Ha, that thing is probably illegal in California.

... to the surprise of no one.

They actually have a disclaimer that ships with the murder ring that basically says it's probably not kosher with the TSA, and to keep it with checked luggage. It's certainly not the most convenient thing in the world, but my anti-weapons wife says she actually feels safer with it on.

Nice update Spikey. Hey don't let Gobboboy see that you like sushi burritos, he might get you banned. For some reason he hates them.

I just know that one evening I'm going to stabbed in the eye by some over zealous broad wearing a murder ring.

Spike, are you secretly an Oilers fan? Love that you're repping the jersey around town


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It's hard being covert when you're this fat.

Born and bred Bruins fan, but it's a Ference jersey. I was a huge fan of his when he played in Boston, so when he retired I grabbed one of his jerseys.

Speaking of jerseys, I just got one from the Boston Pride of the National Women's Hockey League. One of the super-megastars is from my hometown. I don't know her or anything, but **** it. Gotta rep the 01864.

Back in about 1995, a message board popped up that covered the local music scene. The only people who were really on there were fans or the musicians themselves. There was some in-fighting, some drama, and a lot of political discussion (along with the shameless self-promoting all DIY musicians go through). For whatever reason, I thought it would be a good idea to register using my actual first and last name as my user name. And I was one of the instigators and antagonists of the board, especially the political threads. After all, I had nearly completed my degree in Political Science at a top university, so of course I knew more than anyone else on there, right? (Hint: No, I very didn't).

This happened in late-2000 or early 2001. It was prior to September 11th, I remember that much. A user with the screen name "un****withable" was a righteous douche bag (takes one to know one?). Every time he posted, it drove me crazy with whatever horse **** he was doling out. I just couldn't take it anymore. I threatened to sue. After all, I had taken a class called the Philosophy of Law, so of course I knew how to sue someone, right? (Hint: No, I very didn't).

I don't remember the exact nature of the discussion, but it was something about internet threats and how telling someone you were going to beat them up was assault or something. I'm sure it was a mangled mess of nonsense and hyperbole (see also: "Vegas Vlogger" thread). Somehow he thought that threats on the internet were meaningless, even if they were made against the President. And then, for whatever reason, this dumb**** decided to start a brand new post, with no other words or context, that he was going to kill the President. I knew that he was only trying to prove a point that unsubstantiated threats and empty words online were meaningless and couldn't get him into trouble. So I did what any rational, sane, understanding person would do: Nothing.

Just kidding! I was an insufferable ****, so I dropped a dime on his ass to the Secret Service. I let them know that someone on a message board was making a threat. I also made sure to mention that the board was set up so that no poster could ever edit their own posts (only the single administrator/moderator could, but he refused to ever change what someone wrote). I remember submitting a form via email with a tip, and they called me back a day or two later to discuss the situation. I was told they'd investigate, and that was that.

About a week later, I see a post from un****withable, calling me out by name. I click on it, and it's basically CAPSLOCK-apalooza. How could I call the government? Didn't I know it was said in jest? What did he ever do to me? Don't I know I ruined his life? Etc., and so on. Turns out, a couple of SS agents visited his house to talk to him about the threat. Apparently they knew it was bull****, but letter-of-the-law says they had to come in and charges had to be filed. During the conversation, one of them left their file open on the table, and my name was very visable on the sheet as the "Witness".

As a result, he was under house arrest for two years. His band had to cancel a tour and a recording session they had set up. He was barred from using the internet, but I get the feeling he was going to self-ban for a while anyway. He's not doing much better these days, either. Supposedly (and this is all rumor based on this old message board's current resurrection) he lives in his parents' basement. He has a young daughter who he's not allowed to see. If he has work, it's menial and dead-end. I don't know if the current situation is a direct result of the threat, but it couldn't help things.

