'Twas The Week Before Christmas

Good morning everyone.  In 1822, Clement Clarke Moore wrote " 'Twas The Night Before Christmas" (unless you believe that it was written by Major Henry Livingston Jr.).  You poker players know that it is never easy, right?  There is always a sweat...  :)  Well, WHOEVER wrote it, I raised yesterday...  I will be staying in Las Vegas for a week in December, returning home on Christmas Eve...  Yesterday I booked the round-trip flights, with a six-night stay on the Strip, including a weekend, for $388.00 (and that's rounding up)...  :)  Based on a preliminary survey of about three people (I am very thorough), it also looks like I might to be able to get a "sponsorship deal" from some of my coworkers and customers for this trip relating to the poker and football parlay-ticket betting that I plan on doing.  I am currently mulling over whether I want to ask for 5 or 10 dollars per person (to raise $500.00 or $1,000.00 total), where I have approximately a 30-40% stake in the action.  I don't think that $500.00 will be enough, but I think that $1,000.00 is too much, thus the mulling over...  This would allow me to play in the poker tournaments and cash games of my choosing and give us all some action on the college bowl games into early January.  If any of you readers are interested in signing on, just let me know - there is still plenty of time to send me a check (seriously)...  :)

Speaking of football betting and my 19-11 record against the spread over the last 3 weeks, it will be nice to get my grubby little paws on some parlay tickets because I am currently watching these games every weekend half-afraid that I will actually go 10-0 sometime and make $0.00 for my effort...  A 10-team $2.00 parlay ticket pays $1,600.00 if you hit it, and that would just be the first $2.00 bet on those 10 teams...

Oh, the World Series of Freakin Poker...  If you haven't been following the blog on a daily basis, I was in Harper's (my workplace) for about fifteen hours last Monday and Tuesday watching WSOP coverage from the Rio.  Actually, I was watching coverage for about 12 hours while waiting around for the other 3 hours because I got my viewing information from a sketchy online source, but anyway...  ANYWAY, the final 9 only played down to 6 people on Monday night before I "hit the wall" and had to leave at midnight.  Then on Tuesday, when they started the action with 3 players remaining, I watched them play poker for SEVEN hours, and when I left, they still had..., THREE PLAYERS REMAINING...  I only learned the next morning from Lucki Duck's blog that they played for ANOTHER FIVE HOURS before crowning a champion...  I once again enjoyed the "hole cards" being hidden throughout the duration of the hand because I like trying to put people on hands.  One of my friends watching the action with me on Monday as I tried to breakdown the hands said, "you need to play poker Coach..."  Ummmmm, thanks...  :)  Next month, ha ha...  In the fifteen hours of "action" that I watched, I think that Jesse Sylvia alone took an hour of my life that I will never get back while deciding how to act on his hands...  It is funny that I started rooting for Jake Balsiger (the 21 year-old from Arizona State who took 3rd place) to win on Monday AFTER I made a correct read on one of his hands.  The flop came K J x, and after he quickly, subconsciously glanced at this chips, I said, "he's got something out there, at least the Jack, maybe the King..."  What baffled me in a few of the hands that I saw was players checking top pair on boards where they were giving their opponents free cards to hit flush draws - very strange...  That is probably the reason why I will be asking for donations to play 2-4 limit poker in Las Vegas next month...  :)  Actually, I want to play in at least 3 tournaments when I visit, with at least 1 of those being a $100.00 plus deep-stack buy-in event.  We'll see how that goes...

I hope that you have a great day and I will see you again tomorrow for my Thursday ramble.