen Chinese Poker spread in a casino.

Hammer Tally:

2 for 3. Ironically, I won with the hammer twice at $2/$4 No Fold Em Hold Em, and lost once at No Limit when I raised, was raised immediately and then re-raised. As I folded pre-flop I was beginning to think I had a tell until one player showed KK and the other showed AA.

Poker Comic #26

Vegas Day 3 and 4

Vegas Day 3 and 4 were a blur. One thing I remember from Day 3 was playing at a table at the Palms that had a guy with the last name Beer, Head and Glass. Pretty fun table too.

Earlier in the day I played in the $60 Freezeout tournament at Mandalay Bay. It's a pretty fun tourney, 30 players max and no juice. They open it at 3:00pm and it fills up around 5:15 for a start at 6:00. Starting stacks of $500 with blinds that start at $10/$20, rising every 20 minutes. That sounds fast but they go to $15/$30, $20/$40, $25/$50....etc. I got knocked out when I raised the $50 blind to $200 in position with 77. Early limper called and the flop was 953 rainbow. I went all in and he called with A5. Turn was an ace and I went out 9th.

Luckily I was freerolling because I won my entry at a ring game while I was waiting for the tourney to start. No Foldem Holdem takes on new definition at small stakes strip games. The table was full of guys who had McDonalds Franchises and were in Vegas for a convention. One guy called a raised pot on the river with Jack Three unimproved. I only won 2 pots the entire time I was there and almost doubled my buy-in. The hands were not notable, maybe two crappy pair. But when there's half a dozen callers at the river, you don't have to win a lot of pots to stay ahead. Just play a lot of hands that can hit big, and you will make money.

The second successful hammer dropping came at the Palms that night. Off strip so it was slighly calmer than the Mandalay Bay game, but you still saw some really silly calls on the river. I didn't have a high degree of confidence in the play, but I raised under the gun and bet the flop. The turn brought an outside straight draw for me, but the board obviously didn't hit high cards and the only caller left at the turn folded to my turn bet. So I am 2 for 2 in hammer plays for the trip. Bloggers represent!

Day 4 was the WSOP tourney. I don't want to talk about it.

Vegas Day 2

After Vegas Day 2 I was exhausted. After LITERALLY getting thrown out of the Rio at 3am (they were having a planned power outage, but that's not what you were thinking, was it...)I just had to get home and pass out.

We started the day at the Excalibur after hitting the IHOP, and I found out that second nut flush is no good for $125 at a $200 buy-in NL table. They did have KingLucky's favorite 100 Hand Video Poker game, which they didn't have at the Palms or the Orleans the night before. From there we went to the Rio to gawk at the stars playing the $5000 PL hold em event. Every big name player was there, and the highlight of my stargazing was asking Barry Greenstein how he was going to play in the Pot Limit Hold em event at the same time as playing the final table of the Omaha Hi/Lo event. His answer? "I don't know." I saw how he did it, when they took a break from the final table, he went over to his stack at the hold em table that was being blinded off, played one hand, doulbed up with a straight, then went back to the ESPN final table.

I also got to see Robert Williamson make an attemt at throwing cards into a trash can from 30 feet away, but his attempts were so pathetic that Chris "Jesus" Ferguson came over from the final table of the Omaha Hi/Lo game to give him some quick card throwing lessons.

From there we went downtown to play some of the crazy table games at the Fitzgerald. They play a weird-ass game called Extreme 21, and no, you don't have to drink Mountain Dew while you play it. The dealer plays against every hand individually and must beat the players hand without going over 21. So if you have a 12, once the dealer reaches 13 you're beaten. But if you get a 20, the dealer has to get a 21, EVEN IF HE HAS TO DRAW WITH HIS 20. I've never ever seen a dealer get a 29 at blackjack before, but I saw it at the Fitz. It was a fun variation of BJ where good hands hold up an awful lot more, but bad hands where you are counting on the dealer busting are out garbage.

We wandered Freemont Street to the sounds of Blue Oyster Cult and ended up in the Poker Room at Binion's Horseshoe. Or Harrah's Horseshoe, whatever you want to call it. Honestly, a complete dump. But I won about $50 at $2/$4 in a little over an hour and winning is always fun. I just missed the $60 NL tournament they play at 8pm. It looked like fun, there were around 100 people playing in it. One $40 rebuy and blinds that don't increase to terribly fast. I might try to catch it later in the week. When I cashed out of the poker game I began searching for KingLucky, who managed to find the most remote slot machine in Binions, so it must have taken me an hour to sniff him out.

After we got something to eat it was getting close to midnight so we headed back to the Rio to see how the PSO crew was doing and to cash in a $100 chip I forgot I had. I found out that Barry Greenstein had won the Pot Limit Omaha event and dedicated it to Charlie for Felicia and I wondered if she came down to watch him win it. Sure enough I saw her from across the room and waved her over to me. She came over but asked "Who the hell are you, waving me over like that?" and I said "I promised I wouldn't dodge you like I did Maudie." She laughed and said "DUGGLE!" She introduced me to Pauly and we hung out for a few minutes until Mike at PSO called my cell phone from a poker table about 100 feet away and demanded I play at his NL table because they needed players. Felicia (pronounced Fuh-lee-see-uh, who knew?) made fun of me for trying to look important by getting a cell phone call.

I bought in for $300 and began playing WAY OVER MY HEAD POKER. So much for sticking to small stakes. I played $100 NL at the Excalibur, but this was an entirely different deal. But I played smarly aggressive and got up $150 before chasing two consecutive nut flush draws and finishing the game up $25. I was happy to escape with my bankroll intact.

