Saturday. Some Poker. No Baby.

Okay..first off, to those who continue to ask me what OMRG...or for that matter, OLRG, means, I think that this phrase is becoming the new OMG or LOL. That to NOT know what it means, makes you either 'kind of cool' or 'living under a rock.'

I had this experience in a different realm at Wal-Mart the other day with Squirrel...who as the title up there reveals, has STILL not released Carley Grace from her womb of captivity. Squirrel keeps getting bigger and bigger...her whining louder and louder (not that bad actually, I'm mostly kidding) and the due date getting closer and closer. Despite getting 55 entries in our baby pool, only five people chose dates between April 25th and 27th. (Due date is the 26th)

So Squirrel decides to make spaghetti for dinner that night. She likes to put hamburger in her spaghetti sauce. Its yummy. So while browsing the hamburger section, I jokingly (joking because I know that 95% of the stores in the US have removed the shit) tell her to make sure she gets the hamburger WITH the 'pink slime!'

"The what!?? Did you say pink slime? What the hell is that?" She was dead serious...I just stood there looking at her in astonishment. Holy crap. How did THAT ONE get by her?

If you are like her...I'm sorry you don't ever read the news, or watch it for that matter. I am not about to tell you what pink slime is here. You will just have to Google this one.

So what is an OMRG, some of you still ask? Sigh...okay. Here we go.

See this random stranger? What do you notice about him? Anything outside of the norm? Hint: He isn't young. Or spry. Or sneaky. But he does one thing...and does it well. Gets it in behind. Gets it in bad. And always seems to 'get there.' Some call this running good. Add those four things up...and what do you get? You get an OMRG.

O= Old  M= Man  R= Run  G=Good.  Figured out OLRG yet?

 You guessed it...and there is a whole collection of them...all at the same table. You've got two OLRG's...and one 'full on' OMRG and another OMRG-in-training. There are a couple of things about OLRG's that you can always count on. Aside from playing pretty similar to an OMRG...they have very distinctive qualities in the outfits they sport. 

One...long, irritating day of getting OMRG'd and OLRG'd on my most recent trip out west, we stopped into a store for some 'items' for the room...and I decided to model a few of the OLRG 'looks' that we encounter on a regular basis. Silly hats seem to be a favorite of most OLRG's. You regulars know exactly what I'm talking about if you have played long enough. (Susie Isaacs)

 Know what this is? Of course you do. It's a dog, and that dog is humping someone's leg. Well...I think most of us have experienced this annoying, and sometimes embarrassing indignity. Don't think we don't get shamed like this at the poker table as well. Because we do. As an example, I give you...  THIS GUY...never figured out yet why they don't have a DOWN arrow on the keyboard.

 A couple years ago, my buddy and travel companion Kai Landry coined the phrase 'leg-humper.' It took on other strains...like 'Mr. Humpty Hump,' and 'Old Man Hump Hump,' and 'Hump-Zilla.' What is a Leg Humper in Poker? Well, I will narrow it down for you and tell you it tends to be that player over the age of 60 about 94% of the time. He limps...you raise...he calls. He raises...you re-raise, he calls. You flop top pair..and bet out, he calls. He bets the flop, you raise him...he calls. You notice something missing here? Him three-betting? Him moving in? Him, god forbid, folding! Nope. None of those things happen. Oh every once in awhile, the leg humping call station WILL pull the 'ol all in move on the river...after smooth calling every bet you make leading up to the river. And then...BOOM...all in, and usually it makes no sense to a rational thinking poker player. You bet your top two pair...or your set...thinking its a value bet...and then he just crawls out of his 87 year old skin, and with the exuberance of a 22 year old, leaps up out of his seat and for the first time all day, says something the whole table can hear.

I'm ALL IN!!!!!!!

And your reaction is always the same. Even for those of you who DON'T curse.

What.....The.....Fuck!???

 

 This is Kai. He is sitting next to a leg-humping OMRG up in Iowa. Here is another thing OMRG's seem to be fond of; stacking their chips in very annoying fashion. Now the way this dingle-berry has his chips laid out would lead you to think there is a chance that this guy is a limit player. Not sure why...but limit players always self-identify themselves by stacking there chips in as many spread-out stacks as is humanly possible. I used to think maybe they were raised in Southern California...where earthquakes happen all the time, and building things low to the ground seem to be the norm. There is certainly some kind of experiment on the brain that could produce a more conclusive reason for this, I'm sure.

All I know...is that it drives me fucking nuts. Especially when you have been forced to play at a shorter table, and even more so when you have a tourney director who is a douchebag and is trying to save money on dealer downs, and forcing all the players to play 10-handed at their table. (the exception being at a tourney where they get such a huge turnout that they have no choice but to seat you 10-handed, a rare occurrence) I will sit there staring at the guy's ridiculously spread out stack until finally it dawns on him that I would like him to remove his kids from my yard. Either that or I will 'accidentally' knock over his outer stacks with my elbow while making a motion to look at my cards. Two or three of those usually get the point across. Okay...next.

