Finally, I did it.

Finally, I got myself to a casino that spreads poker and sat down and played with other people. Not friends or coworkers, but random strangers that occupy a card room. Was it everything I ever dreamed it would be?

That’s difficult to answer, because I don’t quite remember what I thought it would be. But I do know that the experience itself was awful. Just god awful. Maybe I was unlucky with the timing, maybe things are better at other casinos, but… I dunno.

So one of Lori’s old friends wanted to meet up yesterday, and he suggested that we’d go to the place that he sometimes hangs out at, a place called “Innuendo” in downtown St Paul. A gay bar.

This was my first time in a gay bar, and honestly, I didn’t know quite what to expect. Mostly men in there when we arrived, but that was expected. The place itself was a bar with some bar stools around small circular tables spread out throughout the room. Slightly shabby, but fully functional as a bar. I paid $4 for a non-alcoholic beer (I was the driver) which didn’t taste like much and a girl from the next table over asked if we wanted to join them in playing “the Golden Girl game.”

I’m a real sucker for book stores. Now that I’m in America, with a very low exchange rate of the US dollar to Swedish kronor, and nice big Barnes and Nobles and Borders stores abound, I’m a bit reckless. We’ve been to four book stores already. The first one because book stores are nice. The next three because I want to find Tommy Angelo’s Elements of Poker. I still haven’t been able to find a copy, and I’m starting to resign to the idea that I’m going to have to order it via Amazon, but in that case I have to wait until it becomes available at amazon.co.uk, since it’s not released in Europe yet.

Which sucks, because I’m an instant-gratification kinda guy.

Me! Moi! I did it!

“A few thoughts. The prior snippet about this here humble poker blog has provoked me to write up a damn uber. It might not be this weekend, but damnit, I’m gonna write one. “

http://guinnessandpoker.blogspot.com/2008/03/bonus-code-iggy-on-party-poker-damnit_20.html

The “prior snippet” Iggy refers to is my mention of him in my last post, my blog roll. If he actually gets there this time, I’ll be beaming proudly for surely at least like a minute before I remember that in the grand scheme of things, I don’t actually matter very much anyway.

Without further ado, here are the poker blogs that I read on an at least weekly basis, and I’ll list them in the order that they show up in Google Reader, so really without any kind of “which I like best” priority.

Stick’s Poker Blog, or, as my Reader calls it “Unknown Title.” I dunno what’s up with that. MrSticker is a CardsChat regular and posts about once a week. I like keeping tabs of what the CC bloggers are up to. By the way, if you’re a CC regular who blogs and you don’t find your own blog listed in this roll, leave a comment or shoot me a PM so I can add it to the list of stuff I read.

Thanks to Shamus for keeping me up-to-date on these things.

http://hardboiledpoker.blogspot.com/2008/03/cheating-scheme-confirmed-at-ultimate.html

Rather than notify users or post anything on its website, Ultimate Bet — following the same, questionable path of its partner, Absolute Poker — has decided to publicize news regarding allegations of cheating on its site by sending messages to various poker people who then pass the stuff along to the poker community at large.

Around 9:00 p.m. (EST) on Friday, Mason Malmuth posted the following over on Two Plus Two:

Hi Everyone:

We just received this from Ultimate Bet and they asked us to post it. So here it is.

Best wishes,
Mason

ULTIMATEBET INTERIM STATEMENT

Contact: Press@ultimatebet.com

So I finally cleared the bonus, which, granted that it was sort of the “consolation prize” for having to grind out so many hands in November and December to achieve SuperNova was a nice albeit anticlimactic event. I finished it at 3am this morning, but there were no fireworks and no celebratory parade taking place; just a brief email from Stars congratulating me on finishing my “deposit” bonus. Ah, well.

It was especially anticlimactic because it was preceeded by a rough string of beats that got me stuck about 100 big bets, but I managed to work myself back up to a loss of only 30BBs before the bonus was cleared.

Two clips for you. Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnVJZkDuVBM&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIQrBouWRiE&feature=related

I’m crushing 2/4 this month. Next month, I’m looking forward to crushing 3/6, knock-on-wood. I’ve only 400 more VPPs before my $1500 bonus clears and that’s going to put a nice big chunk of money into my bankroll and take me a good step back towards my old limits. This time around, though, I’m a much more competent player than I was - so I’m back with a vengeance.

A fun hand that took place the other day, by the way, that you might find interesting:

$2/4 6-max LHE.

Somewhat typical slightly-loose, slightly-passive player (35/15/1) opens UTG, a weak somewhat TAG player cold-calls in the cut-off and I 3-bet with ace-jack of hearts on the button. Blinds fold, UTG caps and me and the CO both call.

The month didn’t end in any spectacular way in either direction, which I’m having mixed feelings about. I was hoping to run better this month (name a month where I wasn’t!) but at least I’m in the black. I’ve made some big leaps in terms of stuff I’ve learned, although not necessarily so much direct poker strategy. But I’ve realized two fairly important things about myself:

1. I don’t play four tables very well. It’s okay as long as I’m alert, but when I start getting a bit tired or a bit more distracted, then I start to miss important things. Three tables is just perfect for me, though, and is what I’m aiming to play in the future.