The Road Less Traveled

So I’m finally at the point where I can just chill and enjoy my home. I’ve only got a few boxes left to go through and everything is pretty much set up. Next Spring/Summer I’ll be looking to upgrade the kitchen, possibly replace the windows, and paint the whole house. But for now, I’m just enjoying my new diggs

My mom and brother drove up from Tennessee to spend Christmas with my girlfriend and me. It was really nice having them drive up here since I’ve been driving to Tennessee on an annual basis pretty much my whole life. The drive isn’t great (7-8 hours), but what really makes it a pain is the fact that you have to dedicate two whole days to driving. That really cuts into vacation time and I’ve had to cut my vacations short by two days every time I drive down there. But anyway, we had a great time and everyone got a lot of great gifts.

My first Christmas tree

Kali after ripping apart her first Christmas present

Poker books I received for Christmas

My new waffle maker!

Also, my girlfriend organized (and I helped a little, along with each of our families) a successful campaign to “adopt” two families from the House of Ruth – an organization who helps victims of domestic violence. We managed to collect enough gifts to satisfy the whole list of requested gifts for both of the families we adopted.

Since my mom and brother hadn’t been up to Maryland in quite some time (well, they came up for my college graduation in 2005, but we didn’t have much time for site-seeing then), we decided to hit up the Maryland Science Center. They currently have an AMAZING exhibit on Leonardo Da Vinci. That dude pretty much did it all – painting, sculpting, engineering, inventing, etc. He must have invented or improved hundreds of items, including bridges, ball bearings, bullets, machine guns, flywheels, catapults, scuba diving equipment, and even the early makings of the automobile. Basically, your life would suck without him.

After the science center, we hopped on over to The Cheesecake Factory and loaded up on an assortment of cakes – including The Original Cheesecake, Peanut Butter Fudge Ripple Cheesecake, Red Velvet Cheesecake, Godiva Chocolate Cheesecake, and my personal favorite, the Chocolate Tower Truffle Cake. Later on that night, we headed to one of my favorite restaurants – The Olive Grove. No, not The Olive Garden, or the Olive Tree (man, olives are popular). This is the only Olive Grove and it has some of the best Maryland Crab Cakes. The cream of crab soup is amazing as well. Oh, and my mom/bro also brought up food from my favorite restaurant, Ridgewood, a bbq joint in Tennessee. Needless to say, it was a delectable holiday

Ok, without further ado, here are finally some pictures of my new place

The 2 feet of snow we received is finally melting!

Will likely update my kitchen in the summer with new counters/appliances

Restaurant-style booth!

Call of Duty space, oh - I mean - living room

Fully finished empty basement, place of future poker tables and old school gaming section

Light switch in guest bedroom left by previous owners (it was!)

Poker office, all paid for by poker

Close-up shot of my DC quacker

New sweet chair!

Some bed-side reading

Walk-in closet next to master bath

Brand new deck and brand new fence!

Oh, and in the Christmas spirit, here is an AMAZING song that I recently discovered (thanks to Joe Tall). Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

So just this past weekend I received an email from my former long-time neighbor, Ms. Linda. She was my neighbor for roughly 20 years – pretty much my whole life. My dad and I lived next door in the house where I grew from a little boy, to young adolescent, and eventually into a man.

In the beginning, Ms. Linda’s son, Dan, who was only 3 weeks older than me, was my best friend. We lived right next to each other, thus had ample opportunities to build our relationship. Thanks to Ms. Linda, we were both fortunate enough to go to Wild World -> Adventure World -> Six Flags together on many occasions. We went out to eat all the time, including a great all-you-can-eat place called Horn & Horn.  We’d go to Harriet’s Happiest Halloween, the May Fair, to the movies, the Joppatowne pool, birthday parties, soccer games, the arcade, and yes – even The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle concert together.  That’s right.  I said concert.  Your loss if you missed it.  When Grammer (my grandmother) would come up to stay with my dad and me, she would come along on our adventures as well.  Ms. Linda would even drive Dan and me to and from school everyday.  I can still remember waiting for Dan every morning while Ms. Linda and me would be in the car wondering just how late we would be on that day haha.  Basically, we did everything together.  I could never thank her enough for all of the things she did for us.

