...then today I would be a Magnum *grin.

Today is my birthday (wheee) and since I have a prior arrangement to go out, get massively drunk and do a wide array of silly things, I don't think I'll be playing any poker (God I hope I don't come home and think playing inebriated at 3am is a good idea again. Sigh.)

My cell phone will be getting a work out as it always does on these occasions - if anyone would like to join me in a celebratory dial-a-shot, please email your number to katitude at blakat dot com.

Have a great day!

A while back Jennifer Tilley wrote an article for Bluff, discussing how she felt about poker. She said it was very surreal to go back to the set after winning the bracelet for the ladies event; an accomplishment that was so important to her, that she felt so pleased and proud about was met with polite "Oh, that's nice" comments.

I in no way feel that I'm in the same league as her...my economic status is such that a $10 tournament buy-in give me pause for thought. But I know how she feels.

I walked into work today a reasonably bright and happy person (mornings and I have a love/hate relationship going). The sun was shining, it was warm enough for me to leave the winter coat in the closet and more importantly, I won a tournament last night. When I told a few people at work about my win I got the same "oh that's nice" murmurs. Sigh. They just don't get it, which makes me wonder just how well they get me? Anyway enough of my little win.

-------------

Played some $12 short handed SnG's today which I did quite well at... I do love the feel of shorthanded play and like HU, it seems to suit my personal style of play. I made back the $30+3 WSOP blogger satellite buy-in (I made sure I registered for that before I donked away my money yet again).

Then after a conversation with Weak Player, I did the $3 rebuy tourney on Stars at 8:15. Holy crap! Words fail me in expressing how nutty I found it. Many thanks to Weak for offering some tips. I had 12k+ after the end of the last rebuy break, and then tightened up. And so did everyone else. Played a few hands, folded lots. And I mean lots. I was getting very weary...two nights of getting to sleep at 2 and up at 6 has taken their toll on me. I ended up doing a superbly stupid move with pocket 8's against the chip table chip leader who also happened to be in 5th overall. My bonehead move made him 3rd. The only thing I can think of is that it was my subconcious's way of telling me to get my ass to bed. And since tomorrow is going to be a long day of work followed by an even longer night of fun, I'm going to listen to it.

I wasn't going to enter in Mookie's Big O Tournament tonight - I was down to 11.97 on Poker Stars, and the tournment was 10+1. But figured what the hell, got a cheque froma client today, and what else was I going to do with my night, watch bad tv and knit? (Well, yes actually.)

So I registered, along with 22 other assorted bloggers and Texans. The first hour is a serious blur of multitasking...at one point I was playing two tables, fixing an image on PhotoShop and giving Jules instructions on how to upload her new blog template before she left for New Zealand. Add in the chat windows with the usual suspects, and it got a bit loopy.

But for some reason, the poker gods smiled and gave me good cards. And I lasted. And lasted. I don't remember any of the hands (Mookie has made a most excellent live blog post here). I don't even really remember the luckbox hand where I took a whole bunch of Waffles chips. I just remember him stewing about it for the next hour (insert gleeful giggling here). And I do remember eliminating Mowenumdown by laying a bad beat on him which I still feel really bad about.

The end result: I won my first tournament. I've won SnG's but this was different. This was with BLOGGERS. The first thing I did was to do a happy dance, the next was to call Hunny Bunny in Vancouver. Even though he has no interest in poker, he has always been supportive of my hobby/obsession, and tonight was no exception - I think he was actually more pleased than I was!

So it's almost 1am, and I know Ihave a long day at school tomorrow. But I won't be able to sleep for a while! Thanks to all who railbirded!!

From Iggy:

Blogger WSOP Satellite Tourney
PokerStars - Private Tab
April 3rd, 9PM EST
$30 +3 No Limit
Password: socoshot

Come on and play...you know you want to. Me, I'll be there. I'm about 97% certain that I'm just dead money when playing with this crowd. But I'll donate to help send someone, and hey, I could actually do ok. Stranger things have happened.

