Back by Popular Demand

I've never had so many requests for a new blog entry in the history of my blog. I guess a lot of people like baseball.

I left my apartment in San Diego last Thursday and drove up to Seal Beach to hang out with my friends, Amanda and Matthew. They're into skim-boarding so we headed to the beach and tried it out. I spent most of the time falling on my ass but I had a great time. We tried to get a good action shot but they were too embarassing so here's an artistic one that makes it look like I might know what I'm doing:


Skim-Boarding 

After skim-boarding we hit a local burrito stand then went back to their apartment to watch Cool Hand Luke and drink beer. I thought the movie was well done but ran a little too long. There were some heavy religous messages and I got the feeling that Luke was supposed to be a Christ-like character. I thought it was definitely worth watching and I recommend it to anyone. There's a line he says, after bluffing in a poker hand, that goes, "sometimes nothing is a pretty cool hand." It's now my dream to utter those words during a televised poker tournament.

On Friday morning I headed up to L.A. to pick up the Dodgers tickets from my friend Chris. He works for Ticketmaster and was able to score me 3 tickets to their suite. I took him out for lunch at a cheap Thai place and we were both happy. I had about 5 hours before gametime so I got a haircut and ate a Beef Bowl from Yoshinoya. Beef bowls come highly recommended:


Yoshinoya Beef Bowl 

It rained all day and I was worried that the game might be rained out. On the way to the parking lot the rain stopped for a bit and gave us a sweet rainbow over Dodger Stadium. Unfortunately, the traffic was thick and I couldn't find the pot of gold.


Rainbow 

Once I got to the stadium, I left 2 tickets at will call for my ex-roommate Kele and our friend, Bill, who were driving up from Carlsbad. Once inside, the suite was everything that I hoped for. The view was fantastic, they brought food to you, AND it was dry. I sat outside for a while and watched the grounds crew unroll and re-roll the tarp three different times. It looked like it was a pain in the arse but they were pretty efficient and definitely very professional:


Tarp 

The game was scheduled to start at 7:40 but the first pitch was at 9:37. There weren't a ton of people left in the stands but the few remaining let loose some great "Bonds Sucks" chants. He got one good swing on a ball and the left fielder ran it down on the warning track. I love nothing more than watching Barry hit a ball hard, start his little homerun strut, then watch the ball get caught at the warning track. It looks like he really misses his juice, the poor guy. It ended up being a great game that the Giants won 2-1. Kele isn't a baseball fan and was bored as hell but I love pitchers' duels. Here's a picture of the game from our suite. God, I love baseball:


I love Baseball 

I definitely tried to take more pictures this time around and did my best crazy Japanese tourist impersonation. Actually, I am a tourist, I am Japanese and I'm a little crazy so I guess I was made for the role. Here are a few more random shots from the game:


Dodger Dog and a Beer 


Bullpen Car 

The game was pretty quick and ended around 12:10. I wanted to stay in L.A. but my L.A. friends weren't answering their phones so I decided to drive directly to Vegas. I called my friend John and told him that I'd be showing up around 4:30 AM. With most people, in most cities, I would feel bad but it's perfectly acceptable in Vegas.

Over the past few days I've watched a lot of poker on TV and played a bit of poker at the Bellagio. The first day I played in a great $5/10 NL game and lost about $1K. I think the definition of a "good game" is one you get stuck at least a rack. Last night I played in a $40/80 mixed game. The rotation was stud hi-low regular, Omaha/8, and 2-7 triple draw. I have no clue how to play the stud game, suck at O/8 and feel like I'm pretty good at triple draw. I sat with Carl and Justin and we had a ball, discussing the nuances of each game and trying to get better. It's funny because even though the rest of the players were locals and play in the game all the time they played so bad at certain games that I think we had to be +EV as a whole. I was probably a loser in the game but the educational opportunity made it worth my time. Carl played really well but the locals definitely thought he was a lucky fish. When he cashed out, one guy offered to pay his rake if he stayed and another guy asked him if he ever lost a pot in his life. Those are some of the highest compliments you can get from weak nits and I was pretty jealous. I cashed out up exactly $100 and had a great time. I'd much rather lose $5K playing that game than grind it out at a $30/60 hold 'em game. I like to think I'm a pretty smart guy but I'm also lazy when my brain isn't challenged. I think learning new games is a good way to get my mind thinking about poker again and I'm definitely going to try to get better at all forms. The local nits played a pretty good O/8 game but were horrible at 2-7 and stud hi-low regular. If I could get competent at O/8 and stud I think I could crush that game. I'll definitely give it another whirl next time I'm in town.

Tonight we're going to go get loaded and play some donkey poker at the MGM. We're going to try to get them to spread a $2/4 HORSE game for us and they've been very accomodating in the past. I'm leaving tomorrow morning for the Diamondbacks-Giants game. I doubt the boos will be as loud as they were at Dodger Stadium but it should sill be fun. I wonder how many warning track bombs Barry will hit.

I want to give a shout out to my friend, Steve Day, for winning $88K in the big Sunday tourney on Stars. Congrats, Steve!