Monthly Archives: January 2007

The Transition of OG leads to the transition of me.

Olivia is in a transition. Now that she’s over 18 months I guess it’s time for her to start testing her boundaries and exerting her character a bit more. I’ve noticed this in her eating and how she is expressing her desire to not do something.

OG used to be an indiscriminate eater. She would eat pretty much anything you put on her plate. Although she still will eat many different types of food I have noticed that she has become more selective. She picks the meat out of her noodles, she will not eat carrots. In general, she will eat ‘around’ the items she’s not interested in at that time….which are items she may be interested the next time around. At first I was a little frustrated but I realize now that this is part of growing up: I still eat around items I’m not too fond of so who am I to pass judgement?

The other recent development is in the way she expresses herself when she does not want to do something: arch her back and flail about which can often lead to her banging her head against one thing or another, which in turn sets her off. Not because it hurt but because it’s a cue to start crying. This behaviour is particularly prevelant when it’s time to have a diaper change, get dressed or get undressed. This gets me really frustrated me and I have caught myself on the verge of anger. And that embarrasses me. There is no place for that and it is my responsibility as a parent and a member of my family to put myself above these emotions. It is detrimental and serves no purpose. So, with new enlightenment I will strive to be patient when it is easier to be impatient. How else is my child to learn proper behaviour and how else am I to grow as a parent? Plus, I’m not fun to be around when I get into the spiral of frustration and it’s not fair to Sonia.

Hey, these types of challenges are far outweighed by the enjoyment to everyday life that OG brings. Each of our lives have been enriched since becoming a family. Check out OG’s site for some bragging by daddy on the wonderful accomplishments she’s been making.

Psychic Poker

OK, this seems to me to be a no-brainer but I’ve got to pose it anyway.  An interesting friend of mine named ‘Dave L’ asked the following (I’ll be paraphrasing):

Texas Hold’em:  If you were psychic and had the ability of either knowing 1 of your opponent’s 2 hole cards or knowing what the river card is going to be, which would you prefer to know?

Beverly Hills 90210

I didn’t want to make this public knowledge but I just had to. Besides, those who know me already suspected. I am a watcher of 90210 now that it has been revived on TV Tropolis. We recently upgraded our digital cable box with a PVR so now we (yes, someone else in the household also watches it religiously) can tape it and watch it over dinnertime.

When I watched the show the first time it was aired back in the late 80’s and early 90’s, I was a wee young lad in my late teens. I was able to ‘relate’ to the issues the gang was up against and also could look up to the admirable qualities of such respectable characters as Brandon and Andrea and to a lesser extent, good ole Steve Saunders.
I would always ‘side’ with the kids whenever they were ratted out or caught by their parents doing something immoral like drinking and driving, taking drugs, sleeping with Dylan. Things were unfair or blown way out of proportion when Jim Walsh would lay down the law. Or would be thinking “Old Man, you don’t know anything” when he would try to give advice to Brandon.

My how the worm has turned. Just the other night Jim was playing a little one-on-one basketball with Brandon and having a little heart to heart about pre-marital relations. Instead of siding with the wavy haired teen idol as I’m sure I did oh those 15 years ago, I found myself agreeing with my similarly coiffed friend “Old man Jim”. You see, he was saying things like: “Be careful” and “Think first”. Which appeals greatly to me now that I have a child.

This has happened to me during several shows and now Jimbo seems like a pretty good guy instead of a deadbeat. Ouch. See what getting old will do? Watching shows I used to watch in my teens and now picking out the moral story, agreeing with it and enjoying the punishment being doled out by those in power.

Some things haven’t changed though. For example, I still think that Jim should not have been married to Cindy. What did he see in her anyway? And Dylan: what a skinnly little weasel he was. And acted out by a skinnly little weasel.

One funny note: Whenever the theme song comes on, OGD is the first to run to the TV and catch the opening credits.

