Posted by Dr Fro | January 29, 2008 10:07 PM
Filed Under Uncategorized

And I’m just a sucka with a lump in my throat..(Hey!)..like a chump…

I promised a post about me taking a terrible loss and having *that* look on my face. This is not that post.

On Sunday night we played our league game – 50c-50c rotating NLHE and PLO/8. I lost 500 BBs in 4 hours. That is hard to do.

Given the fact that the stakes are a lot smaller than what I am accustomed to playing, I didn’t at first realize that I set a personal record for a loss. The $250 was well, well below my biggest loss, but measured in terms of a multiple of the big blind, it was definitely a record. To put it in perspective, at $2-$5 NL, that would be a loss of $2,500 – a staggering sum to lose. That puts it into perspective! (Yes, for the math to work perfectly, the small blind in our league game would need to have been 20c, but that’s nitpicky).

How did it happen? A combination of bad cards, bad beats and bad decisions were to blame, but this fact covers about $160 of the $250 loss: I lost four times to the nut flush, holding the second nut flush. I don’t typically draw to the second nut flush (sure, I love draws, but I like winning draws), but in each instance, I was calling because of some other aspect of my hand and I backdoored the flush. That sort of shit just makes you think that I pissed off the gambling gods something fierce and they all just sat up there and conspired just how to really f*** me over real good and hard. Throw in a loss with KK to AA as well. Oh yeah, and there was the bad beat that involved my opponent calling a bet on the flop and the turn with nothing but overs (KQ) and called a (bluffing) bet on the river with nothing but a paired King facing a paired board and three diamonds. Hey, I was telling you on this blog just three weeks ago that the brilliant call is what makes you money, so more power to my opponent for calling down my bluff. But, damn!

By my count we played 78 hands. The first thing to notice is that is unbelievably slow play to cover only 78 hands in 4 hours. The second thing I’d note is how unbelievable it is that I had so many improbable things happen in such a small sampling of hands. The last thing I’d note is that it is absolutely crazy that my worst beat (measured on a scalable basis) happened over such a small number of hands. What are the odds?

My final reflection is that if I can have that terrible of a stretch of luck (and bad decision-making) and only lose $250, I consider myself lucky. Yes, I am the luckiest man on the planet. With luck like this, I just might be broke before the end of the year.

Posted by Johnnymac | January 28, 2008 10:55 AM
Filed Under Uncategorized

Jeff is having a game this week. Details are below. Email me if you want to play and I’ll hook you up with him (the stakes are too rich for your fearless author, but all of you guys know I’m a small-timer garage poker player, anyway):

—————————————–

WHEN: 6:30pm Wednesday January 30th

We had a great game on the first try last week.
Roger
dominated with his professional play.
please reply ASAP.

Now that we had the trial run, we know more.

2 rounds of Holdem 1-3blinds PL
1 round of Omaha 1-2blinds PL

Can bring it in for 5 times the big blind or the pot
whichever is greater.

If you are ahead and everyone in action is ALL-IN,
you can get insurance as long as pot is at least
$300.

$400 buy-in, re-buys from $200 to half of the
largest
stack (1000max) in increments of 200. Table stakes.
No splitting pots without showing cards (ie all-in)

No rake! No dealer tips! Chip in $15 for food and
drinks.

It’s at Jay’s house again. Game STARTS at 6:30pm,
ENDS 11pm…degenerates feel free to play longer
AFTER
we cash everyone else out.

If you’re in, bring at least a little cash, and
checks
are fine. NO IOUs to the game.

SEE you WED,

Jeff

Posted by Junelli | January 27, 2008 7:21 PM
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Talk about a director and an actor REALLY doing their homework. This guy really nailed it!

