Thursday Musings...

A lot of different musings on my mind today, so, going with bullet points...

• Spilled a 16 oz. coffee ALL OVER MY DESK here at work this morning. I blame the obnoxious, incompetent colleague that was in my office driving me crazy with a repetitious meaningless review of facts I'm far more aware of than she is... causing me to unnecessarily shuffle paperwork with the intent of illustrating my discomfort with her presence... leading to my spilling the coffee EVERYWHERE. Really a horrible way to start one's day!
• Had a nice poker win last night, taking down the 23:35 $2rebuy on FullTilt for ~$200. It did keep me up 'til 1:30 which also didn't help this morning go too well, but well worth the fatigue. I really wish I knew how to do screen shots for the blog here, as there was some portions of the tourney I really wanted to show off. Specifically, my being in 13th place with 13 remaining and the top 12 making cash... then being in 1st place with 12 remaining, and when we hit the Final Table I had over three times the 2nd place stack! I molested the bubble like it was my job! It was really ridiculous how both the cash bubble and the Final Table bubble were treated by the competition, and I was able to rape the bubbles like my name was Gary Ridgeway. Coasted into head's up play where I ran over villain who thought any hand worth a stay in blackjack was worth jamming in head's up hold 'em. GG me!
• Had a meeting earlier this week with the upper management of the new company taking over my organization, and was really delightfully impressed by their honesty. Long story short, my job function IS moving to Memphis, TN on or before August 2009, and I need to make the corresponding decision whether to find other employment or move across country. Leaning toward the ladder, but I'm sure I'll have more quasi-internal debate between now and decision time. Que Sera Sera.
• Made another BBT3 Final Table earlier this week with a 5th place finish in Tuesday's Skillz game. Really enjoyed the experience, as I feel I picked up some learnings about OmahaHiLo, as I had only played the game a handful of times in the past. Congrats to LilKimmer, the FTOPS OmahaHiLo winner for taking down this event as well. I was really impressed by his aggression throughout the tournament and especially at the Final Table where I again played like a pansy, never effectively vying for the top spot. (For example, with 7 people left, I get AA67 utg with just ~13 BB left and I make it 3x to go instead of jamming, !??!... get 3 callers and fold to an all in on the flop where I felt I was beat.!? Live and learn I guess.)
• Mookie last night... hit a brutal suck out river 2-outter vs. Lucko in the first half hour to get to a decent stack, but gifted half of it off to a shorty's KK push vs. my 99, and then lost the remaining half when my QQ lost to AK, aipf. Ehh, standard. On a related note though, I was thrilled to learn today that Mookie is reverting back to the 3,000 chip starting stacks, rather than the shorter amount. Hopefully this will cut down on some of the donkeyrrific play witnessed in the first hour of this thing over the last couple months. (I.E... Last night's eventual 2nd place finisher Pureprophet getting it all in preflop in the first fifteen minutes with sooted 79 to oust NewinNov's big pocket pair.) It would be nice to see some semblance of actual poker strategy in this thing again in the future.
• Got some horrible news Monday night that I had been dreading for the last five years! Came home from work to see the Comcast van in my parking lot, and sure enough, my illegal cable that I've had since early '03 finally got turned off. That's $50/month I've enjoyed not spending for a long time now, and am not excited for the prospect of a new monthly bill! (Long story, but I no longer have the means to reconnect the service myself.)
• On a fairly related note, I watched an awesome movie last night, Michael Clayton, starring George Clooney. Really enjoyed the flick and would recommend it to all.

Well, 'til next time...
I am Sheeva the God of Death,
~RaisingCayne

Better Mood

May be on the way out of my recent funk, as I've found myself in a better mood recently. I've realized a bitter tone really seemed to persist over my last few posts, (especially the recent rant I decided to delete shortly after posting,) and I feel this was simply a by-product of my recent gloom. I'll save all the details, as I never intended for this blog to get too personal, but wanted to simply share that things seem to be slowly turning for the better, and I'm feeling a bit more optimistic recently. Plan to have more positive posts up here rather than negative rants going forward. (Although, I'm not sure which are deemed more entertaining.)

