Where peace is not a pie ...Rick's Cafe Americain

When Rick and I arrived, the first tournament of the day was still in progress - and taking much too long.  There were seven players, the blinds were fairly high, and still nobody was busting.  Finally, at almost 10, the tournament ended and they were ready to start another one.

We had two tables for 12 players.  $40 entry, start with 2000 chips and blinds at 10/20.  On the first hand I was dealt KQs in the cutoff.  There was a single limper and I raised the pot to 50 (which in retrospect seems to small).  The flop was K-x-x with no draw in my suit.  Toni made a small bet (100?) at me and I called.  I was certain that with AK, AA or KK she wouldn’t have limped in.  The turn was another brick.  Toni checked and I foolishly checked as well.  I was pretty sure that I had the best hand, and I had the opportunity to bet and let Toni define her hand.  Instead, a J fell on the river, Toni bet 100 and I felt that I had to call.  She turned over KJ and I threw my cards into the muck, very disappointed in myself.

I blew a fair amount through the blinds and some ill-advised limping until I found myself looking at A♦7♦.  I raised to 3x BB and again, Toni called.  The flop was T-9-8 rainbow and Toni went all-in.  I was concerned that I was outkicked, but I was certain that Toni didn’t have a pair.  Compared to the table I had made myself a short stack and I decided that my A and straight draw were enough incentive to call.  So I called and was briefly happy when Toni showed KQ.  It didn’t last.  Once again, the river was a J - finishing my straight, but giving Toni a better straight. Busted, 9th out of 12.

I stayed to watch the rest of the tournament, but I didn’t really pay a lot of attention.  I know this: Rick sucked out on AA when he was all-in with QQ.  (Hey Pauly, does he get a prize?) He took that stack and parlayed it into a victory in the tournament.  His take was $240.  (Yes, Rick deserves a better writeup than this but I really don’t know anything about the hands he played.)

Not bad for a tournament he didn’t know about until 10 minutes before sitting down.

The second tournament was a $20 buy-in with only six players.  Toni covered my buy-in because (1) she still has a job; and (2) she felt really bad about rivering me twice in the first tournament.  Ordinarily I wouldn’t really take this sort of charity but (can you spot the parallels?) (1) I don’t have a job; and (2) I wasn’t pleased that she rivered me twice in the first tournament.

This tournament was uneventful.  Rick busted out first, I busted out shortly thereafter.  I played two hands that mattered, and both times I was dominated.  I didn’t catch my card either time.  First, the player to my right, with blinds at 40/80 raised to 200.  I had A♠Q♠ and reraised to 400.  He called and we saw a flop of T-9-x, all diamonds.  He went all-in on the flop, which I read as weakness. Specifically, I figured that his small preflop raise represented a small ace.  I didn’t think he wanted me to call, so I called.  He flipped over A♦K, putting me in a very weak position.  An 8 on the turn gave me an inside straight draw.  I asked for a J, and he asked for a diamond.  We both got what we wanted.  It worked out better for him as the J♦ filled his flush at the same time it filled my straight. 

I had him barely outchipped.  I survived an all-in with AK but was still substantially short stacked when I went all in with KQ a few hands later.  Toni called and flipped over AK.  Busted, 5th out of 6.

The most notable thing about the tournament was how little regard people had for the need to team up to knock out the small stacks.  Nixma taught me the importance of not betting into an empty side pot when a player is all-in.  The table also pushes far too much.  It is part aggression, but a lot of pure gambling.  I never had the cards to challenge a push, but there were certainly opportunities to be had.

I am itching to get back to that game.

I don’t blame the crowd, but I don’t exactly blame myself.  I actually blame the structure of the night.  This show really tested the limits of how much comedy people can watch. It especially tested the notion of how much novice comedy people can watch.

The show started at 9 but I didn’t go on until 11:30.  The club still had a large crowd, but about 1/3 of the original crowd had left after seeing their friends.  It also didn’t help that the people who were still around were almost completely drained.  I followed two AWFUL comics, one of whom ran over by a full two minutes during which he actually dropped his pants.  He did not get a laugh in that extra time.  Or from dropping his pants.

