Saturday, June 15, 2013

I forgot about this blog.
I won the 6-month long Wednesday league for $50 and a trophy.
I donated the $50 back to the forum with the stipulation hat they award it to someone who wins *both* Sunday games (One NLHE and one mixed game).
Well, I won both Sunday games (I'm better than most of them at Omaha, but I don't really like the game).





The next Wednesday League will be over at the end of this month and I'm in 1st place again with two games left.  Unfortunately I'm only 10 points ahead and I won't be playing this Wednesday, so it's very likely that I'll be passed up by one or two players this week due to my absence.  That means in two weeks I'll have to substantially better than whoever passes me, which will be tough because anything can happen in poker.  It'll be close.

We had a new "Premier" league where we played 8 games for points.  The top 8 players played a winner-take-all game for $110, and the bottom 8 played a winner-take-all for $50.  It's an interesting idea.
I barely made it into the big game, which we played last Thursday.
I won it.  :)




Tuesday, August 7, 2012

My daughter and I took a ten day trip to CA, and we had a blast.
It was good to come home though.

I had no problems getting back on the chin up routine.  Well, it's not a routine, but I do the chin ups.

Poker-wise:  Last Sunday I got it all-in-pre-flop with J/J vs A/T and was crippled when he flopped an Ten, then turned another Ten.
I managed to come back but then got it all-in-pre-flop with J/J vs T/T, and he spiked a T to knock me out in 6th.  Had I won I'd have been in 2nd with at least twice the chips of anybody below me.  Oh well.
It was against my buddy, and he went on to win, so it wasn't all bad.

On Wednesday I won the game.  It was also the first game of a series where they count points.  The winner will get $50 and 2nd & 3rd somehow split the remaining $50 of the $100 prize pool.
Anyway, it's cool to be in the #1 seat.  Tomorrow night I play again, and hope to extend my lead.

I really dislike the scoring structure though.  First place gets one point for everybody in the game.  Second place gets one point less than that.  Third gets one less point, etc.  Until the first person out gets 1 point.
That scoring system sucks as it rewards tightwads who can play every game.

In my opinion poker should reward the top finishers, not those who squeak into the final table.
Someone who plays two games and gets middle finishes should *not* have the same score as someone who missed one of those games but got a 1st place in the other.
Top finishes should be top heavy with points.

Saturday, July 14, 2012

Updating because I'm bored

My chin ups are going fine.  My right elbow was aching a bit, and I thought I might have to quit but the pain went away and I keep doing the chin ups so we'll see.
I'm pretty laid back with the regime, especially since I'll be on vacation for a couple weeks pretty soon.

 My girl friend took off for Canada for three weeks, to catch Canada geese and band them for some research project.  She'll be flown into a remote camp, with no phone and no Internet.  She can use the satellite phone for a few minutes each week.
It sounds like a fun trip despite the fact that there are no showers and someone has to carry a rifle due to the polar bears.

I planned on fishing early today so I set my alarm for 5:45, to get out before sunrise (sunrise was at around 6:30, but there's light at about 5:45) and I woke up at 5:43 so I just stayed up rather than suffer the indignity of hearing that alarm go off.
 I tried to catch another trout but I only caught a catfish.  I considered switching tactics and going for some bass but I didn't feel like paddling across the lake.
I'm tempted to go back out early tomorrow morning.

Tomorrow I'm going to my in-laws for my father-in-law & my brother-in-law's birthdays.  Should be good times.

On Wednesday my daughter and I are flying to Sacramento, where my mother/father/brother will pick us up and drive us to Lake Tahoe for a family reunion.
Then on Saturday we drive to another lake for another family reunion.  We'll be at that place a week before driving back to Sacramento and flying home.

-

A couple weeks ago my father and I did some target practice in his front yard, because we hadn't shot our Henry Big Boys in awhile.  I brought a spinner, which is .3/5" thick steel.  My .44 Magnum puts some significant dents in it.  :)
I brought him some .38 Specials and I got some .44 Specials for myself, but I ran into a weird problem.

