Work, Being Old, Poker, and Guitar Hero???

It's been a busy week at work which has kept me from updating much. Sorry bout that. We sold 5 this week which is a ton for us (10-14 total per month ave). That in addition to some other paperwork has kept me away from CR and the tables during the day.


Tomorrow is a big day for me as I turn the ripe old age of 28! I plan on celebrating by working till noon (boooooo) then spending the afternoon with my wife and daughter. But tomorrow night, we tear this mutherfucker down. It's fight night and I cannot wait to see Rampage/Ice Man 2. I'm not sure where we are watching it but rest asssured there will be beer and cards involved.


On Sunday I am going to the horseraces and then grilling out at my place with some friends. More beer will be consumed.


As far as poker goes I have played sparingly this week. Summer is just so damn busy for me that it is tough to play as much as I want. I did post a winner last week and am up $250ish so far this week. My post flop play is improving but I still am struggling with the turn at times. I am def checking it to often when my flop c-bet fails. I am also getting check raised a ton on UB. I forgot how much better the play is there compared with Absolute, which is where I have been playing most of my hands the last few weeks.

As promised last post here is the first edition of my current BR and total:

Week Start: $3645.99
Monday: +$268.03
Tues: No Play
Wed: -$21.16
Thurs: No Play
Week Total: +$246.87
Current: $3892.86

I plan on withdrawing everything above $3k on the first of each month until I can get some bills paid off. This will slow my progress towards playing 1/2 but that's cool. If I can reduce my debt load my mind will be much more clear and I will play tons better.

Here is the You Tube video of the week:

The audio sucks, but all you Guitar Hero fans know how truly sick this is...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yEjyuw42YY&mode=related&search=

Jeff

CR League Top 10, Here I Come!!!

As I mentioned last week I finished 24th in the first CR League tourney. This week I took two ugly beats (all in pre with QQ vs KT and all in pre with AK vs AT) and finished 40th out of 109. Ugh.

I played well enough in both to final table but you know how it works with donkaments... However, I am now in 13th place in the overall leaderboard. I really ran kinda shitty the first two tournies so I am due for some cards. I fully expect to final table this Wednesday and jump into the top 6 or 8.

Cash game play has also gone will with four straight days of profit. I am playing my best poker in 2 months and damn does it feel freaking awesome. Now I need to get some time to watch some videos and post some on the board. My life has been a whil wind lately and things can only calm down from here.

I'll throw out another reminder for the charity tourney. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE check the off topic board. There is a sticky at the top of the board that has all the info.

I am hoping to get my BR figures on the blog here every time I post. My books are at home so I can't do it right now, but I see others do it and I like the idea. It, in part, makes me publically accountable for my wins and losses.

And now, a new feature that I will add to each post. Here is the You Tube video of the day:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hk6Dmhc916I

Ok, ok, and here is a bonus one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqk1-q8gXcY&mode=related&search=

Gotta love the Price is Right baby!

Jeff

Poker related info? NO WAY!!!

First off, thanks to those that have shown interest in the fundraiser. We def need to get more CR people involved though!

I played about 800 hands last night on Absolute 4 tabling $50nl (which is actually $100nl at AP). Why do they have double buy-ins?

I ran super hot with my hole cards on all 4 tables to start but missed flop after flop. I had a very unorthodox player sitting to my left on two diff tables that cause me some problems as well (his VPIP was 30 but it included EVERY ace and he would call the whole way down with TPNK). It took me a good bit to really peg him and that cost me about $50 in the meantime. He made some strange plays and would def switch gears (not on purpose...he really did not know the diff). He was tough to play.

I took one crappy beat as a guy called my c-bet (I had KQ and missed the flop) with a wheel draw. The Q hit on the turn but I was a bit wary and checked behind. Then, of course a 5 falls on the river and the wheel hits (he had A4). He checked again and I value bet. He min-raised and I could not bring myself to fold as I thought he had something like QJ. I was wrong. I need to learn to check behind there. I felt like something might be up....I shoulda just checked. I'll make a note of that...

A bit later I had AA on the same table. Flop came 267 and our villain who limp/called PF check raises me 3x. My set radar went off straight away (I also saw A6, A7, 67 and 89 as possibilities as they were all def in his range). I had been playing semi-weak post flop at that table as there was a maniac who I tried to see a lot of flops against but I had the worst time hitting on (easy perverts). I took this into consideration and decided to call and reevaluate the turn (if he showed weakness I was going to bet out, figuring him for A6, A7, 89, or a pp and no set). Of course the ace hits and we are in business. He check/called a strong bet by me and did the same on the river when I shoved. He showed 66 for the under set.

The $225 pot was a nice way to FINALLY show some green in Poker Tracker for the session. I logged off shortly thereafter, happy with a $65 profit.

I will be back tomorrow as I wanna discuss some of my problems playing post flop.

Jeff

Finally, some pics!!!

I finally got some pics to put up.

This group is pics that were taken by a local radio station and the local news paper. The pics of the in town flooding are from the North side of town where mjrnt lives. The circled house is his (obv).






