Hey Now I Still have a Blog

Twitter has definitely killed my blogging efforts. I also have played literally no poker in the last two, err actually three weeks except that 2010 WSOP seat freeroll I qualified for. That was held on the day I drove back from a music festival. I had it going on early and then ran my big stack into another big stacks turned flush. Yup online poker morons still call pot size bets on the flop with just flush draws. Its also what I expect for a freeroll.

I pretty much have decided to take the summer off from poker. Mostly because, Ive been busy doing other things. I went to Gathering of the Vibes on a day trip with BFF, Kim, stayed over night at my sister's in Westport CT. Shopped with Kim at Trader Joe's, Stew Leonard's and Whole Foods in Norwalk/Westport on the return. It was a good old girls day with a slumber party at my sister's. My sis had not seen Kim in 31 years since my High School graduation party. Suzie is an awesome gardener and sent Kim home with lots of succulent babies to get started.

I got stung by a wasp last Friday night. That resulted in me jabbing myself in the thigh with an epi-pen and a trip to on-call. They held me for a bit, gave me some prednisone and two prescriptions. I was no worse for wear next day. The prednisone took away all itching, swelling and in the morning I could barely see where I was stung. Amazing!!!

I will be headed into actual work for a two week training class in September as it stands right now. The good news, I will work a normal 5 day week of like 8 to 5:30 instead of my 9.5/9.5/9/8/4 schedule I work now. I have had every Friday off for the months of July and August though.

I have not made it up to the Race Track (Saratoga) yet and probably wont. I have an old running friend in town for the meet. She rent's a house for four weeks and I have to squeeze in a day/afternoon to catch up with her. She owns horse's in partnerships much like Snake5970. Snake's horse's are all on the sidelines right now. Two are recovering from injuries. If he's lucky he may see Hooked on Hope run at the tale end of the Saratoga meet. She is still stabled and training down at Belmont. She's been on the comeback trail since getting injured after her last race in late April.

I will make it up to SPAC however for PHISH 3.0 next Sunday 8/16/09. BFF Kim and I are on the lawn. Nephew Zack (Kim's 24 yr old) and his buddy Nate are in the Balcony and Dr Pauly is coming into town (balcony). WOOT! WOOT! WOOT!. Anyone who knows Pauly, knows its virtually impossible to catch up with him when he's working the WSOP. Since he's pretty much west-coast based when he's not traveling now and his trips to NYS/NYC infrequent its cool that he's literally going to be on my doorstep. Way cooler hanging out and catching up in a relaxing setting where people don't talk about bad beats. Plus its my first live PHISH show ever!! Pauly has already initiated a few of us poker bloggers into the way of the PHISH. The only poker-y thing I may even mention is his upcoming book LOST VEGAS. Much rather talk about music, food, travels etc. The only bummer is Nicky isn't coming on this east coast trip and I haven't seen her since the day we both played the 2007 ladies event.

Just for the record, I am not a complete Phish virgin. I did see the Coventry Simulcast in 2004 with California Rob and wife, Toni. I have seen Trey and Mike play with their own bands as well as them sitting in with Phil Lesh & Friends and I saw Mike join the Dead on bass and segway a few years back. This will be my first time seeing the fab four together. I'm going in with an open mind and no expectations. For years, I didn't get PHISH probably because they weren't the Dead. I finally came to appreciate them for the awesome musicians they are. Compositionally, they are nothing like the Dead so to compare them it isn't even fair. But man they can lay down some mind-bending jams.

I also scored tickets for the Mike Gordon Band at the Bearsville Theater in Woodstock on 09/11/09. The theatre sits like 250 people. Attached to the theatre are two well know restaurants one Chinese the Little Bear and the renowned Bear Cafe. I'm totally psyched for this because Max Creek/BK3, guitarist Scott Murawski is reprising his role on guitar. Max Creek put on a smoking show at Vibes and I'm going to try to catch them Labor Day weekend at CreekEnd, if i can set aside the time to stay on site as required. I can honestly say that as someone who has followed Creek for a really long time, Scott gets better with age. One of the most under-appreciated/rated journeyman guitarists out there. Time permitting, BFF Kim and I will first travel to the Museum at Bethel Woods, site of the actual Woodstock Festival in 1969. It's about an hour away from Woodstock proper. Plus there is also the Kaatskill Kaleidoscope (the world's biggest) in Mount Tremper.