Awhile back I sighted my my rifle at just over 55 yards with my .44 Magnum ammunition.
A few weeks ago I shot the Henry and could hit the spinner (4" diameter) every time at about 30 yards.
A week later a friend and her two sons came over and I hit the target no problem at 25 yards while standing.
Well, my father-in-law and I shot at 50 yards, and I couldn't hit the spinner at all!
I wasn't hitting the target or seeing any reaction.  I had no idea where the bullet was going.
I decided to shoot about 6" low so I could at least see a puff of dust, and "PANG!" I hit the spinner!

A .44 Special is an under-powered .44 Magnum.  I figured that less power meant that the bullet would go lower.  It made no sense that it would shoot so much higher than the .44 Magnum.  (Remember, I was aiming low because the bullet was going half a foot + over where I was aiming)
Maybe my scope had been bumped or misaligned in some way?  IMO, a weaker cartridge should shoot *lower* not higher.

I put some magnums into the gun and they all went where they were supposed to.  The bullets went right to where the cross-hairs pointed.  What the?!?!

So I put some Specials back in and they shot high again!  I had to aim into the dirt.  Could my ammo be weird?

Today I Googled the problem and found this: http://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=258207
That solved the mystery.

To sum it up, the .44 Special shoots substantially slower than the .44 Magnum.  Because of this the bullet does *not* leave the barrel before the gun starts to recoil.  So the barrel is on its way up before the bullet leaves the muzzle, resulting in a higher shot even though the bullet is under powered compared to a Magnum

I found that really interesting.  I wouldn't have thought of that on my own.


Monday, July 9, 2012

Checking in

Well, it hasn't been a year since the update.

I didn't win MVP for season 5 because I had a pretty poor finish.  Them's the breaks.
The following season I did even worse.  Same situation.  People were getting better, and things just didn't go my way.
I'm taking the current season off, and since I'll be on vacation when the new season starts (in a couple weeks) I probably won't play then too.

I do play in the Hold'em Freaks game sometimes.  They play at 9:30 on Sundays, and I like the late hours.
Plus they offer a $ prize for first place.

I'm still dating the same woman, though it's more of casual thing now.  We're still very good friends.  We just know that we have different destinies.

I quit doing the Perfect Pushup routines because of pain in my right elbow.  I was going to pick it back up after Machu Picchu but the pain came back.  I was really impressed at what it did for my back, pecs, and triceps, but it did very little for my biceps.
I kept kicking around the idea of getting a chin up bar from Walmart.  They were $40, but I wasn't sure if they'd fit in anywhere but my closet door because the hallway has a low ceiling due to central air.  But then I saw a similar one on DailySteals for $15 so I bought it.
I've been using it off and on for a week and I already feel a difference.  I don't look any different, but I'm not as soft under the skin.
I could do three at first, but now I can barely eek out 5.  That's still not a lot, but I weigh 200lbs.  That's 1,000lbs right?  :)

Anyway, I'm not going to follow any regiment like I did with the Perfect Pushup.  I have it set in my pantry, and every time I walk by it I do as many as I can.  I do let myself skip it if I'm sore or tired.  But if I go in there to get a snack, then I always to it.
I spare myelf from doing it if I'm doing laundry, as that's punishment enough.  :)

I haven't had any elbow pain yet.  I was worried about that.  I think it may have been some repetitive stress thing from how I sat and held the mouse.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Happy Thanksgiving!

I haven't been playing much.
I'll play a free Sunday game each week (9:36PM) and I'll play my weekly team game.

We're 33/50 games into the season and my team the PengWins is doing well.
Out of the 45 players in the league, my team has 4 (of 5) in the top dozen. We are sitting in 1, 2, 11, & 12. Yeah, it's a temporary stat, but it's still cool.



