I am THE James

I’m currently sitting here watching a guy on PokerStars play in a couple of tourneys and giving advice along the way in a certain game.  Mostly on Stud 8 and some on Stud.   He has done pretty well and is at the final table of one tourney right now with the chip lead.  Should be interesting to see if he wins.  In the time I typed this sentence he just became second in chips.  It is interesting watching people play mixed games that are weak in a couple.  Fortunately he was bright enough to seek help.  Anywho, not much else going on.

They are down to three.   He has a decent chance to win.  I guess we will see what happens.

September 13, 1975 is when it all started.  From that day forth the world has been host to THE James.  Today is the celebration of that day.  And what am I doing for this grand day?  My ass is getting up early, going to a bunkhouse kitchen and entering shooting scores into a computer.  Ya, real exciting eh?  Well, not all 4-H volunteer work is exciting, but it has to be done.  I’ll be going a little early so I can go have a birthday dinner with my friend Summer.

Have you ever had one of your friends go off in such a rage of anger that you end up touched about how much they really care about you?   That happened to me this week.  I won’t go into the why my friend went off like she did, but by the time she was done I was really touched by what she said, even if she was hopping mad when she said it.

Tomorrow, I am going with my friend Erin to see Mamma Mia.  She couldn’t get together with me today because of her working.  Believe it or not, I picked this movie.  For those of you that look at me cockeyed, realize I am a person who saw Sweeney Todd at the theatre 4 times.  Besides, the only other movie I wanted to see I promised another female friend I would go see Wednesday.

Lately, I have been playing a lot of NL Single Draw 2-7 Lowball sit-n-gos on PokerStars.  With the exception of one, I have at least cashed in every one.  In these Sngs you must make it heads-up to make the money.  Today I played 3.  I won two and finished 2nd in the other one.  I have been have somewhat poor results in triple draw limit lowball.  I found out really quick in this game how wide of an array of hands you can consistently win with.  One thing that I do like to still try and stick with is to try and only do 1 card draws while we are still 4 handed or more.  Obviously that doesn’t always become the case, but I try.

My runs in Stud 8 or Better lately have been pretty bad.  Some of it is frankly bad play on my part.  I have been making a few plays and getting too fancy.  In the last day or so, I have went back to playing with a little more sense and have at least finished ahead in every session.  I think I need to go back and focus on playing some tournaments as opposed to the cash games I have been playing.  I enjoy tournaments a lot more and I seem to focus harder on them.

Speaking of which, I have tried to pick up a couple of books to work on my Stud HI tournament game a little bit.  I am a good stud player.  I know this, but my tournament results live when I have played have been outright horrible.  My feeling is my problem comes from playing a certain style that doesn’t work as well as it should in tournaments.  I’m going to take a look at a couple of books and see if I can get some inspiration.  I may just end up getting a friend of mine to sit me down and teach me some finer points like Bill Boston taught me regarding Stud 8.

I intended to go to Atlantic City sometime this coming week for the United States Poker Championships.  That’s not happening now.  I love the schedule, but I am holding onto my money and also focusing some on my writing.  My gigs have really picked up lately, especially from one dude that has me writing a lot on poker.  I talked to the guy at PokerNews about future gigs with them and it isn’t looking real promising.  I got the “we may have work” line.  I probably won’t hear from them until around WSOP time.   That’s fine too.  Actually, if things keep going the way they are with this one client writing, I may not want to take on any other gigs for a while.  That wouldn’t upset me at all.

Anywho, have a great weekend all.  Maybe Ill come back and tell you what Summer got me for my birthday.

Tonight, my friend Summer and I went to check out Carlos Mencia at the Richmond Funny Bone. The Funny Bone is THE comedy club in the state. This was the third time Summer and I had been there and the first time for a major comedian. It was fucking awesome. Carlos is one of Summer’s comedic idols and she was stoked. She texted me around 3 am Sunday to tell me about the show and we wound up reserving tickets for the 7:30 show tonight.

The show was opened by Carlos’ brother Joseph. Yes, that is the same Joseph from the show. Juan Villareal was the next performer. He was good but looked like he belonged in a Grand Theft Auto game. Next, Cristela Alonzo performed. She has written for Mind of Mencia. Very cute. Great comedian. She actually pointed out first that Juan looked like he belonged in GTA. Her opening was great. To paraphrase she said first you have Joseph, who you can’t understand followed by Juan who looked like he belonged in a Grand Theft Auto game. Then you have me, “I actually went to college. Her bit about rappers promising shit to women was classic. Next Brad Williams came out to perform. Contrary to popular belief, he is NOT Wee Man. He gave shit to everyone. His bit about deaf people being politically incorrect was awesome.

