Adventures From the NH Seacoast to the Jersey Shore

It has been a while since I have flown…well at least since the liquid and gel ban on flights.  I never thought I would be saying this but the TSA employee at Manchester, NH airport this AM did a great job.  With a mix of humor, common sense and oh yeah.. a personality showing the desire to provide some customer service… “Ron” managed to keep a long line orderly and moving quickly while keeping everyone informed and prepared to do what was needed once they got to the front of the line.   He appealed to the young and old and kept over 50+ people waiting on his words for what he was going to say next. 

I am planning on starting a campaign to lobby congress to lift the ban on human cloning.  We need to replace all front-line TSA personnell with Ron’s clones.  Thanks Ron, for making our trip safe and getting me through the check-in line quickly with the kids before I had a my first morning dose of caffine.

Yesterday’s tournament was a big disappointment.  Sometimes everything goes wrong.  You play disciplined poker for hours, folding every hand waiting for 2 decent cards to play a pot with.  You got a guy at the table playing every hand, calling every raise and winning with top, middle, bottom pair.  You finally make a move with what is your best hand and end up laying it down after committing 50% of your chip stack. Desperation sets in as the antes start to get large and you now switch gears to playing low to mid level cards aggressively; but just do not hit any flops.  Enough whining.

Everyone over the Poker Room at Seabrook Greyhound Park should be applauded for kicking off and running an excellent 370 person tournament.  Once the cards were in the air the room silenced to a hush with the sounds of clinging chips and the ominous “seat open” heard. 

Getting ready to hit the FL coast with the family for what is some much needed downtime.  I’ll end up working part of the time; but we have a great trip planned with visits at Universal, Kennedy Space Center and some good ol-fashioned treasure hunting…

Batteries in need of serious recharge.

Final note…always interested in happenings on the Jersey Shore I have been following the happenings with the girl,  Antonella Barba, from the neighboring town of Pt. Pleasant.  Unfortunately for her and her family the news is not good news and she is another American Idol contestant with the crosshairs of the media/internet locked right on her.  Not much to say..other than you kids out there better be careful when picking your friends esp. if they own a digital camera.  My college room mate used to always make judgement calls on any future action by determining if he wanted to review them with a group of U.S. senators during a congressional confirmation hearing.  I guess instead he should have lowered the bar and been concerned about a reality TV show disapproving; but that was the late 80s the internet was just being hatched by Al Gore and reality TV was called the evening news.

Managed to find my way into a $70 tournament yesterday.   Tournament ended up with ~160 players after the alternates filtered in.  I played solid poker…no mistakes…no suckouts.  The blinds eventually reached 10-20K and just before the blinds jumped to 20-40k, 6th place got knocked out and a 5-way chop was suggested.  I do not like chopping, I play to win. The blinds however were approaching a level where all of our stacks were subject to coin-flip situations.  I 5-way chop gave everyone $ just shy of 2nd place.  I agreed to chop on the condition that 10% of the prize pool be left for the dealer tip pool.  All agreed…and we all left the table with $1,050. 

At the final table with eight players left. my tournament life was extended after getting a serious dose of respect from another player.  Player to my right made it 25k to go and I pushed all in for my last 32k with AKo.  The button tought about pushing all his chips in but reluctantly folded figuring if i was in the hand I had something.  Flop is 9-9-10.  The hand ended up with a split pot as my opponent played AKo as well.  The player that folded his hand folded 9-10.  After going bezerk on his opportunity to knock out 2 players; he convinced himself that the laydown was the right thing to do esp. with me in the hand.  Good, solid table image and not playing like a donkey will go a long way and help you in the long run.  He later confided in me that if I was not in the hand he was pushing his chips into the pot.

That was a great run in preparation for the big $250/buyin today…I think they are expecting 250-400 players.    Recap in tomorrow’s post.

It is 9:15am and there is not a sound coming from anywhere within the house.  Quite amazing for a Saturday morning, but the rush of mayhem getting kids dressed, dogs fed and breakfast made prior to venturing out into the New Hampshire tundra (it feels like it today) all happened just as I got up and my wife is piloting the dog sled today.   Not quite sure how I got out of the majority of take-the-kids-to-birthday-party-duty (there are three today) but I am not going to ask questions.   I have been tasked to drop my son off at 1pm…and as long as I do not screw that up I’m good.

Big poker tournament tomorrow afternoon.  Last weekend was a very good weekend for me.  Agreed to 3-way chop (I hate chopping and I’ll surely write about this in the near future) a tournament on Friday night for $950 and I also managed to take down 4 out of 4 $150/shorthanded sit-n-gos for $4-500 a piece.  I say 4 out of 4 because I really have not been playing the sit-n-gos for a long time as I have focused on my tournament play.  I enjoy the challenge of the 50-120 runner tournaments and I believe it is the best practice for cashing in the larger tournaments that I have been playing in.  One of the managers at the Poker Room @ Seabrook Greyhound Park had been on me to play the sit-n-gos.  I finally listened…thanks Les!