Even if the comics that led up to me had been good, two and a half hours is a lot of comedy.  The crowd looked like I was going to take them into the back room to make a hostage video.  My opening joke fell flat. Not good. Particularly because I—and past audiences—really like that segment.  I recovered a little in the middle, and I thought I had the crowd on my side, but I heard my closing jokes echo off of the back wall.  So I opened weak and closed weak.  I’ll get used to that eventually, but after waiting so long to get on stage, bombing is just salt in the wound.

I got $5 for each person I brought, so I made $25 last night.  That hardly makes it worth it.  I know somebody has to go on last, but that was just brutal.  Particularly because I wasn’t even closeto being the last comic to perform.  When I got off the stage, there were still another dozen comics that were waiting to perform.

I wished them luck and headed out into the drizzle.

I’ll be at Gotham on Saturday, so come on out and watch me rebound.

There were 971 entrants into the $5+1 multi that started at 10:30AM.  Top 100 places paid.

The first two hours were not completely uneventful, as I had won enough to keep myself comfortably ahead of the average stack in the tournament and close to the chip lead at my table.  My starting table was actually very tight - there were 350 people eliminated overall before a single person was eliminated from my table. 

The only play of consequence early on was when I knocked out AK with A9s by sucking out and hitting a 9 on the river.  I’d feel worse about it, but I had him outchipped 5:1 at the time, so the call wasn’t very expensive.  (He didn’t see it that way. Comments?) Otherwise, my stack was built by taking advantage of the tightness at the table by being selectively aggressive.

After two hours, 800 (!) players had been eliminated. I had about 2x the average stack with T8000. I limped in from EP with 44 and.  The player on my left (Runaway_Jim) made a minimum raise.  Three people called, including me.  The flop was 6-4-3 rainbow. I checked my set, Dadieo went all-in for his last 4K and I went over the top all-in, convincing Runaway_Jim and the fourth player to fold.  My set held up against Dadieo’s x-6, he was knocked out in 170th and I was up to T14000 (roughly 6th in chips overall).

Runaway_Jim claims that he mucked AA.  Assume he is telling the truth.  Should I have just called Dadieo’s all-in, hoping for a call from Jim, or was reraising to push him out the right move?  An A did not come on the turn or river, so my set would have held up, but that doesn’t seem to be the point.

Interlude for regrets: (1) Very early, I mucked 33 in the cutoff to a 4xBB preflop raise.  The flop was x-3-3. Shortly after taking the chip lead at the table, I threw away 66 to a similar preflop raise.  Flop, 3-4-5; Turn, 2, River 5.  The hand was won with a KJ.  I think I played both hands correctly, but still…

I let someone else strangle themselves when I flopped top two pair with KQs and just check-called him until he was all-in, but that was the extent of my adventurous play.  I never got above T16000 and by the time disaster struck, I was probably only barely in the top 20 in chips.

Disaster:  I had A8 in LP.  UTG went all-in for his last 500 chips.  I called, as did the BB.  I underbet the pot on the flop (it was insignificant) and the BB called.  I had the BB outchipped by ~T3500.  When an A hit on the turn, he bet out 2000.  I put him on AJ.  I don’t know why, putting him on a better hand than me, I decided to push him all-in.  I think I decided that I had too much invested in the pot already (stop shaking your head) and I figured that the only way to win was to get him to lay down his hand. (I said stop shaking your head.) What I didn’t think about was that he was far more pot-committed than I was.  If I was unwilling to lay down my A, why did I think he would lay down his?  He didn’t.  He had AJ.  He took almost all of my chips.

I went all in from the BB the next time it came around (BB was at 1000) holding K5.  I was called by the KQ, who had limped in from the button. Neither of us improved (unless you count the K on the turn; I don’t) and I was out in 84th.