Finally we get to the man we all came to see, Carlos Mencia. His opening set about the Olympics was great. I don’t know if he put this material together before the Olympics or waited until afterwards, but it was awesome. As usual, he doesn’t pull any punches. The tornader and potater bits were great, especially when he figured out HOW they got r’s at the end of potato and tornado. Also, some of his jokes are fairly high brow. There were a few that maybe 10% of the people in the room got. Of course, he had to give everyone else shit about falling off the comedy bus. Ding! Fries ready. “They have some soft pillers.”

Even New Orleans got shit. You have to really stop to think like he said. They build New Orleans below sea level and in the early 1900’s a hurricane fucked it up. Then of course we know what happened with Katrina, and they still rebuilt. To quote him, there a retard going “Maybe you should put some dirt on it and build it up some…” Ding! Fries ready!

The Obama and politic bit was great. Obama is apparently going to be the Abraham Lincoln for white people. If you want to know what I am talking about, BUY A TICKET AT THE NEXT SHOW. Ding! Fries ready!

At the end of the show, Carlos and the gang got up on stage to tell some various jokes. What do you call a mexican baptismal? Bean dip. How do you know if you are at a gay cookout? The hot dogs taste like shit. And my favorite, “What do fat chicks and bricks have in common? They both will get laid by mexicans.”

After the show was equally great. They were selling merchandise, taking pictures, etc. You had to pay $20 to have your pic taken with Carlos. I paid for it so that Summer could have a copy. (The pic is above.) The best part of the night happened then. We got up there to take our pic and Carlos real quick checked out Summer. He leaned over to me just so only I could hear and said, “Good for you man!” Obviously he approves. LOL. Summer got a kick out of it too when I told her cause “Carlos Mencia thinks she is hot.” Funny shit. After he signed her stuff, I got distracted for a sec and I was going to get him to sign my glass. I then noticed the next people were there. I was going to go off and he was like, “No man, what you want me to sign?” See that was cool too. It wasn’t just an assembly line sign off and send on. Summer and I took off and went back to the car and she was gushing for a while and we just kinda hung out. Anywho, a little while later, I was finally driving off and we could see Carlos sitting on one of the tables talking to about 5 or 6 fans. It was only him, some of his crew and the few fans. It was good that he was willing to hang around like that and talk to people. Shit like that is going to get people coming back. I know if we get another chance to see him, we will be there.

Now I need to find a place nearby that Robin Williams will be performing.

The last few days my sleep patterns have been reversed.  For those of you looking at me confused, that means I am sleeping like a NORMAL PERSON.  What the hell?  The good thing is that I have picked up two more clients.  I don’t know how the volume will pan out, but I have been paid for the work done so far.  Seems like whatever I try and pursue, I wind up successful in some fashion or another.

Schedules have come out for events this month and next in Oklahoma and Tunica and both have a good mix of games.  If it weren’t for the expense of getting to Oklahoma, I would go out there and play the events.  I’m still toying with Tunica.  I may choose that over Atlantic City.  I haven’t had the best of luck in AC tourneys other than daily’s.  Plus, the Tunica events are cheaper.  The one downside is that the trip is twice as long as the AC trip.  I may just go up to AC and play cash games.  Yes, I’ve probably already said that, but I’m still toying with the idea.  I saw the schedule for the Bike’s Big Poker Ocktober.  I am not impressed.  One Omaha Hi-Lo and one Stud Hi-Lo event, and the rest crapshoot.   I am waiting to see what the Commerce puts out.   Yes, I am contemplating a trip out west.  When?  Who knows.  How am I getting the money?  Who knows.

I wrote an article today on Omaha Hi-Lo.  I thought I would have a hard time coming up with an 1,000 word article introducing the game and providing basic strategy.  I fooled myself.  There is so much involved just educating a player how to play the game properly that I didn’t really get much into starting hand values etc.  I wound up making the article an introduction to Omaha and will have to write a second article on beginner strategy.    Other games, I didnt have to do this as I didn’t have certain aspect of the game to explain.  Works for me tho, more money from the articles.

For those of you asking, no, I haven’t heard anymore from PokerNews about future work.  Others are getting gigs and I am not even getting replies to messages.  Oh well.  It’s always best to go out and find your own clients anyway folks.   I would love to have enough writing and blogging gigs to where I don’t need another job.  I’m working on it.

