Friday, January 25, 2008

All Quiet on the Poker Front

Speaking of fronts, we've had a couple of cold ones move through lately, which has kept me indoors the vast majority of the time in recent days. It's not that I can't tolerate the cold, but I also see no need to willfully subject myself to it when it's warmer inside. Older means wiser. Wiser means... warmer.

As for poker, it's been a very quiet start to the year, with a vast reduction in hours played compared to December, when I consciously tried to play enough to snag an iPod in the Merge Network holiday promo. I fell short in that quest, with the holidays doing me in. Maybe next year. I can buy the darned iPod, I guess. Maybe I will, too: the new Yaris has a little MP3 plug-in for just such a use. So far the month has been a mild down for me in terms of results, but it's more the result of indifference than anything else.

I've won only one tiny MTT since the year began, though I do have a secret goal in mind for the year. I'll share if I accomplish the goal. I've also shown up for a couple of the BodogBlogger tourneys and KickAssPoker league events --- both on Bodog, of course --- with decidedly average results. I think I've played perhaps seven of the blogger thingies and have made it to the 'cash' twice, including ten days ago. If you've played it, you quickly realize that the payout structure calls for some distinctive end-game strategy, assuming you're still around to have an end-game strategy. To me it plays like a super-sat, and I'm working to get to the top five and take my chances from there for whatever money remains in the prize fund.

The live games have likewise been scarce in January. The newfound home game has had only one get-together this month, where I was bounced early in the $55 tourney by a lucky fish. I also lost $20 in the last-longer pot, but wiped all those losses out and left just slightly up after a couple of hours of cash-game play. Yes, I already wrote about this once, which shows just exactly how slow it's been in poker for me. January has been a very busy work month for me, and more work means less poker play, especially since the work is poker and after several long days I have to get away from poker entirely for a couple of hours. I've been invited to a game for a while on Sunday afternoon, and since I haven't played much lately, I may go have a couple hours of fun.

I'm reminded of that ridiculous poker bust in California where it was a tourney with exactly the same structure that we played last time out, $50 for the event and a $5 community food donation for the food spread (and well worth it in our case, too). And the Sonoma County game contained undercover cops and was raided. My teeth hurt after reading that one. Pathetic. So pathetic.

The more distant horizon? A couple of possibilities have arisen for road trips, namely the Council Bluffs Circuit stuff in later February and similar happenings at Caesars Indiana in late March. I haven't made any decisions yet but I'll probably do one of the two, funds permitting. If I went to Council Bluffs, I'd probably time it to catch a couple of the smaller preliminary events, and maybe try a satellite or two to the Main. Anyone have any idea what size fields the prelim Circuit events are likely to draw? Drop a comment if you know.

Then again, I may not go at all. Middle age and cold weather is a bad combination for a decision-making mood. At the moment I'm longing for a good warm fire and a cup of hot chocolate, or maybe even a decent beer, well-chilled. That sounds like the immediate winner.

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