My Plans For Tonight?
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Well thanks for asking!
I'm going to drink too much alkeehol and make an ass of myself with donkalicious play after play at the Mookie tonight. Who's with me?
That is all.
Until next time, may the felt be with you.
posted by TripJax @ 2:39 PM,
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The Bitch & Whine Cafe
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
After singing the praises of my new laptop yesterday, I've since had problems. Thankfully, my problem is not with the computer, but instead my wireless router. That biatch just ain't routin'. It decided to take a dump and that stinks. At the time I didn't know what the problem was, but after a visit from our friendly internet provider, things became crystal.Heading into work this morning, I was planning out a bitch and whine post all about my problems. I had it all set in motion up in the ole noggin', but when I sat down at my computer this morning, I came to a pretty simple realization. Bitching and whining just ain't my cup of jello. Sure if you go back and look through my archives, you'll find the occasional post that heads down that path. However, for the most part, that is just not me.
Okay so my wireless router sucks and I'm going to have to go get a new one. Holy smokes, I can't sign onto the internet without wires??? I can't shuffle up and deal online from my porch???Bastardos! I have it so fucking bad. I can't believe I have to physically plug a wire into my computer in order to have high speed internet access.
See how ridiculous that sounds?
At the end of the day, things are pretty damn spiffy for me. I have a smokin' hot wife, ChickJax (another in the line of poker bloggers who married up). I have a nice job that puts food on the table. I have two chitterlings, KidJax and LilJax, that pretty much pwn all other kids. Yadda Yadda Yadda. You get the idea.
Even when it comes down to poker, I have a hard time bitching and whining. I mean seriously, we feed off the fact that our opponents make mistakes. If we can minimize our mistakes, while capitalizing on our opponents mistakes, then the planets will align in the long run. At times, their mistakes will be rewarded at our cost. We just gotta sew it up.
Sure there are things like the UIGEA that should make any poker player want to bitch and whine, but that is not really what I'm getting at.
And please don't get me wrong here folks. If you bitch and whine on your own blog, it's all good with me. In fact, I often flush the angst out of my system just by reading other blogs that are letting off steam. Just know that right here, right now, it's pretty damn ridiculous for me to bitch and whine about anything.
I'm still hoping to play some live poker this week. Honestly, if I could bitch and whine about anything right now, it would be that my poker buddies are making it hella difficult to play a simple game of poker. If any of you are reading this, for fucks sake, drop whatever you are doing and play some fucking poker this week.
Hey, maybe I should start The Bitch & Whine Cafe so I don't have to litter this blog with any of that stuff. Erm, on second thought, maybe not. You see, a long time ago I started Kicked In The Junk, and that seemed to fizzle out over time. It was, and actually still is, a poker blog that anyone can post to about anything they want.
The original premise of the blog was to offer a forum for you to discuss your bad beat stories, both in poker and life. It's too bad that it is currently a beached blog whale. I might go ahead and delete it if it doesn't get anymore posts. If you've never been there, go check it out. This is one of my favorites, and it just so happens I wrote it!
Until next time, may the felt be with you.
posted by TripJax @ 8:59 AM,
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Cancel or Allow?
Monday, February 26, 2007
Continue to use piece of shit HP laptop that has been nothing but trouble and is no longer under warranty?
Cancel.
Purchase brand new shnazzy Gateway laptop with 17" widescreen, with extended warranty?
Allow.
Chuckle, due to this commerical, every time the new Microsoft Vista Cancel or Allow prompt is triggered?
Allow.
Eventually grow weary of Cancel or Allow prompt and take out my wrath on the world?
TBD.
So anyway, I just bought a new laptop and I'm hella diggin' it. The picture to the left does not do it justice. That pic looks like a typical screen, but the one I have in front of me is huge and is a widescreen.Playing poker on this machine is a breeze and I can definitely fit more tables on at once. I've only had it a couple of days, but so far I am very pleased. I had some bad experiences with HP, so I'm glad to make a change.
I was supposed to play some live poker last night, but the game was cancelled at the last minute. Hopefully I'll have some live pokery action soon. That will also be TBD.