The side games at the Rio during the WSOP are incredible. Early in the day there wasn't a lot of action, maybe a dozen tables, but when we went back there were over a hundred, and all the stars who busted out of the PL Hold Em event were playing. It's fun playing at a table next to Antonio Esfandiari, even if your chips are red and say $5 on them instead of gray and say $500.

We played poker til around 2am and wandered the Casino until they ejected us due to the aforementioned power outage. Highlights were talking to Barry Greenstein, finally meeting FuhLeeSeeUh face to face, talking to Dr. Pauly for a few minutes and figuring out that if I don't stay away from the Craps table, $2/$4 poker is going to be above my bankroll limitations soon!

Vegas Day 1

We arrived in Vegas this afternoon! KingLucky wasn't supposed to come until Wednesday but his trip to Dallas got cancelled so he drove down to OKC and hopped on my plane. It's pretty cool that you can book a flight to Vegas from OKC the day before and still fly for $77.

We started at the Palms but we just messed around there and watched the NBA Playoffs. From there we went to the Orleans and played poker. The deck absolutely assaulted me. I called a raise from the big blind with Q3s and flopped 633. Raised with AK and flopped AA4. I check raised this little old lady out of her last chips when she had AQ.

It all started to go bad when my Aces got cracked by KK who flopped a set. Then I called a raise with Q9s from the small blind and flop JT8. Turn 9, River Q. At least I split when the raiser showed AJs. Called a raise with KQo and flopped two pair, but lost it when an Ace fell on the turn and a Jack came on the river, and T8 took the pot down.

I ended up 22 Big Bets, which is freakish considering the small amount of time we played. The table was pretty tight passive, but even after I told them I never bluff, they still paid me off on big hands, of which there were plenty. It was like telling them was actually a DARE to catch me bluffing. And I never bluffed once. I even laid down the hammer twice.

Poker Comic #24

What a year!

I started this blog last year in June. I had been reading blogs and decided that I was remiss in not participating myself. I was starting to get into the online poker community, and I really began enjoying the people that are in it. I never imagined that it would grow into this monster that it has. If you had told me last year in July that I would be playing in the World Series of Poker, I'd have said you were crazy.

Yesterday my wife was going through some files with all kinds of paperwork in it. She handed a file to me and asked me to throw out any old paperwork that I didn't think needed to be kept. Among them were cashout receipts from Aztec Riches and The Gaming Club. She looked at the amounts on the sheets and said "If that's how much they sent you, how much did you lose?"

Both receipts were over $500, and I broke the news to her that I bought into both places for $100, and played for less than a month at each. I guess I have kept her pretty much in the dark about my poker progress, and I guess I have done the same with the readers of this blog. I was SHOCKED to read about some bloggers being losing players, because I don't think I am anything special, and I have hit the jackpot with my poker play.

This blog is a GREAT starting poing for my bankroll story, because right after I started it, I cashed out of poker almost completely. I cashed out in the middle of a tournament because I got pissed off. I was ahead about $500 at that point after being down $600 originally, but the $1100 disappeared into the family checking account. In that tournament I eventually made $11.75.

Eleven dollars and seventy-five cents. I never contributed another penny of outside money to my poker bankroll from that point. What have I gotten out of it?

Late last year my comptuer died. I figured it was a poker related expense since that's pretty much all I do with my home computer, so I withdrew $600 from one poker account and bought a new computer.

In December I went on a poker cruise that I won from PokerSourceOnline.com. The cruise was free, but there were a lot of expenses like drinks on the boat, souvenirs and daily spa visits for Mrs. Bogey. This didn't include money for poker cash games. I withdrew $1500 in December.

Other assorted goodies from PokerSourceOnline include my great MP3 player which I love, 5 sets of poker chips, two poker tables, a bunch of poker books and about $320 in cash from referrals.

Poker Source Online has been instrumental in my poker success. I never would have found the incredible fish factories like Pacific Poker or Absolute Poker without them. The extra prizes and the deposit bonuses account for a great deal of my early success in poker. I have parlayed that money into THOUSANDS. When I found out I was limited to poker bankroll only in Vegas, including $1500 for the WSOP buy-in I was disappointed, but it's amazing to think I can cover that buy-in and still have $1000 to gamble with.

But I am most excited about going to Vegas and meeting some of the people I have come to know from this Blog. I hope to meet Pauly, who will be playing in the same WSOP tournament I will be playing. And of course I can't wait to meet Felicia.

The trip should be a blast, and I won't be disappointed to find that I've lost all the money I'm bringing to Vegas. Not even suprised, really.

So here I sit, with $2.25 in my poker accounts. One year in and I am completely broke. (We'll pretend that $2500 in cash waiting for Vegas doesn't exist.) Can I pull off another miracle bankroll from two dollars and twenty-five cents? Even if I can't, I'm WAY ahead of the game, and even if I was really broke, I would have to say it's all been worth it.

Poker Comic #23

Thanks to all

Thanks to everyone that joined in on the Poker Forum Challenge to help out Poker Source Online.

Since I posted a couple of days ago, PSO has jumped up to 125 players and solidly into 5th place in the standings. That's an incredible leap in a couple of days. I have been harassing every poker player I know to sign up, and I hope I have helped the cause at least a little.

125 is still a pretty small number if you consider that PSO is growing towards 10,000 members signed up. Not that many people actually participate in the forums, in fact 125 is probably a lot closer to the day-to-day participating members.

If anyone else wants to help out, just go to Poker Forum Challenge and follow the directions. I appreciate it!!