Good News Today & Off To Texas

Scholastic Bowl State Finals

Today had an air of excitement since my son's Scholastic Bowl team, in only its second season, competed at the state tournament. They were one of eight teams in their division that qualified for state.

Expectations were high as the team won a squeaker in the first game in its bracket. However, the next game was against a special high school that was designed to recruit the best science and math students in the state. Sheesh, were they tough! Needless to say, the brainiacs took the rookies to town. They eventually won the tournament.

The final game was against an experienced team from a wealthy suburban Chicago school that was three times the size of my son's school. Another lesson for the rookie team. This team only lost one game -- to the braniac team, of course!

We were pretty proud of my son and his team. My kids were never interested in sports, so getting to go to the state finals of Scholastic Bowl competition was a thrill.

What ... a job????

Finally, after almost two years spent searching for a professional job, my wife finally got a job offer! The position is currently half time with the possibility of it moving to full time. This works well for now as it gets her back doing what she has come to love -- training students and staff in computer software applications -- while allowing her to keep her part-time job assisting with the religious education and the administration of the local temple. She is very excited, as the tough job market and her lack of success in landing a job had begun to wear on her.

Off to Texas

In the morning we are hitting the road to fetch my daughter home from Texas. She just was not ready to move that far from home yet and had a terrible string of things happen to her. I am not sure how her return will work out, but it was certainly terrible for us to see how unhappy she has been these past couple of months. Unfortunately, this was an expensive lesson for both her and us. However, she is doing excellent work in her online classes, so at least her education is progressing.

Las Vegas calling lightning36 ...

Reservations are now set for my next trip to Las Vegas -- June 19-24. I will be staying at Bally's the length of the trip. I'll bet The Neophyte and Lucki Duck are surprised to hear this! Anyone else going to Las Vegas that week? I am not sure what tournaments I might play -- maybe WSOP donkathon, Venetian Deep Stack, the summer series at Binions or the Golden Nugget -- who knows?

I am taking my laptop with me to hopefully post on the road these next few days. It looks like it is time to experience part of America one mile at a time.

Till next time ...

Friday Family Updates

Sometimes things just do not work out, as my oldest daughter found out the hard way. Her move to Texas this past January did not turn out the way she hoped. She was immediately homesick, had difficulty finding a job, had to deal with bed bugs three times, had car problems, blew a tire, on and on ... We finally decided that enough was enough and pulled the plug on her Texas adventure. She is really looking forward to coming home despite having to immediately live with her parents! I'll be heading into Lucki Duck territory in a week to get her.

Mrs. lightning has a job interview at the neighboring university next week. We hope it goes well. Although she has applied for a number of university jobs, this will be only her second interview. She is almost at the two year mark without full-time professional employment. She has always been able to find part-time gigs that don't pay much, but getting something more closely fitting her education, experience, and skills would be nice.

It was about one year ago that we started checking into a health problem my son was having. On April 2, 2010, I wrote a post about my son's early struggles in life. Among other things, I said "Challenges exist in every family. We seemed to have weathered this major one." Little was I to know that on one week later my son would be diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, necessitating an immediate trip to the Mayo Clinic for surgery.

I am happy to report that my son's recovery has been excellent. He appears to remain cancer-free. He has really gotten into school work, and we think that by the end of his high school junior year he will have already accumulated 29 hours of college-level credit thanks to taking Russian at the local community college and testing high enough to receive many AP credits.

My youngest daughter survived her bullying problems from a couple of years ago and can not wait to get out of middle school and begin high school in the fall. She is still waiting for her dad to take her back to Las Vegas!

As for me -- well, I'm still chugging along. My plan for healthier living got waylaid last spring due to dealing with the cancer ordeal. However, I am giving it a shot again and have already started changing my diet and eating habits. The exercise part will soon follow. I continue to have a great secure job, and I am certainly thankful of that in this economy. However, the legislative peckerheads in Illinois are doing everything they can to get at my pension money. Only time will tell how successful they will be.

I continue to play online poker, probably with less enthusiasm than in the past. I need to play more b&m poker. I am excited to hear, however, that BBT6 is on the way!

That is it from my little corner of the world. Challenges are always present, but I am thankful to have the life, family, and friends that I have, including several of you online poker donks! My best to all of you as we make our way through this thing we call life.

Wasn't I Just in Las Vegas in December?

I guess I was. However, it was now the end of February and time for the first Las Vegas trip of 2011. It is hard to believe that it is already over one week since I checked into my hotel for the trip. Time flies, eh?

The trip actually began the night before. Since I was leaving on one of the early (6:50 am) flights out of Chicago, I chose to drive up to my mom’s house the evening before. Therefore, in the morning I would only need to drive 30 minutes to the airport instead of two hours.

My flight Sunday morning was only half full and got in 20 minutes early. As soon as I got to the baggage claim area – BOOM! – my suitcase was right in front of me. I took these to be good signs.

After checking into my room at the Imperial Palace, I made tracks to catch the 11:00 am bounty tournament at The Mirage. I had never played at The Mirage before, so I was looking forward to this. Unfortunately, things did not go well. The table lucksack was catching and hitting every card and flop. He started getting a huge stack and began pushing everyone around. I finally saw my chance when I was dealy Q-Q in middle position. The lucksack had already raised, and I re-raised. He called. The rainbow flop with middle cards made me think that I was way ahead. I was afraid that he would chase a straight, however. He checked, and I made a big bet. He went all in and I called. The mofo flopped a set! I would have certainly preferred a turn or river suck out, but it was not to come that day.