Found: money

I was looking through all my poker accounts over the weekend and found $1000 sitting in my Paradise account.  This windfall will be put to good use:  going towards a trip somewhere, someday soon (I can’t divulge any details at this time).

While logged into Paradise I took a look-see around and discovered that there was hardly anybody online.  This was Saturday at around 11:00pm which used to be prime time.  Looks like the US crackdown on creditcard usage on these sites has hit some sites hard.

So I went over to PokerStars to see how they were doing.  Much better.  But I think it’s because a lot of Canadians hang out there.  So I decided to play a sit-n-go ($30+3) and won 1st.  More coin to the coffers.

Now that I have a goal in mind (more money for this mysterious trip) I think I’ll spend a little more time playing again for at least a little while.  OGD is starting to sleep a bit more regularly (YES!!) and with the predictability I can sometimes stay up a little later and play during the peak hrs.  We’ll see how it goes.

Back on the Tour

After a 4+ month hiatus I have returned to the live poker stage.  Mostly because it’s time to sharpen up before WonderBoy ’07.  The time-off has certainly dulled the edges a bit.  On the plus side it appears I have unintentionally changed my approach to the game.

In the past I used to live and die so to speak each and every event.  I can easily recall numerous nights where I’ve come home emptyhanded where I’ve stared at the ceiling in bed rehashing the mistakes I made and chastising myself for them.  On the other hand, on victorious nights it has taken me hrs to come down before nodding off.

Out of necessity I can no longer afford this luxury whenever I am fortunate enough to be able to slip away for a poker night.  It’s hard enough coming home at 12 or 1AM not knowing what’s in store for the rest of the evening already missing out on some prime sleep time.  There’s no time to be replaying hands when there’s sleep to be had.

This is a good thing.  This limitation has folded over to my overall approach to poker night.  I now have a mindset that win or lose it’s only one night in a night of many and this particular outcome has no significant bearing on what I think about my quality of play or what others think about my quality of play.  That’s not to say I do not still enter the arena with the desire and the skills to win.  That hasn’t changed.

With this new attitude, doors have opened up.  I am a little more daring and willing to play players instead of my cards.  Prior to this rebirth I would back down on prime opportunities to steal pots because I didn’t want to take the chance and bow out early.  Now, I am inclined to attack when I see weakness and with the the ability to display the confidence required to ignore your own cards and represent strength.

And so this is how I entered my new season of poker.  And I had relative success last night.  A night where I was getting more junk than good.  The only ‘good’ hand I had pre-flop was KK and I lost a good chunk of stack slow-playing it and losing to a 92 that hit for 2 pair on the turn.  So bluffing was the path to my success yesterday.  A first for me.  A shift in my play where I was more interested in placing bets that would isolate me against weaker opponents in weaker positions.

Yet it must be told that playing your own cards and sticking to pot odds is usually the way to go.  But when you have crap on a night you need to mix it up.   In the past I haven’t recognized this in time and placed middle of the pack.  With my newfound approach on poker life I am now able to see the subtleties in the night and change pace….knowing that if I fail and fail hard it really doesn’t matter.

I had to laugh at one point early in the knockout phase:  One particular player (who is very tight) was able to force an all in on one of the better players and had him dominated AQ over QJ with a Q on the flop.  Admittedly he played it very well and should be commended for his play.  But he got beat hard on the river when a J came up, thus eliminating him from play … the 1st man out.  That hit him hard and he was clearly upset.  Everyone at the table including the winner were unanimous in their condolences that it was very tough luck.  His demeanour was like looking in a mirror if that happened to me a year ago.  And just like him I would have gone home and stewed over it.

Then you have in the opposite corner my friend Tim.  Later in the night he got beat bad when he had rockets over an A7 suited.  He pushed in another of the tougher players and was very sly in doing it.  But he was beat when the flop and turn provided the flush to the opponent.  His reaction was laughter and c’est la vie.  Which is why he was able to claw back in and make a run to the final four.  That is the behaviour I have taken on, and as Time will not lose any sleep over the events, so won’t I.

