Monthly Archives: September 2008

Sweating Tourneys on PokerStars

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I’m currently sitting here watching a guy on PokerStars play in a couple of tourneys and giving advice along the way in a certain game.  Mostly on Stud 8 and some on Stud.   He has done pretty well and is at the final table of one tourney right now with the chip lead.  Should be interesting to see if he wins.  In the time I typed this sentence he just became second in chips.  It is interesting watching people play mixed games that are weak in a couple.  Fortunately he was bright enough to seek help.  Anywho, not much else going on.

They are down to three.   He has a decent chance to win.  I guess we will see what happens.

Birthday, NL 2-7 Lowball, and Stud 8 or Better Runs

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September 13, 1975 is when it all started.  From that day forth the world has been host to THE James.  Today is the celebration of that day.  And what am I doing for this grand day?  My ass is getting up early, going to a bunkhouse kitchen and entering shooting scores into a computer.  Ya, real exciting eh?  Well, not all 4-H volunteer work is exciting, but it has to be done.  I’ll be going a little early so I can go have a birthday dinner with my friend Summer.

Have you ever had one of your friends go off in such a rage of anger that you end up touched about how much they really care about you?   That happened to me this week.  I won’t go into the why my friend went off like she did, but by the time she was done I was really touched by what she said, even if she was hopping mad when she said it.

Tomorrow, I am going with my friend Erin to see Mamma Mia.  She couldn’t get together with me today because of her working.  Believe it or not, I picked this movie.  For those of you that look at me cockeyed, realize I am a person who saw Sweeney Todd at the theatre 4 times.  Besides, the only other movie I wanted to see I promised another female friend I would go see Wednesday.

Lately, I have been playing a lot of NL Single Draw 2-7 Lowball sit-n-gos on PokerStars.  With the exception of one, I have at least cashed in every one.  In these Sngs you must make it heads-up to make the money.  Today I played 3.  I won two and finished 2nd in the other one.  I have been have somewhat poor results in triple draw limit lowball.  I found out really quick in this game how wide of an array of hands you can consistently win with.  One thing that I do like to still try and stick with is to try and only do 1 card draws while we are still 4 handed or more.  Obviously that doesn’t always become the case, but I try.

My runs in Stud 8 or Better lately have been pretty bad.  Some of it is frankly bad play on my part.  I have been making a few plays and getting too fancy.  In the last day or so, I have went back to playing with a little more sense and have at least finished ahead in every session.  I think I need to go back and focus on playing some tournaments as opposed to the cash games I have been playing.  I enjoy tournaments a lot more and I seem to focus harder on them.

Speaking of which, I have tried to pick up a couple of books to work on my Stud HI tournament game a little bit.  I am a good stud player.  I know this, but my tournament results live when I have played have been outright horrible.  My feeling is my problem comes from playing a certain style that doesn’t work as well as it should in tournaments.  I’m going to take a look at a couple of books and see if I can get some inspiration.  I may just end up getting a friend of mine to sit me down and teach me some finer points like Bill Boston taught me regarding Stud 8.

I intended to go to Atlantic City sometime this coming week for the United States Poker Championships.  That’s not happening now.  I love the schedule, but I am holding onto my money and also focusing some on my writing.  My gigs have really picked up lately, especially from one dude that has me writing a lot on poker.  I talked to the guy at PokerNews about future gigs with them and it isn’t looking real promising.  I got the “we may have work” line.  I probably won’t hear from them until around WSOP time.   That’s fine too.  Actually, if things keep going the way they are with this one client writing, I may not want to take on any other gigs for a while.  That wouldn’t upset me at all.

Anywho, have a great weekend all.  Maybe Ill come back and tell you what Summer got me for my birthday.

Carlos Mencia Gave Me Props

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Carlos Mencia, my friend Summer, and myself


Tonight, my friend Summer and I went to check out Carlos Mencia at the Richmond Funny Bone. The Funny Bone is THE comedy club in the state. This was the third time Summer and I had been there and the first time for a major comedian. It was fucking awesome. Carlos is one of Summer’s comedic idols and she was stoked. She texted me around 3 am Sunday to tell me about the show and we wound up reserving tickets for the 7:30 show tonight.

The show was opened by Carlos’ brother Joseph. Yes, that is the same Joseph from the show. Juan Villareal was the next performer. He was good but looked like he belonged in a Grand Theft Auto game. Next, Cristela Alonzo performed. She has written for Mind of Mencia. Very cute. Great comedian. She actually pointed out first that Juan looked like he belonged in GTA. Her opening was great. To paraphrase she said first you have Joseph, who you can’t understand followed by Juan who looked like he belonged in a Grand Theft Auto game. Then you have me, “I actually went to college. Her bit about rappers promising shit to women was classic. Next Brad Williams came out to perform. Contrary to popular belief, he is NOT Wee Man. He gave shit to everyone. His bit about deaf people being politically incorrect was awesome.

Finally we get to the man we all came to see, Carlos Mencia. His opening set about the Olympics was great. I don’t know if he put this material together before the Olympics or waited until afterwards, but it was awesome. As usual, he doesn’t pull any punches. The tornader and potater bits were great, especially when he figured out HOW they got r’s at the end of potato and tornado. Also, some of his jokes are fairly high brow. There were a few that maybe 10% of the people in the room got. Of course, he had to give everyone else shit about falling off the comedy bus. Ding! Fries ready. “They have some soft pillers.”

Even New Orleans got shit. You have to really stop to think like he said. They build New Orleans below sea level and in the early 1900′s a hurricane fucked it up. Then of course we know what happened with Katrina, and they still rebuilt. To quote him, there a retard going “Maybe you should put some dirt on it and build it up some…” Ding! Fries ready!

The Obama and politic bit was great. Obama is apparently going to be the Abraham Lincoln for white people. If you want to know what I am talking about, BUY A TICKET AT THE NEXT SHOW. Ding! Fries ready!

At the end of the show, Carlos and the gang got up on stage to tell some various jokes. What do you call a mexican baptismal? Bean dip. How do you know if you are at a gay cookout? The hot dogs taste like shit. And my favorite, “What do fat chicks and bricks have in common? They both will get laid by mexicans.”

After the show was equally great. They were selling merchandise, taking pictures, etc. You had to pay $20 to have your pic taken with Carlos. I paid for it so that Summer could have a copy. (The pic is above.) The best part of the night happened then. We got up there to take our pic and Carlos real quick checked out Summer. He leaned over to me just so only I could hear and said, “Good for you man!” Obviously he approves. LOL. Summer got a kick out of it too when I told her cause “Carlos Mencia thinks she is hot.” Funny shit. After he signed her stuff, I got distracted for a sec and I was going to get him to sign my glass. I then noticed the next people were there. I was going to go off and he was like, “No man, what you want me to sign?” See that was cool too. It wasn’t just an assembly line sign off and send on. Summer and I took off and went back to the car and she was gushing for a while and we just kinda hung out. Anywho, a little while later, I was finally driving off and we could see Carlos sitting on one of the tables talking to about 5 or 6 fans. It was only him, some of his crew and the few fans. It was good that he was willing to hang around like that and talk to people. Shit like that is going to get people coming back. I know if we get another chance to see him, we will be there.

Now I need to find a place nearby that Robin Williams will be performing.