Surfergeeks

Wow!

Last night, Jen & Mike invited us over to their place for a full seven-course meal that Jen practically made from scratch. About the only things she didn’t was bake the bread, slaughter and butcher the cow, catch the fish, or grow the vegetables! EVERYTHING else was made pretty much from scratch!

First, before I begin to describe the culinary delights we partook in, let me apologize to Jen – I am absolutely going to BUTCHER the proper names and everything that was in each course, but I’m hoping that I’ll be able to convey through my words how delicious everything was.

Okay, the first course was an bread-based appetizer that had this absolutely delicious spread on it, along with a strip of roasted red pepper. Small, but oh-so-tasty! Besides, we had a seemingly endless plate of Portugese bread.

The next course was a salad with a home-made herb-based vinagarette dressing. Yummy. Oh yeah, and more Portugese bread.

Next up was the soup. It was called ‘Sane Mushroom Soup’ (as opposed to being insane). Okay, now those of you that know me well know that I don’t touch Cream of Anything soup – especially mushroom! Ewww. Icky. Let me be the first to say – this was NOTHING like what Campbell’s or any other soup company makes. The soup itself was made up of portabello and one other type of mushroom (I forget). It then had a garnish of trouffles and trouffle oil (the mushroom trouffle, not the dessert trouffle). Prior to my first spoon full, I was hesitant, but that quickly disappeared.

Three down, four to go. Next up was a delightful pasta plate with homemade pasta sauce, homemade ravioli with spinach inside it. Yum yum yum!

Now, around this time, Nikki was starting to lose steam. She was up fairly early and didn’t have a nap in the afternoon like I did. Also, prior to starting to eat, she wasn’t feeling well. Once she started to eat though, she felt better. Yet, oddly enough, she denies that her ill feelings had anything to do with hunger. Weird huh?

Alright, we’re starting to get into the main stuff now. Next up – fish. Fish?!?! Ugh. Salmon????? Ugh-ier!!! Jen KNOWS I don’t like fish, but I told her I’d at least try it. She was very cool about it. Oh, the salmon was served with a spicy pesto sauce. The salmon was grilled, and, much to my surprise, didn’t taste the least bit fishy. With the pesto, it went down no problem and I finished off the entire portion.

We’ve now reached the main entrée: Beef Tenderloin steaks. These were served with red potatoes and aspargus. Now, we’ve had these steaks before at Jen’s, and let me tell you, they are absolutely the BEST steaks I’ve ever had. Last night was no exception.

Alirght, we’ve polished off six courses, and I think I’ve probably done in half a loaf of scrumptious Portugese bread. Everyone is staring to get full! But wait, there’s still dessert to come! It was a German chocolate cake. I’m not a big sweets/chocolate person and most cakes I usually find too rich to enjoy. Once again, Jen comes through with a delicious dessert. Now, as I said, we were all getting pretty full, but I managed to finish off dessert as well. Wow. Sooo full. There were still two pieces of bread left, but I was too full to enjoy any more bread.

From the bottom of my stomach, thank you Jen & Mike for an absolutely delicious dinner! Nikki’s at work right now, but I know she enjoyed it as well and thanks you too!

Well, tonight was the TalkingPoker.com Heads-Up tourney, graciously organized by PShabi. There ended up being 18 people registered for the tournament. So, being a heads-up tourney, this meant that there were a LOT of byes. 14 of them to be exact. The first round, four people played. Four out of 18. Yep, you guessed it, I had to play in it. Not only that, so did Nikki! Seriously, what the hell are the odds of that??? At least we didn’t end up against one another. No, instead I get stuck playing against bdawg. bdawg is good. Very good. He also got Pwned! So, next round I’m up against Mayhem. Mayhem is an excellent player, one of the best on the forum. He joined Bdawg on the rail. NEXT! Pshabi!!! My arch-nemesis! Let’s see here. Ah, what the hell, here’s the hand history from my match-up against PShabi:

Hand 1:
PokerStars Game #4077189393: Tournament #19851688, Hold’em No Limit – Match Round III, Level I (40/80) – 2006/02/23 – 22:35:01 (ET)
Table ’19851688 1′ One on One Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: Robbie Robb (6000 in chips)
Seat 2: PShabi (6000 in chips)
Robbie Robb: posts small blind 40
PShabi: posts big blind 80
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Robbie Robb [Td 5s]
Robbie Robb: calls 40
PShabi said, “oh no!”
Robbie Robb said, “excellent”
PShabi said, “my arch nemesis”
PShabi: checks
*** FLOP *** [Th Ts 8h]
PShabi said, “gl my friend”
Robbie Robb said, “u2″
PShabi: bets 80
Robbie Robb: raises 80 to 160
PShabi: folds
Robbie Robb collected 320 from pot
Robbie Robb: shows [Td 5s] (three of a kind, Tens)
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 320 | Rake 0
Board [Th Ts 8h]
Seat 1: Robbie Robb (button) (small blind) collected (320)
Seat 2: PShabi (big blind) folded on the Flop

Hand 2:
PokerStars Game #4077198601: Tournament #19851688, Hold’em No Limit – Match Round III, Level I (40/80) – 2006/02/23 – 22:35:39 (ET)
Table ’19851688 1′ One on One Seat #2 is the button
Seat 1: Robbie Robb (6160 in chips)
Seat 2: PShabi (5840 in chips)
PShabi: posts small blind 40
Robbie Robb: posts big blind 80
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Robbie Robb [Ts Qd]
PShabi said, “winners of this round cash”
PShabi: raises 80 to 160
Robbie Robb said, “yep”
Robbie Robb: calls 80
*** FLOP *** [Qs 8s 2d] < -- Nice! Top Pair.
Robbie Robb: bets 240
PShabi: calls 240
*** TURN *** [Qs 8s 2d] [Td] < -- w00t! Top two pair. At this point Shabi flips over 22 and I'm like NOOOOOOO FUUUUUUCCCCCKKKKK!!!!!
Robbie Robb: checks
PShabi: bets 550
Robbie Robb: raises 550 to 1100
PShabi: raises 900 to 2000
Robbie Robb: raises 3760 to 5760 and is all-in
PShabi: calls 3440 and is all-in
*** RIVER *** [Qs 8s 2d Td] [Qc] < -- Oh. My. Fucking. God!
Robbie Robb said, “damn”
Robbie Robb said, “omg!”
PShabi said, “no!”
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Robbie Robb: shows [Ts Qd] (a full house, Queens full of Tens)
PShabi: shows [2c 2h] (a full house, Deuces full of Queens)
Robbie Robb collected 11680 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 11680 | Rake 0
Board [Qs 8s 2d Td Qc]
Seat 1: Robbie Robb (big blind) showed [Ts Qd] and won (11680) with a full house, Queens full of Tens
Seat 2: PShabi (button) (small blind) showed [2c 2h] and lost with a full house, Deuces full of Queens

Yep, two whole hands and I bounced his ass to the rail! Then I ran up against Rogue23, our fearless leader. I just COULDN’T get a read on him at all. We traded back and forth a bit but he finally got the best of me. He sent me to the rail in 3rd place. He went on to face JDpoker$tar in the final table and beat JD.

So, 3rd place was good for some money. My roll’s gettin’ fatter and fatter!

Here’s a screenshot of the PokerStars private tourney lobby showing the WWdN #16 Robbie Robb Invitational next Tuesday night! This is sooooo cool.

So hopefully some of you with PS installed will come on out and join us for some fun.

Okay, tonight has just been TOO cool in the poker arena.

On a whim, I decided to entire the weekly WWdN Invitational tourney. The WWdN in that refers to Wil Wheaton dot Net. As in the actor. I’ve mentioned him on here before. The really cool thing about these tourneys is that if you knock Wil out, he names the next week’s tourney after you. So, guess what happened? You guessed it! I knocked out Wil Wheaton.

Here’s the hand that did it:

