I'm feared!

Woke up early this morning and made fairgirl some toast to go. No jam, just butter. I'll never get that. There are only a few small remaining Mason jars of homemade jellies and jam straight off the farm sitting on our dwindling pantry shelf. Fresh stuff, not store bought fruits. And fairgirl opts for toast sans jam? An extra dollop goes on mine.

The aroma of fresh ground coffee beans fill the air while whirring grinder blades do their work. Like one of the Pavlov dogs, the anticipation of a new day stirs within me. Ace Hardware should promote a perfume of fresh ground coffee. Happy Valentines Day dear.

Silently peaking over the roof tops from beyond the hills, an orange sun begins it's lift into the sky and shadows start to shorten. Ceasing it's hum once the garage door settles in at the concrete floor, the silence of  garage door motor signifies that fairgirl has officially left the building and is on her way. A poker session is ready to begin.

Open the laptop. Launch HEM. Launch Full Tilt Poker. Launch TableNinjaFT. Check the availability of the Deep Stack tables at 0630hrs MST. Not good.

There are only a few Deep Stack tables running so onto the lists we go. It's time to open an empty table while clenching my teeth, checking my bankroll and hoping not to spew too many buy-ins before the table fills up. There are a few minutes which go by and nothing happens, so I go for a refill of the fresh-brewed coffee.

Pouring coffee from across the open kitchen I hear a "Ding!". It reminds me of ice fishing when you get a light tap on your lure from down below and your senses begin to tingle with the excitement of possible action. Someone has stopped by to reap my chips. There will be a fight.

Hurriedly topping off the black 60th Anniversary coffee mug handed out by a local insurance business which I've sipped coffee out of since 1993, I hustle over and post my blind - but the villain sits out and types:

Dealer: Hand #1616...
Dealer: fairnbalncd has 5 seconds left to act
Dealer: Hand #1616... has been canceled
The_Villain: don't really want to play HU with you. i'll wait and see if it fills up
fairnbalncd: k
fairnbalncd: just starting tables anyway

A milestone in my poker career. I am feared by another.

It's gonna be a good day Poot.

Freerolls Rule!

It's been quite some time I've had myself a free roll.

Full Tilt Poker $50.00 No Limit Hold'em - 9 players

Hero (UTG+2): $53.40
MP1: $127.40
MP2: $50.00
CO: $50.00
BTN: $58.65
SB: $62.00
BB: $50.00
UTG: $79.95
UTG+1: $100.00

Pre Flop: ($0.75) Hero is UTG+2 with A K
UTG calls $0.50, UTG+1 raises to $2, Hero raises to $6.70, 7 folds, UTG+1 calls $4.70

Flop: ($14.65) 5 A T (2 players)
UTG+1 checks, Hero bets $7.80, UTG+1 raises to $17, Hero raises to $46.70, UTG+1 calls $29.70

Turn: ($108.05) 4 (2 players)

River: ($108.05) 3 (2 players)

Final Pot: $108.05

Hero shows A K
UTG+1 shows K A

Hero wins $105.05

This hand put me back up for the session and I had things to do for an upcoming basketball game, so I apologized for the free roll (LOL) and told him I'd be back later and this wasn't a typical Hit-n-Run thing.

Shot on up to 100NL last night after sweating a few tables. Nothing fantastic to report unfortunately. 3 bet a BTN steal with AQo and pretty much had to fire the Kxx flop for 1/2 pot and was insta-raised. Caught AA in the BB and of course it's folded around to me which is okay. It's common knowledge they'll either lose a huge pot or win a small one! Some times it's better not to get a ton of action when you;re totally out of position. Overall, on a couple hundred hands I ended up -5BB's which is something I can live with.

Going to be heading out to Little Powder School later this afternoon, close to the Montana/Wyoming State line, for my first officiating gig in three years! I pumped up for this! Hope I recall everything and don't overly embarrass myself!

A big "Hoo-rah!" for the free rolls though!

HEM is back to working again and this is the initial error message I get on a semi-regular basis.