I have a ton of things going on these days and alot of them have to do with poker or blogs or both. I just wish I had enough hours in the day to fit everything in. As of late, actually playing cards has been rather difficult. Must.Stop.And.Play.Poker!
In due time, Trip, in due time. Yes, I just wrote to myself.
Well, this will have to do for today. Fushizzle.
And until next time, may the felt be with you.
posted by TripJax @ 1:15 PM,
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Top (Re)Pair, Weak Kitchen
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
As I mentioned in my earlier post, ChickJax and I, along with some of our closest friends, did a little flip thy house action over the weekend. Well, we weren't flipping the house to sell it, just making some much, much needed repairs to our kitchen.
We bought our house about 5 years ago and it is quite old. It was built in the early 50's and sometimes that is easy to see. When we bought the house, we knew it would need work, but we loved the location and we love Greensboro. It was a perfect fit for us and it was just the right price.
After a couple of years of staring at plain white walls, we finally decided to spice things up a bit. We painted throughout the house and we love almost everything we did. Everything except the kitchen. For some reason, we thought it would be a great idea to paint the kitchen yellow. Not only that, but we were pretty lazy about the paint job, and didn't even move the appliances. We just figured it would be okay for a while and then we would eventually make a change.
That change was this past weekend. We could no longer take the hideous yellow walls and poor white trash feel of the kitchen. It was time to take action. I did some research online and we made a few trips to Lowes to map out what we wanted to do. After a while, we had an idea for the flooring and paint. Those were the two main updates, though we also did some minor dry wall repair and some other updates like lighting, cabinet knobs, baseboards, etc.
Here is the before picture. Keep in mind, we didn't think to do the before picture until we were mostly done removing the appliances and stripping down the kitchen in preperation for the upgrades...
The above picture is the angle from our dining room into the kitchen. Also, that's my buddy Alx checking out our walls for the drywall repair. It was a sad sack a shit kitchen.
And here is the after picture...
This is the opposite angle from the before picture. We went with a burnt brick wall color with sage cabinets. The flooring is an earth tone vinyl tile. We didn't have much cash for the project, but managed to make a ton of repairs and updates for under $400. Not bad considering the amount of items we had to purchase. Though they will probably never read this, I want to thank Alx, Tron-Solo and A.P. for their help. We could not have done this without you guys, fo shizzle.
I'm off to Charlotte on business tomorrow and Thursday, so don't expect any posts from yours truly for a few days. Falstaff and Special K, if there is any home game action Wednesday night, shoot me a comment or phone call.
If you haven't noticed, DNasty, who is now contributing to the drivel that spews from this blog, put up his first post. Check it out if you haven't already.
Until next time, may the felt be with you.
posted by TripJax @ 3:10 AM,
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The King is back.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Just call me Jay Z.
Instead of writing for Beyonce, I’m writing for TripJax.
I know that a blog shouldn’t be a chore but every time I saw my page sitting there with stale posts, it bothered me. So I retired. By the way its still there, I deleted everything but it still technically exists, so for the time being this is my new home.
Aren’t we all contributors on each others sites anyways via comments, chat, and the bad beats we lay on each other? Thought so…
I was never any good at this so don’t expect quality if you TRIP on my tab.
This just in…When DNasty joined Tripjax.com, experts were able to predict the new “worth” of Tripjax.com.
My blog is worth
A lot less now.
How much is your blog worth?
Seriously if you didn’t think Tripjax was a donkey before, he just made the biggest donkey play ever. Oh well. He will learn very shortly.
Later…
Labels: dnasty
posted by D @ 4:51 PM,
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DNasty Is In The House
Monday, February 19, 2007
I don't have a lot of time today, so let me just run through this post all quick and proper like. First off, I'm happy to announce that DNasty, who recently ended his poker blog, has agreed to start writing here at tripjax.com. Once he gets started, I'll be adding a tab above listed as DNasty in order to easily find each of his posts.