A feeling of guilt has followed me around ever since I sent that tip. I thought I was being Bobby Badass, standing up to an internet tough guy. I thought I was doing the right thing for my country. I thought I was doing something my uncle would have liked. He was a former Secret Service agent himself. I never did tell him about it, though. But even today, when I consider what I had done, I just keep asking the same question - "Who benefited from this?" And the answer is no one. The government certainly didn't - they had to spend man hours hunting down and prosecuting a non-threatening young guy who typed the wrong words on the internet. I certainly didn't - sixteen plus years of guilt over being a hyper-sensitive **** who wanted to bring a nuke to an internet fist fight. Un****withable certainly didn't - he was stupidly trying to prove a stupid point on a stupid message board. It wasn't worth the time or the pain. And it's not like he was some serious militant who was out to start a revolution, and being put under house arrest was the only way to show him the error of his ways. A smack in the back of the head and a stern talking to would have been sufficient.

I wanted to post this as a lesson. Not about empty threats against elected leaders (though that should go without saying). But about thinking before you act. I had an ethics professor that used to preach "Before you do anything, think about how this would look as a headline in tomorrow's paper". Maybe the updated version should be "Think about how this would look as a TMZ Tweet". Parents have probably tried to beat this into your skull from a young age. Sometimes, it takes a real-life example of how **** can go sideways before you realize that discretion is the better part of valor.

After all, if you're not careful, you could do something REALLY stupid - like marrying a prostitute.

Wait What!? Your name ISN'T Spike McAwesome???

Dude, your stories are gold. Thanks for sharing. For each and every action....ya da ya da......Wow

It's a little weird. No one in Boston knows me by Spike. I forget if I talked about the origin of this nickname or not, but it's pretty straight-forward. I was working at a place in Waltham, MA that needed to test some kind of automatic download of a bunch of biographic information en masse. We were instructed to create fake profiles, so I put my name as Spike Q. McAwesome, III. The name kinda stuck when I joined a couple of sites like SomethingAwful.

When I moved to Vegas, I posted in the SomethingAwful meet-up section for Vegas. A bunch of us moved here all around the same time. The problem was that there were four other guys with my same first name. So Spike kinda stuck.

On to the most recent poker sessions:

I tried to play a bunch during my time off work. The trip to Boston got in the way a little bit, but we were back in town shortly after Christmas and I played as much as I could when I found the time. First stop: TI 10pm tournament.

I just can't help myself. I love these tournaments. It's late so people are drinking, but not late enough for people to be passed out at the table. The structure sucks but there's enough actual play in the early levels to build a stack before becoming a bully later on. Unfortunately, this tournament does not go my way and I bust 6th with 4 being paid. Only one hand of note that made a guy lose his mind:

Blinds are 2-400.
Villain: MP, 15k stack (on 3rd entry)
Hero: HJ, 22k stack
Shorty: BTN, 6k stack

Villain raises to 1400. Hero flats with AKcc. Shorty calls. All others fold.

Flop AsQc2c. Villain bets out 2k. Hero raises to 6k. Shorty all-in for less. Villain calls.

Turn Jh (Board AsQc2cJh). Villain shoves. Hero calls. Villain shows AJo. Shorty shows T9cc.

River Qs (Board AsQc2cJhQs). Hero takes down the pot.

At first, the villain didn't realize his two pair had been counterfeited. He fist-pumped and told his friends he won a huge one. The very polite European player next to the villain corrected him, saying he had lost. The villain damn near lost his mind. I thought for sure he was going to Hulk Smash his way on out of the TI, but I didn't hear any calls for security. Maybe that's a good thing.

As much as I like the TI poker room and tournaments, I worry that they may not last much longer. With the Venetian running bad beats and whatever other nonsense, it's going to attract the nits who used to run the TI. Plus, the poker room is managed by the table games division (which is always a remarkably stupid decision in the casino industry). The table games manager just shrunk the room by two tables. That doesn't bode well for the future.

I did notice something that I should have expected. The tram between the TI and Mirage is currently closed. They won't say that it's "closed". When the tram is supposed to be open, there's a sign up that says the tram is currently undergoing maintenance. And when it's after hours, the sign magically disappears:



I ran one of the Wynn tournaments this week. I love these tournaments, but I hardly ever get to play them. They're only offered at noon (and what kind of self-respecting poker player is even awake at noon?), but the rake is under 11% and they report winnings to the Hendon Mob. Prize pools are amazing. Obviously the new room at the Wynn is fantastic. Hell, even the chips are nicer that anywhere else. It's really a great scene.