I truly think that  I am done with the data business for good.  I just don’t have the desire to work it anymore.  The money was good while it lasted but the landscape of the business model changed too much to make my way of doing things profitable anymore.  Change occurs inevitably.  I cannot complain however.  My house is paid for, as well as my car.  Many people twice my age cannot boast that.

I was asked last night if I had been playing any lately.  I wish I could say I felt like it, but I don’t.  Online poker just doesn’t do it for me.  If I am going to play, I want to play live.  Even then, I can only play so much before I am bored with it.  A certain person keeps trying to get me to come play a game locally and at their home game. I just am not interested.  I’ll read about it, write about it, even watch it on TV.  Play?  Nah, don’t feel like it.

Why am I horny?  Besides being male?  I have a good reason to be, but I digress.

I’ve been doing some freelance writing lately.  Trying to pick up some writing contracts.  So far it has been slow going, but I have one guy that is using me to write some poker related content.  I’m also waiting to hear back from a couple others.

I’m no longer obsessed with Holdem.  Thanks for asking.

Did anyone here ever see the episode of Press Your Luck where the guy won over 100k.  He memorized the light and slide patterns.  I watched the episodes and it was blatantly obvious that something was up.  The guy got his money, and apparently was an idiot in how he spent it.  I guess he got a life Whammy. 

For those of you wanting to see more Melissa Castello, she will be covering the APPT in Macau.   Yay Melissa!

Also thanks to Amy Calistri for adding me to her blogroll.  (You know some of you other folks could do the same.  Slackers.)

Why do the trees wave at you in the morning time? Their branches wave back and forth as to say, “Hey! Look at me and how chipper I am at 9 am.” Don’t they know I am not a morning person? I mean c’mon, don’t you think they would have better things to do?

Do you ever stop and try and figure out what dogs are saying when they bark at you? I do. Sometimes, I will try and bark back at them in the same pitch and voice. Sometime they stop and look at me like I’m crazy. They just need to learn how to speak English and make things simpler. Yo no hablo woof woof.

Cards are in the air. One time, I would love to see a dealer go, “52 Card Pickup!” and toss the cards everywhere. Then the saying would actually fit.

I’m still waiting for my Egg McMuffin Jolyn.

Have you ever seen a pink and purple polka dotted elephant wearing an athletic V-neck top? I have. And I was sober.

I was talking to the floorwoman (see egg mcmuffin above) one day and she told me about the first time they held the Roshambo tournament at the World Series. At the time she was a dealer and the only Roshambo she ever heard of was SOUTH PARK ROSHAMBO. Suffice it to say she REALLY wanted to see how that was going to go down.

Gluing a phone to a camera does NOT make a camera phone.

Pink Monkeys are not blue.

And last but not least,

Wet Dogs Smell Pretty.

Pingback and bogus commenters are getting a little more creative with their comments.  I have a blog on Poker After Dark that gets a lot of bogus comments like this one.  One comment I got just today was just too funny.  It read:

“I’m the artist formally known as Beck. I have a genius wig. When I put that wig on, then the true genius emerges. I don’t have enough hair to be a genius. I think you have to have hair going everywhere.”

What???  I don’t smoke dope, but whatever this guy is smoking, I want some. 

The United States Poker Championships have released their schedule for this fall.  The event starts on September 14^th, the day after my birthday.  Funny thing is, I was thinking of going to Atlantic City the week after my birthday.  Look at the schedule for the event and you tell me if you can see why I am interested:

Sept. 14, 11:15am, Limit Hold’em, $300 + $40

Sept. 15, 11:15am, Seven Card Stud, $500 + $50

Sept. 16, 11:15am, Seven Card Stud Hi/Low 8 or better, $500 + $50

Sept. 17, 11:15am, Omaha Hi/Low 8 or better, $500 + $50

Sept. 18, 11:15am, 2-Way P/L Hold’em & P/L Omaha, $500 + $50

Sept. 19, 11:15am, H-O-S-E (Hold’em-Omaha H/L-Stud-Stud H/L), $500 + $50

What a fantastic way to open the event.  Also, there is a Stud event on the 22^nd, a PL Omaha 8 event on the 24^th, an Omaha 8 event on Oct 1, a PL Holdem event on Oct 2^nd, ANOTHER Stud event on Oct 6^th and finally another PL Omaha 8 event on October 8^th. 

I so want to go, but I really don’t know if I want to put up the money that all those events would require.  Maybe I will go play the cash games.  That sounds like a plan.  I already know I can get a room for $33 a night in Absecon.  It’s tempting folks. 