I think the addition of DNasty as a contributor is definitely a good idea. D now has the ability to post when he feels like it, without having the pressure of keeping up a blog or feeling bad about not posting enough. And I get some much needed help with a few extra posts here and there. My schedule - both at work and home - have really decreased my ability to write here as often. Trust me, I'm not going anywhere, but I'm lucky to get 2 or 3 posts up a week these days.
Most importantly, I'm just glad we will still be able to keep D in the poker blogging community and occasionally see some writing from him again. He's already warned me that he probably won't be able to post anything for a week or so, but like I told him, no pressure. When he can post he will. So welcome DNasty!
At some point last week, I made the decision that this President's Day weekend would be a great chance for us to redo our kitchen. It was a hideous excuse for a kitchen and has been needing repair for sometime. Three days later and we are finishing up things. We took a "before" picture, so if we can get things finished today, I might put up a before and after picture here. I still have a good bit of work to do, which is why I mentioned I don't have a lot of time today. I'm quite sore and tired, so I might need a day off from my day off today.
I've missed many blogger tourneys lately, including the Big Game last night, but I hope to be back in the games soon. A tourney I haven't played in quite a while is Mondays At The Hoy. I again won't be able to make it tonight, but I still want to pimp it when I can. In fact, since I made this little gadget last week, I might as well put it to use again this week. See below for details on all the current tourneys (that I am aware of).
Until next time, may the felt be with you.
Labels: dnasty
posted by TripJax @ 9:20 AM,
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BloggerPods, Part Deux
Thursday, February 15, 2007
While in Ohio last week, I had some down time one night and decided to go see a movie all by my lonesome. Though I had a ton of movies to choose from I ended up choosing what I felt was a lesser known movie. I'm glad I did. If you feel so inclined, flip over to one of my side projects, CineJax, to check out my latest post on Pan's Labyrinth. Moving on...
Those of you who have been around for a while will remember the DADI series of poker tournaments. Early on in those tourneys, we attempted to offer some extra swag for our loyal players. Right off the bat we heard from a couple of sites that were willing to give away some free stuff. It was a win, win, win. We were happy cause we could give away some freebies. The companies/people giving away the items were happy because they were getting their name out to the public. And the players who won the stuff were obviously happy.
One of the first people to "help us help them" was dbirider from The Poker Bus. He had started a website, http://pokeronamac.com, and was looking to spread the word, while giving away some free shit along the way. I think things worked well for both parties and I was glad we were able to work together to ultimately bring poker and free stuff to the people.
Back in 2006 PokerOnAMac held a freeroll offering 3 free ipods. Though I did not fare well in my attempt at a free ipod, I was very glad to have been involved. I'm happy to announce that PokerOnAMac lives on and they are at it again with the ipod freeroll. This time, however, they are upping the ante and offering an ipod video for 1st place. I implore you to take a look at details for the freeroll and, if you are so inclined, join the fray. All you have to do is post a small blurb on your blog linking back to the Bloggerpod link. Further details on what exactly to do can be found by clicking the BloggerPod picture within this post.
With all the negative vibes and bad news in the land of online poker these days, it is nice to see that some folks are keeping a positive outlook. Kudos to you dbirider. I hope your tourney rocks and I hope I end up pwning an ipod video when it is all said and done...
posted by TripJax @ 11:15 AM,
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The Blogger Tourneys
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Last night I put together a little gadget of all the blogger tourneys, because sometimes pimpin' ain't easy. You can check it out below. Now hopefully pimpin' will, in fact, be easy. If you can figure out getting the code for the gadget, by all means use it on your blog to pimp as well. Assuming I can remember to do so, I'll start posting it on Saturday or Sunday to help the cause for the upcoming week. Since I just made this one last night, I'm a little late to the game this week.
If you haven't noticed, I've missed a number of blogger tourneys of late. A busy schedule travelling and limited funds online are the culprit. While the schedule is starting to ease up, the funds online are still extremely limited. I'm basically playing solely at Poker.com right now and so far I've enjoyed the experience. I like the software and the players are quite the fonkeys. I'll hopefully be back to the blogger tourneys soon.