Posted by Dr Fro | January 27, 2008 3:51 PM
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There are so many things I love about Rounders. One of them is that look on Mike’s face when he loses his bankroll. The directors and Matt Damon did their homework, because he nailed that face. I’ve sat speechless with that face before. Too many times to tell, really. But I need to share the story about one time that I had that look on my face. I’ll get that up here next week. Until then, enjoy this:

Posted by Johnnymac | January 24, 2008 6:59 PM
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In 1991, we were damn good. I had actually forgotten how good we were that year. 409 to 175? Are you kidding me? 4 shutouts in 5 games outscoring the opponents 201 to 16 in that stretch? Good lord. It’s funny how now looking back 16 years later that it was something so obviously special and unusual and the sad thing is that back then we just all took it for granted.

You appreciate things more when you get older. Funny that.

(A few of you probably are good friends with our quarterback to this day. Please tell him hello for me if you see him…)

But all of that’s not the point of this post. The point of this post is that if you look the year before, 1990, something’s missing from the schedule: THE SCRIMMAGE. Remember how Boobie Miles hurt his knee in that scrimmage and the whole focus of that outstanding book and atrocious movie (why make those idiots into sympathetic heroes?) was how he was never the same. Well, the same thing happened to me, too.

In 1990 (the year before the special season) we started the season with a scrimmage in this stadium against these guys. The kid in front of me was rather puny and easily pushed around, and being a BMOC high school football player myself, I started talking all kinds of trash to him and continued to do so throughout the entire scrimmage. He was mad. He was embarrassed. He was getting yelled at by his coaches. I was loving it.

And then that QB I mention above threw an interception and I dutifully ran over to join in on the tackle, except right before I got there Mr Puny McDipshit hit me in the back. My right leg stayed planted but the rest of me fell over sideways and I felt and heard what seemed like bubble wrap getting ripped apart inside of me knee. It was a dirty-ass hit. His coaches yelled at him, our coaches yelled at their coaches and I just lay on the ground wondering what happened. After a little while I made it back to the bench where the doctor played around with my knee while I sat there crying because I figured my season was ruined and I was out of the season opener at (now DKR) Memorial Stadium in Austin two weeks later. But the doctor said it felt stable and that he thought it was just a minor sprain, that maybe my kneecap moved around a little bit, but that I would eventually be fine. And two weeks later I was on the field in Austin as we won our first game of the year.

My knee was never the same and I lost a step after that and I’m pretty sure it cost me a real football scholarship (funny how the letters and calls just stop when something like that happens). I’ve been able to function pretty darn good, but I’ve always had a bum knee ever since that night in Brownwood.

For the most part it’s just been mild pain swelling all this time, but lately it’s just gotten worse over the past couple of years until finally, this past October, I tried to play in the company softball tournament and couldn’t walk the next day, so I finally decided to go see the doctor again. My GP recommended this guy and his initial diagnosis was, “Yeah, that’s a little crunchy and stiff in there, isn’t it? I think it’s just arthritis from the old injury, but lets do an MRI to be sure.”

Me: “Is it possibly an ACL injury from long ago? It feels unstable sometimes and hurts to cut and jump.”

“No. Your knee feels stable. There’s no way you have a 15 year old ACL injury. You wouldn’t be able to walk.”

Me: “umm… OK.”

So I had to put off the MRI until after January 1st for insurance reasons, but I finally went and did it last week and, after the long windup, the point here is that I went to see the doctor this morning to get the results of the MRI:

“John, are you aware just how serious your knee is injured? It looks from the MRI that you have a torn ACL, and from the looks of all the collateral damage and arthritis in there, it appears to be a really old injury. You must have done this back in High School, if I had to guess. You need to get this repaired right away before it gets any more worse!”

“Really? I had no idea!”

So we’re trying to find a day right now that works, schedule wise. I’ll be off my feet for 5 days, on crutches for about 10 days after that, and rehabbing for at least 6-8 months. I am looking forward to getting it fixed, finally, but the road ahead is kind of daunting to say the least.

As always, more details to come…

Posted by Johnnymac | January 23, 2008 10:23 AM
Filed Under Uncategorized

Bueller?

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