It's Been a While

But not much blog-worth stuff has happened.

Last week for my birthday we played poker at Dave's house, including a yummy choclate Costco cake for me! I thought I was going to finish in the money, but ended up going out on the bubble - my big stack dwindled away to nothing. It was a double-bubble night because Nick went out one person before me. On Friday night, we went with a group of 11 to Old Chicago, then back to Dave and Smeeta's where my team dominated at Cranium! We then started a Euchre tournament but Nic and I didn't do very well - we were awesome at getting 9s and 10s but not awesome at winning tricks.

This week at poker, Nick and I both did much better. I was a monster and took out the first 5 people (including Nick and Sergei on the same hand!), then cruised into the top 2 without losing my chip lead. However, James got A-A TWO hands in a row and took the majority of my chips (I had 9-9). I was able to fight my way back and get a third of the chips, but I finally lost to him when I had the low straight and he had the high straight. It was still a good battle and I was elated to break my bubble-girl streak. We were actually ambitious enough to play a second game and Nick and I split - we were the last two people left! He had a lot more money than me so I think I would have gotten second again though.

At home, we've been on a huge Scrabble kick, playing pretty much nightly. I think we only played Empire Builder twice in the last two weeks! Beyond that, we haven't been doing much at all. Working, sleeping, and spring cleaning; just call us Mr and Mrs Boring :)

Spring!

It was so nice out today, I love spring (I hope I'm not jinxing the weekend)! Nick and I got home at about the same time and decided to walk to Subway for dinner. It was perfect weather to do so. When we got home we left for Seth's house and poker. I was knocked out 7th out of 14, but Nick made it to the final two. We were down to 5 people by 10 pm, but it took until 11 to knock out the next 3. Nick and Paul finally agreed to split the pot just to end the game.

Also, my random weird thing of the day: today's spoofing bill at Caribou (6 drinks) came to exactly $20. Our supper at Subway was exactly $10. What happened to the cents??

Snow Outage

We got our March snowstorm early this year - a couple of inches during rush hour. That didn't stop poker though - 10 players and it came down to me vs the Borchs. I doubled each of them up when their pocket pair was better than mine. Luckily, Katie took out Rob but as she was gathering her chips the power went out, then on, then out, on, out. Outside the bay window we saw two huge flashes of light, sort of like lightening. Then nothing. It's two hours later and still no power. We finished by flashlight - Katie won! Being the only two girls we did call for an all-girl heads up when we were the short stacks, so our psychic abilities are intact!

The power stayed off, but our friends are troopers and stayed for a second game. We played by laternlight and the second game ended much like the first, but with Nick taking 2nd instead of me. It was a fun poker night!! I just hope the power comes back on soon (I'm writing this via Nick's cell phone - will fix it up later).

Ice Fishing!

Last weekend I finally made it out to the ice house. The guys are still in the same spot they were before and they are still catching lots of perch! The new roof makes the whole thing nice and cozy.

Ice House 2008

Fish in the hole!

Nick and Ed each pulled up a fish at the same time!

Sergei's "Big Catch"

Beyond that, we are just staying warm at home. Nick and I saw another movie, Dan in Real Life, and went to Granite City with Ed and Dave. Nick and Dave won at tennis for a second consecutive week and I got to go to a free show at Acme courtesy of Ed's birthday. Neither of us did very well at poker this week.

Today is a gorgeous day. The snow is melting and Nick and I felt comfortable as we were running errands. It wasn't a pain to walk from the car to the store and back out again! I got a new battery for my cell phone (hopefully this fixes the problem) and Nick bought a new racquetball racquet (maybe he can beat James now). We even took a walk around the block when we got home!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Nick and I didn't really celebrate. We both worked late, then came home and exchanged cards that were on Woot today. Then it was flying out of the house and over to Sergei's for poker. We got there early and ate pizza - yum! We had 8 players and Nick and I did pretty well: 2nd and 3rd. Ed beat us both! Hope your day was fun for you too!

Poker Hosting

We had a very good turnout for poker this week - 13 players and 4 non-players. I started off with two awesome hands and things quickly went downhill from there. Nick, however, finished 4th. Ed was the big winner - he fought back from a rough beginning and managed to take it all. We were also celebrating Rob's birthday and the cards obliged him. Rob played pocket 7s against Ed's pocket 2s and a pair of 5s, a 2 and a 7 showed up on the board. So they both had boats :)

I also played in a 6 person "speed poker" dollar game. We raised the blinds every 5 minutes, so it was possible to miss an entire blind level. It was fun - probably more so because I won and got $4!! Woohoo!!