Once again, this tournament did not go as planned. It's a 10k starting stack. You get 500 bonus chips for registering before 11am, and another 500 if you're in your seat by noon. At least I hit the second half of that bonus. So with a 10.5k starting stack, I ran it up to 14k when this happened.

Blinds are 1-200
Hero: UTG +1 14k stack
Villain: MP 13.5k stack, just sat down and bought a couple of pots with a hyper aggro style.
Shorty: BTN 7.5k stack. Really obvious he's not comfortable in this tournament for whatever reason (hung over, not a tournament player, feeling overmatched, whatever)

Folds to Hero; has AA and raises to 500. Villain raises to 1500. Shorty calls 1500. Hero...

If it's just me and the Villain in this hand, I probably raise to something like 5k and make a crack like "Those Kings just shrunk up on you, didn't they?" However, with the shorty in there, I become too risk-adverse. I decide I'd rather just win the 3k+ blinds now.

Hero moves all in.

Villain tanks for about a minute before calling. Shorty calls.

Hero: AA
Villain: KK
Shorty: 88

After the inevitable and completely expected K on the flop, I'm left with 500 in chips. I somehow manage to quadruple up once, then double, then triple up within about five hands and get back above a starting stack. It was absurd. I made it to the first break with about 13k, but that was the last time I took down a pot, and I was out relatively early.

I snuck in a cash game at Bally's during this time. I don't typically play super long cash sessions. I either don't have the patience for it, or I get so overly concerned about table image, etc., that I start to over-think and out-think myself when it comes to (what should be) relatively simple decisions. I did manage to cash out +$200 in two hours after AJ > A9 on an A9x flop, J turn, J river. That was the only interesting hand from that session.

The next day, I talked my buddy Joboo into running one of the afternoon tournaments at Bally's, too. It's about as bad as you'd expect from what ended up being a single table tournament with a $60 buy-in (but a $500 guarantee). The guarantee was not met, so dead money made it into the pool. Excellent. Top two paid, and no bubble deal was reached. That was Joboo, when I slow played a set and got him to shove a turned flush draw. I was head's up with a woman who had never played live poker before, she kept asking her husband for advice in between hands, and got it in bad every single time there was an all in pre-flop. I had her crushed about 5:1 in chips, but in true donkament style, she managed to hit a couple of doubles and we were roughly even. I offered an even chop, and her husband tried to intervene and said the chip leader should get a little more. I gave my usual talk of how it's bingo, not poker, and it's too swingy. Let's just take $250 each and be done with it. I should have been more forceful about the fact that he wasn't even playing, but it doesn't matter. The wife wouldn't agree to the chop, and four hands later, she was collecting second place money. That's how these things go.

On Saturday, the day before New Year's Eve, I went to the Flamingo to play the midnight tournament. It's slightly worse than the TI, but it's cheaper and you either double up quick or move to a cash game. The parking garage was already closed off to non-hotel guests, which kinda pissed me off. I had to park at uncovered lot behind the Linq promenade and walk my happy ass back to the Flamingo poker room. Spikey no likey. The tournament was once again uneventful. Made a remarkably bad play at one point where I thought someone was super weak but they had flopped a full house and didn't know what to do next. Oh well.

On Sunday, New Year's Day, I decided to hit Planet Hollywood around 10pm for a cash game. I wanted to catch the tourists before they left for home, and I figured the tournament wasn't the best way to do that. I get right in a game. My second hand, this **** happens:

Villain: MP. 30s, Asian, $500ish stack.
Drunk: SB. 20s, kinda dumb-ish, definitely drunk, $400ish stack
Hero: BB. Douche. $200 stack

Folds to Villain who raises to $12. Drunk makes it $25. Hero looks down at KK...

I decided since a) I had no reads on them and b) they had no reads on me, I could flat here and make it look like I'm playing something like a smaller pair or suited connectors.

Hero calls. Villain raises to $60. Drunk calls. Hero calls.

Flop comes AK7r. Drunk checks. Hero checks. Villain bets $70.