Now, if you haven't done so already, go read my previous post, Flippin' Change. These days I seem to rarely spit out any real poker content so soak it up like gravy on a biscuit. Mmmm...biscuits and gravy.
Until next time, may the felt be with you.
posted by TripJax @ 12:13 PM,
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Flippin' Crazy
Monday, February 12, 2007
Quite a while back, Matt Matros wrote an article about a players willingness to take coin flips early in MTT's. Here is the article from his Cardplayer page...
To Flip or Not to Flip: Analysis of an all-in "coin flip" situation early in a tournament
If you've never read that article before or it has been a while, take a moment to click the link and give it a gander. Back so soon? You must be a speed reader. Anyway, I've been thinking about this article lately and thought I would briefly discuss it here. In other words, I have nothing better to write about, so lets discuss something written by someone else.
We each have our own strategies, concepts and actions in a tournament. What is considered a correct style of play for one person may be deemed incorrect by another. This difference in style, coupled with the inherent luck/chance factor of the turn of a card, are what keeps poker fascinating to me. If we all played the exact same style of poker and/or there were no luck luck/chance involved, poker would be a pretty dull game.
I state the above for a reason. Chances are the type of player you are on the felt will determine whether you agree with the concepts Matt discusses in his article. I, for one, tend to agree with Matt. I believe you have to capitalize on your small edges and, each time you pass on a potential edge, you decrease your chances of winning a tournament. Of course, each time you pass on a potentially game changing all-in situation, you also avoid being knocked out of the tournament. Again, this difference will usually boil down to what style of player you typically are. Of course, we all can change our style of play at any moment, but I'm speaking generalities here folks.
In his article, Matt mentions a few arguments people often have for folding in a coin flip situation. I want to add a few to his list.
1) Fear of losing money.
2) Fear of negative results.
3) Fear of being judged by your peers.
Notice a key word that keeps popping up in the sentences above. The fear factor. Fear in poker is exploited to the max. In fact, I'd say many top pros are so successful because they pinpoint and exploit fear in their opponents. Imagine the online qualifier who won his way into a 10k event via a $50 super satellite. As you know, the first money spots in a tournament typically give you your money back and maybe a small profit. For this online qualifier, 10k is not breaking even, it is a significant amount of take home money based on the original $50 buy-in for the satellite.
Enter the experienced player who recognizes the above situation and rips that online player apart with sheer power poker. The pro knows the online qualifier will most likely NOT coin flip for the same reasons the pro WILL coin flip. The pro is not afraid to lose his money, have short term negative results, or be judged by his peers. On the other hand, the online qualifier can't imagine flying to an event, getting stuck in a tough decision early, and having to go home to his family and friends and explain how he went out in the 1st hour when his QQ was cracked by AK.
I don't know about you, but I have given up +EV or coin flip situations for each of the above reasons before. And I must say, there were times where I regretted my decision tremendously. I know there were times that my decision ultimately cost me a chance to go deeper in a tournament. Sure I held on longer because there was no chance I would be knocked out on that particular hand, but that does not make my decision right. And yes, maybe there was a time that I ended up finishing well in a tournament where I avoided a coin flip situation early. Still, I'm trying to maximize my edges over the long haul and I think analyzing these situations more closely makes sense.
I'd like to now take a step back and look at Matt's article from a slightly different angle. The example in his article is regarding a large buy-in, multi-day event with, most likely, long levels of 1 to 2 hours per level. Now imagine taking that general scenario, but having a tournament structure and blind level that would make it finish in hours, not days. I'm talking about your typical online tournament or lower buy-in MTT or home game.
When you play a tournament that will end in hours, not days, your chances of finding a better spot to double up often become few and far between. Passing on getting your chips in with an edge in online tournaments becomes an even more dire situation than Matt's article prescribes. Now as I've mentioned before, I'm not exactly a numbers guy so I tend to let the others do the calculating. However, I see Matt's points and I personally think if I pass on my small edges in the tournaments I play, I am costing myself money in the long run.
