I got a new blog,

http://sportstutor.blogspot.com/

enjoy

Foxwoods tonight! me and patrick are headin down after i get outta work, gonna spend most of the day there tomorrow too...

playing in a tourney on saturday in taunton that i want to win.

Partypoker recently sent me an email saying they were deleting my bonus points that i had accounted over the past year because, i THINK, i hadn't logged in in over a month. It mighta been something different, i didnt really give a shit, but i was pissed at the principle of taking away what approximates to maybe 2 cents of real money for every point, maybe half a cent, i dont know. but its definately not a lot. So i wrote a little e-mail to them, first from my hotmail address, which apparently wasnt the one i signed up to the site with. so i received this automated message from them:
****
Dear Player,

Thank you for contacting us.

We have been unable to trace an active account from your email address.

Please reply to this message from the exact email address you registered with us
at the time of signing up. You can see the registered email address by selecting
the 'Cashier' button on the bottom of the lobby.

This is a security measure to safeguard the account specific information of our
players.

Thank you for choosing us as your online gaming site!

Kusum
Poker Customer Care
****
here is the e-mail i just resent to the scum suckers:
======
I'm sure you guys do not really care about one customer who only uses your
site 3-4 times a year. But the fact that you take away any and all bonus
points that a person has earned after a certain period of inactivity is, in
my opinion, a terrible way to retain customers. I float from site to site
based on promotions, and when im running hot on a site, i tend to stick
around for a while. The few hundred or thousand points i lost were not a
lot, and i was never going to purchase anything other a free $5 or $10
tourney, but it's the principle. Why punish people who may be taking a
break? pokerroom.com has features that make it so a player CANNOT log on if
he or she has a gambling problem...you guys encourage it with all the
prop-type bets and blackjack and the high deposit limits and the attempts at
forcing people to play on your site simply to retain bonus points. I just
think that, from the perspective of someone who plays a lot of online poker,
your site is horrendous.

You'll always have the fish and newbies, and it's plenty obvious you're only
in the business to make money, but having some concern for the player is
definately not a bad thing. Today i got a phone call from an
absolutepoker.com representative asking what sites i play on, letting me
know of updates to their site, and stuff like that. I was truly impressed,
and while i understand you aren't going to personally contact 200,000
people, little things here and there would be nice.

you probably won't be receiving any more of my rake, and i will do
everything in my power to keep other players off of your site.
======


dont play party poker, play any other site. if you want a few good choices, check out ultimate bet, pokerroom, or fulltilt. other sites are good too. if you do play, and decide to sign up, send me an IM at pagodayea and ask me for my name so you can reference me, and i can receive some sort of bonus for referring you. Thanks.

New England Beer Fest is Saturday, can't wait. over 125 beers will be available for sampling, click around on www.beeradvocate.com and see what that's there. Patrick and I will be attending the VIP session from 12-430, getting some food and beer discussions and all sorts of delicious goodies. can't wait.

hung out with christine on tuesday, first time thats happened since...end of freshman year? been a long time, i had to see "good night, good luck" for school and she works at BU, so we met up at Fenway and re"hash"ed old times.

im bored now before work. been playing cards since 11, won 100 bucks but then i lost most of it on a $3-$6 table, oh well. That's poker!

i need a foxwoods trip, bad.

I won $2,000 in a week, placing 4th in a $20 tourney and 3rd in a $50 one. I like money.

School is going, radio stuff is fun but it just isn't me, i enjoy editing and writing.

Work is work, I need a real job soon. Should be interesting.