And finally, this last group is what mjrnt's basement looks like post cleanup. Please keep in mind this is after he had almost 200 man hours of help from Thursday to Sunday. This was a fully finished basment....ugh.








This brings me to my next point. I am running a poker tournament on Stars on Sunday at 3:00 pm Eastern time to benifit mjrnt. It will be a $10+1 buy in plus a standard $10 donation (total investment of only $21!). Please check this link out for the full story:

http://www.cardrunners.com/fusetalk/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=23&threadid=21459&enterthread=y

As far as my joint goes, it is in decent shape. We washed everything with bleach water yesterday. I did get some bad news on Saturday when it was discovered that we accidently unplugged my freezer to plug in a sump pump. It was FULL with $300-$400 in food.

I was fucking pissed.

Shit happens though...and I have very little room to complain compared to the spot some people are in.

Jeff

Still No Pictures

Well, I still do not have pics to post. I was going to snap some of the North side of town (where mjrnt lives) but the water went down 5 feet in 24 hours! They can FINALLY get into their homes again.

I had a meeting with my insurance adjuster this morning and got bad news: No coverage. I knew it was coming so the let down was small. I was able to secure financing at my bank to rebuild things so it should be ok.

I plan on helping mjrnt Friday and Saturday and another friend on Sunday (the one that had his basement wall cave in from my original flood post). It will be a long but rewarding three days of work.

On the good news front I played quite well in the CR League tourney last night. I placed 24th out of 191 and am quite pleased with the result! If I place top 25 in each I should be right up there in the end.

I had one tough beat that sealed my fate when I got A/I PF with AA vs 35s.

The flop came Q55!

I had another hand that got me some heat. When I get home I will grab the HH and get it on here.

Jeff

Flood Update

I am going to try and get an update on here more or less every day as I think it is good therapy for the evils of flooding (and poker!).

Yesterday things slowed down for me. I did very little with my house and ended up not having any friends that needed anything. I got out and took some photos that along with the ones I am going to take during lunch today will get posted here.

My dad came to town and took my wife and I out to supper so we could get out of the house for a few hours. It was nice to just chill out, watch the Twins game, and have a few cocktails. After that I came home and collapsed into bed. I actually feel mostly rested for the first time since Friday.

Tough times are ahead though...

Matt's (CR name: mjrnt) house is still surrounded by water but it receded almost a foot overnight. He stopped at the store this morning and looked like death. I cannot imagine the stress he must be under. His family from out of town and a bunch of our mates are going over on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday to completely gut his basement. We should have a crew of 10 and I still think it will take several days. I am not looking forward to it as I know I will be sore and tired on Monday. At the same time I want to do anything I can to help one of my truly good friends get his life back in order. He and his wife are wonderful people that don't deserve this kind of bull shit.

As far as cards go I plan on playing in the CR league MTT tonight and am looking VERY forward to it. I am not a big MTTer but when I play I usually hold my own even having scored big a few times. I enjoy playing them and think playing against what I expect to be a high level of competition will be an ultra fun test of my donkament poker meddle.

Jeff

I Fucking Hate Rain

Another day, another reason not to blog.

Rain, tons of it.

The two posts I put on CR yesterday and today follow.

Yesterday's Post:

"So Saturday morning is started to rain. It kept raining all day. Then about 9pm it REALLY started to rain...A LOT. And it didn't stop.

We probably got about 1-2 inches from 9am to 9pm and 6-7 inches from 9pm-3am. Included in that was more than 3 inches in a one hour stretch.

Large parts of the city were flooded badly. It is not like you see on TV where people are on their roof. But in my town of 25,000 and in our general area (North Eastern South Dakota) there are several thousand homes destroyed and millions upon millions of dollars in damages.

I was at a friends 30th birthday party when my dad called to say my basement was starting to flood (he was staying the night). He also told me my brothers car had stalled a half hour ago and he had no idea when it was going to get towed out.

My wife and I left the party with the intentions of going home but when we saw how bad the streets were (3-5 feet deep in many places) and how many cars were stalled (literally hundreds) we decided to go get my brother. It never takes more than 15 minutes to get anywhere in our city. It is small and traffic is never that bad. It took me 45 minutes to get to my brother in my 4 wheel drive Chevy Tahoe. There were a number of times I was pushing water with my bumper. There were other times I was pushing it with my grill.

Really.

When I finally got to him, tow rope in hand, the water was almost waist deep (I'm 5' 8'' tall). I stripped down to my undershirt and took off my flip flops then waded over to his car. I kneeled down to feel for a tow hook. The water was fucking freezing and up to my chest. After a minute or so I gave up. We decided that maybe I could push him a couple hundred feet to dry street so I could hook the rope up easier. This was made more difficult by the 5 other stalled cars, the fact I had no shoes on, and by the trucks that came by making large waves that pushed the car a foot or more.

His car was floating.

We finally got it out of the water and towed it through two feet of water for a mile to the car dealership I work at. He has had the car (a VERY nice Acura CL) for 3 months. It is a total loss.