At this point, I think I'm so far ahead here it's stratospheric. Villain must have something like QQ-TT and is trying to buy it, 77 which would be fantastic, AK, or pure air. No one with AA would bet into a board like that since they'd wait for players to catch up. Drunk mulls things over but eventually folds. Hero goes all in.

Villain snap-calls.

Villain shows AA.

Well, **** me. I read that one wrong.

I re-buy for $200 more, and four hours later, I cash out at $405. Five bucks over four hours. Not the best win rate on the planet, but it's still positive. I wanted to stay so ****ing bad. The tighter players at my table have all been replaced by the splashiest players ever. These are the kinds of games upon which the PH built its reputation. Three and four bets pre with J9o. Raising a $15 c-bet to $75 with 72o, and open-folding when the opponent goes all in on the QJ5 flop. It's so amazing. But alas, I am dead to the world tired. I folded a hand, then after the very next player folded, I couldn't remember what cards I had just pitched. That's when I knew it was time to scram.

Monday, I tried the Red Rock tournament at noon. Nothing special about this one, except that Red Rock pays high hands during tournaments. Not a bad little deal, I guess.

Third level in, blinds are 1-200. In between hands, a player two to my right looks over at one of the cash games (possibly 2-5?), sees a buddy of his, and starts chatting it up. He's saying things like "I don't know why I'm playing this. I hate tournaments" and "I'll be there in a second." Seems a little weird to me that he's announcing things like this. Then this hand happens:

Villain: HJ 7000 stack. Middle-aged, just got done telling his buddies he wants out of the tournament.
Hero: BTN 6600 stack. World's sexiest internet troll.

It folds to the villain who open-shoves for his 7000 stack. Hero sees QQ and says "I call...?" Because after all that speech play, especially coming before the cards are ****ing dealt, I have to be ahead here, right?

Villain has KK.

Hero has a new distaste for the Red Rock.

I've been exiled from the house so the wife can do work, so I decide to hustle on over to the South Point for their 2pm donkament. It's a ****-fest nit-filled tournament, complete with a too-short starting stack and $5 bounties. Yippie.

When you walk in to the South Point near the poker room, there is this giant sign off to the right:



Interesting. I wonder if this is just going to be a South Point thing, or if they actually want to compete in the sports media market.

I start to run over the tournament and run my 4500 starting stack up to over 17k with three bounties. It's sort of unreal how bad some of them are. I lose about 4k in a pot where I flopped top two against AA, but the turn paired the under card to counterfeit my hand. From that point on, I couldn't win. AK lost to AQ. 55 lost to JT. A7 lost to KK (of course). AK lost to JJ. And A7 lost to K9 to finally bust me. All of those were all in pre, by the way. Yuck.

Tuesday, January 3rd. This day always kind of sneaks up on me. It's the eleventh anniversary of my mother's death (and fourteenth anniversary of her cancer diagnosis). I honestly didn't even remember until about 4pm today. I told the wife about it, and she said to come downtown after work. She was planning a surprise outing. Fair enough.

I get downtown, and true to junior attorney form, she can't leave work for another hour and a half. However, I've somehow become kind of addicted to crossword puzzles recently. So I was able to occupy my time. When we did finally leave, we walked over to... the Smashed Pig! I really do dig this place, but my wife picked it for one very important reason...

Popovers!



My mom's favorite thing when we went to a restaurant. If they had popovers, you better believe she was asking for seconds or even thirds (if they were free, of course). My family is not known for having bodies built by vegetables. My wife found out that the Smashed Pig has really good popovers with some kind of onion gravy/sauce thing, which was fantastic by the way. We devoured those suckers.

I went with the burger:



My wife did the fish and chips:



We got the sticky toffee pudding for dessert:



And this was taken twenty seconds and one spoons-as-swords fight later:



Then, we walked over to the El Cortez to partake in my mother's favorite hobby, cheap-ass blackjack! I could never figure out her fascination with this game, but she loved it. We sat for about an hour and eventually cashed out down a collective $60. We've had worse nights, for sure. But it was a nice surprise, both as a way to honor my mom's memory and to give a lift to an otherwise blah and dreary night. Remember this, kids - if you get a girl and she tells you she's feeling down, or needs a distraction, be a ****ing distraction. Don't be a mope and sit on the couch all night (unless that's what she wants to do). And definitely don't leave her alone while you hit the grind. That just makes you an *******.