Marie is wonderful.

i dont know what to do. i love playing poker. i really have a great time playing, and its something i think im reasonably good at. but i cant fucking win. excluding a little game where i made $20 yesterday, i havent won in months. MONTHS. and i play enough that i need to win in order to justify me playing.

but heres the thing. i dont know why i cant win. its not just bad luck, i had that streak. tonight i did lose about $40 b/c of luck, and who knows how i would have played after that, but it goes deeper than that. but i also know that i dont suck, and i probably know more about the game than anyone i play with. im not as good putting into action what i know, but i am still able to make some pretty amazing reads on other players. but i cant win. facts are facts. i cant fucking win, and its killing me.

before i went to foxwoods, the one and only time, i was up about $300 in my poker "career." months later, im down $200. in the last week ive finished 3rd (no money) 2nd (money back), made $20, finished 3rd again (no money) and tonight i finished 5th (1 spot out of money) and then lost another $15 in a cash game that i had up and down and ultimately ended up broke because of luck. but i dont win.

i took some time off a few weeks ago and cut down a lot, i hadnt played on the net at all until this week and i wont be doin it anymore, and nothing is working. i cant see any serious flaws in my game, and even minor flaws dont seem to be the reasons im losing; maybe they are and mayve they're costing me hundreds of dollars.

and its also not a confidence thing. i know that i should be able to beat most of the people i play with. i go into almsot every game feeling like "tonights the night". a negative attitude will get you killed if your playing, so i dont play with it. arghhhhhhhhh

whatever the case, it fucking sucks, im really unhappy about it, and i know that i wont stop playing anytime soon. i said for a while that if cards started to be unprofitable that i would quit, but i dont know how i can do that. game at dale's tomorrow, we'll see how that goes.

quick insight i had about the canseco book today...

when you hear about steroids, you usually hear about a few things: the ball going farther, being hit harder, being able to swing faster/harder, and you're able to recover from workouts much quicker. Nothing has been "proven", of course, but these are what the mainstrem feels are the positive effects of steroids. on the negative side, your balls shrink, you have a lot more "minor" injuries and have trouble staying fully healthy, and then some aesthetic stuff.

but what canseco brings up repeatedly, and something that i havent heard ANYONE in the media ask him about, is his numerous references to muscle-twitches. he says steriods help improve the quick-twitch fibers we have in our bodies. any baseball fans understand where im going with this?

Barry. he's always been a great hitter, and would be a hall of famer without steroids, which he has admitted he used. but anyone who has watched him over the last couple years (and we watched about 100 giants games last year in the apartment) notices one thing about his swing. the quickness of it. you CANT sneak fastballs by the guy. my favorite at bat ever was bonds vs gagne, where barry managed to be AHEAD of a literally 100 mph fastball from gagne. now, if swinging at something that is coming at you 100 mph doesnt involve muscle twitch, i dont know what does.

its just an aspect of steroids ive never heard discussed, and i live and die by the sports radio/magazines/internet articles. ive always tried to figure out how steroids were really helping barry, because he really is one of the best hitters ever. the extra strength helped him put some balls into the water, and its obvious he has an amazing eye (which the juice doesnt help at all), but i really think the muscle-twitch aspect of the canseco book needs to be discussed and disected a lot more.

haha one more sidenote: in the book, jose says that all the twitching he does isnt because of the steroids; its something he's dealt with his whole life.

yea right

Since tuesday ive read over 500 pages of two very different books. The first one i finished was Canseco's new book, Juiced. it was really interesting, and i think its a good read for anyone who likes baseball. but what stands out is that only about half is actually about steroids, despite having nothing but 'roid titles. the other half is devoted to three things: 1)anecdotes about his ever-so-interesting life, 2) how shy and even tempered he is, and 3) the severe amount of racism he has experience being, ready for it? LATINO. He's a fuckin cuban!

he hates cal ripkin, mcgwire, giambi, because they're "all american white-boys that are protected by the liberal media." it seems pretty silly, but surprisingly he makes a few good points. the problem is, for the good points to be effective, you have to believe every word in the book, which is extremely hard to do.

