Where the Battle of Algiers rages on ...Rick's Cafe Americain

Ten sitting at the table.  I’m the Big Blind , and I get dealt A♣ K♥.  Not bad.  These guys love to call with garbage before the flop.  I post the blind ($50).  The guy to my left folds, but the next guy raises to $275.  Folds all the way back around to the dealer, who calls.  Small Blind folds, and I re-raise to $500.  They both call.

Here comes the flop: K♠ A♠ J♦.  I figure the dealer could have Q 10, so I check.  The raiser from the first round bets $475, and dealer calls.  I figure if the dealer had Q 10 he would have raised, so I figure to knock him out if he’s drawing, and if he ain’t, well, I figure the likely worst outcome for me at this point is a three-way tie.  I gotta stop figurin’. 

I go all in ($2000).  They both call, and here’s what I’m up against:  Raiser has, as I suspected, A K.  They’re both ♦s, but that’s not much of an advantage here.  Caller has Q♦ 7♠.  He should have folded.  No, really, he should have folded before the flop, the little $#!%. 

Turn: 2♠.  No frush for my friend, no 10 for the $#!%.  I’m salivating.

And then it happens: 10♣.

Thanks and good night folks, I had a lovely time.

*all $’s referred to in this grovel were “play money” $’s.  No bankrolls were harmed during the playing of this hand.  But it made a better story before you knew that, didn’t it?

ChristWeb (Reigning King): As mccaskil acknowledges, he doesn’t really answer the question.  Instead, he takes the high road (so high, this Judge could barely read it) with a thoughtful, eloquent piece that strikes exactly the right tone—but did I mention he didn’t answer the question? 4 points, but only because there is an implied answer: “I am a bigger [in a spiritual sense] blogger.”

Pragmatic Conservatism (a.k.a. Dank O’Bleary): OK, I know why I suddenly became a raging asshole and started pounding the shit out of poor innocent blogs, but this guy ain’t a Judge.  From the typo in the picture to the (hopefully) inadvertent claim that Where the Hell Was I was going to cause him to shit his pants to the totally unfunny ad hominem attacks (c’mon.  Mine were funny.), this is one long turd.  The biggest failure, however: his reasons are wrong.  He criticizes the other pretenders for flaws they don’t actually have, and gives totally unconvincing reasons why he should be King.  He may have a loyal following, be the most experienced blogger, write most of his own stuff and be very proud of himself, but from what I can tell, the blog still sucks.  To the Reverend Queen, Emperor of King of the Blogs, Dank writes, “Well Nick, I don’t play if I’m not going to win.” To Dank I must respond on Nick’s behalf: “Well, Dan, thanks for playing”. 0.

Cranial Cavity also took the high road, but came a bit closer to answering the question.  I liked the “game” pun, and the image “Ringmaster for a circus of two daughters”, but he gave the same single reason that Christweb offered, so unless they both win, it ain’t such a compelling one anymore.  4

Wallo World: I like this one a lot.  He gives some serious and respectable reasons why his blog is worthy, and then puts together an amusing list of his best traits—as determined by various online polls.  It’s a cute gimmick, and it worked for me.  8.

Southern Musings: Unnecessarily self-deprecating entry gives some good answers.  The best: she is committed to the blogosphere.  I thought the overall tone ("I know I’m not worthy but . . .") hurt the piece—take some pride in your work and your efforts!  6.

Where the Hell Was I:  For the love of all that is holy, if you are going to write that much, please, please, please use a “More” script, or something like what Triggerman does.  This one was pretty funny (and long—did I mention long?), and I actually enjoyed the digression in which he responded to Dank’s Rick impersonation, but he may not fully have thought through the implications of “‘Everybody Change Your Passwords to ‘Foo’ for a Day”.  7

The fantastically unorgininally eponymous Dan K. O’Leary dot com managed to piss me off before I even saw the site, as his site takes longer to load than an ISU 122S heavy assault gun.  Then, imagine my delight when I found that what loaded wasn’t even the blog, but the Home Page from which you can access the blog.  I don’t have the time for this shit.  Nevertheless, I clicked on the “Blog” link and went and got a sandwich.  And a hooker.  And made the hooker a sandwich.  And waited some more.  Finally, I got to the actual blog, called Pragmatic Conservatism (NOTE TO DAN: SEE WHAT I JUST DID THERE?  IT’S CALLED LINKING TO THE ACTUAL BLOG.  NOT THAT HARD.), and guess what?  The third post down is the @#$%ing Challenge, which means I have to pick another one.  I’m tempted to just give up on this guy and give him a 0, but that might hurt his feelings, so I’m going to save him for last and give him a chance to post something new in the meantime.

