That is what he said. Everyone would see the flop, but after that a $6 or $9 total bet would create an avalanche of folded cards.

Not yet....still need to defend!

A mere formality . . .

Just poking into say hello. Between grad school and trying to buy a house, poker has taken more of a back seat.

Although one of the requirements for the house is somewhere for me to set up a poker room.

You're thinking about it all wrong. The poker room should not merely be "one of the requirements." It should be at least the top three or four.

1. Bathroom
2. Poker Room
3. Kitchen (not necessary -- get takeout or order in, use paper and plastic)
4. Bedroom (not necessary -- put an air mattress under the poker table)

You could switch 1 and 2 if you live in the woods.

No, not in the top three or four. It should be the top three or four.

1. Poker Room
2. Poker Room
3. Poker Room
4. Poker Room Bathroom
5. Main Bathroom
6. Whatever

1. Poker Room
2. Poker Room Bar area
3. Poker Room bath room
4. Poker room rest area with alternative recreational activities including (but not limited to) ping pong table, air hockey, Foosball, PS4/XBOX, Pool/Billiards.

Optional: Rest of the living quarters including living room, bedrooms, bathrooms

Well, let me rephrase. Outside of the standard "house" stuff, a room for poker/office was my one requirement. Anything else was up to the wife.

A hearty congratulations to Dr. jzpiano!

Thanks! Finally catching up now that the bachelor party and wedding for my brother is over. Here the best man gift I got from him. Sorry for the crappy cell phone pic.



I also successfully defended my dissertation this week as well! Six years of work finally concluded so I'm thrilled to be moving on. Now if I could find a nice new job....

I'll get a post up sometime when I get the motivation (still tired/hungover for yesterday) with pictures of the Caribbean Stud and Blackjack Tables I made for the bachelor party somewhere in between everything else that was going on. Busy a super busy last few months, but am hoping now that things should be settling down that I'll be able to play some more poker.

Congratulations!

Buzz

Love the cufflinks!

congrats, jz!

Went up to Lawrenceburg Hollywood Sunday afternoon for one of my occasional casino trips. Ended up on a 1-2 NLH table for about 7 hours before a semi cooler (and a little donking by me added) sent me home before I went in the red. Bought in for the 100bb max. I was down about 25 bb once , built up to around 125bb ahead, and then crashed down to a mere 21bb profit. I stay too long I think , because I don't get to go up there often enough and I try to make the most of a session. Love to test my game against strangers from time to time , as opposed to my regular friday nite homegame crew.

Congrats! If we didn't already have a DocStrange on the forum, I'd put you in for a handle change.

I'd like to offer an apology to you guys for my slow modding and general lack of participation in the forum the last few weeks. It's not a lack of interest - just life/work being fairly busy lately.

To make matters worse, my employer recently installed a client-side web filter on my primary work PC that blocks 2+2. It's always been filtered server-side in the office, but I could always get on when working at home or by tethering to my phone from the office. Those days are gone, so I'm stuck with Tapatalk or opening a virtual machine that I built solely for this purpose. Tapatalk mod capabilities aren't very robust, and anything longer than a short reply is unwieldy, so I mostly just lurk from there.

I've been pretty active poker-wise lately in spite of my lack of free time. Last weekend was the EPIC Shootout at the Post in Atlanta. I broke even in three days of cash games, ran cold as ice and busted out very early in the tourney, then booked a win on the way home when I stopped at Ocala Jai Alai/Poker Room to bring myself slightly ahead poker-wise for the weekend.

I'd wanted to check the room out for a while, but it's about 90-100 minutes from my house, and for that drive I can hit one of the best rooms in Florida (Hard Rock Tampa). Admittedly it was a Sunday afternoon, but I was less than overwhelmed. There was a small buy tourney going, as well as a single table of 1/2NL and a long list. Shortly after I arrived, a second 1/2 table started up. I played for an hour, winning a few chips and a small $150 HHJ when I flopped a set of jacks vs Mr. "I've got $60 and I'm gonna slowplay aces." River boated me, and in this room any full house qualifies for the HHJ.

Definitely not worth the drive to visit again, but I'm glad I got to see the room for myself.

I also forgot to mention a new home game that I was invited to join this past Saturday. It was clearly a new group, with a few players who barely knew the rules of the game and a few more who had played before and had a handle on strategy.