the other book i read was for my pos 1968 history of america class, called "all souls" by michael patrick macdonald. one of the sadder stories ive read...its about his familt that grew up in southie. he had 10 or so brothers and sister living with his mom in a rundown apartment in southie, on welfare and shit. never had a real father figure for any of them, so all the kids basically grew up however they wanted, and in southie it meant lots of drugs, alcohol, guns, and racism. one of the boys died only a few weeks old, but then 3 others died because of drugs or crime before they were adults. one of the daughters tried to kill herself, spent weeks in a coma, and emerged with brain damage and never really recovered. one of the boys killed himself at like 15, he was crazy, and jumped off the roof...one was going to be a professional boxer, but started doin too much coke and got shot in a robbery for whitey bulger. crazy shit, and its a pretty sad story. the 13 yr old youngest son ended up getting charged with the murder of his best friend, ended up being convicted of unintentional manslaughter, even though the case should have never even gone to trial...

definately makes me happy with the upbringing ive had, and all the advantages and stuff ive been lucky to enjoy.

last week i spent $230 on "checking my engine", replacing spark plugs and a wire set and paying some greaseballs to fix it. what else do i find out? my tire is apparently ready to go soon. i mean, i drove 1500 miles w/the check engine light on cuz i didnt really care, but i dont think i can take the chance of having a tire blow, cuz it happened coming back from amherst and that sucked big time. plus i drive about 250 miles a week on the highway, not to mention all the potholes in boston and around here, so the tire is going to go sooner or later.

so i go to get a new tire, and since the potholes and snow and ice have fucked up alignment and it takes a whole lot of effort just to drive straight, i figured id get that set to. well, my last tire was only 79, but apparently this one is going to be 125. plus 60 for the alignment. so bam, another $200 gone. really getting to be pretty miserable with something every other week costing me 200, making it pretty difficult to save any money.

first i had to repay 550 to dale's parents for the security deposit on my apartment. then i didnt cancel the phone bill so i paid about another 100. then the car stuff. just sucks a lot. i mean, i got like 10,000 in my school account, but thats for next year so i dont gotta take out another loan, hopefully. i really just dont like living on each weeks paycheck. i did it at the apartment, because of all the partying and bills, but i really dont spend a lot of money at home and i still have managed to not save a dime.

oh well, baseball is coming up soon, and that will be awesome.

i went to buy canseco's book today, but barnes and noble didnt have it ready yet. kinda gay, i guess ill get it tomorrow. i know its trash, but as a prospective journalist i gotta read it. its interesting from all ive heard, and what is true and isnt true is going to be a helluva question for everyone to answer. but i need to know the whole story and what the whole book is about, plus i want to see pictures of jose. oh so dreamy.

i gotta work at 4 tonight. why am i still at trucchi's? its a good question, one im not positive how to answer. if they'd give me even 30 hours a week it would be fine, id make a little under 300, but thats not how it goes. oh well

enough rambling for now, id really like to think about something other than money, but its not gonna happen. cars, v-day, poker, bills, beer, heroin...everything involves money in one way or another.

tonight i lost 40 bux to dale, even tho we were playin against 5 or 6 or 7 other people. he kept taking me out. my top pair w/ace to his straight, my k-j to his k-q, whatever he needed, he had it, and i was left poor and lonely on the side of the felt. sucked major balls. i won about 23 last night, but lost 20 the night before that, so im still hurting a bit after a 220 bill on my car. and i need a new fuckin tire. i was really hopin tonight would prove profitable, and i played really well against everyone except dale. just not a whole lot i could do.

this past week was good, except poker is really getting on my nerves. after tonight, my overall for the past year is about +$5. otherwise, im fucking even. and the fact that in most of the games ive played ive been the most knowledgeable sucks balls. add in that ive spent well over a $100 on poker books and im in the hole. if i can, i should take time off and try to regroup and rethink everything i think i "know", but addictions are a motherfucker.

i gotta work at 8 tomorrow morn, so im goin to bed soon.

fucking poker. just got an update: dale won the third game, as well as the first and 2nd...so he won 70 + 90+ 70 = 230. fuck i coulda used any of that.