If I win MVP again this year, it'll be 5 in a row. Again, nobody else has ever won twice, let alone two in a row.
I enjoy the run, but I'm sort of ready to hand off the title to someone else.
I won't throw a game to do it, but I think someone else will enjoy the title more than I will at this point.
My teammate is right on my tail, so he has a good chance of taking it. That'd be nice.

In non-poker news, I'm still dating the same woman.
She's been taking me hunting, which I really enjoy. I've dragged a dear through the woods and helped process it.
Butchering a deer isn't rocket science. You pretty much just feel out each muscle and cut it out.
Oh, and you cut off all the shiny stuff that coats each muscle.

Today I made a deer burger for lunch, out of a deer that was harvested in my back yard.
It was good!
It was meat that was raised in a humane manor, and is 100% free of hormones and all that other stuff that farmers inject into their livestock.
Harvesting deer also keeps the population down, which is necessary since all wild mountain lions have been eradicated from the state and bears have been eliminated from most places.
In places like Frankfort there are unhealthy numbers of deer because you can't discharge a firearm in city limits. The animals have little food in the winter, and are apt to spread disease to each other.

I've been looking at getting a new rifle and I think I've settled on the Henry .44. It shoots .44 Magnums (a'la Dirty Harry), but without the kick that the .44 Magnum handgun has.
It also shoots .44 Specials, which is just a shorter version of the same bullet.

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Machu Picchu

I thought I'd post a few pics from the Machu Picchu backpacking trip.

Our group was composed of 2 guides, and 9 tourists (besides the 10 or so porters who carried all of the tents, food, and equipment).


There were only two or three small tunnels along the 4 day, 3-night trip.


The trails were incredible, especially when you consider that they were first made hundreds of years ago by people who didn't have metal tools.


Of course, the highlight of the trip was Machu Picchu.
I didn't think I'd like it as much as I did. I mean, I'd seen several television shows on the site, so I thought it was going to be boring, but there is a huge difference between seeing it and being among the walls.


We had a speech about the site, then we were free to wander around on our own.

Machu Piccho has a visitor center, that has a bus that goes to a small down called Aguas Calientes. From there we took a long train ride to another town, and then a shuttle back to Cuzco.

I had a blast, and I would totally do this trip again.

Long time no see... or poker


I did not join the CardsChat Spring 2011 League. I got a new girlfriend and poker was a much smaller part of my life so I decided not to sign up.

A couple weeks in I missed the one game a week, so I signed up as an alternate.

Poker's Black Friday hit and nuked real money games in the United States, which caused people to drop from the league and I got picked up by a team in middle position.

The team ended up getting 1st place, and I won league MVP for the third season in a row. (Nobody other player has won twice, let alone three times in a row)

I felt obligated to play in the Summer 2011 league, and am doing well in it (3 wins, and 2 2nd places over the 5 games I've played so far).

I made a chart showing my finishes for the individual games over the past 4 seasons:

Those stats are laughably high. 17 first places in 38 games is crazy.
I still have 4 more games to play this season, and one guy is right on my tail, so my good finishes this season by no means lock me for a 4th MVP title.

I'm watching a teammate play a game right now, and the conversation at the table tickled me.
You start with 3,000 chips and 10/20 blinds. Early in the game the conversation went something like this:

DM - I'm so card dead this game. It's frustrating.
SP - You're card dead over what, maybe, 20 hands???
CK - 19!
DM - Ha ha! Yeah, I get frustrated if I don't see K/K or A/A within the first five hands.
CK - If you're so card dead, how come you don't have 2,900 chips?
SP - LOL!

DM had 1,850 chips instead of the 2,900+ chips he'd have if he just folded every hand.

I have a tiny bit of money on Carbon (and a friend generously doubled it) but I just don't have the urge to grind it. I think I have $1,400 or so on Full Tilt that I never expect to see again and I have a few hundred on UltimateBet that I can almost guarantee I'll never see, so building a bankroll on Carbon has lost it's appeal.