Nat Arem's Blog

(see my previous entry for pictures relating to this entry)

So after everyone busted, we settled down to an evening of various home game poker. MrSmokey1 and Gavin were playing online hearts and they were apparently dominating their competition to the point where they were being accused of cheating. Zach, thorladen, jucifer and Bushman were playing Indian poker (put one card on your forehead, etc) — I joined that game after the first few rounds. Jackie and Ginger were watch TV/DVDs.

So anyway, onto my homegame experience. After I finished what I needed to do online, I went downstairs to see what was going on. Naturally, I was invited to join the $100 Indian poker sit and goes that were running. Despite not know anything about the game, I accepted. Here’s how you play:

The blinds and button are just like hold em. But you pick one card out of a muck pile (we used two decks for the muck pile) and put it on your forehead. You can’t see your own card, but you can see everyone elses. So there’s a lot of “bluffing” against top hands to try to get them to fold so you can get isolated against a bad hand who raised. Remember, if you open raise and you hold a two, you’re going to get attacked by someone. So someone might re-raise just hoping to have a good enough card on their head (maybe a T) to get the bigger hand to fold. After all, more often than not, a T will be a better hand than what you have on your forehead. Then again, people started seeing these steals and picking them off. Then it goes one level deeper, etc. Anyway, it’s a game where I knew nothing about basic strategy whatsoever and I was out within a few minutes. thorladen and jucifer were pretty much owning the sit and goes though.

So after that, I decided to try to get them to play a game that I actually know a little bit about: 8 card omaha hi/lo regular. Bushman, jucifer, thorladen and I play a $100 sit and go (paying $300 and $100). Not only did I run hot the first sit and go, they played awful. I made a few nice laydowns too, but I was flopping the nuts in both directions on multiple occasions. It only took a few minutes for me to get HU with Bushman, then I basically won in two or three hands (maybe it was one, I can’t remember).

Naturally, they wanted a re-match. So we went upstairs to the kitchen table — the basement floor isn’t comfortable, but it was the only place in the house where people wouldn’t be able to see their own card playing Indian poker. The structure was the same as before… around 150 in chips, 1/2 blinds (increase when someone goes out), $100 buyin, $300/$100 payout. Little did we know what a freaking marathon this thing was going to be. I THINK we started around 1 AM. Maybe someone else knows better, but that’s my best guess. It started off typically enough, with Bushman getting quarter in large pots where he was playing crappy hands. I was running pretty bad in the beginning of it and I got the reputation as a nut peddler because I played so few of my first 20-30 hands. But if you get 44468JQK in that game, trust me, you should fold preflop even if you’re getting 10-1. It’s that bad and you really can’t even catch up. So anyway, jucifer took an early chiplead.

A few hours later we were still four handed. Then in the middle of nowhere, everything went black. At first I thought some of the other guys were playing a prank where they turned off all the lights at once, but that wasn’t the case. In fact, thor’s power had gone out. So there we were in the middle of the hills of upstate New York with no power, about four candles and no flashlight (thor later found one, but not for awhile). The Chicago crew was immediately suspicious of foul play. They thought someone cut the power lines with the intent to rob all of the cash-rich poker players, then kill us and dump the bodies in the woods. I’m really not sure what cutting the power would do to help that plan, but the idea quickly morphed into a variant theory, which was that thor was behind the whole thing with the plan to hack all our accounts and do the whole killing/dumping thing. Either Zach or Kyle (I’m not sure who, it was dark) was actually walking around with a knife. I can’t say I ever bought into it (I was sitting at the table trying to get everyone to re-start the sit and go via candlelight), but it was entertaining. An interesting side note is that MrSmokey1 and Gavin were still playing online hearts… and they got disconnected at the same time due to the power outage. So after being accused of cheating, being disconnected at the same time probably didn’t look good. But, in fact, they were playing honestly.