Helluva game last night, pats played well but not great, doin what they needed to do win. I woulda like to see rodney get the mvp, but branch did play a helluva game. only the third offensive mvp in super bowl history (out of 33) to get the mvp and not throw or catch a TD. impressive

me jim and pat watched the game at brads, coupled with copious amounts of beer. we played cards for a few hours before the game, and an hour after, jim took most of my money unfortunately. we were woken up at 6 am cuz brad had to go to work, so i came home with a healthy buzz and went back to bed for a few hours before class.

my dad recorded the game on dvd, im sure ill be watching it sometime, especially the 4th quarter cuz its kinda fuzzy.

also, no foots in the walls this time around, always a plus.

i gotta work tonight, and i gotta miss the parade tomorrow b/c i have a test at 11, definately sucks. i even went to last years on my broken foot. oh well.

D-Y-N-A-S-T-Y is the new argument, get used to hearing it. do i think they're a dynasty? pretty damn close, but i also dont really care. i <3 bill

Tomorrow is the big day, cant wait for kickoff...i just wanna see bethel run one back right from the start. or. izzo pop whoever the hell is running back philly's kicks and fumble and bruschi recover it. just to set the tone.

i gotta work at 7 tomorrow, sucks but ill be out plenty early to have some brews and get pumped up for 6:30.


30-16 patriots is my prediction.

just finished up two articles for my newswriting class. man, writing a 2 page article about real stuff twice a week really sucks. i mean, theres no other homework, or reading, or tests, or anything to do with the class, but 2 two-page papers a week about real stuff is a healthy dose of work.

especially combined with the immense reading for my other classes. but hey, thats college.

yea its really 630 AM right now, i woke up at 515 feeling a lot more refreshed than i ever should have. kind of freaked me out, especially on about 4 hours of sleep. i wish i knew more about how sleep cycles worked, i could prolly produce a pretty efficient day on 4-5 hours of sleep and not feel too tired for most of the week.

this weekend wasnt very interesting, although i think i played cards at janelles, which was fun. i won the first night, second night was just me dale and a black kid, renards brother for those who know him. it was a good time, especially night #1. drunk bitches running around yelling, 8 handed poker, and the lone 12 year old experiencing who knows what. plus i made 60 bucks.

all my debts are finally cleared, both to and from me. thats a good thing.

we lost our soccer game on tuesday night. played a team with a bunch of BSC kids on it, they were pretty good. being in shape vs a team filled with dropouts and potheads definately has its advantages, as they were able to literally run all over us. we lost 7-4, but physically we got our asses kicked. definately wasnt our best performance.

last night me, marc, sean, dale, jim, and pat played cards. marc won twice, which wasnt too much fun. but it was a good night. the celts looked really good and beat the nets by 20. they really have a great young core. if they can deal pierce and payton for something useful, watch out next year.

Super Bowl on Sunday, cant wait...this 2 week spread between championship sunday and the big one sucks big ones, its too much hype for nothing. TO this, TO that, Mitchell just stuck another foot in his mouth, the pats arent saying anything. its boring, quite frankly. i just want some goofooball. soon enough i suppose, but then not again for many months.

the pats should win, but i dont think we'll blow them out. maybe i just hate being confident and losing, maybe i think philly has a decent team. i know they arent going to roll over and play shitty. if donovan steps up and plays huge, i think he can be a difference maker. i just see the pats scoring whatever they need to win the game. 24, 31, 40, anything is possible.

i guess this is long enough for now, but a full baseball update will be soon.

(12 days 5 hours 18 minutes 19 seconds) <- from mlb.com's start til spring training!

gism

a washington nationals "fan", on being one of the 200 people who showed up to get autographs and talk to Nationals teammates Brian Schnieder and Brad Wilkerson:

"It's like a dream made real," said Colin Mills, who is the president of the Nationals Fan Club. "I'm just happy to have the opportunity just to see anybody in a Washington uniform. To be able to see two of our best players, it's just unbelievable."

