Cash Monkey Has Arrived....

This could be a fun blog post. Or it could fizzle. Depends on how much I am able to remember that I wanted to share with y'all. But first, Squirrel is chirping at me to go play with my 'sad' dogs who have been waiting all day for me to get out of bed. Be right back. ** sigh **

Yeah, so I played with the dogs...snuck a piece of roast out of the slow roaster, then laid down and fell asleep again. My sleeping is out of control. Seriously think I am part grizzly bear. Well, I did spend 8 years of my childhood living in Northwest Montana.

So there is a NASCAR race on...and while I was sleeping I was having dreams that I was racing. My car wasn't in the best of shape, but I was pushing it harder than a political prisoner in Cold War Russia...and as a result was making up a lot of spots. Then, for some damn reason, I decided to take left side tires with only 20 laps to go, and got sidetracked trying to help Tony Stewart get re-started...eventually having to replace his battery...and completely forgot that I had moved up from 32nd to 11th. A.D.H.D at its worst.

My friend Weronika 'Wonky' Starr thinks I need to start my own YouTube channel and start posting crazy, stupid shit to it on a regular basis...seems to think I would attract a ton of followers, which would lead to me being able to make money off of advertisers. Hmmm. Maybe.

Want to see a couple of interesting videos I shot while in Vegas? No? Too bad. Here it goes:

....and then, moments later...his night came crashing to a screeching halt. Ouch!

By the way...does anyone have ANY idea why when I shoot a movie on my iPhone with the phone at 12 and 6 (those are clock references, don't be confused, kind of like how you might hold your hands on the steering wheel while driving) it comes out sideways when I play it back? And for that matter, how in the hell do I rotate it so you don't have to watch it while tilting your head sideways? These ARE important questions, dammit.

[ Well now that they finally posted, it looks like the YouTube editor automatically flips them back around. Nice. ] 

Oh...and though I already posted this amazing video last month...due to popular demand...it is back. You're welcome!

 

I received some awesome news Friday. Fresh off a profitable cash session Thursday night, and a 12-hour period of fasting...I served up my arm to the needle at my doctor's office to see just how this new cholesterol medication is working on my sky-high levels of death coursing through my veins. The combination of Zetia and Luvalo appear to be the great miracle workers! I'm sure my diet the past two months hasn't hurt too much either. The 13 pounds I've lost have got me wearing my 'old' jeans...same jeans (brand wise) just going back to the 38's now, since the 40's are falling off of me. Here is a snap shot of the before/after lab results...my doctor almost fell off his stool when he looked at it.

Not sure if you can make this out...but the Sept 2011 numbers on the left, compared with the Mar 2012 numbers on the right are simply staggering. That number on the bottom is what my Doctor called my 'heart-attack risk number' and it went from 8.7 (aka Walkin-Talkin Heart Attack) to 4.0 (aka Below Average). My triglycerides he said were 'like glue' last fall...and were reduced by 65%. My cholesterol hasn't been this low since I was in my early 20's. I left his office like I was walking on a cloud! I immediately went home, scanned the results, and sent an email to the guy who wrote my life insurance policy...and got myself into a much, much better policy! I was feeling so good, I went ahead and paid my homeowners insurance and my property taxes for the year.

My cash game career started on Thursday night at the I.P. Biloxi. I played from 9:15pm to 3:20am. Bought in for $300, cashed out for $1020. A successful Day 1. After a 90-minute cardio workout, I convinced Squirrel to let me return last night for my 2nd session, even though it was her night off. I played from 9:37pm till 5:40am...buying in for $300 in 1/2 NL Hold em...cashing out at 2:30am with $600 and taking it to a 1/2 PLO table that they had been trying to get going all night. I took three pretty brutal beats, and before I know it was having to rebuy. Out came $400. Hovered around $300-$350 for over an hour...then had one of those hours where I never missed anything. I got it up to $850...then was tired, and taking calls from Squirrel, asking why I was still out? Good time to cash out. Profit $92. Gross. However, given that I was stuck over $500 at one point...I'm calling it a victory.