Did the WWdN tonight, and well, didn't do that hot. Was going to live blog it but am just as glad I didn't. It was all good until the poker gods decided that HeffMike's AA shalt holdeth up against my very decent two pairs. That pretty much crippled me, and the rest was simply life support.

But once again, I take pride in knowing that I outlasted SirF - that makes three times...yes I'm counting!

---------------------------------

Spent the rest of my time reviewing and refining the CSS for this new blog skin. I won't say what the problem was, because it's far too embarassing for a web professional to admit she missed something so incredibly basic. Geo darlin', ty for the offer of assistance! But I'm glad I didn't send it...you'd bug me about it for ages *grin.

Sidenote: Garth thinks the new look makes me seem imitidating (Jules, stop laughing).

Until I figure out why the heck the design crashes IE, I've gone back to this boring POS template. Sigh.

Well that's no great surprise.

But it seriously does not like this blog redesign. I go to test something and it crashes horribly. Firefox, no problem. OF course.

Back to wrestling with css till I figure out what's wrong. Sigh.

What I did over the last two weeks:
1) Poker
2) Wrestled with style sheets
3) Played with PhotoShop
4) Knitted
5) Slept
6) Generally goofed off.

What I didn't do over the last two weeks:
1) Any of the 37 work/school related items on my To Do list.

Shit.

Here's the banner for Guin, as the bounty for the HU match yesterday. Hope he likes it!

IT seems fitting that the hundredth post of my blog should be this:

I'm going to the WPBT Summer Classic!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm done school the week before, and Hunny Bunny has just offered to use his airmiles to fly me down. OMFG, I love that man!

April has got some amazing rates at the Excalibur, and while there's better deals to be had according to expedia.ca. I'd rather stay around the group rather than at the other end of the strip (I think any room savings would quickly disappear as cab fares). So I'm looking for a roomie...let me know if you'd like to share (I'm reasonably tidy, open-minded and I DON'T SNORE).

I'm so excited...if I had a tail, it'd be wagging!

---

Congrats to Veneno for putting together the HUC3 that started last night. Even with the many roadblocks, both V and Weak_Player kept their cool and pulled it off.

I drew Guin , a fellow Canuck, for my first match. Lots of back and forth, but evenutally it was decided that his kung fu was better than mine. So he gets the bounty of the blog banner, although looking at the ones that Dugglebogey made for him, he really doesn't need mine *grin. We'll have to figure something out.

So at least the Poker Goddess heard part of my prayer...I wasn't first one out *grin.

You know, I really don't mind losing if I have fun. And last night was fun...from the HUC3 to the 3 table SnG on Stars later with the usual blogger suspects complete with voice chat. Thanks guys!!

Have not been playing well online lately, primarily due to a lack of concentration and discipline. So last night I decided to get rid of all distractions and pay attention. I started on Full Tilt with the sum total of my bankroll ($1.22) and worked it up to $16.70 ina bout an hour on the 5/10 cent ring games.

But then I got in on a .10/.25 cent game with four bloggers. Held my own, mostly, and crept up to over $22 while having far too much fun being to the right of SirF. It's worth raising some times just to listen to him grumble about it on the chat *grin. Then, in the flurry of one truly wierd hand I lost it all. Luckily I'd already registered for the HUC3.

---

Speaking of the HUC3, I've been practicing. Did 2 HU on Stars and won both; one I came back from $80 to win it in 22 hands (woohoo!).

And I've thought long and hard about what eyecandy offering to make to the Poker Goddess for tonight, and I've decided to go with this since it's pretty apparent to one and all the she has a severely twisted sense of humour. She has to be a Monty Python fan.

---

A while back Gracie had an interesting post that got me off my butt to finish something. And get around to taking pictures. Meet Pokerbot. Yeah, I knit. Get over it.

---

Got a birthday pressie in the mail yesterday from Jules. I LOVE IT!! And it fits purrrfectly.

I love the stuff at ThinkGeek. Lord help me, I must be a geek if I crack up everytime I think of this. I must get one.

Hunny Bunny had some work at Casino Windsor this week, and as with so many of his out-of-town gigs, I tagged along. We had a nice room overlooking the river to Detroit, and the hotel was far nicer than I'd anticipated.