To tell the truth, the heading of this post isn’t quite true.  84th paid, but it paid a whopping $9.71.  I played for over 3 hours for $1.24/hr.  And now I will remember: it only takes one stupid hand. (The guy who took most of my stack lasted until 19th. 19th paid $33.99.)

It was 11PM when I left the Underground Lounge, so I called Ferrari to make sure that the game was still going on.  Since the games usually don’t break up until 3AM, I figured it was a safe bet.  I was wrong!  The game was in progress, but it was going to end at midnight.  I was a half-hour from the game with only an hour of poker left. Shit! I was going to have to go home.

But wait! Pauly to the rescue!  Despite his entanglements with checknraisepoker, he managed to make it out to the Blue Parrot.  Not only that, he brought the $50 he owed me for signing up at Party Poker with his bonus code.  It may not have been worth a trip to Ferrari’s for 30 minutes of poker, but if I was going to finish +$50 just for showing up I’d be a fool not to make the trip.

When I got there, the table was full.  Blue Parrot regulars Ferrari, Coach, Pauly, Joel and Nixma as well as recent addition Charlie.  Adam and Nicholas, new additions and friends of Charlie’s rounded out the table.  (Is it a good idea to let the good players bring their friends?)

I wasn’t going to play, since there was so little time left, but I thought about the free money in my hand and figured, “what’s life without throwing away money to a bunch of degenerates when you don’t have a job and could really use that $50 in your hand.” Like I said, the set didn’t go well and I wasn’t thinking clearly.

The game being played was 7-stud hi/lo with a declare.  I don’t like this game much.  Among other things, I am just not that good at it.  I feel like I never catch my draws and always get sucked out on.  Obviously there is more to it than that, but all I know is I’m not comfortable with anything less than rolled up aces.  At least it isn’t Screw Your Neighbor (another popular Blue Parrot call).  I also dislike 7stud at the Parrot because it is too damn expensive.  There are 6 rounds of betting and we play with spread bets up to $5.  This usually means that from 5th street on it costs between $10 and $20 to see each additional card.  And the declare round is just stupid.  It gives a bonus to the only player going in one direction, and the betting usually gets capped. Blech.  I threw away the first hand, chased a low (at $2 per card) to 4th street on the second.  I was relieved when Charlie called for a round of 2/4 hold ‘em so that I could play a game I understand. Sort of.

With the declaration of a ‘round,’ Coach took the opportunity to cash out.  He finished up $107, so I was pleased to move into his lucky seat. It paid off almost immediately.  On the third hand, I was dealt TT in the cutoff.  There were a few limpers and Charlie raised from one seat to my right (where I prefer to have Charlie; he’s probably a better player than I am).  I called.  I think there was one other caller.  The flop was 8-5-5 (with two spades).  I put Charlie on a high Ace, but was willing to call all the way if he had a higher pair.  Charlie bet, I called and we were heads-up.  I think the turn was a K♠ and the river was a blank.  When I called, Charlie said “Your pair has it.” and showed A♠Q.  He decided that he shouldn’t have bet the river; I agree. I wasn’t going to bet either and it would have saved him $4.  +~$25 for the hand.

I only played one other hand (outside of the blinds).  I was dealt A♥T♥ in MP and limped in.  There were four or five other limpers, and I don’t recall a raise. If there was, I called it.  The flop was A-A-x.  I checked my Ace, and the board checked around.  When the turn was a brick, I bet out.  Ferrari was the only caller.  The river was a brick as well.  I bet Ferrari called and said “Show me the ace.” And so I did.  Two hands played, two hands where people forced me to show what they already knew was the best hand.  I deserve more respect, but I’m happy to not have it.

I finished +$35.25 in a half hour. In poker parlance, 34BB/hr. Not bad. And unlikely to be repeated.

