F***ing Sopranos (lots of spoilers)

This is off topic for this blog, but I recently caught up on the episodes of The Sopranos recently, and I'm a little bit upset. The ending (spoiler alert!) had Tony and his family getting together at a family diner a la ending of season 1. However, with some fancy cinematography, the director builds tension with close shots of some suspicious characters. Finally, the front door of the diner opens and after ten seconds of black screen, the credits roll silently.

Sick...

This ending upset me because of all the unanswered subplots. Yes, Phil Leotardo is dead. New York and New Jersey are working together, but what about AJ and his movie exec. career? What about Tony and his business and also with the feds? What about the two Arabic guys? What about Silvio Dante? Does he ever wake up? If the series ends with Tony getting whacked like many speculate who takes over Jersey? And don't forget about Carlo and how Tony and Sil thought he flipped over to being a rat. Unanswered questions, including what the fuck happened at the end of series finale.

The good thing about the ending is the same reason I hate it, ironically enough. It keeps you buzzing about what happens to the characters. However, the more and more I think about the actual plot-worth of the ending, the more I believe that it's the penultimate question mark fade-in at the "The End" screen right before the credits of a movie. And the series is over, why not satisfy the fans and say what happened to the characters in the end?

David f***ing Chase, you son of a bitch.

online poker update: yes, I'm in korea

Ok, so here's the update. I was planning on playong on Party Poker and Pacific, but I don't have a bank account here. So, I'm stck playin on Poker Stars and Full Tilt. My online bankroll was small (because I wasn't confident in my online skills) so I had to play small. Originally, I multitabled 6-Max NL, but that got boring. So, I did what I usually do when that happens, play higher limits :) Unfortunately that didn't work out so well, and I was down to kess than $60 on Full Tilt (I didn't touch my stars money to play higher, so I wouldn't go completely broke. Smart boy, eh). Then I had somewhat of a moment of clarity. Instead of reloading onto Full Tilt, I decided to pull a Fergusonian experiment. Chris Ferguson (spelling?) tried to turn $0 into $10,000 starting out by playing the freeroll a few years back. He actually succeeded too. So, I decided to begin my road back from the depths of the red bottom line, by playing sit'n'gos. To date, I've played over 1600 sngs, and have made $700 doing it. I never got bored or tired playing cash games, but sit'n'gos are so gruellingly similar. I've gotten my maximum table threshold high enough so that now I can play 12 tables at once. I've also noticed something strange happening to me. Since I've forced myself to play lower, I'm stressing out over $50-$100 swings which are significant portions of my bankroll. Have I finally learned to appreciate the cost of a dollar? Will I ever tip Pat more than a dollar? Tune in to find out on the next episode of: DAVE'S ADVENTURES IN POKER CYBERSPACE!

Turning Stone

Hi loyal followers.
It's been awhile but here's the trip report for Turning Stone:

Day 1
Get there after having maybe 4 hours of sleep in the car for the last two days (The night before there was a party at some frat). I get to the tables, decide to play within the amount of money I brought, which means I kind of have to play low...REALLY low. So I goof around for awhile at 3/6 and 1/2 NL. Afte 6 hours of playing I'm stuck 200. Not good. Since I'm operating on almost zero sleep, I make the obvious logical choice. Electronic sit'n'go poker tables. I always say that I play better tournament poker when I'm tired. End result: I lose more money. Frustrated and tired, I finally decide to pass out

Day 2/3
I wake up, refreshed and ready, go downstairs, eat, and hit the tables. The words "fuck 3/6 limit" come to mind, and I decide to play 300 max NL. I do well, winning back my losses from the night before, meat a two plus two poster at my table and proceed to suck out grossly. He raises in the cutoff, I think he's weak, so I call w/ Ad-9c on the button. Both blinds fold. Js-9d-3d. He continuation bets. I flat call, planning to bet the turn if he checks. 4d on the turn. He bets 3/4 of the pot, I still don't believe him, think he might be representing nut diamond draw, which I have, so I plan on the river going check check, and if he has a jack then so be it. River is the 8d. He checks, sudden change of plans, I have the nut flush, I push he calls, and shows Jd-5d. I was wrong about everything and it worked out I guess. The table breaks soon after. Then I decide to play some more SNGs, push w/ KQ get called by AT, that's the way it goes sometimes. Stuck again, I see 20/40 limit hold'em going. I look at my financial situation, I'm stuck for the trip, yet I decide to play. First table I sit at has some soft spots, but also has some good players. I end up winning $5 over 6 hours. Sick. That table breaks and I get herded to the other 20/40. The game looks really, really soft. Lots of open limping and somewhat poor post flop play from the older people. I sit, immediately lose 500 playing aggressively without reads, reload, and win it all back plus 100. That table breaks and I have to go play 1/2 NL 100 max. Play that all night and win a peanut. Final total 31 hours playing poker +250 sick.

