summer doldrums hit the poker room in montana. they are starting the games too early in the afternoon and with summer here unless a select few show up the game is weak or non existent.
traditionally summertime the games would go best if started around 4 and go through dinner so players didnt leave to go home, then played late.

What type of games and limits do you usually play there Ray? Do you play at all online, there seems to be a fair amount of PLO8, fixed limit 08 and stud H/l from low limits all the way up to mid/high stakes on Bovada.

all pot or no limit holdem or four card.
i dont play on line anymore. too much like factory work for me. no fun and interaction with the players. one of the big pluses for poker is the social aspect of it for me anyway.

too much deferred maintenance at my house. lately ive been home bound getting things fixed to arranging someone to fix whats broken.
my heating and cooling system blew itself up as it was getting old. so in went a new heat pump, air handler, and ducting.
then garage doors have been going TU. springs break and motors go on the blind.
i can easily replace a garage door opener in a half hour but i wont tough those springs when they break.

another big fire year in the pacific north west to have to sweat our way through it.
there was little snow pack in the mountains, some places as low as 15% of normal.
the rivers are very low for this time of the year and its been super hot with no rain at all.

as july and august progress fires will be a big deal with many starting already and smokey skies all over. smoke is already filling places that came down from large fires in canada and alaska. it doesnt look good at all.

one nice thing about summer is the farmers markets all over the place. most towns have one and it is the place to get homegrown food. you can find organic healthy local food that actually tastes great. the vegetables are outstanding not being commercial products that need shipping from a thousand miles away.
besides my own garden its where my eat at home food comes from. no chain supermarkets for me.

one of the last few small tourneys i played i got knocked out about halfway. i was in the hijack with j/9 and moved in being lowish on chips and they play not to go broke.
ran into two big hands and left early

the other day got to last table near bubble medium low on chips in relation to the blinds and found kk in the s/b and button raised so i moved in. by his reaction and call i was confident. but he had aces and i went home.
in a deep stack situation i can get away from kings at times. this wasnt one of those situations or times.

Ray,

Did you go to WSOP this year? If not think about the Super Senior event next year - the most fun I can remember having in a tournament. Most everyone laughing and joking even as the bubble approached.

it thought about it this year but i ended up with a bunch of important issues to attend to so i couldnt really get away. my poker game is still sharp as a tack but i dont like to put in long hours, maybe next year as you say. are you someone i played with in the past?

A couple of times as I recall - in the pot limit games at Binions/Golden Nugget when WSOP was still at Binions.

I think you were mostly playing in stud games though.

hope to meet you again sometime. stud is a dying game. maybe already dead.
someday it will comeback as all things seem to do it that go away that were worthwhile.
luckily i played all the games and could sit in whatever looked the best.
stud and the pot limit games were the ones i liked the best.

in the last three small tournaments ive played i came in second in one and ran into aces two times when i had kings in spots i couldnt get away from and got broke. luck plays a major role in your success rate in tournaments. if you can get to play enough of them it evens out and your results may be predictable. meaning you can guess how much equity you have in them.
however you might get a rough idea just sizing up the players and how the blinds progress, and of course the chip stacks.

fishing has been slow all over the pacific northwest. the rivers are in the danger zone or worse with their temperatures at where the fish cant survive.
water levels are extremely low for this time of the year and getting worse.

some lakes and rivers are getting too much algae growth as well.

its looking like a hot dry bad summer for the sportsman.

Come to Colorado. It won't stop raining and the rivers are still high.

a large fire blew up in glacier national park in a spot that is really beautiful and heavily visited. luckily so far its at about 3 to 4 thousand acres only.
this year could be real scary for fires all over the west or hopefully we squeak by.
its been too hot for my liking as well.

this summer the couple places i play at where they play tournaments have been doing real well. more players have been coming around to play. plus they are more sociable which means money is not as tight.
so maybe we are seeing by this small sample a resurgence in poker somewhat.
i hope so.

a lot ofpeople talk about how we have lost our freedoms in the u.s. and how bad it has gotten. especially with most internet poker gone.

however i remember when it was illegal to own any gold. unless it was made into jewelry or was a collector piece worth more than the gold. you had to tun all gold into the government for 32 dollars an ounce.

also abortion was illegal and women were getting them in back rooms and bleeding to death.

all personal gambling was outlawed in almost all states and even private poker games could land you in jail. the exception was bingo for the churches tax free of course and horse racing.

get caught with a joint and maybe spend years in prison, especially in the south.

black people had to use different facilities and even drinking fountains in many states.

your race or nationality marked you for life as to what you would become.

now it is much better and freedom is in reality here. although not total freedom as the big money still rules.

poker is easy when they never call you and you can bluff your way to the top. but it gets hard when players call too much. then of course you must show hands to win. in cash games that is easy but in a tournament the blinds go up so you end up getting all in against two under cards or such. where it hurts is when you played all day and are close to the money and must play hands as the blinds have gotten so large you are blinded out in forty hands or so.

a sow grizzly with two cubs killed a person in yellowstone national park recently. usually they dont kill the bear as it is just being a bear. this time though the bear did eat part of the person and that triggers a rule that if a bear kills and eats someone it must be put to death.
for some reason they think it must have now become accustomed to killing people or something.
it doesnt happen often but there are two sides of it and many are now mad over the killing of the bear and sending its cubs to a zoo.

I am happy to stand on the bear's side.

There is a third side. Part of what makes Jelly Stone beautiful is that there are bears that can kill you. It keeps at least some of the riff raff out.

Only posted that so I can also say that it would be appreciated if you would post more, Ray.

what are some things you would like to hear about?

years back i would spend most of September and half of october in yellow stone park. ive had many encounters with grizzly bears mostly in glacier national park.
and waterton park in canada.

bears are not interested in people. they are constantly looking for food. they eat berries, grass, moths, gophers, and dead things they find. with only occasionally bringing down a moose or elk.
the danger is when you get between a sow and her cubs. or near a males fresh kill.

i do carry bear spray which is really pepper spray. works better than a gun. it makes them stop and turn away. many times i also carry a 44 mag loaded with special hard cast bullets.

Difficult to say until you have done the writing - I don't have access to your memories. Maybe tell us about the time you and your best friend went on a crime spree across the Midwest?

Black bears occasionally will stalk and attack humans. I think that perhaps this is due to feelings of inadequacy. The other bears make fun of them a lot for not being bear sized.

a new fire has popped up next to glacier park. unfortunately for me i have a cabin very close to this. they are on the stage to declare evacuation of the area if the fire which is expected to grow and move in that direction happens.
i dont care as much about the cabin as i do about the land which is all trees and along the river. its all the luck of the draw as they say.

i can always build a new cabin but trees hundreds of years old take too long to come back.

we had a close call about ten years back also but not as big a threat as this one is.

If the cabin goes up in flames Ray, I'll come up and help you rebuild it. I have a chain saw and lots of tools etc. I'll bring by fly rod also.

Hope it survives though. Be a shame to see it go.