I must say that I really respect the USPC for putting out a schedule like this.  I was a little worried that they would get away from mixed games up there, but I guess my apprehension was misplaced. 

In regards to my personal life, most of my time lately has been spent either blogging or job hunting.  (Mostly for writing or blogging jobs)  I hope that somewhere down the line I can pick up a few more contracts and continue working for myself.  Also, I did apply for a Mainframe support job.  It looked like entry level and from the looks of it, not all that difficult.  There aren’t too many mainframe folks in the area.  Actually, I’m not a mainframe person either, but I do have several years IT support experience.  Hopefully that will get me a look. 

Otherwise, not much is going on at the moment.  I think it’s time to go submit myself for a couple more jobs.  Take care all. 

During the main event of the World Series of Poker, I mentioned to one of my field reporters that Barbara Enright is in his section and he should follow her. He replied that he knew and jokingly said, “Who cares about Barbara Enright?” Well lets see, just a majority of the poker world and the Poker Hall of Fame. That’s all. Enright just took down her third title of the year on sunday when she won the Ladies Event at Legends of Poker. So far this year, Enright has three wins, 6 final tables, and a cash at this past World Series of Poker. Maybe it me, but that sounds like someone worth following.

Great job Barbara, keep up the great work. Let’s see a deep run in the LOP Main Event!

We really had some fun with names this past World Series of Porno, I mean World Series of Poker.  For your amusement, I am going to dramatize a hand between some players.

Zelong Dong Comes Up Short

Zelong Dong limped in from early position.  Strong Wang then raised from middle position.  Woody Deck sat upright directly after the raise and then made the call.  Dong called as well.   On a flop of A-5-6, Zelong Dong checked and Strong Wang splattered some chips in the amount of 2,000.  Woody Deck made the call.  Zelong Dong called.   The turn fell the 4 of clubs and Zelong Dong checked to Strong Wang, who again bet out in the amount of 4,000.  Deck folded and Dong called.  The river fell the 2 of diamonds and Zelong Dong checked out Strong Wang for a moment before checking.  Wang bet out 12,000 and Dong decided to look him up.  Zelong Dong showed A-5 for two pair, while Wang showed A-3 for the wheel.  Strong Wang yanked in the pot.

I was reading another blog just now and at the end, a well known poker player posted a link to a video.  She mentioned that she was told that her and her friend looked drunk in the video.  They talk about how its so cool and hilarious to go around drunk and acting an idiot.  I just don’t get it.

This just reminded me of a lot of things that I saw at the WSOP and with poker in general that just makes me scratch my head.  A lot of people fail to realize that one alchoholic drink, even beer, is enough to change you on a chemical level.  This affects everything, whether its noticable or not.  People drink at the poker tables while they are playing the game.  Some just drink one or two drinks, but some drink to excess.  Isabelle Mercier is one example of players who got trashed at the table.  She got in such a state as to where she had to remove herself from the tournament and try to sober up.  That was just one example of many of players that got trashed while playing.  Some ended up doing fine, while others just drank themselves right out of the event.  For someone like Mercier it doesn’t matter due to the fact that she has most, if not all, of her tournament buy-in’s covered.  However, Mr. I am from Oklahoma and came out here for my vacation is risking $1,500 upwards and taking a huge risk by drinking at the table.

Another thing I saw a lot of was people drinking while on the job.  Now I know that poker is a different lifestyle and that most jobs are pretty lax, but I have always been of the mindset that certain activities are to be done off the clock.  Lunch hour is still “on the clock” in my never to be considered or confused to be a humble opinion.  Now granted, a lot of people didn’t go overboard with their drinking on the clock, but there were some that always seemed to have a drink in their hand.

I personally will never get the appeal of drinking.  Of course, I happen to be one of those people where alchohol totally flip flops my mood.  That’s why I don’t drink.  An incident occurred between two people I work with.  One guy decided that he was going to talk shit about someone else and this person apparently read it.  Some words were exchanged a couple of days later in regards to what was said.  Later that night, the guy that had the stuff said about him got drunk and decided that the appropriate retaliation would be to punch the guy in the nuts.  That’s drunk logic for you folks.  First, I will say that the guy should have probably not been going around talking shit about someone while he was still working with the guy.  With that being said, sucker punching someone in the nuts is uncalled for.  Would this have happened if alchohol wasn’t involved.  My guess would be no.  I would be the ball punching guy if I was a regular drinker, and for less.

No, there really isn’t a big point to all this.  I just felt like writing about it.