Eventually we got back to the game under candlelight while others just went to sleep on the couches, etc. I won a few big pots off of jucifer and Bushman while jucifer was rivering thor over and over, so I built a huge chiplead. For a good portion of the rest of the sit and go, I had between 350 and 400 chips with only 600 in play. I played a pretty tight big stack as I thought it was correct considering the game and my opponents. Basically I’d wait for A2 or A23 or A34 hands with some other potential, then just quarter them over and over. I don’t think I even got quartered until I got in with A23TJJxx with two hearts on a KhQhJx board … so I had the nut low (remember, it was regular, no qualifier), the nut straight, bottom set jacks and the nut flush draw. Of course, thor had A2KQxxxx and he hit a K on the turn (I wasn’t as far ahead as it looked, nut boat draws are pretty powerful even compared to my holdings). So it took that to quarter me. But I eventually knocked out Bushman when I got in with the nut low, top two, a gutshot straight draw and an average flush draw against Bushman’s non-existant low and a better flush draw. He hit his flush on the turn and I hit my two pair redraw on the river (it was a one-outer considering what was left in the deck, but remember that when playing four handed 8 card and dealing the river, it’s a lot different than a 1/40-something chance — seen 8+8+8+8+4, so it’s like 1/16). But anyway, we played three handed for a long time before jucifer and I combined to knock out thor when I hit a 23 nut low holding A23455JJ and jucifer hit a good high of 888AA (holding A8) and thor couldn’t beat either end. By the time that happened, it was past 7 AM, the electicity was back on and it was light outside. So I chopped heads up with jucifer with a 2-1 chiplead (we did a chip count chop). I ended the night up $230 or so. I think thor, jucifer and I won about equal amounts, with Bushman being stuck for the evening. Not like he cared, he knew he was donking it up.

I woke up the next day at 3 PM, wandered around the house for a bit, ate two bowls of cereal at 5 PM, then was reminded by thor that we had a big dinner coming up at 6:30 PM. Oops. So I basically showered, then hung out until dinner at a Mexican restaurant in “downtown” Andes. thor had reserved the whole place for the group of us, which included his wife Liz. The food there was awesome and there was way too much of it. I don’t think anyone was remotely hungry when they brought us the menus for the main course. And there was a lot of drinking going on as well, but I decided not to participate. I’ve never been a huge drinker, but I’m still feeling pretty sick from Turning Stone and my headache/other cold symptoms would not mix well with a lot of drinking. I eventually got a little fed up with the drunkeness, mainly due to my headache and not feeling good at all… so I just kinda separated myself to wait it out until the night ended. After that, we went back to thor’s house and hung out for a bit before every had to go to sleep because they were going into NYC early this morning. I slept in a bit, then hung out with thor and Gavin all day. I’m going to Ithaca as soon as I wake up tomorrow. Thanks to thor and the rest of the group for a great couple of days, sorry I was so sick and blowing my nose non-stop. Allergies suck.

(remember to look below for pictures)

I don’t really feel like writing now, but I want to get these pictures up. I’ll include captions though…

Bushman’s tiny dog Dolly (EDIT: Apparently the dog’s name is Dali… looks like a Dolly to me with the pink getup though), with his wife Jackie about to pick her up.

The power went out in the middle of the night… this is thor trying to figure out what to do.

The living room area in the main house… thor has a pretty sick view

Wiffleball world championships in the backyard

Another shot… I think the guest house was a home run, but I’m really not sure of the rules

thor, Bushman and his wife Jackie… we went to a mexican restaurant near thor’s house

Jackie, her sister Ginger and the back of Gavin’s head (aka Boykee)

jucifer, Smokey, Kyle, Zach (prior to being ridiculously drunk)

The end of the table again, a few hours later

thor’s friend from NYC, along with the end of the table again

Smokey talking to Bushman and thor

After going to sleep around 3 AM, I woke up around 9:00 AMish and walked over from the guest house to the main house (no wireless internet in the guest house). I just did some random tasks online while I waited for everyone to wake up. Around 11:30, people started to drift into the living room and kitchen. In the 2+ hours while I was at the kitchen table by myself, I saw the weather go from rainy to sunny to cloudy to foggy to thunderstorming. And that cycle happening multiple times. The weather here is literally the fastest changing weather I’ve ever seen.

