Chip off the old blog

what really happened to Tom and Jerry...

2006-08-01T18:18:00.000-07:00

We were having a normal, leisurely Sunday afternoon when we decided at about 4:00 that we should go do "something". Of course, at 4:00 on Sunday afternoon, "something" choices have started to dwindle. We finally decided to go with an old standby, Daucet Trails in High Falls, Ga. It's a state and private donation funded park that takes in injured animals and cares for them. The park is open to the public and contains a few nice attractions: a petting zoo, more traditional animal exhibits set on a trail through some beautiful, rustic Ga. woodlands, and an indoor mini-museum including a reptile house. We arrived at the park around 5:15. The beautiful thing about this was that even though the sign read "close at 5:00pm", we knew from the website that they don't close the gate during summer until 7:00pm. This gave us 2 hours to wander around virtually by ourselves and check out the goods. After taking some pictures of the otters and feeding the farm animals (which was hilarious with a 5 year old and a 2 year old), we proceeded back into the traditional exhibit part of the park. As we meandered through cage after cage of rescued eagles, hawks, owls, foxes, and all sorts of other creatures, we came upon the cage housing the bobcats. Here we ran into 2 nice park volunteers (who I thought were there to ask us to leave since we were the only ones in the park so as to make an early day of it). As it happens, it was feeding time at the bobcat cage. My wife said "Oh great girls, we get to watch them feed the cats!!" Our 2 year old , or course, could care less and wandered aimlessly around the area. The 5 year old, however, was entranced with the idea of watching these volunteers feed the "cats". The lady brought in a bowl of "something", and it didn't even occur to us at the time that these "cats" weren't vegetarians nor did they eat "cat food". My wife and I looked on with some shock as the volunteer placed a very full bowl of dead mice in front of the bobcats. Not wanting to alarm our daughter, we stood there and waited for her responce. She watched patiently as one of these big "cats" graciously devoured the top half of a dead mouse. After what seemed like an eternity, she turned to us and said, "mama, he's eating the head off of the mouse". We both sort of stood there anticipating the next inevitable question and ensuing explanation, but in never came, and none was needed. We moved on to the next exhibit without much fuss, and that moment just seemed to slip out of her mind, so far not to feed any nightmares about carnivores or predators or monsters or such. Thus is the lesson of nature. I guess we all have to learn about it sometime.