Next up is Cranial Cavity, the genius who couldn’t even make it through Round 1 last time.  Let’s see what he’s got to offer . . . Unbelievable.  This jackass also posted his challenge response as the third one down.  Kee-rist.  Who’s next?

Thank God.  Wallo World has a non-Challenge post as his third post.  That’s the good news.  The bad news is, it’s his “thoughts (for what they’re worth) on the Academy Award nominations released today. “ Not very much, Triggerman, not very much.  I am almost as tired of seeing bloggers post their “Oscar Picks” (here’s mine) as I am of reading people’s primary predictions.  His big limb-treader?  “I think we’ll all be seeing a lot of Rings.” Well, that is a shocking prediction, especially from the guy who wrote the twice-honored fantasy screenplay Cold Iron.  4. Next!

Oh, great, a redneck.  At least the gal from Southern Musings probably won’t look like this.  Luckily, her third post isn’t a Challenge either—nope, it’s just a link to a bunch of other posts!!! Lucky me.  Maybe next week she’ll post a page from the Mayberry phone book!  Actually, now that I have bled away precious hours clicking on all those links (some of which are broken), I realize it is more than just a string of links.  It is a string of links to the worst post each linked blog has to offer*.  What a tremendously moronic perversion of the grand tradition of link-whoring.  3.

Ahh, finally, the last one.  Where the Hell Was I got on my last nerve right away by making me scroll way the hell down to get to his third post.  I mean, either incorporate a “More" script or write less!  Then, when I finally get to the third one, I realize it’s gonna take longer to read this post than it does to load up this guy’s website (is that silk?).  The post is prefaced by an intro so inane it includes the “words” burstage, burstated, and burstitality, in the context of—and this is a direct quote—“I would just burst if I didn’t tell you about it.” Kill me now.  The first part is answers to Charlie‘s five questions, which reminds me of the one guy who is possibly more of a tool than this guy.  Actually, Charlie gets big points for this section, because he seems to be doing an admirable job of creating, expanding and sustaining an interactive blog community.  The next section is an update on the various contests (including King of the Blogs) that this guy is begging to be humiliated in.  No worries, my friend, there is plenty of humiliation to go around (oh, wait, that’s the other guy).  The last part is also pretty good, mostly because he links to a clip of the longest 2 minutes of stand-up ever.  Seriously.  I give Charlie an 8, because he is either the heir to Andy Kauffman‘s legacy of stone-faced irony, or he’s got serious stones for posting such garbage.

Oh, wait, I still have to do the reigning Blog King, ChristWeb.  There is nothing particularly wrong with his third post,“Kerry claims victory in NH Primary", except that he didn’t actually write it.  The spelling is ok, the format is nice enough, there are no embarassing photos, but that is not surprising, since all the King did was cut and paste the words of CNN.com producer Sean Loughlin.  This post gets 0 points because it is plagiarism, and minus one more for not including anything else: you didn’t write it, you didn’t tell us what you think about it, so what’s the point of posting it?  Total score: -1.

Now, back to the first two guys.  Since neither has posted anything new, I’m just going to look at the topmost post.  At Cranial Cavity, that would be “A Wife’s Free Speech Is Threatened”, a post that may be even more imbecilic than I think, as I stopped reading after the third spelling error in the first sentence.  And do you really need a freakin’ masthead after each post?  2.

Last and least, this guy, who, if his topmost post is any indication, is writing a mildly amusing liberal blog based on the tired conceit of satirizing boneheaded conservatives.  However, it is too over the top, with lines like “more students identify themselves as conservatives because liberals abort their children” and “Liberals on college campuses tend to be closed minded, smelly, and irrational”.  I mean, what kind of ignorant, closeted, repressed, pathetic loser would write such crap?  0.

* Actually, this one at Musings from Brian J. Noggle is pretty good.

It was a dealer calls night, and despite my best efforts to steer the table towards nothing but 2-4 hold ‘em or Omaha/8 the dealers really were using their perogative.  This was OK when the call was 7stud, even 7stud hi/lo, but when people started calling follow-the-queen (at least 3 variants) and threatened to call Guts there was almost a riot and I felt obligated to just call bullshit on the whole direction the game was headed.  It turns out that the advantage to being amazingly even-keeled with spasms of outrage is that people tend to not want to fuck with the outrage.  Silly games didn’t really continue.  With the notable exception of Swish’s call of “5 card draw, Jacks to Open, Trips to Win.”

Using his perogative as dealer, Swish announced (after a rules debate that was only slightly less contentious as a session of the Diet and only slightly more coherent than the new description of Saddam’s weapons capabilities) not only did you have to prove that you had a pair to open, you also had to prove that you had trips to win even if everyone else folded.  Needless to say, I bailed at the first bet on the first deal to avoid what would clearly be progressive pots until the lucky draw of trips. After six hands, they abandoned the trips conceit and Swish won when he was dealt a straight right off the bat.