In preparation for tomorrow I will surely be playing in a number of sit-n-gos today.  During this time I will also have to make sure that my i-pod is loaded with the Gregorian chant of my ” poker rules” so they are firmly implanted in my brain.  Rules are important, they keep you out of trouble.  Sure, most rules were made to be broken; but I will argue those rules were made to only control or regulate the behavior of those below those making the rules.  Let’s call these rules of man.  The rules I’m talking about is the kinda of stuff that holds atoms together.

Ok let’s start with our first “atomic rules”

1. Never ask a woman if she is pregnant
2. Never go into a woman’s purse

If I have to explain rule number one you should just go and suck on the business end of a shotgun..because you are destined for the same result in the future.  Rule number two has no explanation…just don’t do it!  Don’t ask why!  Just sleep at night knowing that if you obey rule #2 you will save your self from certain physical or mental anguish that you are not equipped to handle.

Ok…now the atomic poker rules.  If you are in a 20+ runner tournament these rules will not necessairly get you to the final table…but they will most certainly ensure your exit from the tournament is later than your donkey DNA predisposed you to when you registered.

1. When sitting with a large number of chips, do not get into a hand with a chip stack equal in size as your own
2. If you are in a blind and left in the hand with the other blind pre-flop, there is no shame in checking or laying the hand down

Rule #1 should be simple.  Unless you are holding the stone cold nuts, only bad things are going to happen when you get mixed up in a hand with someone as many chips as you.  There are many more hands to play.  Make an initial stab at the pot but leave yourself outs to go away.  Losing this type of hand will only cripple you and ensure that you do not have to worry about rule #1 for a very long time.  Rule #2 is not so simple or many individuals.  Some poker players will “protect” their blinds at any cost.  When you are in a hand with the other blind pre-flop why risk chips.  Even if you are holding AA,KK the flop can crucify you.  Wait until after the flop to commit chips and even then you may want to think about doing so.  Remember…you are a poker player, Murphy’s law is against you and the guy to your right is in his 1st tournament…you are destined to lose. 

Last month I ignored poker rules #1 and #2 at the same time.   On a board of all rags (2 of which were paired) I made a big laydown after the river card hit; but I was crippled beyond recognition.  The true mother of all laydowns would have been to lay my small blind QQ down after the flop to my big blind opponent’s KK.

Bridgit and I started our Mardi Gras week off with a like-themed charity event @ the Wentworth By the Sea Hotel for Southeast NH Habitat for Humanity.  It was a great event that raised much money for projects that are ongoing in Farmington, NH.   There was plenty of good Cajun music, beads and hurricanes to make the night festive and primed for some exciting bidding during the auction.  

As Mardi Gras approached,  my kids and I awaited the once a year treat of Bridgit making bignets for a breakfast.  Sorry kids….gonna have to wait til next year, mom forgot!

Mardi Gras also kicks off the start of the Lenten season.  This is always enjoyable because my six year old lists out the things he is going to do (or should I say “not do”) during Lent.   We certainly have a politician in the making because for each of his Lenten sacrifices he managed to leave himself an out clause.   I think he has an opportuntity for some consulting work in Ireland where the local ministry is trying to get the locals to give up their Guinness .  I guess they forgot St. Patrick’s day is in a few weeks. 

It is now Friday morning, and I have about 75% of what I wanted to get done this week completed.  The kids schedules for the next two days have us running around all over the place…but Sunday has been blocked off for the monthly big buy-in poker tournament @ the Poker Room.   I am confident I will go deep and cash this weekend, you’ll have to wait for Monday’s post for the results. 

There will be many posts related to tournament and cash poker on this blog.  My family enjoys a very active lifestyle where outdoor sports are significant.  Living in an ocean community and being only 1+ hrs away from the White Mountains…fishing, surfing, boogie boarding and of course skiing have been the norm.  We have had the kids on skiis and skates since they were 3 so they are quite proficient and weekends or day trips away are more than enjoyable.  I was dealt a blow a few yrs back with the onset of a few herniated disks in my lower back.  Aside from having a physical affect on me, it was mentally tiring as well as I could no longer do many of the things I enjoyed.  That is when I started playing tournament poker on a more regular and serious basis.  I love the competition, the $$ is nice, but the competition is what draws me to it.   More on this later….

The ski season is drawing to a close and while the wife and kids get their last runs in…I am planning for the spring and early summer.   I am really looking forward to this year’s Striped Bass season.

Ok….I have finally done it.  I created a blog.   I guess by now this is the internet equivalent of purchasing a Sony Walkman (all those born after 1983 click the link provided).    I have read Ted Demopoulos’ new book and I guess I am now going to have to put my thoughts down to be ignored by all those out on the web that are not lucky enough to have their Google search hit one of my posts regarding whatever I feel is worth writing about.