Hairy

I was shaving in the shower this morning using a razor I received free through the Wal-Mart web site. I try not to go into the store, but I do have them send me all the free stuff they offer, but anyway. So, I’m shaving with this thing that has 30 or 40 blades on it and I notice how effortlessly it is gliding over my face and how smooth my cheeks feel when I make a pass. It is a far cry from my normal routine with the old single blade Bic that requires a concerted effort and supreme concentration to get even my meager stubble to disappear. “I could get used to this,” I thought, for a moment forgetting the outrageous refill costs associated with the poly-blade technology. Now, I am no Hair Bear unlike many of those on my Mother’s side of the family. You know the type, hair coming out of their fingernails and such. My little brother can turn into Grizzly Adams in a few days while I spent those 7 or 8 years in College trying to fill in my cheesy Van Dyke (unsuccessfully). There are still many spots on my face where no hair has deigned to appear in all these years of being an adult. Most of the family picked up a gene somewhere that allows the face to be obscured. Me? I got the Choctaw blood. I can grow some straight, long, dark, glorious hair on my head but the face is that of a teen yet. I shave every day, but honestly, I don't think anyone would notice if I didn't for a few.

So, imagine my surprise when I looked in the mirror just a few hours after shaving on one of my many get the hell out of my chair bathroom breaks and noticed my upper lip had sprung a hair leak and I was well on the way to this:



The rest of the family





I am so going as the Bandit next year at Halloween.


I have always thought playing MTTs was easy. The dealing with such wild results is not. In small ones, play tight as hell and then try to steal antes or double through when the blinds start to go up. In massive ones, play very aggressive early and get a big chip stack so you can survive the multiple coin flips you will have to go through to finish high. These two mantras have served me well over the last few years but sometimes there is just nothing you can do to prevent from getting knocked out. In the MATH, I got lucky early and double, doubled with a set over set and another similar hand. I then went card muerte and had few opportunities to play as I was stuck in spots where I would be pushing where I was definitely going to get called and definitely didn’t want them. I think many players don't accurately take into account other's stack sizes when they make their own play. If I push into a raiser that then calls with a seemingly crappy hand, the first thing I need to do is review the history to see if they were even close to committed. Also, I have to realize many people's idea of being tied to a hand may be much looser than mine. That didn't matter here. I ended up AI in late position with Ace-face and a prior raiser at a table of seven. This scenario is straight out of the Harrington book and I pushed, getting called and being a decided underdog. I had a little bit of fold equity but there is none when your foe has KK. Out in fifteenth which is respectable but short of the goal.

The Mookie was bad from the get-go as I never got above my starting stack. When I finally picked up KK with an early position raiser, I went AI. The button pushed over the top and every one folded. Of course, I was up against AA and out in the bottom half.

Tonight is the Riverchasers where I got heads up last weak with Lucko, a very strong player. I found the heads-up to be very entertaining until I made a big mistake after taking the lead. I pushed top pair into a flopped straight and gave up the lead as soon as I got it. I have a tendency to push a little hard sometimes in an attempt to overwhelm and it cost me there. The match ended on an interesting hand. You can check Lucko’s sight for the details but I felt it was the right play for me to call with KJ on the last hand at the time and in retrospect still feel it was correct. Anyway, he played well as always and I got a second in an event that has minefield potential every week.