According to someone else, it was Eeyore night

2006-07-28T05:25:00.000-07:00

Had a good night last night. As a father of 2 very young children, i'm not able to devote the time that i'd like to practicing online poker. As a rule, I only play small buy-ins or The Mookie on Wednesdays because alot of my buddies play in it. Thus far, I have not had a huge amount of success. Nevertheless, it's always fun to hang around and catch a few chips, learn from good plays, see some "hammers", and catch up on the chat.
Last night I sat down to $1 tourney and surf found me online. We were going to play in another tourney, but I got in and he didn't. That left me playing 2 tourneys. At my experience level, that's like 1 tourney too many. Anyway, I saw the WWdn with very few players and saw surf and couple of others I knew, so I signed up. I figured that one of the two tourneys I was playing would end (by my stupidity) pretty soon. It was not to be. The WWdn started up, which put me playing 3 tourneys. For you more experienced guys, no big deal. For us rookies, freakin' pandemonium.
I ended up down to 30 chips in the $4 after a coin toss, called the next 3 all in with pockets, and got back to a salvagable level. (should've let it go) Short stacked at the $1, I finally finished in 7th. In the money (not big, but double my buy in), I was able to focus on the other 2. The WWdn was interesting, with Waffles going out early. I wasn't able to catch up on as much chat as I would have liked. The chat's half the fun of the tourney anyway. Finally, I finish the $4 in 45th with 6,9 in the sb. The flop was 6,9,4. I get called all-in by the big stack. I call. He has A9off. Another higher pair hits the board and knocks out my 6's. I'm done. He says "nice". I say "bye".
I'm not gonna stand around and bitch at him too much like some people i've seen.
(...which leads me to my next point.) Hanging around the WWdn was fun. Being able to watch some better poker players and catch some cool chat was great. Even though on the east coast and having to go in early in the A.M., it was worth staying up til 1:30AM. I got to see some hammers, some good beats, some bad beats, and some rough beats. Surf and I hung around with Darval and Slb til the last. Darval was a monster. He took out several before he eventually took the whole thing down. He deserved to win. He played great. 4 handed with much better players, I laid back until I either felt I had a great hand or felt extreme short stack pressure. At these points, I decided to roll the dice. I had had good cards all night. It's the only thing that kept me alive. Late and short and on the bubble, I decided to push with KQ, which was very questionable. I normally wouldn't push with that hand, especially covered by the whole table and in first position. I just felt like I needed to make something happen. I was just as content to go out here, out of the money, and say I had a good time. Slb called me with the other almost equal sized short stack, and the other 2 got out of the way. I was just hoping for live cards. He turns over AJ off and, I said "it's over", until the flop comes, KAK. I had some life left. The turn was J, so he still had outs. The river was junk, I won, and the bs ensued. Slb got knocked out really short, and we were down to 3, in the money. After that, I don't think I could've been called a donkey anymore if I were wearing an Eeyore costume. He ranted and raved about how he got bad beat. He threw around "donkeys" and ranted some more.
Anyway, I caught a coin flip with surf, a much better player than me, and flopped a str8. It was down to me and Darval. I hadn't played any heads up with players this good before. We battled for a good long time and drew just about even. I finally decided to make a move with AA. He raised pre-flop. I just called. The flop came down 5,6,9. He bet and I raised, hoping he had A9 or high cards, praying he didn't have 7,8. He went all in, and I called. Of course, he has 7,8. Great flop. Great hand. Very good player. Not having the energy to try and climb the mountain again, I took a few stabs and lost. (to a very worthy opponent) Congrats to Darval. Good game. I look forward to playing with you again.
As for Slb, I can't speak for the other two guys at the table, "not wanting to take out the donkey", but even bad calls sometimes turn out good. Don't take it personally. For the record, I seem to recall that we had about the same amount of chips when we got to 4 handed. So I can't imagine how you played "so much better" than I did. And as for "nobody wanting to call my bullshit all-ins", you were invited at any time. I never pressed the "slb can't call my bullshit all ins button". (The truth is that I couldn't find it.) Suffice it to say that it was my worst call of the night. You may believe me. You may not. I really dont care. As for slb, I have much respect for you as a poker player. I know you're probably better than me. However, after reading your blog, as a person, I think you're a piece of trash. Have an equally nice day.

PeaceOut

Tryin' to find the time...

2006-07-05T21:10:00.000-07:00

Man, it's been a while seen I added anything to this blog. I missed the Mookie tonight. I got home late from a meeting at church and couldn't get this computer to work right. Bummer, huh?This is the one game that I look forward to all week. Big ups to you guys who did make it. I'm watching right now at the second break with hacker, surf, mowen, trkfix, drewspop, and grupper still left. It's bubble time boys. My boy surf's still in the lead. If he wins this one, Mookie will have to get really creative with names, (or just lock him out of the next one). Good job and good luck, surf!!

While we're on the subject of....

2005-11-18T20:32:00.000-08:00

Much thanks to you guys that took the time to read and post on my blog. It seems as though we have a bunch of chippers running around the blogging and poker worlds. I never want to step on any toes, and i've always been chipperdh. It's been with me since I started on AOL about 8 years ago. Thanks for your post Chipper. You're still the original.

Hello Hold'em Heroes

2005-11-17T12:28:00.000-08:00

Hello Hold'em Heroes!! This is my first endeavor into the world of blogging. I hope to share (as much to gain) some hold'em insight from the infinite amount of hold'em heroes running around out there. Big thanks to Surflexus for help in getting me started (in blogging and hold'em)!!