On the poker front... I did finally final table a BBT3 event in last week's Riverchaser's, taking 4th place. Looking forward to a repeat performance this week, with the tourney having JUST kicked off. I also was able to cash in last night's Mookie before my donkey exit. I decided to go for what I thought was a resteal attempt with my AceNine in the BB, just to run up against Evy's AceKing on the button. Yep, that's right, I went all out with AceNine, the exact hypothetical holding I bitched about on here recently for villains' overplaying. My hypocrisy indeed has no bounds! (On a sidenote, Evy seems to really be running well of late with some solid bloggerment finishes... and also seems to be becoming quite the nemesis for me, dispatching me from a few recent events. Best of luck to her going forward, as I root for all non-TOC seat holders to win one of these last few events as the BBT3 comes to a close.)

In other poker news... I had a DEEP run in the $26, $9,500 KO tourney on FullTilt last week that was incredibly frustrating! Lost out in 21st place when my KK < AcTc AIPF. At the time I was dispatched I had a 3rd place chip stack too. I got the tourney chip leader to commit over 70% of his stack preflop with AcTc, but couldn't manage to come out on top. This was the closest I've came to a four figure score in at least six months, so the ~$100 I did cash was little consolation for me. Winning in that 67/33 spot would've put me in a dominating first place position, but, it was not to be. (I didn't even fault villain too much, as I was completely running over the table at the time with constant preflop raises, as NO ONE was playing back at me whatsoever. The chipleader understandably went for the re-steal from the button with a hand that he had to think was good against my range. Of course, his call of my re-re-raise jam was quite iffy, but I digress.)

In other other poker news... I seemed to have found a means to replenish my FullTilt bankroll via the morons that seem to frequent the 4-seat HU SnG shootouts. If you enjoy HU poker, and haven't gave these a shot, I really recommend 'em. The $6.50+$0.40 token satellite options have proved to be a great way to stock up on those tier one tokens. On a similar note, if you haven't heard already, Loretta has just started another weekly bloggerment, with the Sunday Head's Up tournament, a $26 64-person HU shootout at 21:00 hours on Full Tilt, password: shovemonkey. Should be good times.

Hope everyone's running well, 'til next time..

...I'm a talkin' donkey,

~RaisingCayne

Can't Abide Stupid

So I've again been feeling like it's better to keep my mouth shut than to share much recently, but I felt it might not hurt to go on a vague rant. (Evidently I've came to the conclusion that I'm okay with running the risk of offending groups of people, just not any individuals specifically.) I've bit a fucking hole in my tongue lately to keep from filling this blog or the ghey poker table chat boxes with opinions on the outrageous incompetence witnessed of late. The only poker I've really been able to play at all lately are the Monday through Thursday BBT3 tourneys, which seem to have a consistent theme of seeing me lose out to lesser holdings. And since my venom is fueled by others in this little blogger community of ours I've thought better of illustrating individuals' ignorance publically. But... FUCK!!!

(Ha, I just said butfuck.)

It's just getting obnoxious to not be able to Final Table a single fucking time despite feeling that my play has really been improved and focused lately. Each and all of my tourney exits lately seem to come from nearly identical situations: I re-raise one of our group's uber-aggro-donk-habitual-raisers, they moronically put me on a "re-steal" (despite this play barely being in my repertoire) and jam despite (or to spite?) their ghey holdings... I call with my better hand and get prison style anal raped by their sooted bullshit. WTF!?

I won't call anyone out individually, and I'm not even referring to this week's tourneys specifically, in case anyone's attempting to jump to conclusion about my thoughts. And in fact, I'm not even referring to one, two, or even three individuals, but more just to poker incompetence in general. I can't abide stupid!

My Full Tilt 'notes' on other bloggers are getting entertaining. Given my restraint from using the blog or the girly chat, I use the 'notes' as a means of spewing my acrimony. The notes on a few tools out there have novel length rants now, it's sort of funny... sort of.

I'm just really curious when/how it's justified to jam preflop on top of a pot committed RE-raiser with AceFuckingNine?!!? Seriously!? WTF!? These donkeys don't even consider that the BEST case scenario in that spot is that they're on the badside of a coinflip, and there's a HUGE probability of their being dominated, and ZERO chance of them being ahead! I guess they just get overly drawn to the pretty matching suits on their cards, and that oh-so-attractive Ace, I don't know...