Then a certain historical movie started being made.  Ms. Linda was all about this movie and just couldn’t wait for it to come out.  She wanted everyone to go see it with her when it came out.  She wouldn’t stop talking about how great it was going to be and was really excited.  Then the day finally came and it was released in the theaters.  She bought me a ticket and made everyone wait so that I wouldn’t miss it.  Then, for reasons unknown to me to this day, I told her that I didn’t want to go see it.  After the initial shock wore off, everyone else went off to go see it without me.  Unfortunately, by that time every theater was full and Ms. Linda would have to wait even longer to see her movie.  She eventually saw it, and then went back and saw it again, and again, and again haha.  It’s a little known movie, but you may have heard of it.  Titanic.  Needless to say, I still feel bad about that incident to this day.  For whatever reason I really, really didn’t want to see that movie at the time, but that shouldn’t have mattered.  I hope she forgives me and that she understands I was just a stupid kid and didn’t fully realize…well…anything at the time.

As time went on, Dan and I moved into middle school and eventually high school.  We joined different circles and drifted apart (as much as next-door neighbors could).  We still played basketball together every now and then, but we had just grown up a bit and decided to hang with different crews.  I went off to college and with the exception of some sporadic home visits, I never really saw Dan or Ms. Linda too much anymore.  Then, on June 20th, 2006, I received a phone call stating that Dan had passed away – the result of a methadone overdose.   I’m not going to pretend to know anything about Dan’s situation at that time, his group of friends, or anything like that.  I didn’t really know the grown-up Dan, but I did know the kid I grew up with.  I know that whatever happened, he was a good guy.  Sometimes he was a little too concerned with “being cool” and that may have put him in some dangerous situations, but ultimately he just wanted to be loved by his peers and to make them laugh at every opportunity – a goal in which he often succeeded.  I cannot begin to fathom what losing a child is like, but I do know what losing a best friend is like, even if we had drifted apart.  It’s weird.  Even though he wasn’t part of my grown-up life, I still did and still do feel a void with him gone.  It’s almost as if part of my childhood passed away with him.  I guess it’s just one of those things you take for granted and don’t fully realize its importance until it’s gone.  Dan’s bigger brother, Duffy, made an incredible website for him.  You can check it out at Daniel Staib’s Website.

After Dan passed away, I continued on down my own path, forever cautious of how things could turn out.  Just recently I purchased my own home after my dad sold the house I grew up in.  It was a sad day leaving that house.  It had been home to many events in my life and now I would never step foot in it again.  After packing up the last of our things, I said goodbye to my home.  It seems weird to me to miss an inanimate object, but I do.

Fast forward to this past weekend and the email that Ms. Linda sent to me.

“Subject: Bad News On House

Body:  The neighbors were at White Marsh .   Yvonne Baldwin was driving by and saw smoke.  She banged on our door and we called the fire dept.  The house was engulfed quickly.  Donald & Mr. Joe were trying to break down the front door to get out the dog.  But they could not.  Paramedics are still working on him.  Sorry but the house is really bad.”

Wow.  Just wow.

I found out later that the dog, a german shepherd, had some internal damage from the smoke, but it looks like he is going to make it.  The newlyweds who purchased the home from my dad have several small children and luckily no one was hurt.  I feel very sorry for them, especially so close to Christmas.  An unattended holiday candle seems to be the culprit.  It must be a horrible feeling to see your brand new house and most of what you own turned to ash.  Fortunately the structure of the house is intact and hopefully the insurance will cover the damage/repairs.

Below is a link to pictures from the fire.

House Fire Pictures

It’s kind of surreal looking at those pictures.  That’s my house.  That’s my home.

Well, it was my home.

Here is what it used to look like…

Before the fire…

So I haven’t updated this in a while (standard), but I thought I’d update a few things in the life of Tecmo.

