It’s 12:46am and I’m currently playing a freeroll on Cakepoker. I’m doing reasonably well, I think . . . earlier tonight (well, last night, given that it’s past midnight), I got a royal flush in another room (see below).

I have to work tomorrow, but can’t; my left lung has collapsed. This collapsing lung business isn’t a Big Deal anymore. These days, they just thread a tube attached to a dongle (they call it a Heimlich) into the chest through a small incision and “it’s Miller time.”

Funstuff.

Because it’s no big deal, I’m going to see how things are in an hour; it hurts, but mildly. It’s mostly pressure, y’see, as the air from the collapse hangs around in the chest cavity.

Where the danger comes in is if the collapse is significant enough to create a situation where the pressure further collapses the lung, which results in more air in the chest (Greek: pneumothorax), resulting in further collapse, et cetera.

I’m in 12th place. 11 people get a ticket to a Saturday event via this freeroll.

1:15am: 11th of 28, now. Skin of the teeth stuff.

With the pressure->collapse->pressure issue comes the possibility of collateral damage
. . . the other lung collapsing, or lots of pressure on the heart leading to cardiac arrest. Or something.

1:24am: 4th place.

1:27am: 3rd place, on break.

So, why is it No Big Deal? The Heimlich, I guess. It’s basically an outpatient procedure, instead of the Very Big Deal it was 12 years ago. Then, they took a pinkie-sized tube and rammed it ‘twixt yer ribs, then hooked it up to whatever the medical equivalent of a Shop-Vac is.

1:48am: 2nd of 12.

1:49am . . . doesn’t matter. 11 of us move on.

Anyway, should you not see any posts here for a few days, it could be ’cause things got weird. No posts in over a week means I probably won’t be around to de-spam the comments anymore. Should this occur, in lieu of flowers send someone around to re-roof the house.

It’s the last Blogger Poker Tour round, hosted by the Poker Pub Poker Blog.
Within 10 minutes of the game’s beginning, I’d lost half my stack to a fella who had a lower pair than I, but whom the cards on the table better favored. This happens a lot.

By the first break, however, only 92 of the 112 remained, and I was 28th. Compared to previous rounds, this was fantastic! Now if I can only hold the seat . . .

By 4:17p I was 60th of 85, and getting a bad feeling about my continued survival. Time to improve my lot. Two pairs at the flop give me some badly-needed confidence, and things pick up.

4:22p 41st of 82 . . .

4:31p 20th of 75

4:33p 2nd of 73 (!)

4:47p 10th of 44

4:49p - Overly confident, I finished 40th to a Luvthegame’s straight.

Well, heck. No money, iPods or any other good stuff for me. Nonetheless, this round was a blast; I actually had a chance!

As I write this, Luvthegame is holding on to first with 24 players remaining. Well played, all.

I’ve resigned myself to instant death in the Blogger Poker Tour
. . . it’s inevitable.

What would you do if you

• flopped a king high straight
• all three cards in the flop had dissimilar suits
• an ace-high straight would require the turn and the river to be remarkable

The fellah I went up against likely had a high pair. He then, on the turn, had two pair. He went all in.

Yep.

Even then, I was certain I had the best hand. So all in it is.

Naturally, the river gives him a full house.

So I managed to be the first out in the sixth.

Depressing.

Personally, I’m just glad we had our electricity restored this afternoon. It was cold last night!

Today at 4pm eastern, the fourth event of the esteemed Blogger Poker Tour takes place.

Yours Truly has been doing miserably on the tour, so much so that I hang my head in shame as I think about it.
I rattled this in after the second event (the first I’d participated in):

Well, it wasn’t looking too good for me with 3 queens and an ace kicker. We bet and bet, and my Estonian opponent needn’t have worried about having a weak kicker; having the other queen, he also had another card to make a full house.

I went out perhaps six or seven hands later with an A-2 going up against someone’s A-A. Yep. Ordinarily, an A-2 isn’t an all-in kind of thing, but when you’re down to 300 chips, it’s worth a shot. But not against pocket rockets.

There were 75 of us — I dropped like a stone at #72. Not my day.

However . . . today’s meeting of blogging poker nuts is being hosted by IronGirl, and she’s dubbed it the IronGirl’s Omaha a Go-Go.

This is good, y’see, ’cause I love Omaha. Perhaps I’ve a chance of making up for two awful outings (I missed one). Should you see any flying pigs this afternoon, you’ll know I pulled it off.

It’s one thing to be cheap, it’s another to be flat-out broke. One thing you discover after playing on-line for cash is that playing for funny-money just doesn’t do it for you, any more.

But what if you haven’t any cash at all?

Fortunately, most poker rooms have freerolls, but — as I mentioned earler — those often tend to be complete madhouses (PartyPoker’s eight-thousand-plus-participant freerolls noticeably drag down performance on their end).