After a quick lunch, it was time for me to make my first appearance in my Las Vegas home, the Bally’s poker room. I texted The Neophyte and he soon met me there. It is always fun meeting bloggers in person for the first time. Neo sat down at $1/2 NL and it was off to the show!

The highlight of the long session came when I limped into a family pot in late position with Q-2 sooted. The flop: Q-2-2! I checked the flop and hoped that someone would hit something on the turn. A guy in early position raised, and I just smooth called. The river came and he checked. I started counting out a big raise, and the guy got all excited and pushed all his chips in! The dealer was trying to get control of things and I just said “It’s fine. I’m all in anyway.” I turned over my flopped boat and he mucked his cards in disgust. Big pot. He stepped away from the table for a minute and bought back in for only $100. I was dealt A-A and raised to $15. The other player pushed all in and of course, I called. He flipped over A-K sooted. He didn’t suck out, and I felted him for the second time in minutes. Man was he pissed. He stormed out and I never saw him the rest of my trip.

Neo headed out to eat dinner (I met his wife, the Poker Queen, at this time)but I was not hungry and stayed at the table. After several hours I took a dinner break and then went back to the poker room. In the meantime, I was setting up a meeting with two old friends from the Shark Poker Tour, HyppieChyck and JigDog. Jiggy worked until midnight, so we made plans to meet in Casino Royale ($1 Michelob bottles!) at about 1:00 am. Hyppie and Jiggy were pretty much just as they are at the virtual tables – lots of fun! We talked a lot about the Shark Poker Tour, some of the players, and life in general. After a few hours and a few beers, I hit the wall and had to call it a night as my day was already past the 24 hour mark. I headed back to the IP to hit the sheets.

My usual routine in Las Vegas in to play cash games until about 5 in the morning, then sleep through the rest of the morning. The Neophyte and Lucki Duck, however, seem to believe in this strange ritual in Las Vegas called breakfast. I have heard it exists, but …

Monday -- With all the good things I had heard about the Hash House A Go Go from others and just this trip from Neo, I decided to give it a try. I decided to go with the chicken salad sandwich. The verdict: very good. The Texas toast made it huge, and the bacon, cucumbers, other flavors blended in made it very different.

Played some $1/2 at Bally’s (naturally) with Neo and saw him take two nasty beats in a row to a below average player who chased. Unfortunately, the down side of playing at Bally’s is that the poor players will sometimes hit when they chase. Neo should have had a big stack and been ruling the table. Instead, he had to take his lumps. Poker really sucks sometimes.

This was just a long day of cash poker. A few potential evening plans never materialized, so I was satisfied to play long into the night.

Tuesday had a terrific start. I had barely gotten to bed when an alarm went off in the IP. I had to throw some clothes on and dash down ten floors of stairs. The funny thing was that once outside, it was like nothing happened. No one told us whether to stay outside or go back. Everything seemed normal in the casino. Sheesh.

The day began with another lunch at Hash House A Go Go. The salads looked so good that I had to try another – the cobb salad minus blue cheese. It was excellent.

It was back to Bally’s for more cash games for the afternoon. The evening would be fun as Neo and Poker Queen were going to Green Valley Ranch and I went along. On the way, we all got our first taste of In-N-Out Burger. The verdict: Pretty good for a regular hamburger joint. Not sure that I hold it in as great esteem as others do. But I will go back.

I really liked Green Valley Ranch. Nice casino with lots of different food options, especially inexpensive ones. The poker room was pretty big, but when we got there only a few tables were open. The room started to fill up as the after dinner crowd filtered in. My end of the table had a few players talking and having fun. Neo’s end was quiet. In fact, even when the room was filled, it seemed waaay too quiet. Maybe I am just used to the noise at Bally’s. I made my only real error of the trip when I failed to notice a pair on the board when I hit the second nut flush on the river. I was shocked at a re-raise, thinking that someone perhaps rivered the nut flush. The full house surprised me.

After Green Valley, we went back to … Bally’s! I texted Lucki Duck to see if he was up for some donkatude, but it looks like he didn’t get the message until the next morning. So … Neo and I hit up some more $1/2 NL. We had some fun guys at our end of the table, and that along with a young, busty blond cocktail waitress serving plenty of beer and Jaeger Bombs, we had a great time.

Final day (Wednesday): Lucki Duck and I arranged to meet at Bally’s poker room (his choice – I swear!). We played some $1/2 NL, then went to lunch with his wife, Neo, and Poker Queen. As Neo and Lucki have written, it was a great lunch with just a group of people talking about families, jobs, etc.

After lunch, it was time for me to leave. I hopped a cab to the airport and had a nice flight home – in early again (thank you Southwest!). I got home at about 1:00 am Thursday – just enough time for a few hours sleep before leaving for work at 7:30 am.

So … what to make of this trip? Although I enjoy playing at Bally’s, sometimes the horrific beats tend to dent your stack. That is the price for playing with some really horrible players, I guess.

The best part of this trip, however, was very clearly meeting and hanging out with some online poker friends. Downing beers with Hyppie and Jiggy was great. I wish I had had more time to talk with them.

Playing poker with The Neophyte and Lucki Ducki and meeting their wives was priceless. In case you have never met them or played against them, Neo and Lucki are great guys that I am proud to call friends. They both have wonderful wives and are bright, witty, and solid poker players. So many times I have gone to Las Vegas by myself to get away from the world and have talked to very few people. This trip felt more like I was playing poker in a modified home game where the experience was much more valuable than the bottom line profit or loss.

They were, of course, very charitable in letting me blab on and on with my endless stories. But … that is part of what friends are for, right?

Next Las Vegas trip: Unplanned at this time, but probably sometime during the WSOP.