Owning your own home is both sweet and not. I’m not complaining as it is a great blessing to have the opportunity to own your own home, but man is it a lot of work! I settled in August and planned to have a house-warming party in early October. Then I planned to have that party at the end of October. Then November. New tentative date is mid-December lol. Whenever I buy stuff, I do a good bit a research, read customer reviews, and wait for good sales. Heck, it took me almost a year to decide on my TV! So in the past few months I’ve gone through a lot of research/bargain hunting for couches, dining room tables, office desks, and backyard fences.  I’m happy to say that all of those purchases have been made and I’m really happy with all of them.  My couch and love seat are really comfortable, my fence looks really nice, my desk is finally built for my poker office and I just have to finish setting the electronic stuff up, and my dining room table is pretty sweet.  It’s a square table with 2 chairs and the other two sides are booths!  That’s right – I have a restaurant-style booth in my house!  It’s pretty sick.  Now I just have to finish unpacking some boxes and throw up some decorations on the walls and I’ll finally be at a point where I can just chillax and enjoy my new home  I’ll post pix soon!

My dog, Kali (see previous post for pix), is doing great.  My girlfriend, Meagan, and I have been working with her on different tricks and we took her to take the Canine Good Citizen test (a set of 10 different tests to determine obedience).  On her very first try she passed!  She has ended up costing me a good bit more than I originally thought, but she’s worth it

As far as poker goes, I haven’t been able to play too much with all the grown-up stuffs going on.  Every now and  then I’ll put in a session, but nothing too substantial.  I did have my worst session ever that was 50% running bad and 50% tilt.  Afterwards  I realized my biggest leak is “playing to get even.”  It’s all one big session in poker and it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to play as if each session is the end all be all, but alas, that’s a leak for me.  Because of that, I have instituted a timed session policy.  I’ve done it a couple times so far and really enjoy it.  You play for a predetermined amount of time and stop when it’s over no matter what.  You never play to get even or stop playing too quickly.  You also don’t end up playing until 3:00 am when you have to get up for work the next day haha.

My poker office is nearing completion and I’m really excited to have it all set up.  I’m still doing a little coaching here and there, but mostly I’m trying to get the house stuff done so I can concentrate on working on my game again.  I want to be a 200NL reg in the next couple of months and build up my roll for WSOP ‘10.  I can’t wait for the summer.  I think there’s a chance it could be my best Vegas trip yet!  Between hanging out with my normal crew, meeting up w/ some DC peeps, and looking to play a good bit and make some good $, it should be a blast!  Oh yea, and the girlfriend might get to go this time too!

Oh, and as far as DeucesCracked goes, I should have some really cool stuff happening on that front as well.  I can’t say anything just yet, but I’ve got 2 or 3 things that I’m working on w/ them

This is Kali!

A green session means I finished up.

A red session means I finished down.

(for those still unable to figure out what this picture shows, it means I haven’t had a losing session yet)

So it’s been a while since my last post.  Here are some things that have been going on.

My search for a home continues.  I have looked at hundreds of homes online, and probably 50+ in person.  I’ve put an offer in on two different houses, but neither worked out.  The second house didn’t work out because the sellers refuse to go below their asking AND they won’t give any closing help.  They are clearly clueless to the current housing market.  And so after that deal falling through, I’m back at square one.  Still looking for a nice house in a nice neighborhood.  I’m homeless on August 28th, but my friend has kindly offered to let me stay with him until the end of September.  That gives me about 7 weeks.

That same friend and I recently launched our poker coaching site, www.2ndnutz.com.  Check it out if you’re interested in affordable poker coaching!

