NO CAKE!

First game of the year for me tomorrow night provided this nor'easter doesn't screw things up.

I've been fairly busy lately with work, so I haven't been around to post too often. Most recent news is that I'm hosting a game with five new players from the co-host's group. Not only that, I'm hosting my first tourney, and it's a PLO tourney... who would've ever thought I could get omaha going through tournament form? I've got a full table of 9 for a standard $40 sit n go. Currently planning on starting at 25/50 with 5k stacks. The tourney should last about 3-4 hours, followed by cash, which I'll also cap at $40. Hopefully that will entice some usually tournament-only players to play cash as well; considering everyone is playing a new game, they might be induced to try cash as well.

I'll be using the tournament director for the tourney which I'm uber excited about. After the 30 day trial the program is a flat $50.

I imagine the stop loss nature of tournaments makes it a good way to introduce a new game, but it is quite a commitment vs playing a hand or orbit. I predict they beg for a cash game of omaha, though.

Tournament Director is a powerful program, but it has the weirdest design and UI of any program I have used. Maybe it's me, but I find it very non-intuitive. Once you get it, though, it does the job well.

I just cancelled my 3rd game in as many weeks. I have literally ended up with one person each week. I'm still getting 50%-75% response rates to each game from, but it's been a constant stream of no's. In the last 10 years I've only had to cancelled a handful of games so this is just crazy especially since our group basically played every week for the last few years. Very frustrated right now.

That's what weekend flights to Austin/Orlando are for!

5-8" of snow on the ground and the game is still on tonight. Wish me luck.

Also, I failed to mention that I'm now a co-administrator for the meetup.com group that initially got me into the poker groups here.

Yeah I wish. My wife would have my nuts if I left her with the kid who's teething....

Why are you not able to get a game together? Have you talked with your players? Is it the games played, the stakes? Something else?

Sounds like something has happened, and it is not certain it is your fault for sure, so maybe you should ask your crew about it. Could be only just a spate of co incidences of course, but usually there is something that needs addressing. Good luck, this must be frustrating for you.

The PLO tournament and cash game ended up being a great night for all the players. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed playing a new game. We had a couple drop-outs and one player that showed up to the co-host's house, so the tournament only played 7-handed. As is typical of PLO, hands blew up really quickly in the tournament, and the first few hands saw T1500 bets with ease (starting stacks of T5000 at 25/50). Even once the initial excitement of stronger hands wore off, big bets were still very typical. I'll probably end up doing starting stacks of T10000 to compensate.

The cash went great as well. I ended up chopping the tournament for $130 and won cash for $160.

I dunno what it is. My last game in December had 12 players and now we can't get 3. As of right now for abby's game next week it is just her and I.

So you haven't asked? Do so, man.

It's strange, because winter is prime time for card games.

Drove 2.5 hours each way yesterday to play a 1/2NL home game with a few folks from the chip site, including a couple who were visiting from Canada. It was a great game and my first home game of the year, since work and other commitments haven't allowed me to host or play since last month. I essentially broke even, playing for eight hours on one buy-in and cashed out -20bb, roughly the cost of gas and food for the day.

I had built a small 50bb profit early and sat in that ballpark for a long while, chipping up and down. I was about +75bb nearing the end of the session and lost two medium pots with QQ vs unsuited connectors (57 and 78) when villain flopped two pair. Got minimal action with my two sets of the session (one of them top set with my third QQ), couldn't get a flush or straight draw to come in all day long.

It was a fun six-handed game, and we spent a good portion of the day talking about chips. The host (k9dr over at CT/PCF) has some beautiful TRKs, including a rack of leaded New China Club quarter pies that is by far the heaviest rack of chips I have ever held. He also has a chip drawer in his table, which is a mandatory addition to the table that I might build one of these days. It's so dang convenient when hosting to keep rebuys and cash in that drawer.