Totally unrelated item here. Watching a basketball game. Guy misses the easiest shot in basketball, the uncontested free throw. But wait...no big deal, don't feel bad about it...your whole team...all four of them...are there to encouragingly give you a hand slap. Why? That NEVER happened when I played as a kid, or when I watched pros and college players. Until about...I don't know...maybe ten years ago? I think this is a really good reason for why there are so many shitty FT shooters. There are no repercussions for missing. I think maybe if they would start punching the guy in the face...or kicking him in the balls...maybe even hitting him with a taser...after missing a free throw, you might see the percentages pick up a little bit.

Today is my Mother's birthday....and she has reached retirement age! Congratulations Mom! And thanks for being such a great mother...and for all you have done for me and Squirrel...and Carley (already!)

Yesterday was April 20th...or 420...National Potsmoker's Day. Hope those of you who make marijuana an integral part of your life had a wonderful day celebrating your center of the universe...though I doubt most of you will remember it, right?

So...I finally got totally fed up with Cable One. With their internet always getting turned WAY down after midnight, or going out all together. With the movie we are watching always suddenly cutting over to the weather channel for no explainable reason. Tired of them not having E! Tired of them not being able to work with cool Aps on my iPad like HBO-Go, like Showtime Anytime, like TBS and TNT on Demand...all things you can use on your iPad if you have either Direct TV or AT&T U-Verse. So...I did some research...and on Wednesday, literally ONE day after I ordered the service...we were in the presence of an installer. 

The set up is pretty awesome. One DVR receiver. The other two are simply receivers. But whatever you record on that ONE...can be viewed on all the others.  It all works on wireless receivers as well. So not one INCH of coaxial cable lives in my house now. The internet and the cable operate on different signals...so no mutual interruption of service. The picture is better...way better. And the internet is so much faster its not even funny. The only drawback I've seen so far...is that the TV keeps getting frozen while watching programing. And I don't know what the solution is. I hope its not a regular thing. I think that the way around it is to completely turn off the TV Receiver...then turn it back on. Whatever...so far it has improved my quality of life.

 

 See this...uh...art? Every day as Kai and I drove from the awesome Day's Inn in Council Bluffs, we would get off at the exit that featured this business. What is it? No one really seems to know. But if you are a fan of 'Transformers' you probably think it bears a resemblance to something from those films. Guess that is as close as we got to 'Midwest Culture.'

This is a pretty typical sight in the Midwest. A car with a really horrendous paint job. I'm not positive, but I think from my time living in Montana that this is due in large part to the harsh winters. Salt on the roads is a big culprit. I guess in the movie 'Fargo' when dude kept trying to scam everyone into buying the seemingly unnecessary 'under-coating' that it may not have been such a bad idea, after all.

 See this chick? I found this to be one of the most perplexing characters in all of Council Bluffs. I never saw her play a tournament...but saw her nearly every day in the cash room. She is a woman. For the first couple days, I was questioning it. Because she had almost ZERO female qualities. Her facial expressions were all dude-like. Her body language, same deal. The way she walked. She is already tall..but then she would make it just bizarre by always wearing these 6-10 inch heels every day. She looked like a giraffe. And then there was her voice...which was very low and guttural. Yeah...very sexy. (not!) She was also a lousy poker player. But one who thought she was awesome...which is just always annoying as hell. In this picture, she looks about as ridiculous as it gets. Gotta make sure you have those shades for that intense 1/2 game. Make sure you strap that 'old school' MP3 player to your arm! Like she is jogging or at the gym working out. Yeah...she was one of, if not my MOST....unfavorite cartoon character of Council Bluffs.

 

 This is a picture of a Royal Flush. It happened in a tourney. What is astonishing is that both players were holding El Diablo...but one of them was suited with the Ultimate Nuts. The other wasn't, and despite no more spades coming out...he lost about as little as you could ever imagine on the hand. To his credit, he was a really good player. Otherwise, I think that the guy who flopped the Royal would have stacked the guy.

See this menu? Take a really close look. It's from our favorite truck stop/restaurant in Council Bluffs...Sapp Brothers. Kai and I both love liver and onions like you wouldn't believe. While driving to Vegas...we went 40 miles out of the way to hit a place 'famous' for liver and onions. It was worth it. Well, this place featured different items on every day of the week...and liver and onions day was Tuesday. You couldn't get it any other day. So when we left Iowa last Tuesday...we made that our last stop...or first I guess. And though the liver was over-cooked and the onions under-cooked...it was still pretty good, and worth the wait. So...check out the description of the Salmon. Did you catch it? If you guessed Fillet...when it should be filet...then you were correct. And I'm not exactly sure when 'medium doneness' (which last time I checked isn't an actual word) became a good way to adequately describe a menu item.

Played a couple of cash sessions at IP this week. Nothing real positive to report. Even started documenting one of the sessions on my iPad, then just became so irritated, I decided to take an Attivan, close my iPad and pretend like nothing bad was happening. Why is it when you flop something like 4s-5s-6s holding Ad7s...that there is always two guys holding made hands (2-3off and 7-8 off) and after getting your whole stack in there...always brick out? Or is it just me?