I had a couple rough sessions at 200NL last month which resulted in my first losing month.  On the bright side, I’ve completely erased that month’s debt and then some in the first 5 days of this month.  I’m going to try to put in at least 10k hands this month (barring buying a new home getting in the way) and I’m already at 3k hands so that is going well.  I’ve been playing some Limit Omaha 8 or Better and the players at the lower stakes are pretty bad.  I enjoy playing it to break up the grind of NLHE, but it is far less profitable.  I’m trying to become a decent player in the mixed games so that I can tackle the very soft 7/8 game mix profitably.  I feel comfortable playing NLHE, LHE, Stud, O8, and Razz.  I need to work on my Stud8 and PLO game though.  It’s shocking how bad I am at PLO.  I recently started playing HU as well and may continue to do so.  Finished up 5 buyins last night as I just sat there and watched fish after fish sit down and hand me their money. Once my roll gets a bit higher I’m going to start taking more shots at 200NL. I felt good playing it last time, but I just took some sick beats to 2 outers in several massive pots. I know I can beat it, but I’m practicing good bankroll management before I take another shot. I’m not going to stay at 100NL forever though…

If you're too careful…

So all-in-all, poker is going well.  House hunting is not.  I can’t wait to find a place to live so that I can be done with it all.  Also, once I get a place, I plan on building a nice poker office with a 24″ monitor (and a 2nd 24″ monitor to be added later via my Full Tilt points).  It will be a nice change from playing on my 15″ laptop screen everyday.

I know what you’re asking yourself after reading the first 2 trip reports (if anybody actually did read them haha). Did Tecmo actually play any poker while in Vegas? Yes, in fact, I did. Here’s me (black hoodie, white earphone hanging down) rockin it at the 2/5 NLHE tables at the Rio. You can’t see him, but 2fouroffsuit is sitting at the very next table and he can vouch for me (Also a very cool dude.) I planned on playing roughly 25 hours of cash while in Vegas, but I was busy having too much fun and only got in about 8-9 hours. Decided to get one last session in the night before my flight. I wanted to see if my runbad would continue or if I could turn it around.

Advice for sitting at the Rio

My friends and I also hit up some buffets out there that were pretty good. The Rio’s was decent, and the Bellagio’s was probably a bit better. The Bellagio had crab legs that were already cut open for you! Pretty sweet, altho they couldn’t really compare to Baltimore crabs The desserts all looked amazing too. As you can see, I’m a big fan of dessert…

We had reached the end of the week and our plane was leaving at 10:00am on Monday, June 8th. This meant that we had to be up pretty early and Mike and Justin decided to head to bed around midnight. I wasn’t very tired (is anybody ever tired in Vegas?) so I decided to walk around and check things out on my last night there. I went over and sweated a couple of events that were going on. Brandon Cantu was at one of the end tables and his girl was sitting near him with one of those tiny yapping dogs. I didn’t even know dogs were allowed in the Rio. Ivey and Lederer were seated right next to each other, and Hellmuth was behind them at the next table. Ivey and Hellmuth were trash talking back and forth about how long it will take Ivey to pass Phil in total number of bracelets. After winning two already this year, it looks like it won’t be long. Then I went over to watch the final table of the $1500 Stud event. John Juanda, Jeffrey Lissandro, and Nicki Frangos were all playing. Frangos got all in on 4th w/ AAKK, but he was up against trip Js. He kept saying he knew the guy had trips, but what was he going to do. He picked up a gut-shot straight draw on 6th street, but it was the gut-shot to the case Jack so it didn’t help much. He was down to his last card and someone shouted “Ace of spades!” He peeled up the middle half of his card and it was blank…”ooooo it’s blank!”…..He flips it over…”ACE OF SPADES!!!! OHHHH HELLLZZ YESSSS. THAT ACE IS BETTER THAN SEX!!!!” hahaha Needless to say, it was a pretty entertaining table. At 3:00am, they started packing up the chips. One of the tournament helpers came around and asked everyone to sign a sheet with their name, address, and a few other pieces of information. Lissandro immediately started whining “Oh goddd, why do I have fill that piece of crap out again, I’ve already made other final tables this year! Why can’t you just find that sheet I already filled out and use it again?! I’m not signing that crap. I’m going home.” What a prick. The 20something tournament helper reluctantly just appeased Lissandro and didn’t make him sign it. Most poker players that I’ve met have been great guys. Only Lissandro and Hellmuth have been pricks so far. Unfortunately Lissandro went on to win that event AND another one.

