Confidence Booster

Technically I am in greater need of an immune system booster but the win I booked this morning helped me feel better. I took off the second day of work this week due to the gunk that has taken up residence in my head and sinuses. I feel that I am starting to turn the corner today and will likely be back at the salt mines tomorrow. I am looking forward to getting back to the office because there is so much to do there.

The baby was fed, dry, and getting sleepy and SteelerSteph was headed to a doctor's appointment. My mom was on standby in case Sawyer got fussy. What to do? How about a 90 seat $3+.30 KO sitngo? Sounds like a good fit. I want to try my hand at some larger field low buy-in games but I rarely have the time to devote in case I go deep. I watch DNasty13 splash around in these things and they look like fun. I think the KO format is a bit of a hedge since you have a chance to get some or all of your buyin back even if you don't make the money. The flip side is that it decreases the final table payouts but that usually is not a problem for me.

Here were my stats for the whole game:

I played pretty tight through the whole tourney and really caught some cards at the end. Early on I doubled up with trip sevens and was never below average again. Down to the final two tables I was steadily in the top 3 and played my big stack pretty well. I would pick my spots and attack the middle and bigger stacks and leave the shorties alone unless I had great cards. On the final table bubble, during hand for hand, I really made some aggressive moves and was able to get some separation as I padded my stack. The final table bubble soon broke and 9 spots paid. One player had T260 and it was pretty sure they were going to pop the money bubble.

Money bubble popped and I set about to play smart poker. I managed 2 big resteals and kept myself in the top 2 chip spots without really risking much of my stack. Overall, the tourney played pretty fast and I was able to pick my spots. Suddenly (or at least it seemed that way) we were down to three with two of us almost even in chips and third place well behind. I had restolen once from williteverend and watched him play relatively loose but decent poker and he was getting out of line now. I knew it would only be a matter of time and I would get his chips. I did and had almost a 5 to 1 chip lead over the "happy to be in second place money because of the real donkey that busted out when he did not need to" guy that was left. I doubled him up once to 68k but made sure I kept the pressure on and soon had him back below 30k to my 240k. I felt a bit like cat playing with a mouse and ultimately got him all in with his K6 against my K10. My hand held up and I was pumped. Not a bad way to dip your toes back in the FT waters.

I collected several KOs along the way (probably 8 total) and had a blast. It is easy when you get good cards and your heavy favorite hands stand up. I think the best manipulation play of the day was when I got 99 to get it all in against my AQh on an all heart K high flop. I used the clock, the min-re-raise and all of my best online acting skills. It feels good when all the chips are in and the opponent is drawing dead on the turn.

Blah

I hate being sick and not feeling 100%. I doubt that anyone likes it, but I really can't stand it. Luckily, I am pretty healthy and don't come down with gunk often but something is working the immune system right now. I felt a tickle and cough in the throat last night and today I am oscillating between being uncomfortably hot and uncomfortably cold. Did I mention the lightheadedness and watery eyes? Boo being sick. I am trying to stay away from SteelerSteph and the baby. I can't imagine what it would be like if she was out of commission. I guess you can't breastfeed when you are sick so that would really suck for Sawyer. If one of us has to be funkified, I suppose I am the best candidate right now.

I took a 2 hour nap and then some Advil Cold and Sinus washed down with a dose of Emergen-C and I am feeling better... but I can feel the presence of the funk on the peripherals of my head. Will have to see how it goes. I should be more pumped because I finally loaded some money on Full Tilt today. The juice was about 11% by the time I purchased a $100 Visa pre-paid (5.95) and then it was not accepted on BoDog or PokerStars. Poop. Tired of railing, I bit the bullet and created an ePassport account. $5 more for their piece of the pie and I had $90 on Full Tilt. It would have been $95, but the "verification" process had a pending charge of $1.69 and I was not sure what was being charged by who so I only loaded $95. I will have to figure out what to do with $5 on a prepaid Visa... save it for the next one? :-) Not if I practice proper BR management.

Wish me luck heading off this gunk and perhaps I will be making a cameo at one of the blog-aments in the near future. See you there.

Despite my distaste for all the major candidates

I did vote today and I would strongly encourage my fellow blog readers to vote too.

You can do it over the internet anytime you want. Proposition 3.17

Prop 3.17 is important enough for me to blog about my support, and I know that the blogfather will be voting if he has not already.

Irish Americans, and those of us that wish we were Irish on that one day of the year so we could sing along with those awesome sounding drinking songs, have a duty to vote yes for Prop 3.17.

Amen.

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What's New Pussycat?

Zebus (the Cat), originally uploaded by STeelerJosh.

Feeling the urge to get a post up but nothing exciting happening on the poker front (as in no poker at all recently) so a general update will fit the bill.

Sawyer is being Sawyer and we are adjusting pretty well to his routines. SteelerSteph is headed back to work next week so that is a hurdle on the horizon that needs to be cleared, but I think we will be able to take it in stride. My mother is coming up from Baltimore this weekend to stay with us and provide excellent grandmotherly day care for the next 5 weeks. That will really help the transition back to work but will also provide some challenges of its own as we all absorb the adjustment to our lives. It has been a long time since I "lived" with mother. I can only hope that she pays my house the same respect I paid hers and does not keep a messy room, have friends over when I am not home and water down my liquor. Oops. Paybacks are a bitch I suppose.

Generally, life has been pretty general lately. Most of the poker and motorcycle riding has been accomplished vicariously through all the other great blogs out there (congrats to: GCox on all your recent success, Jordan on your Bloggerment win, Hoy on your 50/50, Chad on your FTOPS 9 performance... I watched you play for awhile but bailed at 12:30 when there were 140 some left, Surflexus on all those Mookie final tables and wins and everyone else that seems to be enjoying success lately). Everything else is baby and work centric with patches of sleep grabbed when possible.

Sawyer is getting more interactive and enjoyable everyday. This is good because I really look forward to coming home from the increasingly stessful work days. The project I am managing has had some technical issues that really pushed me to the limits the past 2 weeks. I have it all sorted out now but I am pretty disappointed in Microsoft documentation. Coming from the IBM/Domino world it has not been an impressive transition in using the MS documentation for Office Communication Server 2007. The project is still on track to be delivered on time (and over budget) but it should not be this hard. I had lunch with the CIO today and alluded to some of the challenges but assured him we were still on track. That is true, and will remain true, as long as I can get this Public Internet Connectivity provisioning process on track with Microsoft. That is a seemingly simple administrative process where we register our new Instant Messaging (ghirly chat for all you ghey bloggers) servers registered and authenticated with the major IM providers: Yahoo, AOL, and MSN. I built the servers, tested the crap out of them, and federated with some other companies so I know my stuff is tight.... but I can't seem to get an traction on getting the request to turn it on with these providers up the chain and in the right places at Microsoft. Who knew that would be so hard? It is frustrating because you expect the hard parts in getting everything built and configured properly not in getting a form completed and an authentication (federation) process started. Booo administrata.

If you are a real sicko and are curious what OCS 2007 is, check out this link explaining one of the servers (an EDGE server) that has been kicking my nerd skills up and down the block the past two weeks. Happy to say that I finally got it all in line, but I was plagued with certificate and connectivity issues along the way.
Edge Server Topology

Best of luck to all you poker bloggers who are still playing poker. I will have to explore some options to get some of the bankroll back online so I can donk it off when I get .... make some time to get back up on Full Tilt. Until then, the proud papa in me wants to leave you with this:

Reason to play online poker #7: When I get pocket Aces on the button with 2 raises in front of me, I make that same face.