In the early afternoon, thor, jucifer and I were sitting around in the living room talking about something that I don’t remember when all of a sudden… it started hailing. Yes… hailing. In late May a few hours from New York City. I know we’re in the mountains, but still… it’s hail. I got some pictures of it:

thor’s deck with the hail on it

jucifer testing out the hail just prior to getting his ass kicked

jucifer getting his ass kicked by some Catskill hail

Despite the weather, the area around thor’s house is very nice. I got a couple shots of the view:

Bridge to the guest house, which is where jucifer and I are staying along with MrSmokey1′s friend — his name is Zach

The garage/guest house

The view off the main house’s porch, looking at thor’s pond

As you might expect, there was a lot of online pokering going on. Most people were playing all the major sunday tournaments, but there wasn’t a lot of success. I think the biggest cash was Bushman’s $5K-ish score for 3rd in the Paradise Playa $40K guaranteed (I think) $100+r. thor also got to the top two tables of the Stars 109r, but he never really had many chips in it. Bushman had a big chiplead in it with 30-some people to go, but he ran into some bigger hands than his big hands and he went out like a man in 28th spot with 27 spots paying. It really looked like he was going to win it for a little while though.

I got a few pictures of the online pokering that was going on downstairs:

This is a pretty dark shot, but Bushman is all the way on the left (not really visible), jucifer is in the background, MrSmokey1 is playing on the dual monitor setup and thorladen is sitting to his left

thorladen’s laptop and MrSmokey1 playing online hearts. thorladen was playing upstairs for most of the afternoon because Dise and Stars kept putting people from the house together. Once MrSmokey1 busted, thorladen brought his laptop downstars.

Another view from behind the setup

I’ll write about the post-Sunday tournaments part of Sunday later. I want to go play some wiffleball now.

So this happened while I was driving back, but I decided to put it in its own entry.

We were driving south on 28 through upstate New York to thor’s house. We’d stopped to get gas only a few minutes before and I had bought some cough drops to hopefully help feel better. I looked down for a second to get a tissue and a cough drop, and I suddenly hear Gavin (aka Boykee online, a friend of thor’s from bridge) say “WATCH OUT!” … I look up and see thor in the oncoming traffic lane and a HUGE turkey in the middle of the road. Needless to say, we were speeding a little bit (btw, NEVER try to follow thor on the highway if you’re ever presented with the opportunity. It’s relatively impossible) and a turkey like 30 feet ahead + driving fast = dead turkey. Even if I was driving 10 MPH under the speed limit, I would have hit it. I think I pretty much decapitated the thing. All I saw in the rear-view mirror was the turkey tumbling in the road and a huge cloud of feathers flying everywhere. Somehow, the car doesn’t seem damaged at all — the turkey didn’t get hit by a wheel, it got hit by my front bumper and then passed right under the car. To be honest, I kinda wish I had some proof of it on the car so I could get a picture of some kind, but there’s nothing there at all… not even a dent of any kind.

I feel bad for the farmer, but he really needs to secure his turkeys when his barn is right on the side of the road. The turkey can’t possibly know it’s a bad idea to go walking in the middle of the road, so I’m guessing it happens a lot to that farmer.

… of upstate New York. I’m at thorladen’s house in Andes, New York. As you can see on the map, it’s pretty much in the middle of nowhere. So here’s what happened before I got here…

On Friday I woke up and made a reservation for a one hour full body massage at 6 PM. I headed down to the poker room, but the 5/5 was running short-handed and the 2/5 was full at the only table that was running. So I found gobboboy and ZBTHorton and went to the Emerald, which is a 24-hour diner-like establishment. It has average food, but it’s fast and it’s always open. I headed back to the room, then got the massage. It was good, but I don’t have much to compare it to. I pretty much fell asleep on the table.