Luckily, right after that, I met Ken “Teach” Aldridge, winner of the $1500 NLHE 6 handed event. This guy was by far the nicest, most appreciative bracelet winner I’ve ever met. He was walking by, bracelet on wrist, and I just asked him “so how does it feel?” He immediately went on a 15 minute Shakespearian monologue, explaining the plays he made and how he won with the giddyness of a child. It was so refreshing to meet him and see that people like him could win. He is a retired teacher from North Carolina who just loved every minute of the attention he was getting. We talked for a bit, and he even let me put the bracelet on! I told him I didn’t have a camera and he was genuinely bummed out for me. I told him I had my crappy camera phone and he immediately got excited again. He took a pic of me with the bracelet on and a close-up of it. I don’t know how good he is at poker, but I was immediately a huge fan of him as a person.

http://www.cardplayer.com/poker-players/20553-ken-aldridge/photos/17465-ken-aldridge

It was a great final night and I was definitely glad I stayed up for it. All in all, the trip was a huge success. I wish I had played a bit more poker, but it turned into more of a vacation than a business trip. Oh yea! I almost forgot to mention that I hit up the DC Hoopament before I left. Had a great time meeting more DC people (including Krantz!), showed off my sweet ballin skillz, and got some good exercise too. Wish Joe Tall could have played, but he’s got some freaky stuff going on with fluid in his knee. I do wish I could have stayed for the DC Home Game tho as I’m sure it’s going to be a blast. I also would have liked to meet DJ Sensei and Wilt, but they arrived the same day I was leaving. Oh well, next year I already can’t wait to go back!

Going to Vegas

So I flew out to Vegas on June 3rd after I got off work. My friend Mike and I met at my girlfriend’s house, who was kind enough to drive us to the airport. (Thank you ) We hopped on our plane, ready to hit the strip in 5.5 hours. We knew we had to hurry because those guys handing out hooker cards are bound to run out sooner or later. We find 2 seats together, next to a girl in the window seat. Little did we know that said girl was a few cards short of a full deck, and also equipped with super hearing. We learned this rather quickly though as we proceeded to sit on the airplane for 2.5 hours before taking off. The pilot would update us regularly that there was “lots of weather out there” and “still weather out there.” Of course there’s weather out there. There’s ALWAYS weather out there. What he meant of course was bad weather. The funny thing is, it was clear and sunny and we had to wait over an hour for the doom clouds to appear. Sweet, glad we waited so now we have to wait. Anyway, so pyschogirl is the type who talks to herself and yells things like “ARRGHH WHY AREN’T WE FLYING YET!” I tried to explain that there was quite a lot of weather out there, but she would have none of it. “I JUST WANT TO BE IN VEGAS,” she shouted. And I just wanted a tranquilizer dart large enough to knock out a wooly mammoth. Sometimes we don’t get what we want.

June 2008

My friends and I are in Vegas for the WSOP. We aren’t ballin enough to actually play in the WSOP events, but we still manage to play in at least 10 different tournaments during our week here. We have played at various casinos, including the Orleans which has the best structure imo, with the average buyin being around $100.

It’s our last night in Sin City and we decide to play a $250 tourney at the Venetian. I have cashed twice already, with a 3rd out of 77 which was nice, so I don’t mind playing a larger buyin. I pick up KK in the first level, and long story short, I get it all in on a 9 high flop against AA. $250 = 15 minutes of playing time. Awesome.

So anyway, I decide I’m going to head over to the Rio to check out the WSOP action, see if I can see some pros, and maybe even get a few autographs. I split a cab w/ some dude and he tells me that he gets staked by some rich people in Chicago to come out here and play. It doesn’t really matter if he’s telling the truth as it makes for entertaining cab-ride conversation. Since he’s so ballin, he pays for the ride and I’m happy to save a few bucks.