I checked my stats recently on my poker tracker app. From June 2016 (when I started this post) until the end of 2016, I'm down something like $1500. It's absurd, but I just realized that like $1415 of that is from tournaments. If I can find a way to resist those stupid donkaments and actually focus on cash games around town, I can start actually crushing these games. I'm not one for new year resolutions, but if I had to make any, it would be a) resist tournaments whenever possible (WSOP excluded); and b) separate poker bankroll and liferoll. The wife and I aren't hurting for money. I don't bust from a tournament and start to think "If I don't at least min-cash, we can't pay the rent". I've just never had separate bank and liferolls. It's never been an issue and I see poker tournaments the same way I see groceries, or clothes, or a bill. It's one more thing that has to get paid at a certain point, and it will hopefully result in some kind of payback. But I think being more diligent about keeping them separate, keeping track of wins and losses, keeping track of an hourly rate, etc., will really help get my mind focused more on poker. I'm not trying to turn pro or quit my job to do this for a living. I just think I could be doing more to be more successful.

So I'm guessing you were regulars at Angelica's in Middleton and The Continental on Rt1 in Saugus... When I was little those place were dee shiznit for popovers. Whenever we took my grandmother out for dinner we had to go to one of those places because she was a popover addict... so much so she would ask for extra's even when she knew she wasn't going to eat anymore so she could stuff them in her purse and take them home.

Great write ups! You may be my favorite internet writer!

love your writing Spike!

B

Fellow M*sshole here. My grandmother also would stuff rolls or other good bread into her purse. As a little kid it confused me but as I got older I knew if there was bread in the purse she liked the place and we'd be going back.

Go Pats!

Judy's in Amherst for popovers. Apple butter.

I need to read more, you have another M-hole convert here. I'm orig from the wooded corners of Leominster. Now we flood out in Sacramento
Quite bizarre that wife and I were @Flamingo for New Years, and I was probably in the poker room same time as you. And at RRock new years day, playing omaha and NL cash.

My mood after my last five sessions:

Amen to that. RIP Lord Jeffs

Thanks guys!

I honestly don't go out to western Mass as much as I should. My father-in-law lives in upstate NY, though, so maybe the wife and I need to make it a habit to stop in Amherst any time we have to drive up that way. I'll check it out.

This is one of the weird scenarios where I'm not sure if it's a good thing that I've never shown my face in this thread. While I doubt anyone here would kick up a big fuss about it in the poker room, I don't know how I'd react to someone "recognizing" me around town. The ironic thing is that I've set out to specific rooms for the sole purpose of trying to track down specific vloggers. There is also the thread about "Just looking to find good Vegas poker players to talk over hands with". I made this post a while back:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...6&postcount=22

Some of the people there are interested in a meet-up. I was thinking of taking it one step further - get together for some food, drinks, hang out, then run over one of the ****ty daily donkaments around town. Or at least, all migrate over to the same poker room and everyone does their own thing. I'm calling it "Dine, Drink, Donk". Details to come.

Angelica's, of course. I'm from North Reading so we hit that place all the time. Come to think of it, the feast after my mother's funeral was there. Weirdly chilling.

Apologies for my melancholy post earlier this week. I've been getting my brains beat in at the tables recently. My $5 profit at Planet Hollywood on New Year's Day is the only time I've walked out of a poker room with a profit so far this year. Busted tournaments at Red Rock, South Point, and TI. Lost full buy-ins at Bellagio and Flamingo, and half a buy in at Harrah's. Bellagio was mostly on one hand KK < 99 on a 9 high flop. Flamingo was just absolutely brutal. QQ < AA, JJ < KK, Flush < Flush, Straight < Boat. All within about 45 minutes.