----
....
poor bastards. 200 people? and mlb.com was listing it as a "success". hah

much to my chagrin, its still snowing now. i didnt go to my one class today because its an hour long, and there isnt anyplace to park in boston, and im not spending $7 on train stuff just for one class.the transportation time alone would have been 4 times as long as the class. dont know what im going to do next week though, cuz i dont think the snow is goin anywhere.

poker lately hasnt been goin well for me, im just losing on a regular basis, and it bothers me. i have a little less interest in it, but i still cant pass up a game...ever. oh well, things should turn around soon. maybe i need another book...

nah, i dont. i already have about 10, and i got tons of reading to do for classes. im reading hunter s thompsons fear and loathing on the 72 campaign trail, definately a good read so far with a lot of interesting looks at politics from a guy on lots of speed and whiskey. there were lots of similarities between 72 and 04 elections, mostly that all the democrats just wanted nixon the hell out of office, but there wasnt a good democratic candidate and every week a new person seemed like they were leading the party. i like it.

supposed to play an indoor game tonight, hopefully the snow wont cancel it. i really love soccer, and just playing once every week is a blast. but we shall see i guess.

jesus make it stop snowing!

snow sucks, especially the predicted 30 inches or whatever the hell its gonna be. so as i sit here trying not to play about 10 hours of poker online, i dont have much to do other than read, which isnt so bad. i got a lot of stuff for school to read, probably going to average 3-400 pages a week. naturally i wont be keeping up with it all, but we'll see how it goes.

im takin a history and principles of journalism course, by far the worst "history" course ive ever been involved in. ive only had 2 lectures, managed to fall asleep in both at some point, and im not really looking forward to any of what we're going to learn. i like journalism a lot, and all my other classes that ive had to take have had some value to them, but this one is definately going to be my low point of the semester.

for some reason, albeit my own choice, im taking Formal Organizations...

...

exactly. more on that at a later date when i figure out what the class is about. i thought my teacher was kind of a snobby bitch at first, but she seems a lot cooler after another class, but i think she has some definite bitchswitch she can flip just to keep control, because its only her third year teaching. eventually im going to analyze trucchi's in a 12 page paper, which im actually looking forward to, because itll give me a chance to put in writing what a terrible business it is. i might anonymously send it to someone at their office too, because they obviously have no idea what they're doing.

i think it just snowed another inch in the time it took me to write this...

im supposed to work at 8 tomorrow morning...they better close the fucking store or im not going to be happy.

GO PATS

i really love playoff football, and i love the patriots more. tomorrow's game has the potential to be game of the year by far in whole NFL. or we could get smoked. its so great having a team that possibly will play w/out 2 pro bowlers, as well as a host of other people, and troy brown will be recieving a good number of matchups w/reggie wayne...and we're still favored. its gonna be tough tho.

the falcons torched the rams by 30. they ran for over 300 yards. vick looked like a crazed man who did whatever he wanted. whoever plays in the nfc championship, its gonna be a helluva qb battle. any of the teams could win it. but they'll still lose to the pats or the colts. the steelers should have lost to the jets, i mean how afraid of them can you be. Ben is gonna lose next week.

corey needs to be amazing tomorrow, and i think he'll live up to it.

Bottom line: I'm short $200.

That's all that matters for now, but it was a really good time, and im very glad i went. the first 100 was on a No limit tourney that i just played a little scared and didnt get many cards for. i prolly placed like 70 out of 250, but i was never really in it, just hung around as long as i could. Patty mcd played, to everyone's surprise, and did pretty well for himself, placing in the top 50. one of justin's friends got 18th, netting $240. It was a good time, but tourneys are so dependent on catching some cards.

