Update

As expected I didn't blog from Las Vegas.  I was doing some running updates on Twitter and Facebook.  Just not enough time/dedication to sit for 10 minutes each day and blog.

Had a great time in Vegas.  The weather was hot and sunny and I actually got to enjoy it for at least a few minutes each day.  Yes most of my time was spent inside poker rooms -- which is why the weather in Vegas doesn't matter too much -- but I walked outside and spent a few mornings relaxing by the pool. Overall I wound up down a bit for the trip playing poker.  I did really well the first week, then the second week I made a few mistakes and got a bit unlucky in a few hands.  No doubt playing a lot improved my game.  One of my big takeaways is learning to trust my reads -- i.e., whether my opponent has a hand or is bluffing -- which have been dead on.  I've been pretty good but lost a few pots where I called and should have raised.

I played at about a dozen different poker rooms and stopped by two or three others just to take a look.  Added to my chip collection and upgraded a number of other chips to excellent condition.  I guess with all the action the WSOP brings to town a lot of places put new $1 chips in play.  Speaking of which, one of the really cool things I did was to check out the WSOP action.  Meier and I watched the $50,000 Players Championship where we could see 100 of the best -- or at least 100 of the wealthiest poker players -- up close.  Basically every big name player was there, like an all-star game or sorts.  I'd say 1/3 of the field was big name players anyone who follows the sport would recognize (Doyle Brunson, Mike Matusow, Phil Hellmuth, etc.), 1/3 were guys some people would recognize or some knew that they won this or that tournament, and the rest appeared to be internet wonder kids.  There were a bunch of young guys that didn't look at all familiar. In addition to watching the start, I came back three days later to sit in the studio and watch the final three battle it out.  It's just what you see on TV.  In fact if you watch on ESPN July 27th, you should be able to see me on TV.

Also met up with my cousins Roz and Irv while there and got to catch up.  And I did a touristy thing and checked out the Auto Collection at Imperial Palace.  Lots of cool, classic cars; Monica would love it.

Last week I spent catching up between handing our remodeling projects.  With the floors being sanded and finished, I had to get the dogs out of the house every day.  Our deck contractor also started the tear down of the existing deck.  We knew some of the decking was bad, but as he's removed the decking up we can see how badly rotted some of the joists are.

The hardwood floor is basically done.  The flooring is all in, sanded and finished.  He just needs to reinstall the molding, air registers, and some other things that were removed.  He's also going to install the hardwood stairs and then we're done with the inside.  Deck project is going to take a while.

Week 2

After another typical weekend -- Mariners lose, softball team wins -- it's back to work.

This week I've been keeping an eye on our dogs while parts of the remodel are in progress.  I was going to put them in daycare, but they're actually been pretty good about staying out of the way and not barking at the workers or all the noise.  Nailing in a hardwood floor is noisy, but Tommy sleeps right through it.

Monday the hardwood guy got to work installing boards and my painters arrived.  Fortunately the were working around each other.  When we moved in we removed a divider from the bottom of the stairs and patched the walls and ceiling but never painted.  I picked up some paint six months ago to see if I could get a match, but it was never on the top of the to do list.  Sort of out-of-sight, out-of-mind but more after staring at the ugliness every day, we just learned to live with it.  But with hardwoods going in, we wanted to paint first rather than risk getting paint on the new wood floors.  In the end, we cut out a chunk of the wall and did a color match.  They were able to feather in the paint to avoid painting the 15" wall above the stairwell and perhaps other walls to match which was a great saving of time and money. Hard to explain really; you have to see it.

Tuesday the hardwood installer got most of the floor done and Wednesday he finished up with the hallway and the edges.  Looks great and it hasn't been sanded or finished yet.

Meanwhile I've been working on planning my trip to Las Vegas and it looks like it's a go.  I'll be there May 24th through June 4th.  Have airfare, hotels, and a rental car booked.  I'm staying off the strip at Alexis Park the first week to keep my costs down.  Even Imperial Palace wants $200 for Saturday over Memorial Day weekend, then moving to IP the second week where I have 4 nights for $85!  My plan is rather than to play poker non-stop to actually have a vacation.  See some shows, walk down the strip, maybe sit by the pool.  Get away from the strip to see some other parts of Vegas.  And really before 11 AM the poker action isn't that good. 

Also working around the house.  It seems the laundry never stops, even for just the two of us. I've been catching up on entering our financial records into MS Money in preparation for doing our taxes.  Yes, I haven't even started taxes yet.  Finished reseeding the back yard.  Dogs and dog "output" do a number on a lawn.  I can't believe how bad it looks just a year after we put down sod.  Seeding is more work than it sounds like.  Had to loosen up the soil in lots of places and work the seed into the dirt.  Otherwise it just washes away.  The lawn eeds a lot of TLC (and a lot of water) this year.  Hope to see some grass and hope in a couple of weeks. 

I installed a keyless entry for the garage.  That was actually a fun project where I felt like I accomplished something rather than started something that will eventually finish.  Our garage is attached to our house but is external so the door is locked and it's a pain to unlock it, every time to go into the garage.  I looked at doing this when we first moved in, but didn't see one that would work.  Maybe it's a new model, but this was pretty easy to install and only took an hour and works great.already.

