Gadzooks Donkathon & Mixed Health News

Donkathon

Home poker game week began for me on Saturday as I made the 100+ mile drive to the home of gadzooks64 for her home game tournament, perhaps appropriately named the Gazdooks Donkathon. Zooks actually had a decent sized crowd of 20 people for the game. The format allows for some donkriffic play -- $10 entry fee with one rebuy allowed if you bust out by the end of the fourth level, a $5 bounty of the head of each player, 7000 in chips, 20-minute levels, and blinds starting as low 25-25.

The game got off to a crashing start. By that, I mean one player (name not divulged here out of embarrassment), in getting his reading glasses out of his coat pocket, knocked a decorative plate off a wall above the coat rack. Despite the player's attempt to catch the plate before it hit the floor (he is semi-skilled in playing second base in softball), the plate met its demise. Heck of a start!

The short version of the tournament: I finished in seventh place. I was done in primarily by two hands. The first was in the early part of the tournament. I had been the ultimate card rack, including flopping a flush that was one card short of a Royal. My pocket Kings, however (note: calling poker blogger Rob), were cracked when one player at the table, who we were warned was the luckiest card player in the room, hit a set of 10's on the flop. I thought I was ahead the whole way and was shocked at the end of the hand to see that he had flopped top set. I was lucky I didn't lose most of my stack. The second hand happened just before we got to to the final table. We only had one rebuy at our first table and most players were relatively short stacked. I got pocket Jacks and raised. Another shortie pushed all in and I insta-called. He had pocket 10's. I had him covered, but we all knew what was coming next. After the flop he hit runner-runner to complete a straight on the river, taking most of my chips. If my Jacks had held I would have had a decent stack and would probably have cashed. As it was, we consolidated to one table and I finally had to push after 1 1/2 orbits when I got Q-J. Unfortunately, the Queen on the turn also gave the opponent a straight, sending me to the rail. The tournament paid the top four.

Thanks to Zooks for the invite to her home game. She has a great crowd of fun friends. I always have a good time playing there. It just sucks having to drive over 200 miles round trip, especially when gas starts getting near the $4.00/gallon mark. Oh -- and yes MOJO -- I did give Zooks a hug for you!

Blood Test

I had a blood test last week and the results were mixed. Along with exercising, I had been concentrating on keeping the sodium, fat, and cholesterol out of my diet. I did a great job on these per the test results. However, I had been told sometime earlier last year that my blood sugar level was too high and that I needed to decrease it. Unfortunately, that took a back seat with my focus on cholesterol and sodium. As a result, I now need to adapt my diet further and decrease my sugar and simple carb intake. In plain English, that means cutting out the sweets and snacks I love so much. Damn ...

So ... on the bright side, I am guessing that my weight, which had pretty much stabilized over the past several months (loss of about 25 pounds), will finally take that second dive that I have been waiting to see. I am pretty good at sticking to diets once I set my mind to eat properly, so I hope that future reports will include a lowering of blood sugar and more weight reduction. But damn -- I am looking so hot already that the females of the world will be clamoring for me even more. It is rough, I know, but what can one do?