Back to the game:

So, a lot of bluffs thus I was always near the bottom of the stack count.  Yet always with enough to hurt someone should they call an all-in.   In the elimination round I took a couple of hits so I was forced to go all-in on a few occasions to try and steal blinds.  It was unabashed play which is why I wasn’t upset in the least when I was fingered for obvious bluffs.  At this point my intention is not to be ‘bluffing’ even when I have marginal hands and nothing has hit me on the flop.  I’m seeing the flop and relying on the fact that the opponent has hit nothing either and thus is not willing to take a chance and dance in case he goes down and loses.  Therefore I employed the strategy against those who were in the middle of the road for chip count and would be hamstrung should they go down.

With a call on an all-in by Tim I was able to take him down with A high and find myself quite even in the final three.  A monster hand battle with Jay having QQ and Gerald with AA (And Jay almost folding pre-flop because he sensed something was unusual) it was showdown with Gerald up on me around 2 to 1 in chips.

A gutsy call to his bully all-in I was able to even up when my K3 paired the board with the K and beat his 22 (which I stated I hoped he had when I called him).

Then, unfortunately, my real-life kicked in and I got a vmail from Sonia that OG was not co-operating with her sleep.  We are going through a double-barrel shotgun of fun at home with OG having a nagging cough coupled with teething of 3 of her eye-teeth.  A recipe for limited to negligable sleep these past few nights.

Unfortunate or not certain things take precedence so I indicated that things are ‘not going too well at home’.  Gerald expressed that he would do a chop which at that point would have been very close to 50-50 but he was interested in continuing if possible.  I could not honestly allow this game to be chopped as it would not have been fair to him nor to the people that contributed to the evening of play.   So I lied to him and said things would be fine at home and said play-on.  However, I was resolved to pushing my chips all in  at the slightest opportunity that was not evident that I was blowing the game.

The chance came 2 hands later when I called pre-flop Geralds 3x bet with only Q8 not suited.  This hand was actually profitable for me 2 times that evening:  once in a showdown and once in a bluff so I was comfortable calling the bet since I thought G-man was being a bully on my big blind.

The flop was 24A with quick check from Gerald.  I checked quickly as well.  Then a J on the turn.  Quick check from G.  A 2 second pause and an all-in from me.  Representing to Gerald that I hit my J in addition to me ‘telling’ him that I know he dose not have a A with my quick check on the flop.

After 5 minutes of staring me down, which is very tough to endure when one is on an extremely bold-face bluff, Gerald called me down.  He had K4 with a 4 on the board.  But I can take great pride in Gerald’s comment that he was basically 50-50 in believeing that I had the A or J and that he was not able to get any reads off of me in the 5 minutes I spent staring at the chips in the pot.  His call was based on the way I had been playing that night.  He is very observant and knew I was being a little more ‘loose’ and bluffing a lot of hands.  So kudos to him for making that play.

Neither a Q or 8 came on the river and thus ended the night.  2nd place isn’t too bad after missing 4+ months of poker.  No regrets about having to force my hand due to extraneous circumstances which would not have been easy for me stay last year.

Separable Pants

I have a huge backlog of blogs but this one I couldn’t resist.  For Alex, a strange invention I read from my page-a-day calendar:

Separable Pants – The zipper goes all the way around the crotch, from the front to the back.  That way, you can mix and match the legs with other colours and styles, making your own artistic, customized pants

Hmm.  My recommendation for men (especially the hairier type thereof):  Commando not advised.

My drive to work today

On the way to work today two noteworthy things crossed my mind:

1.  When are the city workers going to clean up the dog’s head that has been on the side of the road for over a week now?  It has to be grossing out more people than just me.
2.  How did a dog’s head (from a fairly large dog from the look of things) get there in the first place and I wonder what is in the plastic bag beside it (but not that interested to go find out)?

Yikes.