Of course, the beauty of basically everything in life, including poker, writing and theories, is that we can choose to have our own opinion and we can disagree. If I stuff my chips in the middle because I feel I have a slight edge, then that is what is right to me. If I was correct and win, more power to me. If I was correct and lose, that's just the way the cookie crumbles. The beauty (and subsequently the beast) of poker is that I can also be incorrect and still walk away with the chips. As you and I both know, it happens ALL THE TIME.
I remember hearing a quote on ESPN once by a football coach that went something like this..."There are three results that can happen when you pass the ball and two of them are negative." This is clearly a coach who probably builds his program around a running attack and a strong defense.
What does this have to do with poker you ask? Well, honestly nothing, other than the quote makes me think about a poker situation. When you push your chips into the middle and announce "all-in," there are only so many results that can occur. Let's take a look.
1) You are ahead and win.
2) You are ahead and lose.
3) You are behind and win.
4) You are behind and lose.
Now that is obviously pretty basic, and truly more goes into it than that, depending on the situation, but you get the idea. But think about the above scenarios for a moment. There are not many situations in life that I can think of off the top of my head that reward an incorrect decision. Yet, in poker, it happens all the time. With #1, you made the correct decision and got the result you were hoping for. With #2, you made the right decision and were at the mercy of the cards. You can't control the actions of others and can only hope to get your chips in the middle with the best of it.
With #3, you ultimately made the wrong decision, but walked away with the chips. With #4, you made the wrong decision and "got what you deserved." In essence of the 4 situations, only one results in you making an incorrect decision and paying the price. I believe, in the end, if you make the right decisions and exploit both your small and large edges, you will ultimately be rewarded. You can't control what other players do, so you might as well try and exploit as many edges as possible and put yourself in a situation to win more often than not. Passing on your edges, no matter how small or large, can become very costly.
Let's finish this post up with a few things I will no longer do...
I will no longer play poker with fear. I will not fear negative results. You can't win every time and, especially with MTT's, more often than not you will lose. However, I can and will pinpoint and exploit other players fear, even at the cost of losing in certain small edge scenarios.
I will not fear losing my poker money. This is easy by playing within my bankroll and playing only with money I can afford to lose. If I fear losing my buy-in I am costing myself loads of money in the long run. This train of thought will find me limping into the money instead of storming the final table.
I will not fear being judged by my peers. That I'm aware of, I've yet to be the recipient of one of Hoy's rants, but I certainly have no fear of putting myself in a situation that I feel correct about at the cost of being fonked out. Whether my decision is correct or whether I am ultimately a fonkey, I will not fear the result. Don't get me wrong, I love Hoy's rants and can't believe I've yet to be one of his victims. I'm just using him as an illustration as his posts are a perfect example of letting the fear of what others think change the way you play a particular hand. I won't let that happen. If I make a fonkey move, so be it. If I make a decision that results in my exploiting a small edge that looks crazy, so be it. I won't lose any sleep over it. I will not fear going out first in a tournament if I feel I made the right decision in a particular situation.
Yikes, this post has turned into a self help nightmare. I think I should shut down now before I start looking like a wackjob. I know, I know, too late for that. Anyway, I'd love to here your thoughts on this subject. Like I said, to each his own, but of course, I'm right. I keed, I keed.
posted by TripJax @ 3:11 PM,
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Prognosis Negative
Monday, February 05, 2007
I am officially a weather wimp. I'm on business travel in Ohio right now and it is below zero, not counting the wind chill. I'm not diggin' it. I never thought I would be longing for the 25 degree weather at home, but I am. I don't remember the last time I was in negative degree weather.
I'm planning to go to Cleveland tomorrow night for some alcamahol. If any of my readers can suggest a nice dowtown watering hole I would be most appreciative. As for work, as I suspected, I have no computer access at the office I'm working in, so this may be the only post I have this week. I only have a couple of minutes online right now, so technically this post is straight up blogorrhea.
I'll leave you with a text message I received from a buddy of mine after landing in the Cleveland Hopkins airport.