The plan was to get there Monday, I'd spend the day playing poker, and then we'd go for a nice dinner before heading back on Wednesday. I knew they had NLHE tournaments every weekday at 10am, so the first thing we did after we checked in was scope out the poker room and get some info on the tourney. Tuesdays and Thursdays is a $50+$5 buyin; the rest of the week is $100+$10; and they said that I'd pretty much need to be in the room and playing at 8 to make it on the list. That's 8. AM. In the morning. So I weighed my options - wake up early and go play poker, when I know that I am not a morning person OR have a leisurely morning with Hunny Bunny, who I haven't seen in 2 weeks. I love poker, but come on....that's a no-brainer.

So we hung out, and when he had to go for the load-in at noon, I went and signed up for the $1/2 NL $100 max.table. It's a nice set up with an automated board out front so you can see exactly where you are on the list. I didn't have to wait long, about 20 minutes, and then I took my seat at a table full of college kids from the US.

Sigh.

I cringe everytime I'm around big groups of young 20-somethings these days. Every time they make a statement with that all-knowing air I'm embarrassed and annoyed: embarrassed because I know I was just as irritatingly sure I knew everything when I was younger, and annoyed because, well, those who think they know everything are just plain annoying to those of us who do. Jules, you'll laugh at this one...I got into a discussion about beer with four of them. Yeah, beer. The one girl was telling me about different kinds of beer, which in her mind consisted only of Miller, Blue, Coors, etc. I tried, I really did, to be polite, but after a while I couldn't stand it...I hit a point where I just looked at them and said that I'd been drinking beer for longer than they've been alive, and unless they were able to intelligently discuss the merits of a Belgian on lees versus a coffee porter, then they should just be quiet. Yes, I admit, I pulled the teacher voice on them.

The high points of the afternoon were:

• busting out two people with quad queens. Gotta love it when you flop 'em. Either they weren't very observant or I'm actually making some headway in controlling my shaking hands (yeah, right), but I managed to slow play those puppies right to the end successfully. The one poor lad with the full house got a bit tilty, and made snarky comments about my suckout. I was going to explain a suckout to him, but fuck it, money tables don't come with lessons and I'm on a break from teaching.
  
• blatantly bluffing with my pocket 7's to steal the pot from the guy who had JJ.
  
• flirting just as blatantly with the extremely yummy floor manager.
  
• watching the play of the table, and finally thinking to myself, holy crap, I do kinda sorta know what I'm doing here!

I played very tight, folding a lot of marginally good hands, won more hands than I lost, and had about 180 in front of me at one point. Then my back started to hurt again, so decided that a visit to the spa might be an excellent way to end my day. Donked off some chips, then looked down at the hand I'd already decided was my last hand - QQ, on the button. Decided, what the hell, and moved all in thinking I'd just steal the blinds. SB (the only other grown up over 40 at the table) called, then didn't BB go all in with his 300+ chips that he'd been so carefully and tightly accumulating over over the course of the whole day? Ack. Then it's back to SB (everyone else folded), and he calls, and easily has us both covered. I remember saying something like I have a veerrrrrry bad feeling about this.

Cards flip over, and I see that SB has 9 10 off suit and BB has JJ. The dread lifts a bit as I think hey, I could triple up here. Flop is 7, 3, A - woohoo, I'm still good!! Turn is 8 - oh crap. And the river is, you guessed it, a 6. BB pulls a Helmuth, knocks his chair back, muttering under his breath and cursing. I turn to SB smile, shake his hand and say Good Hand as I get up. He looked really distressed to have knocked me out (wtf? isn't that the point?) and offers to spot me to buy back in if I wish. I laugh as I thank him for his kind offer, but I doubt I could play sensibly after that hand!

My birthday is in two weeks, and I've received my first birthday card:



Yes it's a poker related card. And it's from...wait for it....my local casino.

God, I find that funny.

