Should I go back to chasing bonus rainbows?

I'm so happy with the $6 turbo limit tournaments on poker stars it's hard to do much else -- so far I've played 16 of them, placed 1st four times, 2nd 3 times, and 3rd 7 times. And the two times I didn't cash, it was late night drunken playing. Anyway, that's well over 100 bucks in profit. Nice, nice.

It's the most winnable game I've found, but I wish I could play it for higher stakes. Are there similar games on other sites? Sites with juicy bonuses? I've been reading about so many and even getting actual paper mail inviting me to play. Tempting, tempting.

There's no Bunnies in Poker

Seriously, where will it end? First forehead advertising, now the Famous Pink Bunny Poker Auction - Body Advertising. This guy is auctioning the idea that he will be "in a Pink Bunny suit playing poker in all the major Las Vegas card rooms at least 8 hours a day for thirty days...." and you can advertise on said pink bunny suit.

Needless to say, I hope anyone in Vegas who plays with him will take pictures and send me reports. Which I will dutifully post. Though of course that may not be necessary, since as part of the auction, he promises to blog each day about his fluffy pink adventures.

Viva Las Vegas!

NYC's Skyline Made of Cards

Via Gothamist and tien mao's little read book...: NYC's Skyline Made of Cards at GMA, I see that Brian Berg, that cardstacking guy is building NYC out of cards! Neat. It benefits tsunami victims somehow.

Man, I'm so ready for 3-day weekend.

Too Legit, too Legit to Quit!

The New York Times just bought About.com, where I hold my day job. I feel so legitimate. I'm an editor for the New York Times (owned company, about.com). Oh come on, let me have this one.

Turbo Limit Tournaments

I have found a new poker love: Turbo Limit Tournaments. As I wrote in my disgruntled, no-more-no-limit post of last Thursday, I've stopped throwing my money away into the no-limit pool. I basically needed to recharge my poker batteries. Because there's a thin line between loving poker and smothering yourself in poker's red-and-black embrace.

So, I limited myself to one site (Poker Stars) which, because I only signed up on the site in the first place to play in the blogger tourney, only had 50 bucks in it. My reasoning was that bonus-chasing wasn't helping my play and Stars doesn't do bonuses. With bonuses, I felt as long as I was breaking even, in the end I was ahead. Which is true, but my play was kind of sloppy. Which bled over into other games. Which took away that bonus money. So in the end, it wasn't the free money I pretended it was.

Ok, so, the turbo limit tournaments have a super-low buy-in ($6 +.50) and I also like that the sit and gos on Stars are 9-handed. Add in that the limits go up every 5 minutes, and playing one takes about 1/2 hour. So far I've played 5 and have cashed every time, and won one. What's funny is you can pretty much sit back and let the other poker monkeys knock each other out with sticks until it's 4 or 5 handed, and then play a good aggressive game and make the final 3 without even thinking. It's sweet.

Meanwhile, other good news in my world. I found a place to hold classes for beginners in Manhattan. More on that soon.

Bark Deco for Sale

Just read, a few days late in the New York Daily News, that the originals of two of Cassius Coolidge's "Dogs Playing Poker" are going to be auctioned. I read about the history of these painting in the book "A Friendly Game of Poker", and it was pretty much the best piece in the deck of anecdotes it gathered.

Alas, the two painting are probably going to fetch a far higher price than lil' ol me can dig up.

Update: I sure was right about those dogs playing poker paintings being out of my price range: they "sold for $590,400 at auction." Thanks to alert reader TenMile for alerting me.

Photo Weekend: Gates & Chinese New Year

Click on the images for more of them.

No more no limit... for now at least

I've come down with a crappy winter cold this week which has, as one of its fun symptoms, constantly watering eye. Not both eyes at once, mind you. Just eye. Either the right or the left, like a faucet. Fun!