The hand of the (short) night wasn’t mine, though. It was Nixma’s. Or, more accurately, Ferrari’s.  Nixma had QQ (maybe KK) and raised preflop.  Among the callers was Ferrari.  The flop was 8-J-Q, Nixma bet again and (at least) Ferrari called again.  The flop was a 9, more betting. The river was a blank, more betting.  And Ferrari showed T7s to take the pot with a straight to the Q.  He had no rational explanation for why he called a preflop raise with such garbage or why he called a bet on the flop by the raiser with nothing but an inside straight draw.  Frankly, he deserved to have the board pair on the river but it didn’t work out like that (and if Nixma had KK it wouldn’t have mattered).

Check Pauly to see his writeup of the early part of the game - as soon as he finds his notes. It doesn’t look like Nixma is going to write it up.

Update: While typing this up I started playing in a $10+1 SNG on Party.  2d place despite getting knocked down to 300 chips on level 2 when my QQ lost to KK.  I fought back to take the chip lead, but Barbarella1 took me out heads-up.  Look out for her, she can play - she was the big stack by level two and didn’t make a costly bad play all game. In any event, that is four SNGs in a row where I finished in the money.

Update #2: I knew that update was going to cost me.  Stupid hubris.  I played in a $20+2 and busted out in 9th.  On back-to-back hands that I got involved in my opponents rivered flushes.  In the first hand I pushed a guy all-in with top and bottom pair.  He called with a middle pair, a flush draw and an overcard.  In the second hand, I went all-in with top pair, he called with nothing and sucked out on me. Gotta start a new streak.

I was at the Underground Lounge for the weekly open mic.  Once again I didn’t get there by 8:30, so when I arrived over 20 people had already signed up.  I had contacted the producer in advance, so I wasn’t going to have to go last, but I was going to have to wait until 12 people had already gone. 

Needless to say, my set didn’t go well. I didn’t do any new material, so I was going with reliable stuff, and I couldn’t have dragged a laugh out of this crowd with pliers.  Its a pity, because early in the night, the crowd was really responsive.  Two comics in particular, Vito Lantz and Pete Holmes, both had great sets.  The crowd responded enthusiastically to their material and I was hoping that energy would carry.  Alas, there was over 30 minutes between their set and mine.  The music in the interim wasn’t as good this week as last and as the crowd dwindled the energy disappeared. By the time I took the stage, the crowd remaining was drained, most of the people that had already performed had taken off and I’ve seen better moods at a funeral.

I didn’t help matters by tripping over the table (and dumping my fresh drink on the floor) as I got up to perform.  My delivery was flat, but I can’t help but think that I was reflecting the flat looks that I was getting back.  I did get a (barely detectable) laugh out of the new end of the Orbitz joke that bombed so dramatically on Saturday, so that was nice, I guess.

Lemons can be made from this lemonade, however.  I am planning on producing my own open mic here in Brooklyn in the next few months.  There are a few bars that I think would be receptive to it, and there are plenty of comics that live in Brooklyn - I think they would be excited to be able to perform without having to haul themselves into Manhattan.  Pete Holmes, for one, lives in Park Slope and seemed excited about the prospect when I mentioned it to him.  If my bad performance last night was the price I pay to get a show I run off the ground, that was a small price.

I left the club and headed down to the Blue Parrot, but that is another post entirely.

I got seven minutes and made sure that I had enough material prepared to fill the time.  I started with Spider-Man, moved on to my doctor’s office routine, a short segment about fertility, my subway/prison routine and then two short jokes about fake conveniences provided by American Express and Orbitz.  Everything went over very well - especially the Spider Man and doctor’s office stuff - until the end.  The response was especially gratifying because I was responsible for only four of the 60+ people in the crowd.

My (intended) last joke of the night, the second half of the Orbitz segment, may as well have been a request for silence for the memory of the fallen in Iraq.  The silence was complete and obvious to everyone.  Brother of Ugarte could not stifle a laugh at my expense; yes, I recognized his laugh.  (I would kill him for that if I weren’t certain that I would have the exact same reaction to someone else’s misfortune.) I made fun of myself and the silence and got a laugh from that.  In golf, that would be considered a sand save.  Up and down in two from the bunker and I exited to a good round of applause.

Then I gave the tape to my mother to watch with her friends and her sister.  At the time I had forgotten the multiple references to oral sex. C’est la vie. She was going to see that set eventually anyway.

There are a bunch of new gigs on the chart, so come on out! (And sign up for the mailing list if you haven’t.)

I was a cross-country runner in high school, where I developed tendinitis in both knees (in large part due to the unfortunate combination of innocent determination and a coach whose entire repetoire of sports injury treatment consisted of “run it off").  In college, while running a “century” (up and down the stadium seats 100 times) for freshman crew practice, I blew out my left knee, and spent the rest of the season on an Concept II ergometer ("erg", or stationary rower) while everyone else ran.  If you have ever had the pleasure of using an erg, you know that this is not a fair trade.  It was particularly painful during our annual “triple century” event, which started with (if memory serves) 15,000 meters on the erg, then moved to a 6-mile run, and finished with 33 stadium flights.  Poor Rick spent the whole day on the erg, ekeing out 45,000 meters.

Nearly every year since then I have tried to start running again.  It usually works for a month or two, but once I start running more than about 3 miles at a time, inevitably I will come limping home to 6 months of physical therapy.  I’ve learned a lot about my body: for example, my left iliotibial band (ITB) is very tight, which apparently creates additional stress on the weak tendons in my knee.  It also accounts in part for the bursitis and sciatica that I suffer when I stay sedentary for too long.

Anyway, last year I decided that I hated physical therapy, and I best find something other than running to give me the endorphin rush.  Since (stationary) cycling was a major part of my physical therapy, I started taking spinning classes.  The pain, sweat, nausea and hamster-like pointlessness made me nostalgic for the erg, so I borrowed my brother’s bike and started riding up and down Manhattan’s West Side every morning.  After a month, I knew I was hooked.  I quit my gym membership and bought a road bike.  I logged about 1000 miles between July and November, including three Centuries (100-mile rides).  Then, as I mentioned, I stuck the bike in the closet (actually, the bike was always kept in the closet—I just stopped taking it out).

On July 6 I gave the bike a tune-up and headed out into one of the most bicycle-friendly communities in the USA.  It was a pretty sad performance—my balance was awful, my cadence was atrocious, and my speed was just plain embarassing.  It got dark, it got cold, I got lost.  I didn’t get back on the bike for another week. 

On July 14, though, I got back on the bike, and the results were much better.  Not getting lost really helps.  I’ve logged just under 200 miles since then, and with the exception of yesterday’s ride, which was delayed for 2 hours by a new rattle that—after adjustments to the head, seat, handlebars, derailleurs (front and rear), brakes (front and rear), and bottle cages—appears to have been caused by the air pump, it is consistently one of the high points of my day.  The roads, weather and topography here are superb for biking (at least compared to Manhattan!), and I really don’t want to get off the damn thing (except to drive my car).

Today was my longest ride to date, although still a modest 25.7 miles.  The old Polar S510 says I did it in 2:06:42, with an average heart rate of 158 bpm.  What that doesn’t tell you was that half that distance was covered in the first 1:20 or so, because it was mostly uphill—or should I say, upmountain.  Black Mountain, to be specific, one of the Santa Cruz Mountains and topping off at somewhere in the vicinity of 2,800 feet [correction: Turns out that while the mountian peak is 2800 feet or so, I climbed only about 2250 feet].  The grade varies considerably over the course of the climb, and I couldn’t tell you what it is, but some of it was pretty damn steep.  [update: According to my Krebs Cycle Map (AWESOME MAPS!!!!), the grade of the climb starts at 4-6%, increases to 9%+ in the middle (4 miles or so?), and evens back out to 4-6% near the top.]

Anyway, there aren’t any mountains in Manhattan, so this was my first one (as a resident—I climbed the S-C mountains last summer on vacation out here, but I was at the peak of my cycling fitness then, and it was part of a much, much longer ride (just over 60 miles), so I don’t count it for these purposes).  At the end of today’s ride I felt a little bit of that glow, that endorphin rush, that whatever-it-is that I used to get from running.  As much as I love cycling, I thought I would never get that from anything but running.  Now it looks like it might be possible after all.

