Christmas at the Celestes'

Not very pokery, but still ...



appropriate to post on the Batfaces ?

(Thanks, Jen, for the link/Christmas list.)

Reputable Readership

Wow. Its hard to follow the Batface Manifesto, but check out comment # 17 on my previous "Hurty Hand for Having" post. David Daneshgar stopped by to give us his play by play of the hand where he crippled me at Bellagio. David is also a blogger, so pay a visit if you are interested.

If you're scoring at home, DD finished 6th in the POY standings. I finished T1585.

Batface Manifesto

Umm..... Hey, everyone. Happy Christmas, yavos. Or, if Shane is watching, yule festivus, spanky. Drunken stream of conscoineneness to follow, ass-way.

Me thinks there is a blankus in the batface universe that itches for healing. And, yesit may be because I am several sheets to the children at the presence, ass-college. But that doesn't matter as much as one would hope. I should thinkus. Or somethingish.

Simply put: doth go the poker. And by that I mean, wow, let's poker, you farging assholes. We've been at this for several years now, and none of you douche-cranks have done much more than this (or this) ((or this)). Seriously. What the children? Are we really that bad? Is fucking Dan going to call us out yet again? Gall damn you, batfaces! Lest us be without face???

Dan declared 2006 "the year of getting there," which it certainly was, God bless it. But for a number of reasoms, and not the least of which being fucking Celeste surviving yet another year being deemed a "good player," I declare 2007, you corn-fucking, motherchildren, the "year of the BAT-fucking-FACE, " mother-scratchers. (by the way, hammered) (( also, I'm really fucking HAMMERED)),

Fuck-ING 2000 ought Seven. It's a new assing year. God damn you all, ass-college.We are better than most. We are cooler than all. And for the love of children, we suck at softball. go batfaces!

And, just made four-of-a-kind. Dickheads.

Pinot.

ouchies.

Charity for likey. tighty. LIKEY.

All im.

Hate myself.

LOVE TBR.

Murmur and Awesome

Poker thread that Shane will love.

Bust - 36

Clonie takes home $42,285

Are you still kidding me?

4th in chips with 136 remaining.

Go Poker

1. Good job, Tulsa.

2. Are you kidding me?

Fun with Dan's pictures

Kissing Babies 101: Always leer at the appalled onlookers.

From Pokerati.

From VoteDan.org.

Hurty Hand for Having

Even though my tournament in Vegas only last 5 hours, I can say it was one of the most enjoyable tourneys I've played in. The quality of play was very solid and I didn't encounter any attitudes or egos that sometime make playing miserable.
In the middle of the 4th level my table broke and I moved to Seat 10 at Table 57. On my right was Mimi Tran. On her right was Tony Cousineau. In Seat 1, on my left, was David Daneshgar (he's having a decent year) , who had also been on my left at my previous table. In Seat 2 was recent WPT runner-up Jason Stern. I was about average stacked with around 9000 TC when I was dealt A2 off-suit in the big blind(25-100-200). Daneshgar, who began the hand with around 4500 TC, limped under the gun as did several other with me checking the blind and seeing the flop with 5 others. (1450 in the pot). The flop was AhAx5h. The little blind checked and I bet 1200. Daneshgar smooth called and everyone else floded. (3650 in the pot) At this point I really felt I was behind. What could he call with? Maybe a heart draw, but more likely an ace and any ace had me beat. The turn was the Kc. I decided to check to find out where I was. If he had an ace, he'd have to bet to get me off a possible heart draw. If he had hearts, he'd probably check behind me. He checked behind me. The river was a non-heart 4. Now what do I do. I decided to bet 1800. He instantly moves all-in for an additional 1000. How can I not be beat? But, how can I not call an additional 1000 into a 7200 pot? Of course, I call. Of course he flopped a full house with 55. Presto. Now I'm short-stacked. Thoughts?

Damn

darling out in 68th. I was out in 160th or so. Go blackjack

Hard to say...Go Batfaces!

Flight Summary
McDonnell Douglas Super MD-80
Date 12/09/06
Flight Number 371
Departure 11:00 a.m.
Arrival 12:00 p.m.
Confirmed Seats 15F
DFW Dallas/ Fort Worth
LAS Las Vegas

End of level 4

I have 4500. Dad has 9000. 170 players left. Blinds to be 50-200-400. Go double up.