I've determined that sitting at a cash table sober...and committing myself to just playing A-B-C poker, is a wonderful way to make a living. The mistakes that bad players make, and the obvious bluffs they try to pull...make it a feeding frenzy for a player with even a 'decent' skill level. Yeah, sure there are the occasional bad beat suck outs to the idiot who just won't ever fold his bottom pair...hitting trips on the river, or some other goofy river card to make your hand melt like a Popsicle on an Arizona sidewalk. So, you just factor those in, and try to minimize the liability on each hand when you are facing one of those mutants.

I was having an almost decent conversation with this guy at my table about how to play when playing pretty much ANY WHERE in Florida. This guy, who had serenaded me with "Really dude? Oh my God, you ARE the worst player ever..." after I called his raise (from the button) with KKQ2 (when I probably should have re-raised him heads up, but didn't only because he'd shown down some pretty damn good hands) then on a 7-7-2 flop called his bet, turned like a Jack I think...called another small bet...then rivered a KING...where I went ahead and led for about 65...getting a call from him, with him holding A-K-7-10. Ouch. I mock pouted and told him he had really hurt my feelings. We was a pretty nice guy, and was just frustrated I guess.

Anyway, I was talking to him about how to play against these barely human beings...and the one thing I stressed, and some of you might either agree or disagree with me here...was to be very conscious about pot control. It seems like you see more mistakes made by players, where they either overbet hands where they should be value betting...or invest way too much in the hand on the flop and/or turn...making their ability to fold on the river nearly impossible. Or putting so much in on those two streets that the donkey who is sitting there with a gutshot, or a bad flush draw...can't find a good reason to fold heading to the river, since they are usually looking at a pot that is 5 times their existing stack...and you get a lot of those "Oh well, I guess I will just rebuy" jagoffs, who hit their magic card on the river, and leave you pulling your hair out. Been there, right?

Well...so my suggestion is to keep the pot relatively small, and manageable...even if you are nearly positive you have the best hand...because as long as you are up against an opponent that doesn't like to fold, who LOVES to see all five cards...why do you want to paint yourself into a corner heading to the river? I would prefer to be building a pot...getting him to keep contributing, but giving yourself some leverage heading to the river.

Example 1: Before the hand...you have $500 in your stack. Donkey-fuck has $415.

You have AhQh and raise to $15 (in a 1/2 game) behind three limpers. D.F. calls your $15 with A8off. One other calls.  (pot now $52) Flop comes A-2-9. D.F. checks to you. You lead for $50. The other caller folds. D.F. calls. Now $152 in the pot. The turn is a 7 of hearts...now giving you top pair with a nut flush draw. D.F. bets out now....$75. (pot 227) You decide to raise his stupid ass. You look at his stack. He now has $275 in his stack. You raise it to $180. Dipshit flats you. The pot is now $512. Idiot has $170 remaining in his stack. The river is an 8 of spades. D.F. retard shoves all in. There is $682 in the pot and you have to call $170 with what may be the best hand. You feel stupid calling. But you do. And you lose. And want to kill the guy. But really, the person you might want to get mad at, is yourself.

Example 2. Same scenario. Equal chip counts. Same hole cards. Same raise preflop. But this time...on the flop, I bet $25. Same call by the same D.F. Pot now though is only $102 instead of $152. The same turn card gives your a flush draw. He again bets out $75. Two options now, instead of really just one followed by a 'priced in' call on the river. Either flat the guy, and hope to river a flush or even a queen and get deep into the guy's stack...or, and this is sometime a riskier gamble against a shitty player, moving all in. The difference is that now he has to call a LOT bigger bet...and his A8 suddenly is looking pretty weak, now that he has to put $300 more into the pot. A lot of times, you will get this moron to fold, and win a decent pot. Sure, you didn't get the rest (yet) but you also didn't have to watch the non-heart 8 hit the river and fuck your night up...up at least temporarily.

Pot Control. It's a very mismanaged part of the game, both in cash game, and in tournament play. No where do you see it more than in Pot Limit Omaha. To the extent that it's comical at times. You get these jacktards who just love saying the word 'POT!!!!' I would say that 87.5% of those jokers don't even KNOW what the pot bet amount is. They just scream POT and wait for the dealer to give them a number. Instead of just looking at the pot...estimating it to be about $85...realizing you have a made low, and a nut draw to the high...and four players in the hand, it dawns on you that you probably don't want ALL of them leaving this hand just yet. So why in the HELL you would scream 'POT' there is beyond me, other than you have shouting 'pot' ingrained into your soul...and simply can't resist.