Also made a trip to the vet.  Hunny Bear and Cocoa are fine -- still needs another round of meds for his yeast infection -- but Tommy has problems with ears and eyes.  And it's almost impossible for us to medicate him.  He sees the dropper bottle coming for his ears or eyes and he runs.  When you catch him he shakes and jerks his head.  Try putting eye drops in while shaking -- impossible. That's my challenge foe the week.

Tulalip tournament

Finally played poker for the first time in a couple of weeks.  A friend wanted to play the Tulalip evening tournament, so we met in Northgate and carpooled up.  The tournament has 30-minute levels which is much better than the 15-20 minute levels you see in most places.  The structure allows for play, though there's a huge jump after the first break when blinds go from 100-200 (300 an orbit) to 200-400 with a 25 ante (850 an orbit).  To be frank, this is a flaw in what's otherwise a good tournament.

Given that you go from good stack to short stack after the break, I took some chances in the third and fourth levels and wound up busting out early.  While busting out early seems like a bad thing, it's actually better to take chances and bust out early than nurse a tiny stack a long time and still miss the money.  11th and 120th place pay the same -- nothing.  Of course if you get to 11th or 12th, you had a chance to cash, but truly these no difference between 30th and 90th except you waste a couple more hours.  A had a couple of hands where I made a steal raise, bet the flop and got check-raised all-in.  Not having much of a hand, I could fold but that cost be a lot of chips.  Went out when I made a small raise with KK looking for action, shoved on an A-A-9 flop (pretty good) and was called by 99.

The cash game was good, though I hate the 1-3 blinds and $200 max structure.  I guess it's the same as 2-5, $300 max but both feel very, very small.  On an aside, that's one of the pluses of playing in Vegas -- they have larger max buy-ins which allows you to win more money and play more hands.  Imagine choosing between two stocks that are similar companies each selling for $10/share (yes the price is silly but bear with me).  If you were told one stock could never go above $20 while the other could go into the $50s, the latter is the better choice all other things being equal.

I turned a small profit in the cash game and was close to even for the night.  I think I made one bad fold, but since I folded I'll never know. I'd go back sometime, but it's still quite a trip.  With a couple stops at the park and ride and dropping off Meier and home, it took me well over an hour to get home.

Vegas poker trip

Went to Vegas for a few days right before New Year's.  It's a great place to play because there are more good poker rooms in a two mile stretch than there are in all of Washington and Oregon combined.  Had a couple of huge cashes, mainly at the Venetian and Planet Hollywood and came out enough ahead that the trip was free.  Of course staying three nights for $89 total makes that pretty easy.

I played so much poker in three days that I really can't talk about interesting hands or sessions.  Independent of the cash result, it was a lot of fun to live on the wild side.  Cuz I'm kinda a simple boring guy :)

I'll be heading back in March and it looks like July as well.

Poker History and Playing in Vegas

Not really to my surprise, but my posts have been few and far between. Part of this is not finding time to blog though much of this is the explosion of microblogging (Facebook, Twitter) since I started this blog. I'm going to try to blog more on my poker sessions and see if that will get me writting more on a regular basis.

So I thought I'd start with writing how I got into playing poker on a serious recreational basis and making regular trips to Las Vegas.

Mark Rafn first explained Texas Hold ‘em to me sometime in late 2004 or early 2005 and we played at work for Hershey’s kisses. This was just after BEA Systems announced they were closing the Seattle office and we weren't very busy or very motivated. I first played in Las Vegas in April 2005 (2/4 limit at the Flamingo), but really didn’t know what I was doing. I was there to meet my parents and see the Cubs-Mariners spring training game and coincidentally some of my friends who played were there and introduced me to live hold ‘em for money. I think I screwed around for six months or so – made some trips to Muckleshoot with a couple of friends. I remember one drive where they were trying to explain starting hand ranges to me, so I was pretty clueless at that point. I bought Lee Jones Winning Low Limit Hold ‘em in January of 2006, finally had some idea how to play, and got more serious. That’s really the start of my hold ‘em play with any thought to starting hands and actually strategy of play and level 1 thinking.

I started playing low limit in local card rooms, mainly the now closed Kenmore Lanes. (As a side note, I think I've played more hours in local card rooms that are now closed than that are still open.) Monica and I met her family in Vegas in February 2006 and I got in a few limit sessions. April 2006 was the first time I/we went to Vegas for the primary purpose of playing poker (along with my business partner and some of her friends) and my poker record keeping starts here. A group of us went in November 2006 (I won the Sahara tournament twice) and that was the first time I played no limit cash games. We went in March 2007 and then again in September. In 2008 I went to Vegas in January, March, and August. I was there again for March madness and a "business" trip in October. I'm trying to get back in December.

Why Vegas? Well, the glitz and glamor are a lot of fun. But the big factors are variety of places to play, really bad players, and good tournaments.

Locally I play almost exclusively at Snoqualmie Casino. It opened a year ago so has that new feel and it's a nice place and 15-20 minutes away. But the room is small (10 tables) and cramped. And the choices are 4-8 limit or 2-5 NL with a 300 max buy in. I'd rather play with deeper stacks where there's more money to win. And the tournament selection is pretty sparse. It's weekend mornings at Snoqualmie. Sure there are other tournaments and places to play. But only the tribal ("Indian") casinos have anything close to a no limit game.

I usually play at Snoqualmie Sunday AM when the Bears don't play and Monday or Tuesday night and then Friday or Saturday night. But it winds up twice a week at most. And there's a friendly penny stakes home game that runs occasionally on Wednesdays.