Cue the Wonder Pets

What's gonna work?

Teamwork!

(Yes, I know only the parents will get that one, but it's what came to mind. Stuffed animals, crappy animation, and gambling go together well, no?)

I've never done the team-blogging thing before, so sue me. Should be an interesting way to gripe, I mean, ponder strategy.

Tick, tick...

Less than 48 hours to go...



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Next prop bet

I decided to do a prop bet with some others regarding trying to grow a bankroll, so we're posting cashier shots.

Dr Chako

Cindilicious

MHG

Katitude

Riggstad

BLAAARGH

OhCaptain

I'm sure others were in this, but I don't have the links. Meh.

Biggest percentage increase wins. Who knows. maybe 0% growth might be enough to win this prop bet :)

Meanwhile, in another way of making us all feel like really small fries, Sprstoner took 12th in another WSOP event for a $54,000 take. Damn.

Yes, this is all that is left after trying to cash out for this coming weekend. With BBT over and by cashing out, I didn't leave much in there, about $20, which is now about $31.

Small potatoes, I know.

As stated earlier...meh.

Deep Stack, Grand, or Bracelet Chase?

I'm starting to re-think my decision to play in the World Series, Event #51.

Not because of confidence, but more because some things have started to happen financially where I'm not sure taking a shot of a large buy-in tournament is necessarily a good idea - there are going to be some big rumblings financially in July and I am, to be honest, a bit worried about them. While we've been able to get by so far in an unemployment search, it still has not yielded anything at home, so I am becoming more concerned about other finances coming up very soon.

So, now I am not so sure about playing in the WSOP, unless I do manage to satellite into the event.

However, there are other, cheaper option, that I might consider, especially since other friends who will also be in Vegas (seriously, everyone I know picked this weekend to go) are playing those other events.

1) WSOP Event 51 (1500 NLHE) - The one I had been aiming to do, but I am not so sure about anymore since we could use 1500 on other things for the house and it would leave nothing else available to try to earn some at the cash tables. I'd be locked out of anything else, which would REALLY suck if I bombed out of the event.

2) Venetian Deep Stack, Saturday 6/27 (550 NLHE) - Everyone I know who has played this series loves it, and it would be much easier on the bankroll than dropping fifteen big bills.

3) Binion's Poker Classic (200 NLHE 6-Max Friday, 200 NLHE Saturday) I'd get to see old Downtown and Fremont St. area as I'd hoped to do, and check out some history. The events here are supposed to mirror the WSOP events to a degree, but have smaller fields than the previous two.

Plus, there are a whole bunch of other tournaments available here.

It's about diversification, and frankly I would prefer not to drop such a large amount for a small return, given how things are changing financially for the worse.

Don't be mad - but it might be better after all to exercise prudence instead of chasing a dream at the expense of other pressing priorities.

We'll see. Regardless, in three days I'll know better.

Another day, another blogger WSOP cash

First, Sprstoner took 3rd in a $2500 NL Hold Em donkament (Event 13) for a score of over 200,000.

Then, CK cashed in a $2500 Omaha 8/b and Stud 8/b scoopament (Event 25), coming in 39th for a $4500 payout.

Today, it's LJ/pvanharibo's turn, as she's been in or near the lead of the $1500 HORSE (Event 31) which is down to the last two tables. Coverage available here - though I'm sure someone is tweeting it all anyway, so go show some blogger love if you can. (Update: She went out 10th for about 19K. Damn fine job.)

Maybe this will be the year a whole bunch of us make some big coin in the WSOP - halfway though, we're holding up pretty well.

Falcons formally cut ties with Vick, wish him well

Falcons formally cut ties with Vick, wish him well

The cap hit for the year of $6.4 million might be the best team therapy money could buy, to finally put the whole mess behind them.

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Prop bet time

If I had done as I should and made some prop bets on the World Series of Poker, I would have cashed in yesterday pretty well. Brock Parker took down a $1500 NL Hold 'Em and a $1500 Limit Hold 'Em bracelet this week, becoming the first multi-bracelet winner of this year's WSOP.