PokerStars Game #4054574335: Tournament #20140943, Hold’em No Limit – Level III (25/50) – 2006/02/21 – 21:02:49 (ET)
Table ’20140943 1′ Seat #7 is the button
Seat 1: Up4Poker (1860 in chips)
Seat 2: Boobie Lover (1675 in chips)
Seat 3: Wil Wheaton (940 in chips)
Seat 4: randomjustin (2035 in chips)
Seat 5: Wannstache (1315 in chips)
Seat 6: Obie34 (60 in chips)
Seat 7: VTepes (2250 in chips)
Seat 8: bdr1968 (1615 in chips)
Seat 9: Robbie Robb (1485 in chips)
bdr1968: posts small blind 25
Robbie Robb: posts big blind 50 < -- I'm in the big blind
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Robbie Robb [Jd As] < -- Here I'm dealt Jd As
Wil Wheaton said, “eep”
Up4Poker: folds
bdr1968 said, “i don’t want to play anymore”
Boobie Lover: folds
Wil Wheaton: raises 100 to 150 < -- 3x the big blind. Gotta do something about that.
randomjustin: folds
Wannstache: folds
VTepes said, “some justice”
Obie34: calls 60 and is all-in < -- in the hand, but almost broke
VTepes: folds
bdr1968: folds
Robbie Robb: calls 100 < -- Call Wil's raise
*** FLOP *** [Tc 9h 8c] < -- So the flop isn't GREAT for me, gives me an open ended straight draw so...
Robbie Robb: bets 150 < -- ...I lead out with a bet that's roughly 1/3 of the pot.
Wil Wheaton: raises 640 to 790 and is all-in < -- Wil goes all-in here.
Robbie Robb: calls 640 < -- I think about it briefly, and then call. I've got a bunch of outs for my straight. Wil turns over 7s 7c. I've got a lot of outs: 7d,7h,any queen, any jack, runner-runner queen-king, or any ace
*** TURN *** [Tc 9h 8c] [4c] < -- no help for me, gives Wil a flush draw. Cuts down on some of my outs.
*** RIVER *** [Tc 9h 8c 4c] [Ad] < -- BINGO!
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Robbie Robb: shows [Jd As] (a pair of Aces)
Wil Wheaton: shows [7s 7c] (a pair of Sevens) < -- Bye Bye Wil.
Robbie Robb collected 1760 from side pot
Obie34: shows [Ks 4h] (a pair of Fours)
Robbie Robb collected 205 from main pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 1965 Main pot 205. Side pot 1760. | Rake 0
Board [Tc 9h 8c 4c Ad]
Seat 1: Up4Poker folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 2: Boobie Lover folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 3: Wil Wheaton showed [7s 7c] and lost with a pair of Sevens
Seat 4: randomjustin folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 5: Wannstache folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 6: Obie34 showed [Ks 4h] and lost with a pair of Fours
Seat 7: VTepes (button) folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 8: bdr1968 (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 9: Robbie Robb (big blind) showed [Jd As] and won (1965) with a pair of Aces

So, that hand knocked Wil out of his tourney. No big prize or anything for knocking Wil out; however, next week’s tourney is going to be named the WWdN #16: Robbie Robb Invitational. How cool is that??? (okay, it would be cooler if I won money too but still pretty cool!)

I continued to play fairly well until we were getting close to the bubble for final table. To make any money on this tourney, you needed to make final table. Here’s the hand that did me in:

POKERSTARS GAME #4056018493: TOURNAMENT #20140943, HOLD’EM NO LIMIT – LEVEL IX (300/600) – 2006/02/21 – 22:48:47 (ET)
Table ’20140943 3′ Seat #4 is the button
Seat 2: Robbie Robb (4920 in chips)
Seat 3: ricoM (1670 in chips)
Seat 4: The Subhuman (10745 in chips)
Seat 5: CawtBluffin (4825 in chips)
Seat 6: bogieboo (8420 in chips)
Seat 8: badblood44 (13649 in chips)
Robbie Robb: posts the ante 50
ricoM: posts the ante 50
The Subhuman: posts the ante 50
CawtBluffin: posts the ante 50
bogieboo: posts the ante 50
badblood44: posts the ante 50
CawtBluffin: posts small blind 300
bogieboo: posts big blind 600
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Robbie Robb [Qh Th] < -- Suited one gapper. Kinda low but at this point I was pretty desparate for a pot. I was actually hoping to steal the blinds on this one...
badblood44: folds
Robbie Robb: raises 4270 to 4870 and is all-in < -- ...so I move all in.
ricoM: folds
The Subhuman: folds
CawtBluffin: calls 4475 and is all-in < -- SHIT!
bogieboo: calls 4270 < -- FUCK!!!! CawtBluffin turns over Kc Ac and bogieboo turns over 9s 9c
*** FLOP *** [8h 6s Kd] < -- not much help. Gave Cawt a pair of kings. I've still got some outs though...
*** TURN *** [8h 6s Kd] [Jh] < -- This helps. Any heart = Win! Any ace or 9 = Win. 9h = straight flush for Robbie!!
*** RIVER *** [8h 6s Kd Jh] [4c] < -- Not an ace or heart. Boo.
*** SHOW DOWN ***
bogieboo: shows [9s 9c] (a pair of Nines)
Robbie Robb: shows [Qh Th] (high card King)
bogieboo collected 190 from side pot
CawtBluffin: shows [Kc Ac] (a pair of Kings)
CawtBluffin collected 14625 from main pot
CawtBluffin said, “whew!”
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 14815 Main pot 14625. Side pot 190. | Rake 0
Board [8h 6s Kd Jh 4c]
Seat 2: Robbie Robb showed [Qh Th] and lost with high card King
Seat 3: ricoM folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 4: The Subhuman (button) folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 5: CawtBluffin (small blind) showed [Kc Ac] and won (14625) with a pair of Kings
Seat 6: bogieboo (big blind) showed [9s 9c] and won (190) with a pair of Nines
Seat 8: badblood44 folded before Flop (didn’t bet)