All for now, time to check out the farmer's markets and stands for NYS's best produce. Tomatoes suck this year. Too much rain causing a major fungus. Fortunately I didn't try to grow any myself this year. The Albany area had the rainiest July in history. We had 9.91 inches which was 6.4 inches above normal. It's also been unseasonably cool.

SHIP IT!!

My day started with me trying to land PHISH tickets for Mansfield, Mass, now known as the Comcast Center, but I will always know it as Great Woods. Just like the Albany Times Union Center will always be the KNICK to me. I was looking to score as many tickets as I could. Had I only scored one ticket it was going to be shipped to Dr Pauly. Like Otis, I'm not a hardcore PHiSh pfan. I'm more of an old school Dead Head and Creeker (for Max Creek) and kind of got more into Dave Matthews Band then PHISH. I never saw Phish live but did see Saturday Coventry via simulcast with California Rob and Toni, his wife and baby Lauren when they came back east to visit family and friends. Originally Rob had thought about heading up to Coventry for the finale but opted not to. Rob had gone on to become a die-hard Phish fan after his move to California and the Grateful Dead scene fizzled with the death of Jerry Garcia.

After getting shut out by Ticket Bastard of all dead shows other then my mail ordered Albany tickets which were thru Grateful Dead ticket sales (the tried and true method for us hardcore dead heads). I was hopeful I would have better luck with Live Nation. Alas it was not to be, After being parked in the waiting room for three hours, I pulled up another browser only to find that Mansfield was sold-out. Yeah, the concert ticket version of being cold decked was my lot. As, I said to BFF Kim, I can see three days of great music at Mountain Jam V for the same price as paying a broker to see one Dead show at MSG, Worcester or Hartford. Plus Max Creek will be playing local in March at Revolution Hall in Troy, NY and I do love me my Creek. Come to think of it, I have a great idea for Scott if you happen to read this blog post that since one part of KBM is playing Mountain Jam V already (Oteil Burbridge of the Allman Brothers), Max Creek should also have a gig there!!!

Anyway this is a poker blog and you can read about music over on Coventry, so go check out Dr Pauly's post titled: Denied Phish Tickets.... Again (Sub Title: Live Nation Blows Camel Balls).

My first tourney of the day the 3:15 PM 10k guarantee $11 buy-in saw me going no where fast. I eventually decided to just open raise every hand with ATC just to see if i could eventually hit a flop to know avail. Prior to the second break I texted Snake who was deep in the early tourney with the same buy-in and structure that I was all in with ATC next hand as I was hungry and needed to go get dinner. True to my word, I shoved all into someone's preflop raise, with the all powerful T2c the first hand after the second break, got the call and busted out against AT.

I ran out for Chinese Food as I had decided to play the 6:15 PM $22 deep stacker and Snake5970 was deep in his tourney with a ton of chips and I wanted to watch him play. He managed a deep run finishing 43rd of 5364 in the 2 PM 30k guarantee. After the first break of my deep stack, in late position, I look down to KK in a multi way limped pot. I bumped it to $200 with blinds at 25/50 got two callers and one fold and ran into a set of threes (the original limper) who was the table chip leader. Busto

Now I wasn't the most focused player that i know I can be. And I was trying to make things happen and I was forcing things so I decided to give it one more go. Rather then play a DON I looked over the multi-table MTT listings and saw a couple of new things: an $8.80 deep stack 90 man SNG that starts with 3k chips and a $2.20 kind of deep stack 90 man SNG that starts with 2k in chips. Now since i had already blown $33 in buyins and given back a bit of my SNG grinding money I opted to drop down in buyin and play the $2.20 buy-in. And a few hours later I had taken it down. Cross another pokerstars to do for 2009 thing off my list. Win not just a SNG but a Multi-table SNG. Ive never won a 180 man, 90 man or even a 45 man on stars before. I know Ive final tabled them and cashed but I dont think I ever took one down. If I had I would have screen captured it. I actually dont play them all that much.



I guess I was inspired by cash game great and now he can claim live MTT ballah Steve "thorladen" Weinstein's Borgata Winter Poker Open win (after a few near misses of final tables at WPT events). Steve is the stepson (and I believe current or former bridge partner of). of a running friend of mine who I havent seen in a few years since he lives down in Kingston and I don't run competitively anymore. Steve if you read this say hello to Fred for me from Lori. And Congrats on your big score. From what I've read on pocket fives and other boards it was a well deserved win and couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. A few years ago Steve was one of the backers in the August TLB prop bet that involved a group of players taking on Gigabet. For an old profile of Steve click here.

PHISH PHISH PHISH !!! to REUNITE

Go see Dr Pauly's post on Coventry