Looking around my apartment this morning, I get the feeling I've become a tad too in touch with my sloth side. Our nice off-white rug is covered with a thin layer of black hair, courtesy of the stupidest cat on the planet(white rug with a black cat, wtf were we thinking??). The table beside the couch is mounded with knitting crap, to the point where when I pushed one thing out of the way to make room for my coffee, 6 things fell to the floor. The dining table has become the new home for some cd's, computer cables and other assorted crap. However, my kitchen is sparkling...well maybe not sparkling. If you look closely you'll see a thin layer of dust, the patina of disuse.

Of course, back problems due to a slip down some stairs hasn't helped my get-up-and-go much. But I feel better, and today is the day I take back my apartment.

---

But while I've been home recovering from injuries caused a temporary fight with gravity (note: gravity always wins.) I've been playing a lot of poker. A LOT. Actually I don't think I did anything else yesterday but play poker and chatting on Yahoo with Weak Player about everything and nothing. I took time out from my busy-busy day to shower, call Hunny Bunny, and call AlCantHang for a "Drunken Amateur Day" (a.k.a. St. Patrick's Day) Dial-a-shot, which alas went into his voicemail. It does have a 24 hour expiry on it, so if he's not too hungover it's still good for today.

In terms of poker, it's kind of a blur. I won some, lost some. Was the victim of suckouts more times than I care to count. High point was doing a HU with Veneno...for 100 hands I held my own, and had the chip lead for most of it. Then at hand 100 or so, my body reminded me that 1) it was late, and 2) my back was killing me. That blew my concentration and I got poisoned not long after. It was an excellent match tho. Can't wait for the HUC3 next week!

(BTW, if you want a HUC3 banner or graphic for your blog, go here.)

Have a good day..see ya later when my apartment is clean!

Played Mookie's Big O Tourney tonight: 18 of the tightest players ever! I think I played well, lost a few largish pots due to kicker issues, but managed to claw my way up a few times. Until I wrangled with SirF that is...I really should know better. Really. I finished in 8th place, and while I'm not happy about it, at least I went out after Loud *grin.

---

And don't forget the Heads Up Challenge #3 - there's still some spots open, so click on the banner and leave a comment for Veneno.

I've now settled quite nicely into sloth mode...spent all day yesterday sprawled on the La-Z-Boy curled up with my laptop and a bottle of Tylenol. I did make the effort to get out of the bathrobe and get dressed, but only because the Swiss Chalet delivery guy was coming.

Crap, my lunch date cancelled. I'm bummed for two reasons: we were going to my favourite restaurant in the T Dot, Wish; and it was my only reason to get out of my bathrobe today. Sigh. Well, I do have reservations, so maybe I'll go by myself.

AlCan'tHang put out a call for people to add themselves to his Frappr Challenge; and he's offering to find and upload 10 of your fav songs. So being a sucker for someone giving me music, I answered the call. Less than 24 hours later, he's managed to find and upload nine of them (the only one missing is Laika's Bad Times, a lovely ditty about a hoax virus email). I am in awe. So you can find some of my desert island music here. Now music is a very personal thing, so if you want a peek in my headspace, then go have a listen.

On the poker front, yesterday was a very good day, even though it didn't start out that way. Played bored and donked off a lot of my stars stash, but took a break, had a nap, and was fresh for the WWdN, the toughest ten dollah game out there. And I actually placed IN THE MONEY!!!. Took a fourth spot, the best I have done to date. Many thanks to SirF and Jules for sweating the game with me.

And another big thank you to Weak Player for his advice on playing and tracking programs!

I love my job. No matter how much I whine about it, I love teaching; and the staff and the students are incredible. That said, I also really, really, really love the holidays i.e. March Break.

My March Break started on Friday, and I celebrated by a few cocktails with a few colleagues, followed by a number of losses on the online poker tables once I got home. Sigh. I believe I've already established that martinis and poker don't mix, or not unless the rest of the table is drinking too.

Saturday was spent out of town at Karen + Eugene's. Now there was no poker here; but there was amazing conversations, killer raspberry cosmos, and the best steak I have ever eaten! You guys rock! Saturday night kinda slipped into Sunday night, and made my way home on Monday, had a nap, and played some more online poker, were I made up for Friday's losses. I so love fishing in the low level ring games...I was up over $30 in about 30 minutes.

