I decided that it is time for an update:

I haven't been playing poker much lately as I am going through some transition here. I was going to deposit to take advantage of the Star's deposit bonus earlier this year, but I had a screwup in my bank and I didn't get it addressed in time to take advantage of it. I have mixed feelings about it considering the Netteller situation and the continuing crackdown by the feds.

Last time I played was during the forum PXF #2 tourney where somehow I finished 2nd. I played pretty well that night and for the most part, got my money in with the best hand and they mainly held up until Chris kept outdrawing me heads up. Nothing I could do about it as I was outchipped 10:1 at one point. . I was still pleased with the way I played though. I didn't notice any glaring mistakes aside from my folding to the blinds who were both sitting out. Oops. I am glad that only happened once.

The forum tourney section has been hopping with lots of new threads, and it has given me a lot to think about. Kevin (lucko) has been posting some interesting hand examples and it has provided a lot of debate among the forum. It is interesting hearing the views from Chipp, lucko, mag, drome, zai and others who have enjoyed much more success in MTT's and Sng's. It has gotten me rethinking my game and I am going to start playing sng's again to rebuild my roll. Since I didn't take advantage of the bonus, I will probably have to start on the $5 ones until I can move up. It will be a good exercise and I will make sure that I keep updating it regularly.

There is in the worst of fortune the best of chances for a happy change
--Euripides

Well Congress has fucking done it. I apologize for the expletive--but I can't seem to express my feelings in any other words. Senator Frist finally got his wish and attached the anti gambling bill to the port security bill and then used a procedural move so that a vote was not required in the Senate. So much for accountability in our government.

For anyone reading this, I would urge them to contact Senators Frist, Kyl and all of the proponents of this measure and demand to know why why they attached this bill to a very unrelated bill while hiding behind senate "procedures". I would also urge everyone to start vote everyone out of office who voted for the bill (contact their offices) in both the house and senate and perhaps start taking a serious look at other parties like the libertarian party. Let us follow the great words of Thomas Jefferson

When once a republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles; every other correction is either useless or a new evil.

We need a change in government--our two party system is a miserable failure, having been hijacked by extremist elements in each party, and it is time for the people to stand up and make a statement. The best way is to go the polls and make sure that your voices are heard. These corrupt politicians, in both in mind and spirit, have to be shown the door and it is time for the people's voices to be heard. Next time you hear a politician say that we have to do something because of fear of something, it simply means that the terrorists or fill in the blank have won as we keep losing our freedoms and the government keeps increasing its powers. We are well on our way towards an Orwellian society at this rate.

When governments fear the people there is liberty. When the people fear the government there is tyranny.
--Thomas Jefferson

What a pain in the ass---my computer crashed on me a couple of weeks ago. While I was able to recover lots of data, my resume' was not one of them. Luckily for me, I had a few printed copies around and I managed to scan them and recover the text. The formatting was a different story however, and I have managed to use much of this day to reassemble my resume'.

Well, I managed to get of my old boss today, Alan who is probably the coolest most genuine person I have ever worked for. He has already sent out a few leads for me. I also talked to someone about doing some auditing on a contract basis. He is really interested in having me work for him and can keep me busy, but I just don't know if I want to be self employed at this time. To quote Eleanor Roosevelt, "One's philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes ... And the choices we make are ultimately our responsibility." I really like that quote, and even more, when it makes me think about choices I am making. That is the heart of being a libertarian I guess. I also have another source for contract audits and these would be big accounts. I will play it by ear I guess and see what tomorrow brings before coming to a decision.

Onto a little poker--I have been running ice cold in poker the last few days. I actually was involved in a 2 table sng where my VPIP was 0 through 40 hands and I saw 1 flop. On the 41st hand, I was dealt J3o in the BB with one limper. Flop came down J83 rainbow--I pushed my 750 chips with the blinds at 50/100 and was immediately called by the limper. He flips up a pair of 8's and I was out in 11th after playing 1 hand. That's poker for you. I am actually thinking about taking a mini vacation from the game, maybe playing a little microstakes until I can shake off these cobwebs. It just seems that when my cards run cold, they run ice cold. I actually want to go back to playing some limit, but the time is not right in my opinion. I may take up some stud or O8b in the meantime though.

Well, I decided to get stupid and start my own blog. I haven't figured out what I am going to talk about though. I figure I will start with a little poker, some politics and throw in some other tidbits.

I now firmly believe you have to be an idiot to be elected to Congress, or at least wanting to get elected. You get to say stupid things and have a big following. Now that I think about it, that does seem to have a good side to it. I am probably being a little cynical here--many probably start with good intentions by then get corrupted on the way by their newfound power. Somewhere along the line, they figure out that the game in Washington to try to get elected so they can get reelected a few years ago. I was never in favor of term limits, but sometimes you have to take drastic actions to solve a problem......

I am just amazed at the way our Congress behaves. They have decided in their infinite wisdom that internet gambling is a bigger bane on our society than their internal lobbying reforms where hopefully all hell breaks loose from the Abramoff scandal. I guess many need something to deflect the attention from their expected problems and need something to woo the religious right. Check out these comments by Representative Goodlatte in this article:

"Gambling on the Internet has become an extremely lucrative business. These offshore, fly-by-night Internet gambling operators are unlicensed, untaxed and unregulated and are sucking billions of dollars out of the United States"

So instead of taking prudent steps to regulate and legalize gambling in this country, his solution is to ban them all and call them all fly by night unregulated operations. What he fails to tell everyone else is that several of the big poker site such as Party Poker, Pacific Poker, and Paradise Poker are listed on the LSE and are regulated by local authorities. Also, he fails to mention is that this legislation doesn't actually criminalize gambling over the internet--it just makes it illegal to transfer and accept funds from these sites and also puts the impetus on banks and legislation to enforce it. It also doesn't make it illegal for ISP's to block gaming sites (the double negative is intentional)--talk about hypocrisy, criticize China for censorship and then allow censorship in this country. Basically if your ISP determines that a site is "inappropriate", they can block it and you have no recourse. Bastages.

As for my poker, I have been playing mainly sng's these days and taking a couple of months off from my favorite game of limit. Limit holdem is a grind; and while I enjoy it, it does take its toll after a while. Many of the limit players of the plusone have been taking similar breaks by playing different games also, so I am not alone in this. I haven't been doing bad, but the suckouts really leave a bad taste in your mouth after a while and I sort of have to quit for the day or at least a few hours to get the taste out of my mouth. Take yesterday in a HU match, blinds are at 50/100, my opponent has a slight chip lead~200 chips. I get AA on the button, raise it up to 150, my opponent reraises to 300, I pop it up to 500 and he goes all in and I call. He flips over KQ of clubs and I show my aces. Of course, a JT fell on the flop and you know that queezy feeling that something is going wrong, turn is a blank and the river of course is an ace and bye bye tournament. It happens--I put my money in when I had the best hand and got outdrawn. I still didn't like it, and I took it easy for the rest of the night.

All right, I am done for now--this seems to be a pretty long post for the first one. I am still figuring this blogging thing out.