Then the other night, Thursday, I decide to show up for their new tourney...a $130 bounty tourney ($30 bounties) at 7pm. I arrived at 7:15pm. They had one table, with 11 players. I was the 2nd alternate. Jeezuz. I finally convinced him to make it two tables...7 and 6. OMRG was driving me fucking bananas. I would raise (from 100/200) to 600 with AK suited. He would re-raise it to 1600. Sigh. Call. Miss. This was one of those guys...I just knew he was bluffing every time he bet. And he always bet way too much. Two people would limp...for 200...he'd make it 1200. Ugh. So finally...after we combined to one table...I pick up KK utg...nice...and he was in the big blind. At 200/400 I make it 1100 to go. Folds around to him...he makes it 4000. Whatever. I was all in for 5500. He has AK off. Mmm hmmm. But would I fade the three-outer? Are you kidding? Please. Ace on the turn. Ball game.

Moved over to cash game. That didn't go swell. I either couldn't hit a draw...over and over...or I kept getting sucked out on. Then...a huge hand occurred...and for about the third time in three days I found myself wanting to smack Jim...a.k.a. 'Smoky' in the face. Earlier...I had flopped middle pair with an ace. He had 9-8. The original raiser...a total c-betting clown...led out again. I just flatted, as did 'Smokey.' The turn was an 8. Nice. He bet again. 20 I think. I went ahead and raised to 60...not sure where Jim was...but suspecting a flush draw. So what does he do? He shoves all in for about 420. What? The first guy folds. I'm not folding. I call. A nine hits the river...the guy next to me is saying 'He has 5's full' and I'm thinking maybe he saw his hand. Nope...much grosser. He turns over 8-9. Offsuit. Oh my god. Full house on the river with the 9. I wanted to puke. Rebuy.

Well...then this hand sent me on a voyage out of the poker room...doing laps in the casino...cursing Jim. Every so often they do this thing where one table gets $100 for the player that wins the hand. So our table was picked. And I knew with the current cast of characters at our table...which was 1/2 but playing more like a 2/5, even a 5/10 game most of the time...that this hand would get crazy. So when I got pocket nines under the gun...I just limped, knowing someone would raise.

True story. The guy right behind me goes all in for 71. He gets one call...from a guy I could tell didn't really want to call...so I felt confident I could make him fold...then it came to Smokey...and he starts counting the pot...and hemming and hawing....okay, definitely have HIM beat too....he calls. Then another aggressive clown, the guy who was constantly over-c-betting calls...making the pot now around $300. Well it finally got to me...and I made it (what I thought was a great bet) $225 to go. Now I could have gone all in for $410...but I thought $225 just really looked strong...all in might look like a steal, just a stone cold steal. And honestly...I kind of wanted ONE caller...since if I lost to the guy all in for $71 there wouldn't be any kind of side pot.

The first guy folds...as I thought he might. Well, Smokey...for some reason, thought Q9h was a good hand to call with there. Why? I have no fucking clue. The other guy folds...and then this lady...who only had $30 behind her call of $71...and who played about as bad as you can play in about 3 or 4 hands...called, obviously. The flop came Jack high...with two hearts...and I was obviously not folding to any flop...not with over 900 in the pot and only $125 left in my stack. Jim snap calls...I cringe...then when the next card was a heart he turns over a flush. Jeezuz effing christ. I snapped...but not at the table. I just got up, and bolted out of the poker room. I came back 15 minutes later. I dug out $1000 from my pocket, got two racks of red and declared war on the table.

It worked pretty well...because on two hands where I knew they were drawing I just shipped all in for over a dime...with between $100-$150 in the pot. I got it up to $1400 and was just trying to get even on the night then getting the hell out of there. But I floundered around $1200-$1300 for about three hours...god that is irritating.

On my right was this guy who lost a few hands and started tilting his face off. So when Mr. Aggressive made his standard raise of $12...and I was going to call, once with 4d5d and the other time with As5s...I ended up folding to tilt boy on my right...who kept shoving his whole stack...shoves I couldn't possibly call, but had he NOT pulled that move, I would have flopped trip 5's on the one...only to river a boat, and then flop middle pair with the nut flush (which got there on the turn) which I would have never folded after the flop. I would have won about $1000 on those two hands...if it just hadn't been for fucktard shoveface beside me. All told, it was just one of those nights when nothing was breaking my way. I could have easily left that table with about a $2500 profit. Instead I lost $350. Which gave me two consecutive losing sessions of around $350. 

I now (finally) have food in my house again. Squirrel and I took a power shopping trip to Wal-Mart the other night. The other good thing about that trip? It always makes me feel better about myself, my life...and my looks. That place is like a carnival. 

Okay...that's enough for one day. Plus I've just developed a monster headache. Congrats to Chip Ervin for his second place finish up in St. Louis. I know I'm forgetting about someone else who fared well up there too. I've noticed a LOT of people I know doing great in poker over the past year. Is it just that I've made so many acquaintances in poker that whenever someone wins now, I just happen to know them pretty well? That might be the case. I am getting 'winner's circle envy' really bad....and am really hungry to taste victory again. Its getting pretty close to New Orleans...I really need the poker gods to smile on me at that event.

Monkey