End of level 2

We started with 5000 in chips. I have 8800. Darling has 11000. Started with 367 players. Down to 290 now. Plays 27 spots with first winning 319k. I've played with dutch Boyd and now am playing with Eric froelich and David D?, who won the 5000 event a couple of days ago and who is in the top 5 in player of year points.

Update from Vegas

Just got a text from Tiny B. Almost to the first break in the $2,500 event and he has over 8,000tc, after starting with 5,000tc. Darling said to also be playing well. Notable players Tiny B's has played with include Dutch Boyd and Eric Froelich. Go Batfaces!

Better than water into wine

Bluff Magazine's Michael Craig has a story on ESPN.com that's a bit hard to believe. Craig, who spent some time kicking around with Chris Ferguson, says that Jesus once turned $1 into $20,000 while playing online.

Yeah, I dunno about all that. I think the guy is full of shit.

It's been said before, but...Vegas, Baby!

Darling, my sister and I head to Vegas this afternoon for a weekend at Bellagio's Five Diamond World Poker Classic. Darling and I plan on playing in Friday's event with plans for the rest of the weekend still up in the air. It's been a long time since I've been to Vegas without other, younger, non-related Batfaces, so I assume this trip will be a little more tame, depending on whether we run into Misty or not.

I predict getting Darling away from his local Omaha games, where he's struggling, will do him some good and I expect him to cash at least once at Bellagio.

I'm trailing The Grinder by about 5700 points in the Player of the Year race, but I've figured if I can win 5 events at Bellagio, I can catch him. Keep watch here for updates.

PS - Just confirmed that we will be seeing Prince on Saturday night at the Rio, followed by a night at Pure, where we have a table reserved. Go Batfaces.

Thinky and Blinky

I have always found the process of trying to identify poker tells at the table rather difficult. Like most people who have played the game for a long time, I am okay at speculating as to what range of hands a player might have and/or roughing out a percentage of times he might be bluffing. I've read the seminal piece on the subject, Mike Caro's Book of Tells, and though helpful, rarely do I find myself in a situation where I'm thinking, "wow, I saw this in Caro's book! The pot is mine!"

Then I read Blink, Malcolm Gladwell's fantastic book about our intuitive and subconscious ability to nail it on first impressions, even if we don't really know what we nailed. The premise is pretty simple: we observe a lot more than we actually, consciously recognize, and, as applied to poker, when we get that "instinctual" urge to call or fold in a certain context that might seem to dictate otherwise, it is, actually our minds way of telling us it has processed some information behind the scenes.

Though not specifically detailed in Blink, it's relevance to poker is obvious. Blink is referred to in Peter Alston's great book, Take me to the River. And this month, Cardplayer devotes an article to it as it relates to a particular online hand.

Last night, I saw Gladwell speak at the Tate Lecture Series at SMU. His lecture was a fascinating exploration into the unraveling of Enron and a quite compelling argument that perhaps Skilling doesn't deserve to be in prison. From Gladwell's point of view, the"scandal" was not a puzzle, as the prosecutor's would have us believe, were Enron withheld vital pieces of information from the public, but rather a mystery, where in fact, too much information was available, and professionals in the industry (Wall Street types) simply failed to analyze it properly. It will be the subject of an upcoming piece in the New Yorker. Take a read.

Again, I sat there thinking that this puzzle/mystery dichotomy is also applicable to poker. At a certain point in a poker hand (and sometimes throughout), it's a puzzle, where the player is trying to gather as much information as he can. Decisions are made based upon imperfect and incomplete information. At others, however, and I think particularly in a multiway Omaha pots deeper in the hand, it may shift to a mystery. At that point, the player has a ton of information about the hand, and the difficulty is now analyzing that information to make as good a decision as possible.

Following the lecture, it was revealed during the Q&A portion that Gladwell has a blog, where he rants about topics such as racism and the NCAA. It's a fascinating read. Perusing through it, I noticed that one of his favorite writers is the Sports Guy, who is unanimously loved by all batfaces. Wait a second--clever little pokery-related books, he loves the Sports Guy, that hair... he may be my new Gavin Smith.

The Birds are forever screwed

I hate Tony Romo. And yet I love Tony Homo. Just sayin'.