We played with ebay sluggos on folding tables covered in disposable tablecloths. I like a good setup, but I'll play with matchsticks and paper Bicycles if the game is good. We played two $40 tourneys - the first with 16 players and the second with 10. I played a basic game: tight early, opened up when others started tightening and were showing my bets/raises too much respect, and I got very aggressive when shortstacked and near the bubble. The structure was very quick - the host wanted to double the blinds every 15 minutes (!?!) but one of his friends talked him into throwing some extra rounds in there.

I took almost-first place money in a three-way chop with 50% of the chips (11bb) in the first tourney, and busted third in the second tourney after the bubble burst and I shoved 3bb with J-high. The remaining two players immediately chopped when I was out; I knew that was going to happen and that they weren't going to offer me a three-way chop, so I just decided to shove ATC OTB until I busted or doubled up.

It was a fun group to play with, and I felt like I had a big edge in that game in spite of the turbo structure. They're trying to make it a regular thing, and the host seemed to like me enough to invite me back.

Thanks for the chuckle. It's good for me to laugh... reason is we play with paper Bicycles and wouldn't have it any other way. We play weekly and break out two new jumbo sized image decks monthly. The cards themselves hold up quite well and could probably be used longer, but it's nicer playing with fresh, new cards.

We alternate decks when dealing. The person who dealt last shuffles while the alternate deck is dealt. That seems to work well for us.

Plastic cards get dirty and need washing. I don't want to be bothered washing and drying a deck of cards and nobody else in our game does either.

Using two new packs of cards per month may seem expensive but we buy them in packs of a dozen, and it's less than two bucks per deck. Usually someone picks them up at COSTCO but you could get them on-line too:

12 NEW DECKS BICYCLE PLAYING POKER CARDS JUMBO FACE
$22.99
Free shipping

They're really quite nice. (To each his own, I suppose).

Anyhow, I got a kick out of your lumping paper Bicycles with matchsticks. Thanks again for the laugh.

Buzz

You're gonna get flamed for using paper over plastic. This isn't 1980 at the grocery store.

Plastic cards don't get dirty and don't need to be washed often. I've had decks that got used for about 6-8 hours once a week for 3 or 4 years and never needed to be washed. I think you're doing it wrong.

I probably deserve it.

We have some Kem plastic playing cards we use for bridge. They've been quite satisfactory.

I'm following that other current thread about what the best cards are. If I ever buy new plastic cards, I think I'll try Modiano Platinum Acetates.

No?

Interesting.

Perhaps. However, the jumbo face bicycle cards we've been using for poker have been very satisfactory. Honest.

Buzz

Buzz

Your crew must be very gentle on cards. We use plastic exclusively now , but one fellow donated like 24 decks of Bikes paper from a Big Lots special or somewhere. We use two decks too. We are weekly also. Very seldom did two decks stand up well for two weeks. If you are getting a month (4 sessions) from two decks , then the price is right for sure.

Brag:
Exploited my nit image last night to flat a dry flop on the BTN with next to nothing (had a gut shot) with the plan to raise nicely on the turn to rep a set. Yes, it's difficult to rep a set when it hits so infrequently but if I can't rep it who can? Turn c-bet came, from a player who knows how to adjust and is well aware of my image, insta raised him like I had it and he folded quickly.

Beat:
I finally decide to 3-bet light vs. above player when he opens in LP (i.e. wide range) with K-crap suited and the station to my left flats and ruins my plans

Variance:
Semi-bluffed an open ended straight draw on the flop on K high dry flop and got3-bet all-in to where I didn't have the odds to call and was forced to fold :/

Sorry Buzz, didn't mean to sound like a card snob (even though I am one).

IME, I can get months and months of play out of a good plastic setup without washing them. I'm lucky to get one session out of paper cards. They bow when shuffled, they get nicked and marked, etc. etc.

Also for the record, I never wash plastic cards. After a while they get dirty and sticky because of small scratches in the plastic, or the ink fades. I just throw them away and open a new setup. It's still much cheaper than paper, and more enjoyable too.

This. I did this once or twice and the cards had a funky smell, cards became even more faded, or had some bleed, so from now on they go in the trash and I buy a new set up.