So that was the end of my tourney. I busted out 12th. Three more spots and I’d have made the final table and made some money. Still, it was a terrific night! I’ll definitely be back next week to play in the tourney named after me.

Private and look for the WWdN #16: Robbie Robb Invitational. You’ll need the password to register. The password is: monkey.

Yesterday was a pretty decent day for poker for me. It started off in the morning when I played a $5 SNG on UltimateBet. I won that one so that was $25 for me. Yay me! Then, starting at 4:30pm, four of my boys from the poker forum that I frequent, http://www.talkingpoker.com, played in the $215 tournament on PokerStars. The head honcho placed in the money and won a few hundred dollars but the real highlight was my man Mayhem. He went DEEP into the tourney, at one point, with only about 90 of the 5500 players remaining, holding down first place briefly. Once the tourney hit the final 18 people though he ran into some hot hands and finished in 13th. Thirteenth!!! Out of over 5500 people!!!! That was good for $5K. Oh yeah, the best part about it: he won his way into the tourney playing in a $3 rebuy tourney the day before. So even after you factor in his rebuys he still saw more than a 100x increase on his investment! Way to go Mayhem!

But, by and far, the absolute BEST part of the day was last night’s final league event. Many of you know that I’ve been playing in a league that the forum organized. Well, last night was the last of the ten games. Going into it, I was in second place in the points standing. Before going into the details of last night, here’s a run-down of the top four spots:

1. Zybomb – 149.4 points. < -- This guy pretty much DOMINATED the early events in the league building his points quick. Unfortunately, he couldn't make the final two events.
2. Robbie Robb – 117.3 points. < -- Your hero.
3. JDPoker$tar7 – 115.5 points. < -- You are GOING to see this guy at MANY televised final tables....once he turns 21. :-)
4. PShabi – 112.1 points. < -- Absolutely terrific limit player. Obviously a pretty decent no-limit player since he's in the top four.

Fifth place was down around 58 points. Okay, that was the standings prior to last night’s game. We ended up with 11 people playing last night. That meant that the winner would get 44 points. It also meant that the four of us were a lock for the money spots. Now, as I mentioned, Zybomb didn’t play last night. Alas, neither did JDPoker$tar7 as he had a snowboarding trip planned. So it was all up to PShabi and I.

And the cards are in the air. I got off to a little bit of a rocky start and managed to donk off about 1/3 of my stack. I managed to get those back and as the field whittled down I was still sitting around the average. When we hit four players, the money bubble, there was me, PShabi, kkirk, and TonyCheval. PShabi had about 7000 in chips while the 3 of us had about 2500 each. Things were not looking up for our hero. If PShabi finished ahead of me in points, he would take over 2nd and bump me to 3rd. If he WON the game, he would jump to first and I’d fall to 3rd.