After that I spent a bunch of time working with a developer on some FTP and Paradise MTT scraping programs (we should have those databases up shortly), then I went over to another room in the tower where Bill Ivey was playing some HU matches on Stars. Also, plattsburgh, who got 3rd in the $500 event for $15K stopped by later. He bitched at me for a little while for not having my digital camera to get a pic for the blog. I guess he’s right… as the official online poker player blogger/picture taker I probably should have gotten something. We hung out for a little while, I lurked the big game a bit in the poker room, talked to Clayton and P w I (sp?), then I went back to the room to play some 2/4 NL online. I also played a ton of micro limit tables on Stars right as one of the milestone hands was about to pass, then I was having so much fun being a huge lagtard I decided to keep playing… and I actually won like 10 buyins in about 40 minutes playing 5-6 tables. Hands like these helped:

1. http://www.pokerhand.org/?343784
2. http://www.pokerhand.org/?343785

Anyway, it was good fun. I eventually went to sleep after supernova9 came back and we talked for a bit about how the 5/10 no cap was… he played in it all day. After I woke up, I got on MSN and talked to Bushman and thorladen. They’d both busted out by then, so we were planning on leaving once everyone else busted out. Obviously, that happened soon after, so we got out of Turning Stone around 5-6 PMish (I think). I drove thor’s bridge friend and one of MrSmokey1′s friends. thorladen drove MrSmokey1, Bushman, another MrSmokey1 friend and jucifer. After about 4 hours and a stop at a grocery store, we arrived at a very nice property in the middle of nowhere. I’ll be sure to get a bunch of pictures tomorrow when it’s light out and you can actually see what’s around us.

I’m feeling pretty sick. My nose won’t stop running from allergies and it’s causing a sore throat and a headache. Being around cigarette smoke and lots of activity certainly isn’t helping, but I’m going to try to have fun over the next couple of days anyway. Maybe tomorrow will be better.

Good luck to anyone still in the main event at Turning Stone…. I hear Bill Ivey and Exitonly4 are still in.

I woke up pretty late again, met up with Ozzy and we went over to Roman (Empire2000) and ZappyB’s room in the Lodge. MrSmokey1 came over and we talked for a bit about things like Smokey’s 150K cash in the Conquest tournament in the Bahamas. Here’s a pic I grabbed:

MrSmokey1, Ozzy, Roman

After that, we went down to Premier’s room (there are a lot of other people staying in it too), which was also in the Lodge. Ozzy and MrSmokey1 played some Mario Kart while CHEKdezNUTS, Roman, ZappyB, JERRRY, etc looked on. I played Roman in a $120 HU freezeout of 8 card NL Omaha H/L regular…. I lost. I got a decent chip lead on him a few times, but I made some bad plays trying to bust him and he mildly sucked out a few times. Actually, I honestly don’t even know the odds for that game, so maybe it wasn’t even a suckout. Anyway, then Ozzy, MrSmokey1 and I played a three handed PLO sng. Good game selection me. I got heads up with Ozzy and I managed to get a 2-1 chiplead on him, but then he won a few decent pots and doubled up when we got all in preflop with two suited/connected hands. Neither one of us had a pair, but he managed to win it. After that I fought back a bit to get back to around a 2-1 chip deficit and we got all in with his top two against my flush draw, I hit on the turn but the same Ac also gave him aces full. Then he hit quads on the river for overkill. Here are some pics from the Mario Kart, prior to the poker:

I played some pretty uneventful 1/2 NL for a little while, then I played some more uneventful 2/5 NL. I won a few decent pots, but I also lost a bunch trying to hit sets that rarely hit. The 2/5 NL table was pretty weak overall, but there were also some strong players there. I met meeks16, who was sitting directly to my left for part of my 2/5 NL session. I also met a guy who claimed that he knows someone who knows teecoy and that he’s pretty sure teecoy is playing under a new name. But I wasn’t really convinced that he was credible, although he seemed like a smart kid who wouldn’t just make something like that up. Anyway, it was interesting to hear.

After that, I got up and walked with Murs316 over to the Lodge to watch the Bill Ivey v Ansky/supernova9 2K HU freezeout. I actually ended up dealing for over an hour. At about 2:30 AM (maybe 2.5 hours after they started?), the match finally came to an end. Ansky/supernova9 won.

We walked back to the tower, met up with Ray (Exitonly4), then went back to the room and talked until about 6 or 7 AM, at which point they went down to the poker room to wait for the 10 AM tournament to start and I went to sleep.