Day 4/5
Another day where I play 30+ hours of poker. After waking up after 18 hours of sleep, I go downstairs, to play a $65 tournie. I 'm playing well, picking up small pots early, trying to amass a big stack so I can play in the later blind rounds when the antes kick in. Structure is so fast it's sick. Finally a hand comes up where an older dude raises 3x the BB in mid pos. One caller between us. I call w/ KQo on the button. Flop comes KT7, he bets again, and I min raise to see where I'm at. My preflop read was something to the effect of a middle pair or a hand like AK, and I need to see if I'm way ahead or way behind. At this point I was totally content with playing a small pot, however he hemms and haws, and makes a very trappy looking call. Now my read changed. Thank God for post flop poker. I thought he had either AK or AA, or TT. Turn came a Q, He checks and I bet half his stack, roughly a pot size bet. He calls, and the river is a J. He pushes in, and I brain fart and call. Donk! he shows AK, and I leave. I play 20/40 for a really long time, book a nice win, and someone informs me that there is a very very juicy 5-5 500 max NL game going. So, I pick up my chips, and sit. The table atmosphere was pretty interesting. Everyone at the table seemed pretty good except two players. A weak tight player in the 1 seat and a really big donater in the 8 seat. So pretty much everyone was taking turns taking shots at them. First hand I actually play, I limp w/ 99, the guy on my left raises 5x the BB, 2 players (including the donater) call between us. I call. Flop comes Ts-9s-2c. I check, PF raiser checks, donater checks, button bets 75, I check raise to 200. PR raiser moves in. Donater insta-folds, button thinks for a long long time and folds, I think for second (TT?) but without a read on him on whether he would do that w/ QsJs or AA I have no idea so I kind of have to call. He shows TT, brick turn brick river, and I'm stuck a quick 5. I reload, and the next hand I play I limp on the donaters BB w/ 5s6d. Not a limp I'd make often, given I was in mid pos. but like I said we were targetting the weak spots in the table. A girl in the cutoff makes it $40, donater calls, and I call, delighted to play a big pot w/ the donater. Flop comes: 3d-5d-6c. A total gin flop. I decide to fastplay my hand because if the preflop raise was AK it could easily just check around. I bet $100 Instead of folding, she raises to $275, the donater pushes for $330, and I think about the action. The girl has AA or QQ or something like that, maybe AdKd. The way the donater put his money in, I felt he had a draw Ad4d or 78 or something like that. I push for my last 400, the girl thinks thinks thinks thinks and finally folds. The turn come a 9s and the river comes a Js. A pretty good turn and river unless he had Jd9d, but of course if he had 78 he got there. He shows Qd9d, and I scoopo a 1200 pot. About three rounds later, I have JJ in the BB, the cutoff raises to 5x BB, SB calls, and I call. The flop comes QsJcX. I check, he bets 45, and I raise to 150, he instapushes. Deja vu visions of the 99 vs TT hand early in the night, and I finally call. Turn and river brick, and he mucks. The last big hand that I played I had 2d8d in the big blinds. Everyone including the donater limped. The flop came 2x5x7s. Everyone checked the flop, the turn was the 8s. I value bet about 3/4 of the pot. The donater called. River came the Ad. I value bet and he called, he had As2s. Sick. Immediately after that, I leave to go play another tournament, one of the $500 buy in ones. I play well running my 2k stack into about 10k. When the following hand comes up. I raise in the cutoff w/ J9, and the BB calls. Flop comes: J83 rainbow, he check raises about 2.5x what I had, I look at how much he has left which is less that 2BBs and I push. He instacalls, and a stack of 1k chips come from behind his cupholder into the pot! W...T...F... I'm crippled and have to push in 2 levels later w/ A9 in the cutoff and get called by 87, of course gets there. Sick... I go upstairs to go drink some beer and probably sleep. Actually, by "sleep" I meant go back to the poker room and play drunken 20/40. I sucked out w/ AQ against JT on an AK7Q board, getting three bets in on the turn, and the river came an A, and then I got sucked out on w/ AA against 78, when the flop came J63 three bets on the flop (my opponnent was also drunk) T on the turn, 9 on the river. Whee! Then I finally quit.

Running total 80+ of poker +1000

Last day (roullette!)
For those of you who went to Tunica with me, you know my problems with table games. Anyway, after an uneventful last day, where I might've lost 300 playing 20/40, and another 100 or 200 playing 1/2 NL, we went and played roullette. I started out horribly, losing 300 when I meant to only lose 100 playing the stupid game. Then I went on an amazing rush winning it all back plus an extra 120. Finally we left.


My internet poker upudate soon to come!