I walk into the Rio and peruse the tables for anybody worth watching. I find what I’m looking for at the end of the room. It’s the 2-7 lowball triple-draw WSOP event and notables sitting at this table are David Sklansky, Phil Hellmuth, and Shawn “Sheiky” Sheikhan. Pretty sweet table to watch, other than the fact that I really have no idea how to play this game. There’s no flop, and no hole-card camera obviously, so there really isn’t much to see. Also, watching Sklansky play is like watching a sloth do long division on an abacus. So what would make someone stand around and watch this table? You look over and realize that Hellmuth and Sheikhan are sitting right next to each other.

If you don’t know who Shawn Sheikhan is, you can find some good clips of him on YouTube. Lets just say that he has a knack for agitating certain pros. This table has Hellmuth implosion written all over it.

So I decide to stand and watch, along w/ a few others. Plenty of people come and go beside me, each of them perplexed as to why the dealer refuses to deal a flop. I try to explain to some of them, but soon learn of the futility in educating the general poker public. The blonde with the fake boobs doesn’t care, nor would she be able to comprehend, the most basic of rules involved in a friendly Uno game, let alone a 2-7 lowball triple draw game.

Inevitably, Hellmuth loses a pot to Sheiky and goes on a rant about how poorly he is playing. Never one to back down, Sheiky fires back and comments that “this isn’t a Hold’em event, Phil” and “you stood pat with a J!” (For the uninformed, you are trying to make the lowest hand possible and J high is not a great hand.) Hellmuth goes on to complain about his cards nonstop and eventually tilts himself out the tourney. He insta-leaves the table, forgetting his magazine and bag of nuts. After a short time, Sheikhan realizes this and instantly shouts to me and the rest of the railbirds “anybody want Phil’s nuts?!” Everyone gets a good laugh, and one guy quickly yells “I’ll take ‘em!” Shawn hucks them over to him and he is awkwardly proud of his prize. “I’ll sell them on ebay!” he shouts, to which Shawn responds “I better get a cut!”

My forecast for the table proved true, and it was definitely entertaining. I stuck around to watch Shawn play some more. He was seated at the end of the table, facing the crowd. There was a player, let’s call him X, facing Shawn right next to me, and X would often pick up his cards high enough for me to see them. An interesting moral dilemma arose because of this. Sheikhan and X were in several hands against each other, and Shawn picked up on the fact that I could see X’s cards. Shawn started looking to me after I looked at X’s cards, hoping for some information. I assumed in a regular situation this would be morally unethical and I would not partake in such cheating. However, since I really had no idea what was going on in this game, I decided to give Shawn some random head nods when he looked at me. Even if I knew what I was doing, what does a head nod mean anyway? He has a good hand? He missed? Who knows. All I know is that I didn’t know so I figured I’d act like I did know and see if Shawn knew. I don’t know if he did, but it was fun haha.

Finally Shawn busted out and I decided that was a good time for me to head back to my hotel. I started walking out and Sheikhan and I met up in the hallway. I commented that he played well (with absolutely nothing to back this up) and he quickly responded explaining how poorly he played. I told him “at least you busted Phil,” and he just said “Phil’s a fuckin’ idiot.” Shawn’s a real sweetheart. He was funny tho, I’ll give him that. We walked out of the Rio and I walked to the line to catch a cab and just said “lata man.” That’s when he responded, “you catching a cab? C’mon man, I’ll give you a ride.” Sweet! A poker pro offering to give some random fan a ride! AND I don’t have to pay for a cab! So we head over to the valet and he discovers that he only has $100 bills. “You got $5?” he asks me. I just laughed and handed him a $10 bill and he asked the valet for $5 back. They looked perplexed considering this dude is rich and asking for $5 back, but then he told them it was mine and they quickly understood. So there goes my free ride lol. They pull around his $100k sports car (can’t remember what it was right now) and we speed down the strip to my hotel. He drops me off and tells me to say hey the next time I’m in Vegas. I head up to my room with a story to tell everyone.

Now the KK vs AA doesn’t seem so bad