And tonight was the Monday night game at Taylor and Tawny's where, now brace yourself for this, I came in second in both games!!! In the money...TWICE! Insert much "woohoo"-ing here.

So on the poker front, my March Break is going well (the other fronts...well...this isn't that kind of blog, thank god).

Have you ever had one of those days where you wonder why the hell you even bothered to get out of bed? It's two days to March Break; and 32 minutes ago I officially gave up trying to teach any new concepts to kids that can only think of two weeks worth of sleeping and bad tv. To be brutally honest, I really have no desire to teach anything, because all I can think of is two weeks worth of sleeping and playing poker punctuated by periods of serious inebriation.

So I'm sitting in a class that has become less about technology instruction (PhotoShop is the flavour du jour for the grade 7's), and more about glorified babysitting. The kids are goofing off and I'm killing time until lunch by alternating between working on a new custom skin for my blog, and cruising the poker blogosphere.

Big thanks to AlCantHang - on his blog I found this link to motivational posters that are more relevant and made me laugh out loud.

My personal favs are:





Enjoy!

I had a bounty on my head during Waffles birthday TiltFest on Sunday; mookie99 was the recipient. Just finished it today and sent it off to him. I hope he uses it *grin



Now to do one for me, then Jules and Waffles.

Last night was an exercise in futility. The Poker Goddess slapped me down in the games with friends - I don't even want to think about where I ended up in the WWdN last night (wasn't last, so it's not all bad), and I think Veneno took me out in less than 10 minutes in the HU match.

But what's funny is, I then went on to win 3 HU SnG and placed 2nd in an MTT SnG. So it wasn't a total loss. But the fact that I ended the night ahead in wins and money does not even come close to balancing the razzing from my poker pals.

Sigh.

Dear Poker Goddess;

It has been a day fraught with many obstacles and disappointments, not the least of which is the network card on my laptop going kerflooey.

And due to this and many other factors, I have not been able to find suitable eye candy for thine viewing.

But I beseech you, oh Great Queen of the Flop, let me be as this:



...the Kat amongst the fishes.

And on those occasions when you see fit to give me kings, let this not happen to them:



Your humble servant...
Katitude

So, soooooooo tired. Not enough sleep, the end of the report card cycle and as near as I tell, the beginning of hormone rollercoaster cycle have all lead to me feeling like a walking zombie. And an incredibly irritable zombie at that.

I feel like I should write something about SirF's birthday TiltFest last night. But quite frankly all I can remember is pulling the rug out from Garth (sorry, dude) and Jules instructing me to make sure I let everyone know that I went out before her. But not much more before her - finished 4th of 26. I'd be feeling grumpy about the bubble if it weren't for the deal that Mrs. Sox proposed - otherwise we'd probably still be playing. Waffles himself did an awesome live blog summary...and far more coherent than anything I could put together right now.

I do know I had lots of fun playing with everyone this weekend, and met so many poker bloggers via Yahoo Voice chat. I'd do names and links but my brain really is far too numb right now - anyway, you know who you are.

But it kinda pisses me off that I'm missing my regular Monday night game. I missed last week due to the ongoing battle with strep throat and was really looking forward to tonight's game/laughfest with the crew. Ah well. better to keep my evil twin bottled up nicely at home rather than run the risk of having to apologize for something tomorrow. I've done enough of that lately during my recent bout of semi-insanity. :-)

(Non poker content ahead)
So off to slip into the hot bubble bath that my beloved has drawn for me, armed with a tall glass of Vietnamese iced coffee that he makes when I'm low because he knows how much I love it. I may suck at poker, but I am one lucky jammy bitch when it comes to him. I must have done something pretty freaking amazing in a past life.
(End of non poker content)

Weird night.

Two tourneys scheduled, the KatFight and Waffles Birthdfay tourney, but Full Tilt is Down. The Usual Suspects are in the chat whiling (wiling?) away the time trying to figure out what to do.

V and I decide to do the KatFight on Tuesday on Poker Stars @ 10:30. Waffles thingy moves to Stars tonight at 9.

