GinohnNews
<< REWIND |
11 MAY 2006 |
FORWARD>> |
J: Big Greenman Festival in
Greenbelt this weekend; hope some of you can make it. Gina will sell
some of her pottery, and perhaps some necklaces, and I plan to play
dijeridu with the Greenbelt Drumjammers at 11:00 Saturday morning.
Sunday night Gina and I went to see Chris Welsh perform stand up comedy at the Comedy Spot in Ballston, VA. We arrived late and missed his gig, durn it, but saw many other comedians, most of whom made me laugh. It was a kind of open mic and each act was limited to 10 minutes, and Chris was first. He must've performed well, because two other comedians made call-backs to his particular brand of "obscure reference humor." After the show, the producer asked Chris if he could increase his material to twenty minutes, because they wanted him back. Chris said yeah, sure, no problem. But later at dinner (Chris, me, Marcia, and Gina— Macaroni Grill) he was saying, "Twenty minutes! I need to come up with twenty minutes!"
Our hero of the month this month is Stephen Colbert.
We don't usually pick heroes who are still alive, due to what we call
the O.J. Simpson effect, but we're taking our chances with Mr. Colbert.
He's more likely to get bumped off before he bumps someone else off.
G: Maybe
Saturday, we went for a walk with Joey and Renata down Research Road
into BARC to look for critters by the creek. We saw some deer in the
distance, and a bald eagle flew suddenly out of the trees not too far
away, then off down the river. On the way back someone else on a walk
showed us a fox family in the cow fields. It was getting a little dark
and hard to see, but we could make out five fox kits romping like
kittens. It was so cute!
Two days later I went again with Joey to look for the foxes around the
same time as we saw them before. He brought binoculars. We could tell
as we approached there was something there, and with the binoculars we
could plainly see an adult fox curled up near the fence where the kits
had been playing before. I watched and waited a long time but the fox
just napped, occasionally looking up at us if we made noise.
The next day I was driving by and looked over and saw an adult and one
kit trotting out from the place in the fence where they either live
right by or at least use as an entrance to the cow field. It was around
4:30 or 5 so the light was good and even though I was driving by I got
a good look. They are a beautiful tawny tan color.
He
distinctly said "To blave", and as we all know, to blave means to
bluff, heh? So you were probably playing cards, and he cheated.
— Miracle Max, The Princess Bride
(Poker nerd bragging follows; beware.)
I haven't used my stage 2 WSOP
qualifier ticket yet (the one I won over a month ago), and I'm glad I
haven't because I've learned a lot since then. I could sense it coming
over a week ago, a feeling that some key concepts and strategies were
about to click into place.
I've come into the money on seven or eight of the last ten or eleven
games I've played, and I'm over $150 up from last week. It might be a
lucky run, but it sure doesn't feel
like it. I need to look at my exact win/loss rate though. I've had bad
beats and made some mistakes along the way, but I'm recognizing
profitable situations (and mistakes) sooner now and taking advantage of
them when I can.
One neat piece that has clicked into place is my attitude. I managed to
take all five of Phil Gordon's qualities of winning players—aggressive, patient, courageous,
observant, studious—and integrate them into one adjective— mischievous. When I'm feeling
mischievous, I know I'm going to play well.
My overall single table tournament strategy has changed a bit as well.
Whereas I used to surf the "stack wave" just in front of ten big
blinds, now I'm surfing the "blave wave" just in front of getting
caught. I'm still playing tight, sometimes timid poker, which builds up
my bluff equity— when the table's paying attention, that is. Then I'm
recognizing good, simple bluff opportunities and sometimes ignoring my
hand entirely to bet or raise against other players' hands. Riding the
blave wave keeps my stack larger than it used to be. Often I'm chip
leader going into the bubble, but sometimes that's where I start
breaking down and losing chips. Need to work on end game stuff.
I return often to the dollar games to familiarize myself with calling
stations and other unbluffables. Otherwise I'm mostly playing the $11
sit & goes, and I'm just reaching for that bankroll size that will
let me dabble in the $22 games. I think the easiest games happen on the
weekends, but I could be fooling myself.
I still have a lifetime of poker to explore (lately I want to
concentrate on maximizing the pot when I have the best hand, and
learning better heads-up strategies) but I'm happy with my progress so
far.