For my part my parents, wife, brother, and I were able to keep the water level in my basement under 2 inches. We had two sump pumps working full time and a wet vac that we would fill and haul outside and dump. I had to crawl around on my hands and knees for several hours with plumbers putty and fill little holes and cracks in the mortar between the cinder blocks that comprise my basement walls.

And then the sewer backed up.

I had people's shit floating in a yellow soup in my basement. To make matters worse I could not get the water to stop flowing up through my floor drain. After several hours I got a plug to stay and I was able to jam a rubber exercise mat into the shitter to plug that (I set my bowling ball on top of it to keep the water pressure from forcing the plug out).

I was awake for almost exactly 24 hours before I got some sleep. When I got up on Sunday after about 4 hours of rest the water was still coming in big time. I relieved my dad who had only slept about 2 hours and alternated between pumping water and hauling shit from my basement.

Later in the day my brother returned and a friend came over and we were able to remove my furniture and carpet. Some of the furniture is ok, the carpet is not.

I was able to get about 6 hours of sleep last night and things are looking up. I came into work for a few hours to take care of some stuff but I am leaving soon so I can rip down my walls that are wrecked and getting moldy already.

My insurance policy won't cover any of this. My back is fucked up. My left shoulder feels like there is knife in it. I am tired. I have a cut on my toe (long story) which sat in sewage for 15 straight hours while I worked (now I need a tetanus shot). I have not seen my daughter in 2 days (she is staying with family).

Did I mention that I am one of the lucky ones?

Fellow CR member mjrnt (real name: Matt) is a good friend of mine. He lives about 10 blocks north of me. His house in on a very small island. The rest of town is mostly drained but his street is under 4 to 5 feet of water. When you look down it the water starts at the doorstep of the homes on the south side of the street and stretches to the door step of the homes on the north side of the street. He has several feet of water in his, unlike mine, fully finished and furnished basement.

It is destroyed.

And his insurance won't cover it either.

We are talking over $50k in damages (compared to my $2,000-$3,000).

Did I mention that the water level is still rising?

I have another friend in a small town 20 miles south of here who had a wall in his basement give way. When he opens the door to the basement all he sees is water. He had a fuel oil (diesel used to run his furnace) tank down there and it leaked into the water. Now he can't pump into the street. His house is pretty much destroyed as it will cost more to fix the basement that the home is worth.

His insurance won't cover it either.

Look, I understand this is not exactly New Orleans. I still have a house and a place to work. My family and friends are safe. But please excuse me when I say that this is the worst thing that I have ever seen. Until you see it in person and can see how this is affecting people's lives there is no way to truly understand the enormity of it all.

I am sorry this is such a long post. Please understand that I am not looking for sympathy. I just needed some place to vent. My head feels like it is going to explode and my body feels like it is going to crumble. It just plain feels good to put this on virtual paper.

As I type this, with God as my witness, I am sitting at work at my desk with tears running down my cheeks. I am not sure what to say or do at this point. All I can do is cry."

Today's Post:

"Thanks for the kind words guys, it means a lot.

Here is a link to a page with thumbnails of our town taken by the local newspaper:

http://www.aberdeennews.com/ap...Ref=PH&Params=Itemnr=1

When you click on a pic it takes several seconds to pop up (the entire page reloads) so be patient.

If you look at the very first one the red car on the right side of the pic is my brother's (the one in the story that I pushed out). It was taken a while before I got there. I know this because you can still see the tops of the wheels!

A lot of the pics aren't even of the worst areas. I plan on taking a ton of phots of mjrnt's neighborhood this evening since I finally have my house cleaned up.

Here is a link to the papers home page:

http://www.aberdeennews.com

At the top there is some links to video footage of the mess. Check the aerial video out, it is pretty amazing. Again, please be patient with the links, the page is probably getting bombarded by locals.

Some of the video links don't alwasy work. The first one does and if you watch it at the 3:10 mark where the words "North Dakota St. Area" pop up and at the 4:25 mark where it says "North State Street" you will see the neighborhood where mjrnt lives.

He is smack in the middle of it.

The water level is actually rising there and they expect it won't go down until Friday at the earliest.

At my house the water is still seeping in but it no longer requires constant attention. I can use my toilet and shower again and hope to be able to do laundry in the next few days. We worked until midnight or so last night at which time I got my first good nights sleep since Friday.

Tonight we are going to a friends house to haul the carpet and furniture from his basement and cut the damaged sheetrock out before the black mold starts to grow.

I talked to my brother-in-law who is a fireman in town and he said they were out all night on Saturday. Apparently there were dozens of electrical fires in peoples basements. He also told me that they carried dozens of elderly people from their basements through chest deep water. There were spots in town that the only way they could rescue was by boat. A local marina loaned several boats to city to aid in this effort.

My next door neighbor is a police officer and he also was hard at work on Saturday. They pulled a guy over and gave him a DUI after he hit a section of 2 foot deep water at about 40 MPH in town.

Fucking idiot.

I hope to get my computer back online this evening so I can get some hands in. I know my mind is super cluttered but I need a distraction! I will post some pics here later."

I hope to keep posting day by day with info about the progress our city is making. I plan on taking a bunch of photos tonight and will try to get them posted tomorrow.

Jeff