Rubbing Elbows
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
For every post you see, there are three or four sitting, half-finished, never to see the light of day. Consider it my gift to you all, because most of it is pure crapola. A while ago, I made it a point of pride to post daily. Now, I make it a point of pride to not post daily. It isn't that I don't want to give you the content you oh so crave; rather, I am just not willing to give you the crap that has been spewing forth from me lately.
I'm back in the throws of poker, once again fucking around in the world of online play. My latest love has been the Matrix SNGs, especially after I found my sea legs and figured out the key to winning. Of course, shortly after that revelation, I decided, in an intoxicated state, no less, to play a $33 Matrix SNG, and completely whiffed for $0, my first time losing a Matrix SNG without any payoff. But lest I just leave my knowledge hidden from the world, I will share this brief insight into Matrix SNGs:
For the uninitiated, Matrix SNGs are essentially a one-fee buy-in to four simultaneous single table tournaments, each with the same players. You get some money back for placing ITM in the individual tournaments, and an additional payout if you get the most Matrix Points. Matrix points are awarded for outlasting players in the tournaments (1 pt), busting players (2 pts), or winning the tournament outright (2 pts).
At first, I didn't fully understand why these tournaments would be worthwhile. It seemed to me that the max you could win was actually fairly small. In a best case scenario, you sweep the tournaments and get a nice payout, but all the more likely, you money in two or so and get a piece of the Matrix money. Hence, I realized that the proper strategy was probably to be uber aggressive in the early stages. If you can knock out a few players, you will automatically jump to the top of the Matrix Points board, and once there, solid play can lock up a Matrix payout while usually securing one or two payouts for placing int hte money in the individual SNGs.
With this knowledge, I decided that there was no way I could lose the $33 Matrix SNG outright. Surely, I would place 2nd in at least one of the tourneys, netting myself half of my buy-in back. But, naturally, I proved myself wrong, shaming myself and my family.
Of course, it didn't hurt that I won $145 earlier in the evening playing .50/1 NLHE heads-up.
The beast of poker is once again sitting on my chest, crushing the flow of air. So, I decided to get it off of me by waging battle with the beast at our usual dueling grounds, Atlantic City. Roose and I are heading down for an overnight trip this Friday. It'll probably consist of late night poker on Friday, followed by an early Showboat tournament on Saturday. We'll probably head back to NYC Saturday afternoon, so it'll be a relatively quick trip, but one I am excited for.
I also volunteered to help out a blogger who is throwing a big time fund raising event in New York City for a charity. I don't want to give his name or details, since he has not outted it on his blog, but the net result is that I may be acting as a dealer in a charity tournament where big name pros will be playing. I am not a star fucker, mostly because of an altercation I had with professional wrestler Raven years ago on Spring Break in Cancun. He told me he would call after our night together. Boo hoo hoo! Or, actually, I saw him with some other wrestler on line for a club and I mentioned that I was a fan. He pointed to the other guy, a lower card guy with the name of Hugh Morris (I kid you not) and said, "Really?? Are you a fan of Hugh Morris?" in a confrontational tone. I replied, "Yeah," and he just gave me a Fuck Off look. Cocksucker. Of course, there was one occassion before that that stuck with me also. I was with my extended family in Puerto Rico, walking along a strip of stores, when we saw NBA stars Patrick Ewing and Alonzo Mourning. They were with one other tall black guy. While the rest of my party were sucking Ewing's ass (we are from NY, yo), my sports-obsessed cousin asked the unknown tall black guy if he played basketball and got a rude response. As we walked away, my cousin said, "That other guy was an asshole, and he was a nobody." I thought to myself, shit, I don't play for the NBA....does that make me a nobody? So, I started a blog. Er, or I realized that being famous is not necessary to be considered "someone." Also, famous people have an equal or higher incidence of assholery than the common folk, so I'd rather they remain unscathed in my head, instead of meeting them and being disappointed. It's why I avoided Woffles at last year's December poker blogger trip.
Now, all that said, there is something about the big name poker pros that really intrigues me, so playing the role of dealer is really exciting to me. I don't expect to learn much from their play, given that it is a charity event, and I don't expect much conversation with the pros, but even to be in their presence will be a humbling experience.
So, Friday is AC poker. November I'll be dealing to pros. And in December? AC and Vegas. Life is good.
Until next time, make mine poker!
posted by Jordan @ 3:09 PM,
1 Comments:
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At 8:40 AM,
Wolfshead said...
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Shows what a total degenerate I am, I actually remember Hugh Morris. Actually I liked him better than Raven.