What I do is go into the config file of HEM and rename a file from holdemmanager.config to holdemmanager.corrupt. Then download the latest Beta version of HEM. Attempt to open HEM which gives me the same error message as above, so back into the config file, rename from .corrupt to .config and reboot the system.

Of course running Vista can be a problem but everything is configured to run UAC with permissions applied. This is more of an inconvenience than anything else.

But as long as it allows me to run like this:

I'll be fine!

Another few sessions like above and I'm going to be shot taking at 100NL soon!

It's a gorgeous day in NE Wyoming today and I really hate being inside right now. Haircut is accomplished which isn't hard when it's nothing more than a #2 on the back and sides with a bit of scissor work to the top. Officials Registration is paid and in the mail. Picked up a pair of nice Nike's (black) and a pair of pleated official slacks - not going to mention the wait size but suffice it to say I'm "motivated" to get back into shape!

Here's hoping all your sessions run well! And kudos to AtlienCP (Ponder) for his run at $20,000.00 in 31 Days at 100NL! he came very close to accomplishing it, and even though he didn't, he made some good cash and garfs!

Holdem Manager not working again!

For crying out loud... Open up HEM to get a quick session in and apparently something is going on again. It happens roughly once or twice a month and it is a pain in the ass. I realize full Tilt is on an update frenzy and if everything was status quo, there'd be no issues, right?

So now I have to go in and rename files, download new updates, tweak around with firewalls, etc and hopefully things will work out. In the past, I'm not really sure what I've done to correct these issues outside of clicking around, reading FAQ's, documenting my current settings for future reference, etc.

Then afterwards, I throw my hands up in frustration and mutter, "Screw it I'm done!" and put everything back to where it was and for some miraculous reason, it seems to work. Today I don't have time for this. There are errands to be run. After three years of working for the railroad which kept me from officiating high school basketball and football, this furloughed period comes right at the start of the basketball season! So there are registration forms to send in, clinics to attend, a haircut to be had, and for the life of me.... I have to buy BIGGER FREAKING PANTS!!!!

My officials shirt fits a tad tight, but my ass and waist have put on an "inch or two"! LOL Yes the railroad pays well, but it affects not only your personal life and time with family and friends, it affects your weight. Sitting around running locomotives all over the country, not eating properly, goofy sleep schedules and stuff really take a toll on one's body.

Used to run 20+ miles a week, mountain bike, racquetball, run marathons and half-marathons, rock climb as well... Now after three years or so I can't fit into my referee pants for krissakes.

"Den Den" Fever Hits Full Tilt

Suffering through some beats, stacked decks, coolers and hardcore variance, there was a brief time the thought of dropping back down to 25NL had entered this weakened mind. Especially seeing my "Adjusted EV" for KK was so horrendously low. How can you hold KK 222 times and according to HEM have an Adjusted EV of basically 2 BI's?!?! Outrageous.

Variance does have a way of snaking around. Not too certain whether it was "variance" or a mad rash of isolated Den Den fever, either way, this humble furloughed engineer turned micro-stakes grinder appreciates any and all support he can gain.

Den Den fever can be spotted by delusional images of grandeur that you hand is good. Samples below:

My run at 50FRNL

Well over the past couple of weeks I've slowly bled away back to break even for my first 50k (49.3k actually) hands. Although there have been a number of coolers and and initial settling in period, I was shocked to learn the following.

One of the 2p2 regs had made a request for the PTBB/100 the 100NL and 200NL players were seeing on their KK hands. apparently there is some sort of anomaly between 50NL and the higher stakes. So being curious with my move to 50NL, I filter out the KK hands beginning at my first entry into the fiddy. here we go!

HOLY CRAP!!!

How in the world can somebody get dropped KK for 222 hands and LOSE MONEY!!!! I mean they play themselves for the most part, correct???

Then I decide to check my AA hands....

That's better... almost.

Maybe my play isn't total spewtardness? But I'm telling you, I've had my share of KK v AA so many times that I didn't even feel bad about this one yesterday: