woke up to the sound of pouring rain...

Yesterday, while getting out of bed, I heard the sound of cars cutting through puddles on the street outside of my window, and made an executive decision to text-message into work, "unwilling to leave my bed". Yes, I text messaged my boss and said that I didn't want to come into work. I had a personal day that had to be used, so why not use it on a crappy day?

I scrubbed clean, walked to get some coffee and a book, and when I got back home, fired up Party at 1:30 pm for a marathon session of Godzilla proporations. By the time the dust cleared, and my session was over, I was up about $100, and 11-yes 11- hours of my life had miraculously disappeared. Poof, gone just like that. I'm not sure how professional players, especially the older ones, do it. My longest session before that had been close to 4 hours. By the time I closed Party and Pokertracker at 12:30am, I was exhausted. My ass hurt, my neck hurt, and both of my feet had falling asleep, causing me to tip and sway as I walked to my bedroom. One side effect of that much poker is that, not only is every minute you're awake filled with thoughts about it, but you also dream about it. As I turned my alarm off this morning, I half-expected to turn around and see a camera crew filming me. Imagine my disappointed when I realized my daily yoga session wouldn't be on ESPN.

I'm starting to feel more confident in my game, though I did catch myself checking instead of betting, or cold calling when I knew the correct play was to raise. The poker equivalent of The Yips; a little twitch that causes you to mishit the "call" button, instead of "raise". I'm not ashamed to admit that I've been no better than a break-even player over the past few months, but if I can't start padding the bankroll with how bad this new breed of players are, I need to quit. These players are that bad. Margaret Cho bad. Shaq-fu bad.
------

Poker Corner
After the Travel Channel aired the WPT Final from the Bellagio some time earlier this year, they had a commentary on it immediately after, in which Daniel Negreanu, Annie Duke, and Phil Hellmuth gave their impressions on the tournament hands showed on tv. I didn't get to watch it when originally aired, so I'd like to give my impressions as I watched the repeat last night.

It was terrible.

There, I think that about sums it up. If you're going to have someone on tv to endorse your product, please make sure that they're, oh I don't know, able to speak in public. If I had to hear any of the three say "ummmm..." or "You know, blah, blah..." any more, I would've stabbed stabbed myself in the ear with a pencil. All three, incredible poker players, but not all that great of commentators. Please leave the ridiculous to VVP, as he's already enough to laugh at.
-----

Eh, I've been writing all day, so this is me, shutting up.