He got two callers even though he took no cards.

Getting back to hands I was involved in, I lost a decent pot to Ferarri when he caught a flush on the river. We disagree about whether he should have called me on the turn, but there was no excuse for me failing to notice that a third ♥ hit the river.  I didn’t even realize a flush was a possibility.  That hand was part of a slow spiral that saw my bank dwindle from a buy-in of $60 all the way down to $7.  Then I finally got some cards I could play.

I’ve been told that I play too tight for these games because the table will allow me to reasonably play K and Q with average kickers but I am trying to stay strong and play good starting hands.  Then I said the hell with it and decided to play any ace, kicker problems be damned.  With A6o in late position I called and was not raised.  I even ended up in last position when the button mucked his hand. 

The flop came A-K-6. Top and bottom pair can be dangerous, but when the board checked around to me - combined with the lack of preflop raising - I felt comfortable that AA, KK and AK were nowhere to be found.  I was worried about someone slowplaying sixes, but I’d cross that bridge if someone raised me.  I bet, got three calls but no raises.  The turn brought another A. In what may be the biggest tell in the history of tells, something that even Mike Caro wouldn’t believe if he saw it, I reached for my wallet to get my cash before it was my turn to bet. (We technically play table stakes, but nobody complains when somebody goes to the bank in the middle of a hand. Side pots are such a pain in the ass. It would be different if it were NL, I assume.)

Despite my oafish tell, Christain and Simon still hung in there with me when I bet with my new chips.  The river brought an 8, which had me a little nervous, but when the board checked to me again, I bet again.  And the same two people called me.  They mucked, so I don’t even know if either caller had an ace.  Probably not.  $45 and I am starting to climb back.

Another cycle around the table, I am in middle position and I call the BB with A5o.  I don’t remember how many people saw the flop, but not too many people were willing to tangle with the 9-9-9 that came up.  Checked to me and I bet.  If someone had a 9, they could raise me but I just didn’t see it happening. I was worried about getting outkicked, but again, I had to get the bet out there to see where I stood.  I stood with two callers, Christian and Simon again, who muttered to each other that I was trying to steal the pot.  The turn brought an 8.  Christian and Simon checked and I felt even better about my ace.  I bet, they called.  What do I want on the river? A 9, of course.  Do I get it? Nope, but I’ll take that bullet, thank you.  Nines full of aces and I have no worries.  I bet again.  Simon folds and then ... in a shocker, Christian raised me! 

He was obviously representing an ace, which is ordinarily a smart play, but I’ve been representing an ace since the flop and his calls have been representing bupkis. Sorry, Charlie; I believed you on the turn, not the river.  I reraised and he threw away his cards, muttering about a lack of respect for his raises.  You’ll get more respect if you don’t bet into the nuts, my friend.  Another pot of ~$40 and I’m in the black, baby!

After that was a slow drift back into the red, but I saved the session from being a total disaster.

Before the next game I will repeat to myself this affirmation: “I am not weak.  I am not weak.  I am not weak ...” As always, I will tell you how it goes.

The final tally has been revised to compensate for my lack of a notepad at the chips were cashed in:
Big winner: Ferrari, again in the neighborhood of +$170
Moderate winners: Christian, Swish and Coach
Person who didn’t quite win: Ugarte (I’m not calling myself a loser.) -$9.50
Big losers: Helmut and Simon, both in the neighborhood of -$100.

Poker blog news:
Time for another shoutout.  Sean at Anisotropy called me a “sharp player,” and for that I deem him a great man.  It seems as if the rest of my days will be spent making him rue that judgment.  I will note that he didn’t notice the gutshot straight draw that his opponent had in his 1/26 entry, relevant since he pegged the guy as “ace-rag.” I figure he still would have made the crying call, but the additional outs for the guy may have given him pause.  This ends the public service portion of our broadcast.  Even had he not complimented me, I’d have eventually linked to him anyway.  His 1/24 entry is the epitome of bait-and-switch, even if it has a happy ending.

I helped Richard, the Poker Penguin, with his maths (a King’s English expression that sounds so much better than the American singular).  If I ever sat down with him, though, I would assume that he knows the pot odds better than I do. I have to just commit them to memory.  I think I would end up folding less often, not more.  My current self-diagnosed ailment is weakness.

Pauly was invited to the game at the last minute but couldn’t make it.  While this would ordinarily garner a libelous link to a picture of a chicken, his blog indicated that he was out of town.  When he got the email upon returning at around midnight he insisted that he would have come.  At least he didn’t call me a fish.  So we’ll see next time.  Or will we?