Anyway, it's been hard to sit at a computer, especially since what I have to relate is that I am no good at no-limit tournaments. Partially I can blame the fact that I have been getting some crap-ass, cold cards at every tournament, but after bleeding away a substantial amount of my bankroll at the TowneHouse and at the NY Blue Parrot Blogger Invitational, I am forced to admit it must be due to my play as well. For more read Pauly, Derek, and Ugarte.

So. Though I lost at the Blue Parrot side game as well, I understood why I lost. (Um, hey, sometimes people really do have two pair against your one twice in a row. Yeah, it's totally possible.) And both online and off, in ring games, I do ok. I make a profit. So I've decided no more no limit for a month.

After deciding that, I also decided I'd just been playing a little too much poker. Playing in real-life games 3-4 times a week and then online -- too much. So I decided to cash out of party poker and basically take some time off. After I cashed out, I realized, home sick from work, that I had all these party points. And there was this freeroll starting shortly. So I decided that it wasn't breaking any rules to enter a freeroll no-limit. And I was sick and bored anyway.

1541 entered. I decided to play loose, fast, and aggressive. What did I care? Free money! Two and a half hours later, I was still playing. And then, I got to bring down the hammer, and dork that I am, I got a screen shot:



It was nice to be able to do. I was riding high, third in chips, confident in making the money. Did I? The top 30 paid. After my pocket aces got cracked by a jack (flop had two of 'em for the ass) I went all-in with 5s and got busted out. 39th. The pain.

My friend comforted me the best he could: "Well, you got out with what you got in for." Nothing.

Anyway, the point is no more no-limit for Toby for February. I've got to re-build my bankroll. So that's my story.

Best Commentary Moment So Far

So I'm watching the Poker Superstars Championship tournament on TV and one of the guys just said, "The movie Rounders was the first realistic portrayal of no-limit hold'em in the movies, kind of like Field of Dreams was for baseball."

Yeah, that movie really showed how it was for ghost baseball players in corn fields. So true, commentator man, so true.

WPBT stats, if you care.

I had the feeling I was playing pretty good poker last night, even though I did survive one all-in that I shouldn't have (AK against KQ, rivered the Q) and my stats back it up:

You finished in 25th place (eliminated at hand #1162417229).

171 hands played and saw flop:
- 5 times out of 21 while in small blind (23%)
- 9 times out of 20 while in big blind (45%)
- 20 times out of 130 in other positions (15%)
- a total of 34 times out of 171 (19%)

Pots won at showdown - 8 out of 12 (66%)
Pots won without showdown - 11

That means I won 19 of the 34 hands I played. More than half! Unfortunately, obviously not the important half.

OMG, so much fun

Just got knocked out 25th from the Poker Blogger Tourney. That was the most fun I've ever had online while not looking at porn IMing with friends while watching American Idol America's Next Top Model. Oh, I give up.

Was lucky enough to sit among many of the bloggers I read and like and chatted up others on other tables. More later. Must calm down. I'm sure Pauly or Iggy or Ugarte or sirfwalgman or someone is writing it up even as I type and the final table gets underway.

NBC Presents Live Football/Poker vs. Super Bowl Pre-Game - OurSports Central

Oh also, is there anyone in the poker world who doesn't know who wins the Poker Superstars Championship to be broadcast after the superbowl? I found out in August when I was in Vegas. It seems a lot less compelling to watch, but I'll still watch.

edited to add: I just realized that what I wrote sort of reads snobby, which isn't what I meant. It's just that I thought it'd be the one time I had inside gossip (the dealer at one table in Vegas had just dealt the PSC) but every time I tried to pass on the secret, the person already knew. No fun.

Poker blogging and playing with the bloggers

What can I say -- I've been too busy playing poker to write about poker. And I have stuff to say! But I need to get some money into my new poker stars account so I can play tonight in the blogger tourney. Based on my performance over the last week, I lost a tournament yesterday, so I should win or not suck horribly at least today. We'll see. And because I'll be playing with bloggers -- all on the Internets will know interstantly!

Um...hooray?