"No matter how cold it gets, decline any offers of Cleveland Steamers. Warm, surely, but will ruin anyone's stay."
Indeed.
posted by TripJax @ 9:10 PM,
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Poker Tables At Cardroom Supply, Inc.
Saturday, February 03, 2007
If you're in the market for a poker table, I may have the answer for you. A while back I did a review for Cardroom Supply, Inc., but this time I'm going to put a little more focus on their poker tables. Given the array of tables they have, I think you might find what you're looking for if you check them out.
After perusing the site, I found a ton of tables available with shipping same or next day. Also, with any purchase over $100, shipping is free. Considering the size and weight of some tables, that is an awesome perk. If I had my druthers, I'd pwn this table.
Of course, that table might not be for you. However, just click through here and take a look at all the freaking tables. They have over 30 tables available and they even offer the ability to personalize the felt on some tables. From your basic cheap flip table to a mahogany masterpiece, they have it all.
The company uses the Yahoo! Store platform and they have easy payment options, including PayPal. I thought that was pretty cool. They've been in business since 2003, which is pretty damn good for an online store.
If you're not in the market for a table, you still might want to check out Cardroom Supply, Inc. Though they specialize in tables, they actually have all kinds of other gaming related products.
The prices seem to be in line with the quality of the product. Some of the tables are way out of my price range (including the one I linked to above), but maybe down the road I'll be able to swing it. Still, with the free shipping, you are definitely saving some cash by shopping with them. Check'em out if you get a second.
I do have one suggestion for the site. They need a catchy phrase to go with their name. Something like, "Your One Stop Poker Shop." That's just my two cents.
The preceding was a Sponsored Post by TripJax for Poker Tables At Cardroom Supply, Inc.
posted by TripJax @ 1:10 PM,
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Ohio Here I Come
Friday, February 02, 2007
A few months ago I agreed to a business trip that would see me making the trek to Ohio for a week in February. Whenever I plan to travel on business, I always make sure there are no personal reasons that it would be a bad time to travel (i.e. family engagements, birthdays, holidays etc.).
At the time I got clearance from the family and made sure there were no reasons that would make travelling a problem. Fast forward to earlier this week as I'm thinking in my head about planning my trip. This is how my thought process went. "Okay I'm set to fly out of Greensboro to Ohio on Sunday afternoon...cool...nothing going on...wait....fuck...the Super Bowl!!!!"
Now I don't necessarily care about either of the teams in the Super Bowl, and I don't currently have any cashola riding on the game, but I do love football and enjoy watching the game every year. Hopefully there will be no flight delays and I'll be able to get settled into a local watering hole for the game.
Whenever I travel on business, I like to check around to see if there are any other broggers in the area that I can meet up with. For instance, whenever I make a trip to Charlotte, Falstaff and Special K are on my list to check in on. I've made it to a couple of games at Falstaff's, but have yet to make it to a Special K game. I know that will happen eventually.
As I pondered who might be in Ohio, I was initially drawing a blank. Then, after about a minute, I had the fonkey moment where I realized there might be a certain wee little brogger in Ohio that I should try and meet up with. I hadn't checked the map, but I figured it might be just close enough to make it happen.
Unfortunately, where I'm working is about 4 hours from ignatious , so logistically it just doesn't make sense. I am working every day I am in Ohio except Sunday,and an 8 hour drive (there and back), not including the hanging out time, just doesn't work. I'll say I'm bummed to be flying so close to a fellow brogger and not being able to meet up, but I know I'll catch up with him soon enough.
I leave this Sunday and don't return until Friday and I'm not sure if I will have access to a computer while I'm gone. Therefore, if you don't see any updates from me next week, you'll know I'm struggling with no access to the series of tubes that make up the Internets. That will also mean no poker for me unless any of my dear readers comment letting me know of a live game near where I will be (Elyria, Oh).
All the above duly noted, please forgive the lack of posts over the next week or so. If I can, maybe I'll come up with someone to write while I'm gone. Guest writers pwn.
Until next time, may the felt be with you...
posted by TripJax @ 2:25 PM,
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