Online Play Update
Online play remains at the back of the report, as there is nothing much to report.  Another SNG, another 6th place.  This time in PL Omaha, with the added bonus of two hair-tearing flops.  Dealt 2-2-K-x (perhaps two of one suit, but not K2).  I decided not to call only to see the flop come 2-2-x. Lovely.  A mere 10 minutes later I mucked another hand with a 2 only to see the flop come 2-2-2.  I know I made the right play the second time and I think I made the right play the first time but it is still killing me.  It isn’t that I am folding what turn into winning hands - that happens all the time and is part of playing smart percentage poker.  I just keep seeing sick, monster hands come up after I’ve thrown my cards away and I am starting to get the feeling that someone is just messing with my head. 

I bought in for $50 over at pokerstars and I’ve blown almost all of it.  I regained a little pride over at the .10/.20 table.  Or I would have if just sitting down at that table didn’t crush me beyond recognition.  Now if you will excuse me, I’m going to go have a good cry. 

The “story” coming out of N.H. will be Kerry is the frontrunner, is Dean a comeback kid, watch out for Edwards in the South, is Clark done (and V.P.) and whose this Lieberman guy.  If Kerry were to go under 30% and Dean were to get within a few points of him, it would give great motivation to Dean, but also be great for the other three candidates as it would keep Kerry in the pack.  A big win by Kerry could give him a lot of Mo.

The “story” coming out of N.H. will be Kerry is the frontrunner, is Dean a comeback kid, watch out for Edwards in the South, is Clark done (and V.P.) and whose this Lieberman guy.  If Kerry were to go under 30% and Dean were to get within a few points of him, it would give great motivation to Dean, but also be great for the other three candidates as it would keep Kerry in the pack.  A big win by Kerry could give him a lot of Mo.

Blown Fuse: If I were cynical, I’d say that this response, which zings bloggers who focus on getting hits, would be more believable if it weren’t an entry into a contest designed to get the winner (and participants) hits (not that there’s anything wrong with that).  5

Vessel of Honour: Good advice, and nicely self-deprecating.  8.

Christ Web: As someone who recently left blogspot, I feel this one.  As I recall, however, blogspot does let you tweak the template.  7.

There is something to be said against New York getting derivative works - Calavatra’s Quadracci Museum in Milwaukee is an obvious precursor to the transit hubs, just as Gehry’s Bilbao Guggenheim, Disney Concert Hall in L.A. and even the doesn’t-quite-work EMP in Seattle (some people think it works) are reflected in his plans for the proposed Brooklyn basketball arena and new waterfront Guggenheim.  I’m not sure that is a bad thing, though.  I am glad that New York is attracting good architects to do good work - work that stands out in a city whose grand-scale architecture is often less interesting than its housing stock.

I wish I had a more sophisticated way of saying this, but ... Me likey. I second your emotion, Jen: Thank you Mr. Calatrava.

ChristWeb, the Reigning King of the Blogs:
The red-and-white theme is a bit harsh/simple/stark for me, but then I’ve been told Rick’s looks like a gay bar at the moment so . . ..  No link to me as a judge, but then I didn’t know I was a judge either.  I like the three-column layout a lot, and the framing of the posts is nice. 
The “My Thoughts” conceit is also pretty neat.  Content-wise, the only post I found really interesting was the one about the Rabbi who invented a prayer for non-surfing Jews.  Overall, I give the site a 7.5.  One final comment: if you’re going to capitalize “News” and “Christian Views”, shouldn’t you capitalize “fun”, too?

Blown Fuse is one of two pretenders this week.  Tiffany’s pictures (I assume those are Tiffany) in the title banner are great, and this blog has an immediate sense of ambiance, which I like.  Unfortunately, the ambiance itself is . . . well . . . I’m pretty sure if Tiffany could figure out a way to do it, the “i"s on this site would be dotted with hearts.  If you’re looking for new ways to get your boyfriend’s picture onto your (probably pink) cell phone, this is the place for you.  Rick prefers a bit more depth, however, so I didn’t linger.  Too much pink. (the pictures at the bottom are cool, too, though).  I give it a 5, but mostly because of the pictures, and because Tiffany is a Nina Simone fan.

Vessel of Honour is, well, a bit confusing.  The top is a Matrix-esque title animation, followed by a completely incongruous (but patriotic) title banner.  It has little animated smileys, which are cool, but there’s a big honkin’ error message screwing up the whole page, which is not.  Content-wise, I enjoyed the positive references to “the spirit of lovingkindness and charity”, which are laudable, but was disappointed by statements like “much unlike Islam, which is spread through coercion and force, Christianity is preached by ‘reasoning together’”, which are not (Crusades, anyone?).  This is the weblog equivalent of a stroke victim: one half works, the other not so much.  5.