Time to kill, so V, Weak Player and I go to a 4-person HU SnG. Loud tried to get in but alas, was tooo slow. Played slow...but at one point I was distracted by Hunny Bunny, and I look back at the screen to see if my flush caught. Somehow I caught a STRAIGHT FLUSH on the river.

MY FIRST STRAIGHT FLUSH!

And I pretty much missed it. No screen shot. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Zero.

But still, it was cooooool. Maybe the next one I hit, in the next 100,000 hands or so, I'll be paying attention!

Sigh. I really am too stupid to be playing this game. I need a name tag, one of those "Hello My Name Is" ones. And I'll fill it out:

ATM.

---

Correction made on Monday, March 6: It was a ROYAL FLUSH, not a straight flush as reported. I really am quite clueless sometimes.

---

Or at least, do not take my maudlin drunken ramblings seriously. Because I did have fun last night. Seriously *grin.

Tonight I did some things that I told myself not to do. However, my friends know just how good I am with that whole self-disciple thing.

1. I played drunk. Then proceeded to get drunker. Which made the next points seem like a good idea at the time.
   
2. I paid no attention to the state of my bankroll, which wasn't terribly healthy on Poker Stars to begin with. This in addition to point #1 lead me to the embarassing statement that no, I couldn't keep playing as I was broke.
   
3. I made a puchase on my credit card while drunk,and reloaded my Stars account. Kinda hard to get my credit card debt under control if I do shit like that, isn't it?

Now I've said it before, that I've spent more money and have had less fun on a number of occasions (an incredibly large number of occasions). And it was fun, being in the voice chat with SoxLover, Garth, Veneno, Mowemunder, SirF, and the rest while playing - it was like sitting at a home game table. And man, some of you guys have some killer sexy voices!

But then I turn off the stereo and shut down the laptop and I'm back to sitting here by myself getting drunk and wondering, is this all there is? Is this what I've become, after everything I've done in life? Someone who sits at home and drinks alone ?

Yes I may be drunk but I'm not stupid - I'm fully aware that it's the alcohol that's making me feel pathetic and old. Tomorrow I'll be back to feeling semi-fabulous.

And hey, while I think of it, anyone want to come out and play with me any time between March 13th and the 21st? I'm off on my March Break with no plans, and I'll be damned if I'm going to spend it deepening the inmprint of my ass on my couch with my eyes glued to laptop. And my fallback plan of visiting relatives just sounds really lame.

Yeah Jules, I need BIG FUN. In an out-of-town kind of way ;-)

My downfall:

I am sooooo ready for tomorrow's Katfight HU Goddess Part Two! Don't forget y'all - Full Tilt, 7:30pm EST, Yahoo chat commentator by the event's promoter/enabler/instigator, SirFWALGman!

I've been preparing. Yesterday was a write off (had a bad day and let some jerkoff prick put me on TILT. Note to self....mute the dam chat next time), but today, oh today has been glorious so far. I've played 6 HU matches today, 2 games each on Ultimate Bet, Full Tilt and Poker Stars, and I won them all. Shortest time was 2 minutes, longest was 1:12 (yikes). Of course, that statistic could all go to hell in the next 10 minutes.

So I'm back to feeling confident in my abilities to not completely suck at poker. Plus the game is in the evening, giving me the full day to become appropriately caffeinated.

And last, but certainly not least, my eyecandy offering to the HU Poker Goddess.....



Because what Goddess doesn't love a cute pirate????

It's been a good few days, and I'm ending the week with a major feeling of accomplishment.

Is it because my strep throat is better and I can now swallow sans discomfort (no comments from the cheapseats, Waffles!)? No.

Is it because I had my first good night sleep in weeks? No.

Is it because I finished my report cards ON TIME, despite my best procrastination effort to date? No.

How about the fact that I'm fully and completely prepared for the Ministry of Education's inspection tomorrow? No again.

Well if not those, then is it the fact that out of the last 7 HU games I've played, I've only lost two, one being an extreme suckout beyond my control (watch out Veneno *grins huge)? Nope.

It's because I got my first Dial-A-Shot from AlCantHang! WooHoo, LOL!!!!