So, needless to say, NOBODY wanted to go out on the bubble so play tightened up. Finally Tony made a move and Shabi called him. Shabi caught the flush and knocked Tony to the rail. And then there were three. kkirk wasn’t actually part of the league (ie. he didn’t pay the league fees so he wasn’t in the running for the league money – just the money from the buy-in last night) but he’s still a very strong player. In Thursday’s game, he finished in second. So, it was around this time that everyone got to talking that it was only right that it be Shabi & I heads-up to battle it out for first. Well, kkirk had other plans and wanted to spoil that. So the cards are dealt and I look down to see a king and a six (K6o), kirk moves all in with the remainder of his stack, which by this point had dwindled to a measly 275 chips. PShabi folded and, wanting my damndest to knock him out, I called. At this point I was chip leader with just over 9K in points and Pshabi had just under 7K. So, now that I’ve called kirk, we turn over our cards and he shows a K9o. Oh oh. The flop comes Js-4c-7d, a rainbow flop that doesn’t help either of us. The turn comes 8d. Still not much help. It’s opened up a few more outs for me now. Obviously a 6 will give me a pair and the win, but with that 8 coming up, it gives me an inside straight draw if a 5 rivers. The rivers shows….a 6! I’ve knocked kirk out and the world is right: PShabi & I are heads-up.

Now this is for ALL the marbles at this point. The winner of this heads-up match will not only win $55 from the buy-ins for the night, but will also take over first place in the league and win it, and the $80 prize that goes with it. Going into heads-up I had 9533 in chips and Shabi had 6967. Without going into the detail of all 49 hands we played heads-up, the chips were back in forth. At point, Shabi had a 2:1 chip lead over me. I then flipped that around and took a 2:1 chip lead over him. Let’s take a look at this hand though: I’m sitting at 12116 in chips and Shabi has 4384. I look at my cards and see QcAs. EXCELLENT hand heads up. The blinds at this point are 200/400 with 25 antes. So right off the bat the pots worth 650. Shabi’s in the small blind and calls the 200 to complete the blind. Not really wanting to scare him out of the pot, I check. The flop comes Jd-8c-9h. That’s right boys & girls, you’re hero just flopped an gutshot straight draw, needing to see a ten come up. I was first to act and I checked it to Shabi. He bet 850 and I called him. The turn shows a Th! Sweet! I just made my Q-high straight! I bet out 1600, about 2/3 the pot. PShabi quickly raises me all-in and I just as quickly call him. Had this been a live table, there’s a good chance my chips would have beat his to the middle. He turns over a Js-7h, giving him a J-high straight. Not quite good enough to beat my Q-high straight. As you have probably surmised from the chip counts, that was the last hand of the tourney. I took down the final league game, winning $55 AND giving me the league win which is good for $80! All in all, a VERY good day for poker for Rob.

The surprising part of this story is that it all took place on a Sunday. Believe me when I say, Sundays are usually VERY bad for me for poker.

A new league is starting soon over at the forum. We’re looking at expanding it from 10 games and introducing alternate games into it. Most likely it will be Omaha Hi/Lo we play as well as Hold ‘Em. So, if you’d like to play in a league with a chance to win some good money, drop by the forum and sign-up. The cost will most likely be $10 in league fees and each game will be a $10+1 buyin. I *think* it’s going to be a 20-event league over a month or 6 weeks. Oh yeah, the forum’s also a great place to hang out if you want to improve your game. It’s frequented by professional and semi-professional players, some of who have final tabled events at the WSOP!

As you’ve (hopefully) already noticed. Over there, to the left. No, the other left dummy (<—), is a chat box. It lets you post little one liners or whatever you feel like posting. Have fun!

Shazaam! Just like that, it’s winter around these here parts. Now, I don’t think that ANYONE can complain about the “winter” we’ve had thus far. I think prior to today, we’ve had one day where the temperature dropped below -10°. Sure, we’ve had some snow, but not anything really significant.

Now, I’m not sure exactly how long this cold snap is going to last, but the weather network is saying that by Wednesday we’ll back be up to 0° so that’s pretty good.

STICKY: Hey all! The next poker night is Saturday, March 18th. Shoot me an email if you want in or want more info.

Oops. Jason pointed out that I never did a recap of the poker night. That’s a big bad on my part. Things are a little hazy now but the way it ended up was this:

We ended up down to four players: Mike C, Scott D, Nikki & I. Mike’s full house sorta ran into my quads (hehe) and knocked his ass to the rail. Then there were three. I donked off a bunch o’ chips and finally pushed all-in and lost. So that left Nikki & Scott heads-up. It wasn’t pretty. Scott went home with $70 in his pocket. Way to go Scott!

Check this out.

These are photographs of painted rooms.  Now the neat thing is all the rooms are painted so that they create an optical illusion.  Depending on what angle you view each room will depend on the image that appears from the paint.