Poker.com provides an interesting alternative, wherein if you can beat 19 others, you’ll win a dollar. No big deal, certainly, but enough to set you up for their weekly Turbo Ten Cent Tournament (with rebuys, should you wipe out early).

But there’s a catch: You don’t face the 19 all at once, but rather in three steps.

‘Buy-ins’ to this are obtained with $100 funny-money, of which you’re suitably equipped. If you’ve blown it all, you can reload up to $500, daily. This funny-money buy-in gets you an entry coupon to the tournament.

When you have beaten the other five participants, you win an entry to the second step . . . and five other players who also obtained a FUNSTEP2 coupon.

When you beat them, there are nine others left — nine participants who, like you, beat two tables of players to get to FUNSTEP3. The winner of FUNSTEP3 gets one American dollar awarded to their account.

Easy money? Not necessarily. If you’re one of the losing players at any of FUNSTEP1, -2 or -3, you have to start again at FUNSTEP1 and repeat your wins. Again. And, most likely, yet again. It may be the hardest dollar you ever win, but you will find it does wonders in honing your poker skills.

Typically, there are three ways to make money at on-line poker.

1. Win a freeroll.

2. Play the tables.

3. Play the tournaments and sit-and-gos

I don’t recommend #2; it’s an excellent way to lose money until you’re very familiar with on-line play.

Freerolls

If you have no money, freerolls are typically the way to go. Freerolls are basically free-for-alls with ten or twenty participants finishing up ‘in the money.’ This sounds great, but some on-line poker sites permit well over 8,000 people gunning for the same winnings.

Depending on the freeroll type, your winnings may not be remarkable, but there are benefits: you won money without paying anything; you experienced several different types of player and playing strategy; and you actually beat x - 19 (to x - 1) people whose hold on their chips ended before yours.

Winning (or ending up in the money) a freeroll is no small victory; some players disdain freeroll winners, but you’ve beaten some heavy odds if you’ve succeeded where so many have failed. Poker.com recognizes this by awarding its freeroll champions with ‘Accolades’ — graphic ribbons, trophies &c — in addition to cash. The Accolades are a form of recognition, but may serve other purposes as well; I’ve never finished first in a freeroll, but find I get some satisfaction in taking someone out in a tournament who has.

Maybe it’s just me.

Tournaments

Entering two or more concommitent tournaments — for me, anyway — is unwise; playing simultaneous Hold ‘em and Omaha tourneys is suicide. There exist people who can knit and waterski at the same time, too. I don’t know how they do it. But individual tournaments, of either ilk, are generally manageable for the likes of me. And, as the people at the tables I play at will tell you, I’m by no means a professional.

But I have been making money.

You can, too.

Real money play doesn’t have to break the bank; Cake Poker (use bonus code EATITTOO . . . you’ll see why) has Sit ‘n Go’s for a dollar. 10 players, three of whom finish ‘in the money.’

After winning (or coming in second or third) a few times, you’ll likely be champing at the bit for the bigger pots. Just remember; never — ever — play with more than you can afford to lose. Every winning streak comes to an unpleasant end . . . and note that luck plays a significant role in both on-line and actual poker.

I’ve seen too, too many Ace-Ace hands lose to believe otherwise.

I’m not certain how I got into Poker; my grandfather was a cribbage nut, and — subsequently — that was the game I played as a child.

Euchre was the card game in high school.  We played it at lunch, during spares . . . maybe that’s what kept me out of trouble.

At various points during the ensuing decade, I played hearts and gin rummy.  But poker?  That was for the Kenny Rogers set, wasn’t it?

Poker, as you likely know, went mainstream in buckets in the ’90s when on-line .  And now?  You can currently get deeply-discounted World Series of Poker brand playing cards, chip sets, and fold-up table covers with cupholders and chip stack recessions in Walmart.

Look around long enough, and you’ll no doubt find All-In Condoms® “for your short stack.”™

The purpose of all this yammering, incidentally, is to harken back to this entry, wherein I found myself with a seat at the Degree Poker Championship in Niagara Falls.  To make a very long story short, I took some vacation days and attended.

The Niagara Fallsview Casino. Ontario, Canada.

After a long, lon-n-nng bus ride (I left the car with the more sensible half of my marriage), the casino — indeed, the city — was quite a treat on the eyes.  Time didn’t permit exploration, however; I hadn’t slept while taking the overnight bus, getting a room would be an unnecessary expense (especially if I bombed out), and I had to get ready for the tourney.

So.  With no sleep and aching (”Leave the Driving to Us”) butt, I sat down with 240 other people for the preliminary round.  My spot looked like this:

This was the total starting stack.  Players’ cards were
punched as they washed out.

I’ll spare you the play-by-play.  Past ‘final table’ players and those with other TV exposure burned fast, then burned out.  The preliminary round I played in resulted in 24 survivors . . . and I was in their number.  Unfortunately, it would be a few days until the next round commenced.  I had to take the bus home and look forward to a later round trip, too.