The next 100 was at a $1-$2 blind NL table. this means that the minimum bet is $2, but it can be raised any amount. the maximum to put at the table was 100. the guy 2 seats to my right had about $700 when i sat down, which i thought was impressive, until i saw him play. He just went all in all the time, even though he had twice what anyone else had on the table, probably more. he just tried to take huge pots, and he raised/called 15-20 bets before the flop at least 1/3 of the time, if not more. so i sat out the first 10 hands to get a feel for the table, and im glad i did. Right away i made a loose call w/a pair of 7s and a straight draw, and caught a lucky river to make about $40 and take some guys money. but then i tightened up and just played my game. i took at least a 100 from the big stacked guy when i had pocket queens, and i continued to bluff effectively and maximize my wins. after about 2 and a half hours, i was up to $350. i was feeling good, was prolly gonna play a little longer then take my extra money and maybe try some blackjack or somethin.

but then i got pocket queens again. somebody raised it to $10, i thought that was a good raise, and the big stack and another guy called, so there was already 45 in the pot. the flop comes j-9-5 rainbow (all different suits), and my hand is lookin pretty good again. im in last position, so i get to see what everyone does. one guy bets 10, the big stack naturally raises to 100, a bit of an overbet. why would he overbet it i wonder? i figure he's prolly got either ace-jack and wants to prevent overcards from falling, or a straight draw and he wants to win it right there. so i do what i shouldnt have done, i move my whole $350 all in and he calls in a heartbeat. after the river comes w/no queen, he shows me jack nine and all of a sudden im broke. i went from 2nd most chips and comfortable image at the table to nothing and down 200 for the day in about 2 minutes.

could i have played the hand differently? i didnt think he had trips, so i think a raise was definately in order after his bet. now, for everyone else at the table, a $100 bet would put them close to all in, except for me, unfortunately. if he had had pocket jacks, he would have reraised preflop, and i suppoer maybe with ace jack too. but not kj or qj. and i really thought he had the jack. they wernt suited, so playing the hand for $10 is a little loose, but i did know that he was loose. and over betting top 2 pair just to prevent a straight from drawing out isnt how i play. i suppose my best move would have been to reraise him to $200, leaving another $150 in front of me, in order to see his real strength. i dont know if i would have folded had he gone all in, which he would have, so i dont know if theres any way i could have saved my hard earned money.

in the end, i realized i can hold my own and probably do ok at the no limit table the in future. it is very loose, as everyone at my table said "$15 was the sweetener bet", meaning people would call just to see if they could win a big pot. and i did win lots of big pots. most of my reads were spot on, and i made a lot of good bluffs to pick up some decent sized pots. no one put me on a hand accurately, and whenever i showed a bluff everyone was genuinely confused and surprised. so im happy with my play, and i dont think i need to adjust much. the fathead, i mean big stack, prolly got a little into me because he went all in at least 40 times in the 2.5 hours i was with him, which doesnt happen with most people. i was thinking, if he has a jack, im going to have over $700 in front of me, which definately hurried my bet. but it was a good time, and im glad i went, i just wish i had something to show for aside from an empty wallet.

Tomorrow i'll be making me first foxwoods trip, playing in a $100 buy-in tourney the starts at 10 am, should be a good experience. pat's tagging along, and im goin w/justin govonlu and his friends. he's been a bunch of times, but im just looking to get a feel for real tournament play. $5000 for first place, and the top 30 places get money, so we'll see how it goes. Here's hopin lady luck is riding along with us.

The first soccer game since our heartbreaker in the championship is tonight. We had to beat the Dome team in the semi-finals, and shut them out, always embarrasing in indoor soccer. So they set up a rematch for tonight in the first game of 2nd session. We lost the final 10-8, even though we outplayed the other team for 35 of the 40 minutes. Game is at 10, then ill prolly head to bed to get some good rest for poker tomorrow.

Living a pretty simple life w/out school...actually its the same as when im in school, just w/out classes. work and ref when i can, poker and reading and sports when im not making money. the other night we played a championship indoor soccer game, helluva game, ended up losing 10-8. the last month has had me realize once again how much i love everything about soccer. playing a sport u love for a living has to be the best way to go into the work force...i work hard at my shitty job, and get nothing for it, and its hardly work. some people get to work hard and improve visibly on a constant basis, at the same time making more and more money and always having fun, seems too good to be true. writing about those people is the next best thing in my mind, so hopefully i can make a career out of that.

/ramble