Postscript: Going up, I have discovered, is the easy part.  Going back down the way I came, I gave myself serious hand cramps from clutching the brakes, and had to stop four times to relax my hands.  I learned that I find downhill hairpin turns at 35mph on a road bike absolutely terrifying.  A lot of it is not being able to see what’s ahead, but I’ve never really tested the limits of this bike, and I don’t relish the thought of scrubbing the dirt out of road rash with a wire brush (something I had to do once before when I hit an oil patch at 125th street), or of doing an endo over the side of Black Mountain.  I know that as I get more comfortable with the bike, the speed, and the road, I will use my brakes less, but for now, I provide amusement to the other cyclists who come zooming past me on the way down.

Next time I’ll bring a camera.

Post-postscript, to the kid in the Mercedes who took the turn past Foothills park at speed and almost bit it, and anyone else who feels the need to tackle the “twisties” on Page Mill Road at unsafe speeds: don’t be an asshole, you could have killed yourself or—worse—someone with brains.  Next time I’m taking down the plate number and calling the cops.

Sure, there were a number of acts that were, charitably, awful.  But there was also some very good stuff.  And the crowd was great.  New York Comedy Club appears to draw a very mixed crowd, but one that is mostly young, and kind of rowdy.  Not ‘heckler-rowdy’, more like ‘ready-for-a-good-time-rowdy.’ It is a very good environment for regaining confidence in your material, but one that will make you pay if you slack off.

I started with a routine that I have been doing since the beginning (a couple of segments on my mother’s obsession with getting me paired off and fathered up).  I really have to re-rehearse that bit, though.  I was so comfortable with the material that I didn’t bother to try and sell it on stage.  My lackadaisical mental preparation showed through in the presentation of the material.  I perked up a bit as I realized I was losing the audience, but any crowd (especially one as involved as this one) deserves an A-effort from the moment I grab the mic.  My next joke went well (it kills every time, actually) - though I can’t really describe it.  The Spider-Man segment was also solid.  I need to find a better way to present the second half of the joke, but if I can figure it out, it will probably be a part of my act for a long time.  (Did he just say long time? Isn’t that kind of hubris likely to be tragic? Yes.  But I can’t just sit here assuming that I’m going to fail. Why bother leaving my job in the first place if I’m not going to have any confidence?)

It is a good stage and a good crowd.  New York Comedy Club gets a return visit next Wednesday; make your reservations now.  I get $5 a head so I wouldn’t mind a decent turnout.  My poker income is, shall we say, insufficient.

I like my act, and I like me on stage.  Since I never have liked me in the past, this is a ringing endorsement.  I hope to see you at the club.

Hey, could UPS sue that guy?

Now, I’ve had issues with the whole “What can Brown do for you?” slogan for a long time.  I won’t go off on the rant this usually inspires, but I will state that I don’t think that the words “brown” and “do” can be used in the same sentence as an effective marketing tool for anyone over the age of 6.  I also don’t find “brown” to be a color that invokes any real positive attributes.  Whatever.

The purpose of this post is to ask the following question:  Where have we arrived in our society when a company can purport to trademark the color brown?  Will other package delivery services soon be enjoined from using cardboard boxes of that color, lest they benefit from the invocation of the “Brown-ness” of UPS?

Now, I realize that what UPS is protecting is the distinctive color of their vans, uniforms, logos, etc.  They want to prevent competitors from dressing their employees up in ridiculous chocolate parodies of the Cub Scout uniform and sending them out in giant turd-mobiles in an effort to capitalize on UPS’ established presence and good will.  However, it is still a little jarring to see that UPS now claims to own the Color Brown.  Still, I’m sure I’ll adjust.

Rick’s Cafe is the exclusive owner of every word on this page, including the phrase “the Color Brown”.  We reserve the right to come to your house and beat you up if you use any of these words without permission.