...I suppose I could understand the sexiness of the top card in our game though: that irresistable "A" in the corner of the card; with the come-hither-hole at the top of the open-leg-like lines down each side. (But for the record, I believe when people say "Fuck an A" they mean "Fuckin' A" ... they're not advising literal intercourse with the top of the alphabet, just making a reference to their being upset.) And we all know how those sexy Aces love each other's company at FullTilt... like stoner chicks on the way to a High School party, we know if we have one there's always a good chance she's gonna be lying with another before we get to the river.

Anyway... "Wooooo-saaaaaaaawwwww". ... "Serinity Now." ... "Ohmmmmmmm." .... I should really take up yoga or something. ...

Alright, I suppose I got my malice out of my system. I must be coming across like Hoy though, with an arrogant, perceived poker superiority. Please take this whole post with a grain (or tablespoon) of salt, as I suppose I'm really just venting recent frustrations. I'm just wholly embarrassed by my spot on the leaderboard, and I suppose I'm just trying to shift blame away from myself. Before anyone calls me out on my hypocrisy, (and yes, I'm a hypocritical ass at times,) I'm well aware that my play is not without the occassional suckout! In fact, yes, that was me calling off my entire ~35bb stack in the first hour of the Mookie last night in a blind battle (vs. pureprophet I think) with just AQo, vs. villain's AK, and, like that siren scene from O' Brother Where Art Thou, we saw a bitch on the river bring the other guy down. Yeah, my hypocrisy has no bounds! It's my blog, and I can whine when I want to.

With every intention of discounting my earlier conceit, I will share the fact that this BBT has really humbled me after witnessing certain players' consistency and success. I won't kiss specific ass again, like I did in my last post, but it's just abundantly clear that my game is not at as high of level as many others. And for those that know me well, (and know I'm really a much much bigger conceited prick than I even come across as,) know that this was a difficult epiphany to come to grips with! (Cayne's not exactly known for his humility. ... And he also enjoys a third person reference to himself now and again, evidently.) Seriously though, I've taken a lot of pleasure recently from watching a few others' play, and feel like my game's improved just by witnessing more successful game plans than my own be executed. But again, I don't want to sound like a kiss ass. (Although I think I am now considering a name change to TuscaloosaCayne.)

In other poker news...
A huge congratulations to Matt, who has proved that even Just Another Donkey can finagle a decent score! Great job man. Well deserved. (I won't even make any broken clock or blind squirrel references.)
I would also give more congrats to Lucko too for his latest scores, but those statements are just getting repetitive so I won't bother. Seriously though, what an amazing run of late. This guy knows how to play poker!
And a big congratulations to the folks at BDR, Live Poker Radio! Their coverage of the Borgata event was outstanding. If I didn't know any better, I would've almost considered y'all a respectable media outlet. (Almost. And, I know better anyway. I jest!) Riggstad, BuddyDank, Instant Tragedy, Perticelli, et al... all deserve recognition for the outstanding set of broadcasts! Not to mention Cheryl Hines interviewed!!!!!!! Woooot! Boom! Suh-weet! (IMO, when it comes to celebrities that occassionally play poker... she's the nuts.)

In other other news...
The roommate and I are throwin' a big party next weekend, Saturday the 17th. I usually have at least two big shindigs per year at my place and hadn't hosted one in awhile. Really lookin' forward to it. (Just in case there's any readers out there that I haven't previously invited, and that will be in the area that day, please hit me up, as I would hope you could make it over.) Gotta spend all of this weekend playing clean up in preparation. Gotta scam the lady friends into thinking my home always looks nice ya know.

Well, Riverchasers is tonight! Can't wait to see who's sooted Q9 bests my re-re-raised JJ. Good times. On a quasi-serious note though, I have enjoyed this tourney much much more than the Mookie for awhile now, and do look forward to it every week. I don't know if it's the different stack sizes or the different player pools or what, but for some reason the Wednesday routine seems to play ultra-loose and plays down much much faster compared to the other BBT3 events. I prefer the deeper stacks and earlier start time that Thursday's game provides. (Although I do completely understand the Mookie's current structure. Especially given the late start time.) Anyway, good luck all...

'Til next time...

I'm a talkin' donkey!

~RaisingCayne