No, no...why not just pick a relatively manageable number, say...$40...and going with that? Because it makes too much sense? Whatever. The lack of players who understand and are able to exercise pot control kind of drives me batty.

You know what else makes me climb the walls? If you do NOT understand the concept of 'position' as it correlates to your ability to play vs. an opponent? Then don't use it. Why? Because you are only exposing yourself as a ridiculously poor player without a clue. The tossing around of the word, or phrase "I was out of position" or "I had position" on you is the 2010's version of the 2000's "I had pot odds." No...idiot, you didn't. To both. I implore you...as players who want people to think you know what you are talking about...to guys who THINK you are good, but not great, and want to enhance your table image by throwing around big poker words and phrases....do this: Go buy yourself a good book, written by a well known poker professional, like, say...Daniel Negreanu. He will explain to you what 'position' actually is.

To those of you who still think 3-betting means you are raising 3 times the amount of the big blind? You can also buy that book.

To those who are sitting on 8 big blinds (in a tournament) and are in the SB holding 2-6 off suit and call the raise from cutoff (with no other action behind) and call because you 'think' you are getting 'the right price' to call? No...doofus, you aren't. You are just stupid...and stupid has no remedy. You're just stupid. Buy a book.

My favorite guy is this one. The blinds are 200/400. He has 5500 in his stack. He is sitting in middle position. Under the Gun raises to 1200 (he happens to have 10-10). He gets re-raised by a guy two seats over...to 2800...and is holding KK. He also has a pretty tight table image. Hmmm...seems like a pretty good place, with 5500 chips, and holding J9h...to pull the squeeze shove, right? I'm almost positive that guy who made it 2800 will insta-fold for another 2700, right? Dude...that guy isn't folding if he was only given ONE CARD by the dealer! But lets make that move anyway. You know the rest of that story. He either leaves and gets laughed at by the whole table...or pulls off some miracle suckout...and proceeds to sit there jabbering about his awesome play for the next 15 minutes, with the guy holding KK wanting to pour lighter fluid on his whole body and flicking matches at him.

"I mean, what was I gonna do? I was down to 12 BB's...I had to make a move. J9 was the best hand I had seen in 4 orbits!"  (yeah yeah we get it...never mind all those early position raises and re-raises that occurred before you looked down upon that monster J9) In a word...I H-A-T-E these people. Vigorously. It has been responsible for a semblance of the love and respect I have lost for poker...and driven me closer and closer to the brink of insanity.

Know what else I hate? That I am watching the late game on ESPN...the late NBA game...not WNBA...but NBA...a game played by men. Adult men. And here we are...being treated, once again to a female dykey-sounding color commentator. Why? They started this trend with the early Big Ten game in football every Saturday. Now its festered, moving into the NBA. And yesterday, I got to listen to a broad doing the race coverage for the Nationwide event. Why? Because Danica 'can't find the finish line with a road map' Patrick is now racing (floundering/crashing/whining about it) in NASCAR? I swear to God...if ESPN even tries this shit with baseball...I'm driving to Bristol and fire-bombing their offices. (Dear FBI: that is a joke. Please don't send the bomb squad to my house like you did three years ago when I told that asshole collection agent from Chase that I was going to find him and firebomb him in his cubicle)

Along those same lines...and with my attempt to give equal credit to the male side, if I have one thing to look forward to, its the NCAA Postseason, when Dick Vitale disappears. He is literally the main reason I rarely watch regular season NCAA games. I listen to him do a game and I can practically envision the IQ points melting away from my brain. I'm not ever going to wish someone dead (well....) but I will say that I am really, really looking forward to watching college basketball in about 15-20 years. The guy drives me fucking nuts.

The Leg-Shot heard 'round the world

So, I'm watching the Oscars last Sunday...and immediately notice Angelina Jolie stick her leg out like a retard, in an obviously staged pose. I post to my Facebook "Yes Angelina, we see your leg!" Hell, here I was thinking maybe I was the only one who caught it...I have a tendency to catch those little moments when others don't. Well....this was NOT one of those times I guess. Bitch's leg now has something like 32,000 followers on its (yeah, the LEG now has it's own Twitter account) account. Only in America.

I used to giggle at those movies where they had a good-looking actress...and they would try to make her look pregnant by strapping on one of those baby-bump accessories. "Ah come on...it's so obvious she isn't pregnant. How stupid."  Well...guess what? That is exactly what Squirrel looks like. Like her regular self...but that she strapped on one of those things. Whoa...as I wrote that a Prego (spaghetti sauce) commercial just came on my TV. Spooky.

I have a couple of political rants that I want to go off on a tangent about. One is the mess in Syria. One is the inability of our idiot leaders to grant rights to drill for oil in A.N.W.R. (north Alaska) when we are staring at near-$4.00 a gallon prices. Another is regarding the  controversy started by Rush Lindbaugh calling a girl a slut over the contraception issue. The death of Andrew Breitbart...who 'supposedly' had a heart attack and died this week, alone...while out walking? Just days before he was about to release a scandalous and politically damaging videotape of Barack Obama. But I'm not going to. Not to any of them. Why? I don't know. Too much to say, not enough space on this blog.

A photo from one of her many Dancing With The Stars appearances

Julianne Hough on a jet-skiing expedition. Nice!

George Clooney gets to watch that climb the stairs every night. **sigh**

From back her in WWF days. Wow!

Watching ET right now. Featuring the TOP FIVE legs in show business. I agree with 4 of the 5. #5 Julianne Hough. For sure. #3 Cameron Diaz. I guess, maybe. #2 Stacey Kiebler. My former crush...now girlfriend of George Clooney. (who HASN'T he hit in Hollywood!??) and #1 Charlize Theron. Yummy. 

Getting up there in years, but always a stunner!!!

Never been a big fan of Cameron's face...but you can't deny those legs are the goods!

 But #4? Beyonce. Yeah. Sorry...she is pretty sexy...and her videos are delightful at times...but 4th best set of legs? No way. Maybe that was just E.T. being politically correct by getting a black girl on their list. 

Come on! And that isn't just a 'bad' picture. Those things are MEATY!

A few I think they missed the boat on....

The Amazing Heidi Klum...now single!

 And another 40-year old that continues to look great!

Jennifer Aniston has always had great legs...and still does.

BUT!!!! I still think these are the best legs in the world....

I typically find that most Top Ten/ Twenty / Hundred lists are a joke. It's almost like there is lobbying and paying off going on to get their client on that list so their career is helped along by it. Not only that...but when you spend a decent amount of time in Vegas like I do...watching smoking...I mean SMOKING hot women parade by all day and night, and then open a magazine that calls Sarah Jessica Parker one of the most SEXY or BEAUTIFUL in the world, I can't stop laughing and rolling on the floor.

Props to my Washington Huskies...who just backed into the Pac-12 inaugural regular season championship. After losing yesterday to UCLA...when a win would have locked it up...they had to wait for Cal to lose to Stanford today in an upset to give us the outright title. Next up...Pac-12 league tournament. I know the Pac-12 is weak this year...you don't have to tell me, and I'm sure we will lose in the first round or two...but it's still nice to win the conference and have a shot in the Big Dance, at least. Lorenzo Romar is building a hell of a program up north. Lacking ingredient: A dominating inside presence.

Last year we got walloped by tornadoes in the south on April 26-27th. This year...we got spanked again...nearly two months earlier. 50 people died this week as tornadoes ravaged the midwest. Very depressing news. Looking at the news coverage and seeing all the homes that got destroyed, it just breaks your heart. Squirrel is all paranoid about this storm season...has a bad feeling about a hurricane or two bombing us. I tried to get renters insurance for our home in Biloxi...and couldn't get one company that would offer us coverage. Tried five different insurance companies online. None of them would cover anyone south of I-10. 

Want to feel old? The kid from 'Married With Children' Bud Bundy? He just turned 38 years old. Whoa.

Okay. That's it. I'm done for today. More later.

Monkey