Monday, August 25, 2008

Tournament of Champions Preview

This post is just a teaser for the next couple of posts for this blog. This past weekend the Tournament of Champions II was held for the Cream City Poker League. The game featured a whole lot of hands and action. During the course of play there was the usual discussion of playing poker “by the book”, and I think it was decided that the following chapters will be added to the book when the CCPL decides to author it:

Chapter 1: How to Steal the Blinds from Under the Gun – by Pete S.
Step 1. Play tight for three years, then raise the hell out of everyone when out of position

Chapter 2: Stealing the Blinds from Late Position and Tripling Up – by Jason F.
Step 1. Pick a poor starting hand to raise with and pump up the pot
Step 2. After blinds both call, make sure you hit two-pair or better and get them to bet in front of you.

Chapter 3: Knowing When It’s Your Turn to Act – by Dan N.
Step 1. Start up a conversation with someone right after the person on your right makes decision with cards.
Step 2. Give yourself a nickname
Step 3. Wait for the table to get irritated with the delay and have them insist you perform an action

Chapter 4: Knowing the Right Amount to Bet – by Don L.
Step 1. Verbally announce your bet, then put out a thousand less. See if anyone notices
Step 2. After everyone notices, try again on the next hand, but only short the pot by 400 instead of a thousand.
Step 3. Grab chips ahead of time, prepare for the raise, announce it and prepare to make sure everyone knows you did it right, but actually short the pot by 1000…AGAIN.

Chapter 5: Late Stages of the Tournament: Closing the Deal – by Mark S.
Step 1. Get your chips in as a 80%+ underdog at least 3 times
Step 2. On the river, get the card you need to eliminate opponents

I'm telling ya, if you follow these chapters in the book, you too, can become a great poker player...

I'll give a little more detail about each of these in the next few posts!!

Monday, August 4, 2008

Brewers vs. Cubs and the Bob & Brian Open

I was really looking forward to this past Thursday and Friday. Mike was coming in to town, and Mike, Todd, Dan, and myself were heading to the finale of the four-game series taking place between the Brewers and the Cubs. The four of us only get the opportunity to get together a couple times a year (at most), and we usually golf the Bob and Brian Open on the first Friday in August, so it was pretty nice that we were able to hang out a couple days together. Dan provided the tickets (Thanks again!). The tickets were for excellent seats in the lower level between home plate and first base. Unfortunately, the Brewers didn't have their A-game with them on Thursday (or Monday, or Tuesday, or Wednesday) and the Cubs ended up winning the game and sweeping the series. We did leave in the bottom of the 8th inning, so we missed most of the Brewers scoring as they scored 3 of their 4 runs in the bottom of the 9th. They only needed 7 more runs to tie, though...

Friday started out bright and early, as we all met at Dan's house at 6:00am to head over to the Bob and Brian Open. If you aren't familiar with "Bob and Brian", they are a pair of local DJs that run a morning show in the Milwaukee area. Each year, on the first Friday in August, they have a golf outing they run as a fund raiser for the MACC fund (Midwest Athletes Against Childhood Cancer). It's a great time as they have 36 holes and at least two foursomes starting on each hole. They even have enough golfers to run two shifts, one at 7:30am and one at 1:30pm. We were in the early start.


After arriving at the golf course we dropped our clubs at the club drop, checked in, and then went looking for our carts so that we could snag a couple clubs to go practice at the range. Mike's and Todd's clubs were at their carts, but Dan's and mine had been mysteriously "misplaced". After searching all over we discovered that our clubs were never making it on to the carts to be delivered to the golfer's carts. So much for practice! There seemed to be some long lines at the check-in area, too. Overall, I didn't think it was run as well as it has been in the past. Hopefully, they'll improve on that for next year.

The weather started out great, and we never had to worry about rain or getting enough sunshine because it was sunny all day. It was REALLY humid though, so about 11:00 or so it started to get real warm out there on the fairways and greens. We didn't have the greatest of golf scores as we only posted a 3-under 68, but we always know going in to the outing that we aren't going to post the best score, as usually some group comes in with some ridiculous score of 20-under par or something like that. We had a good time though. I did manage a pretty nice chip in for an eagle on a par 5, but that was my only highlight of the day.