There's plenty of other bets I might still exercise, but for now, I'm just sticking to Bodog poker when I log in. With bloggerments and big tourneys over with for me, I've been playing back in the low, low, low levels where it's more like entertainment than anything else. As for prop bets, right now the only one I have is a loser since the guys I picked in a pool are barely doing anything in the WSOP through 20 events.

I might try and hit up some of the online events later in the summer - they are still running WSOP qualifiers, and I have accrued enough points there to try my luck there, but I don't think I'll use them on there. I might instead use the points for playing in some of the Bodog Flight Club events, which is targeted at other circuit events and other tournaments.

For now, though, I'm just scaling back after a hectic several months. I'll wait on putting pressure on myself until I play in one of the $1500 donkaments in Vegas in a few weeks. It'll be intense, but I can hardly wait for it to get here.

Tough Jobs

I guess, in a tough job market, ya just gotta do what ya gotta do.

I imagine he has to take a break every so often, though, as it might be difficult to walk after a while.

Yes, it is safe for work.


The Worst Job Ever - Watch more Funny Videos

Bird Dive

At least with this emergency landing, no birds were involved. It may not be as dramatic as landing a full passenger plane safely on the Hudson river, but it still takes a good presence of mind to be able to pull off this sort of landing on a crowded road and have no one get hurt.

McCollum Airport is right next to our office. I drive this stretch of road quite often.

Plane Makes Emergency Landing on N. Cobb Pkwy

Best shot gone

Well, I played in the BBT TOC tonight for one of two shots at a Main Event seat, and came up woefully short, finishing 36th of 44 entrants.

I blame kiddie tilt for this result - they did not head upstairs until I was short-stacked and was a big result I dropped about 2,000 chips early on in a hand to Hoy (who eventually knocked me out after I got tired of him repeatedly pushing on me in hands and ran my A-J into his A-K).

Ugh.

Your Kung Fu is weak

Sometimes, I really don't want all the details about a story. Lately, that seems to be the case more often than not, but it's definitely true about David Carradine.

I'm surprised no one has referred to the cause being the five-point-palm exploding heart technique.

Giving in to the Dark Side

In this case, I was probably the last person I know to adopt the technology.

I am now on Twitter. You may commence with the mocking.

I signed up for multiple reasons.

1. For traveling or events where I'm trying to find or talk to a bunch of other people, it'd be really convenient. It would have been useful in April, and will probably come in useful in Vegas in a few weeks.
2. Since a bunch of folks are using Twitter for updting from the WSOP, I figured it would be good to add. With Tweetdeck, I can actually keep them all organized - and it works at work and at home.
3. I'd thought I would use it to put out articles I would write for Examiner. However, this reason isn't valid anymore, as i decided to drop both columns last week. I wasn't really feeling the energy to get them going again. At this point writing about politics has become more depressing than anything else, and since I won't be in Vegas for the whole Series I didn't have much of a plan left for the games column. So, I ended them.

So, while reason #3 isn't valid anymore, reasons 1 and 2 are still OK, and I am on there as gaexaminer - I picked the handle thinking reason #3 would be the main focus of using it, but I don't feel like changing it.

Meh.

Oddsmakers

Well, there are a lot of things to write about, so rather than divide them up, I'll go for a semi-uber post instead.

The BBT4 came to a close Sunday night, after 56 tournaments and a combined prize pool over $46,000 in those events. There were 43 winners of these tournaments (including yours truly) who will battle it out Sunday night for a shot at one of two WSOP Main Event seats.

Of the 56 tournaments, I only played in 19, but finished 61st of 333 runners overall. I was unavailable for most of March and April, playing 3 times with one cash in March and 4 times for zero points or cashes in April since I was busy every single night of the week and could only play the Sunday events.

May was a different story, however, as I had some more free time after graduation. Of the 17 tournaments in May, I played ten, cashed in three (one each of Mookie, Riverchasers, and BritBloggerment), and won one, finishing 14th on the leaderboard. I skipped the last three events after getting knocked out by Jordan in back-to-back events, making it impossible to top the leaderboard for the month and win a $2K package.

So, now we have a freeroll for Main Event seats Sunday (kudos again to Al) at 8 PM.

My plans, now booked, have involved going to Las Vegas on June 25 and trying to play in Event #51 on June 27.