I actually ****ed up bad at Harrah's and they let me get away with one when I pulled the kinda dumb tourist card (and it worked):

We'll pick up this hand on the turn. A super-aggro, maybe drunk, maybe doesn't-give-a-**** player has led out for $15 into a pot of $30. Solid player with $600 behind raises to $45. I've got bottom pair and the nut flush draw, and I've got the original bettor covered by like $5. I decide to flat the $45 and hope to see the river, but then the psycho goes all-in for $130. Solid player calls the $130. I go into "**** it" mode and shove my remaining stack. River is an ace. Psycho shows flopped trips. Solid player shows KK, and I roll over the ace and scoop the $10 side pot but lose the main.

Here's where I **** up. I re-buy for $200 more with $10 in front of me. On the next hand, someone raises to $15. Two callers. I look down and see one ace, and say "All in for less". For some reason, I thought I only had the $10 left. I completely forgot I had sent the runner off for a rebuy for $200. The dealer says "Don't you have $200 behind?" Oh. ****. I do. So I go into panic mode, and say that I didn't think the chips counted for this hand and that my stack for this hand would only be the $10. I told him my intention was to call. The dealer doesn't call the floor over, and just tells me to call the $15 when the chip runner arrives. No one complains. The flop misses me completely, someone bets, and I quickly fold.

How about some pics?

On Gobbo's recommendation, I went to Soho Sushi Bowlrrito. Stupid name. Great food:



Decided to hit up the Meadows Mall. It's not in the best part of town, but it definitely takes me back to being a mallrat when I was in high school. For my fellow M*******s, I went to high school in Danvers, so I was at Liberty Tree or North Shore nearly every weekend.



Really only wanted/got one thing:



With CES in town, most parking garages were closing off a lot of their spaces and requiring people to show a room key or a high-level player card to be let in. CES has been gone for about four days at this point, but Flamingo still has about four floors worth of spots taped off. I wonder if they're doing some kind of construction:



****ty picture, but Rick Astley is playing at the Palms on January 21st:



Harrah's was doing a bunch of construction in front of their poker room for a while. Some people thought it was to eventually phase out the room. But it looks like they put a slick new sundries store here, and the room is still going relatively strong:



Decided to go with another sushi burrito place (may as well ride this trend until it dies off in 2-3 years):



Right next door:



I got something called the Cookie Monster, with home made cookie dough:



BRB, going into diabetic shock.

I wish I had more for you guys this time around, but I'm beat and I might take a break from live poker until that meetup happens. I've got a couple of weird little things planned for this weekend, then school starts up next week. I actually have real classes this semester, too, so I'm not sure how I will balance work, school, home life, and poker all at once.

a+ thread

Still trying to figure out why the hockey team was named the Golden Knights when Nevada is "The Silver State"..

People still go to malls?

Need to get Rick-Rolled at the Palms.

Just drove out to LA and realized I a) forgot out tickets to the thing and b) forgot my phone charger. I rule!

No worries it's only 4 hours back to Vegas!

will certainly visit Shang Noodle, thanks for the rec. Right next door is Yonaka, must-visit modern Japanese. You tried?

Glad you like it!

I know the owner wanted a team name that was Something Knights. The London Knights of the OHL own the trademark for just "Knights", and apparently the Las Vegas team didn't bother asking how much it would be to use the trademark. They figured it was too expensive and decided to add an adjective. Only thing I can reason about "Golden" is a) think about the implication of gold vs. silver in sporting events, and/or b) Nevada produces something like 85% of the gold in the US and 5% in the world.

Purely a guess on my part.

The mall was actually packed when I got there. But you're right. Most places are building outdoor malls and trying to push traffic that way. The Adam Ruins Everything episode about malls is pretty interesting.



And only 20 minutes until the show started! Good thing there was a Verizon store nearby and we could use electronic tickets.

I haven't tried Yonaka. I've heard good things from nearly everyone who's gone, but it's just never on my radar until after I've eaten or just driving past at an inopportune time. Might have to set some time aside for that.

Thanks to your trip report, I bought a Flo's relish off Ebay.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Flos-Famous-...wAAOxyd5tRyZVC

Shipping was pricey to the west coast, but god damn that **** is good..