Should I somehow defy the odds and take down one of the seats, I am not entirely sure what I will do with it. I'm probably somewhere between the 10-1 and 28-1 odds these two decided to toss up for me, but I don't know if I can pull off two trips to Las Vegas given family matters and the lack of vacation time from work. Going to Disneyworld with the family sapped a big bunch of my time off, and I really didn't have any plans to play in such a big event.

I did talk with my boss and boss' boss yesterday over lunch, though, and perhaps it might be more possible than I had previously imagined to pull it all off. Of course, I'll only have the time off problem if I can make it to Day 3. The four Day 1's are from July 3 to 6, with two Day 2's on July 7 and 8. July 9 is a media event, and July 10 is Day 3, where all the players are combined and the money should be reached.

Unfortunately, I only have time off to last until July 8 if taken consecutively, so to make it work I would have to try to play Day 1C (on Sunday, 7/5) which would give me days away from the table on the 6th and 7th to work remotely, if necessary.

Thank God for VPN and wireless networks.

I could then take my remaining days for the 8th, 9th, and 10th, if I survived Day 1 and made it further - not bloody likely, but you never know.

Based on plane tickets for us and available rooms, we *could* pull it off money-wise. However, given the current economic state of affairs, we would be hard pressed to take the seat, compared to cashing most of it out in order to try and get by further n household expenses. With unemployment here approaching eight months, we have managed to hold on so far, but it will begin getting very tight very soon and having that sort of money would provide a very big buffer against further storms coming our way.

It would be a very difficult decision to make. As much as I would LOVE to play in the event, we have to consider the possibility of NOT playing, should it arise.

Of course, if I somehow made it to July 13th, well I'd be handing in my two weeks notice anyway because I'd be at the final two or three tables of the whole damn thing and thinking about an early retirement along with what to wear on TV :)

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I do have to keep another promise at some point to the kids, though. Around Christmas, we got passes to head to Sesame Place in Pennsylvania, and we'd been talking about taking advantage of the Fourth of July to head up north to Pennsylvania and, if time permitted, Coney Island and New York to see familiar faces. It's coming up soon, so we'd have to break some of those plans should I win.

On the bright side, the kids would still get to see fireworks in Las Vegas. But it's something that I've talked about doing with the kids sometime this summer, and I've always made it a priority not to break any promises to them, so I might have to become more adept with my juggling skills.

They are still open around Labor Day, so you never know...it would have to be better than being chased by a hurricane like last Labor Day.
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As for the already planned Vegas trip, I'm looking forward to meeting up with some of you other bloggers for some good times. I'm also going to be seeing my father, as he'll be there with some friends of his from Phoenix. Lucky bastard got a free suite, at the Rio, on a weekend, in the middle of the World Series. He did better than me in getting a room!

He'll be seeing his chemo therapist today regarding his latest batch of tests, hopefully everything is still functioning OK. I still can't believe they could not find anything in December after diagnosing him as stage 4 lung cancer last summer, so hopefully these tests prove to also be OK.

The one thing I am looking forward to more than anything else, while in Vegas? Not the cash games, or bowling, or drinking, or shows, or seeing people, or other shenanigans.

Nope, I can finally satisfy my craving for In-N-Out Burger.

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It's been different having time available. I don't mean just to play poker, though I have been playing better. Some of the things that I never had time to do and hated doing before don't seem as bad now. For example, I actually don't mind mowing the lawn right now as I haven't had time to do it myself in ages.

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I have never before seen a graduation ceremony from a really young class, so seeing Alex's pre-K "graduation" was ridiculously cute. As a present (which we were overdue on anyway from his birthday) he got surprised with a bicycle. He was a bit trepid at first but now absolutely loves it. We also found a smaller bicycle for Sammie, so once again I'm the only one who does not own a bike. I might need it soon, if gas prices continue going up, but I actually never learned how to ride a bike. I never needed or wanted to learn how while growing up, and enjoyed rollerblading more than bikes as a teenager, so it just never happened. You can go ahead and mock me now.

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Rambling done, for now. Hopefully, I will have to consider alternate travel scenarios for the Fourth of July.