Throwback Week

Last night the Bacos volleyball team played a new team that decided to name themselves "The Trixsters" (note the use of the letter "s" in the middle). In celebration, Nick, Krista, and Bob wore throwback jerseys to the game:

Bacos won all three games.

Tonight, I went on an old-fashioned rampage at poker and won one for the girls. I started off doing poorly, not even winning a hand until the 2-4 blinds. I think I was down to about $50. Then I won a couple of small hands and got my first big break: pocket Qs. Perfect flop too: A-Q-10. I had first decision and checked, figuring someone would bet their A (since I had raised pre-flop). I got a nibble and a medium-sized bid. I knew the guy who raised didn't have K-J so I check-raised and went all-in. He thought about it for a long time and then called - he had A-10. The hand played out and I won! After that, I was pretty much on a tear until heads up. Of the 8 people left at table, I took out 5 more and ended up heads up with Ross. Only Katie, Dave and Rob were immune to my streak. I had a bigger stack, but doubled Ross up. After that it was pretty slow for a while; I won the only big hand which put us about even. From there, I had a run of great luck: lots of pocket pairs and A-face card suited. Ross never called my all-ins, but I got 50 from him each time. Finally the last hand: I flopped mid-pair and a 4-card flush draw. Ross went all-in and I didn't believe him so I called. The turn gave him a bigger pair and the river gave me a flush! Yeah, I'm bragging, but it was a pretty fantastic comeback from the short stack (and I know I'm dooming myself for next week). I'll enjoy the feeling while it lasts. It was a fun poker night.

Poker Magic

Ed buckled down and managed to knock out me (pocket J over pocket 6) and Nick (boat on the river to win) and finish first tonight. I had very good luck with KK and KQ, especially when all in, to last that long! Not a bad poker night after the 3-week hiatus!!

Poker Oh Poker

Hey, I won this week! I had some awesome action in the first half, letting my chip stack dwindle to about 50 then tripling up against Nick and Dmitry, and tripling up again to take out Nick and Seth. After that I finished off the rest of Dmitry's stack. I might have even taken Rob out. At the final table, I sat quiet for a while, then miraculously got a 7 to finish my straight (I had 6-8-9-10 so it was a long shot) to take out Paul. Three hands later Nic thought I was bluffing and called my heads up all-in and I won! It was close though - I only had 42 more chips than him (out of 1300). I guess the poker winds have shifted.

My Poker Luck is Back!!

After months of coasting (I think my last finish in the money was versus Ed back in May) I finally have managed to do something in a poker game. Last week I got 2nd place in the side game (lost with the same hand as the winner but he got a 4-card flush), Saturday night I lost heads up to Rob in the first hand (K-8 suited couldn't overpower pocket Js) and tonight I manged to get second in the main game! I had a pocket pair and lost on the river - the board paired twice higher than my fours and his ace was high card. Only my second set of pockets all night. But it was a great night for me and I was very happy to have some luck and get some flops going my way again. :)

No love, no love, no love

After months of miserable poker playing (not even bad playing, just no luck) I finally started to get back in my groove in the second game; in fact I made it to heads up! I was down about 300 chips but slowly fighting my way back (700 chips total). I got my hand and looked: K-Q offsuit. Not a bad hand for heads up. I went all-in and got called - also a K-Q. This is good, right? We each just get our money back and continue to play? Nope. Flop comes out diamond-diamond-diamond. ARG! He has the K of diamonds. Turn, nothing. River: 2 of diamonds. Someone is still laughing at me but I'm happy just to finally win some money!

Woo-Hoo!

Pretty happy with how everything turned out tonight. All my fantasy teams are off to a great start and Nick got second at poker. Yay for football!

I was right!

First out! But I did last up until the 10-20 blinds, was chip leader at one point, and lost on pocket 4s instead of A-K this week. Nick won so we came out ok!

Harry Potter arrives tomorrow!!!

Game Theory

Last night the Bacos didn't play very good volleyball - we just barely won the first game in OT, then dropped the next two to the team that's next highest in the rankings. That takes a little of the pressure off for the playoffs in two weeks. Afterwards, Nick, Rob and I continued our new volleyball tradition and played a couple of games of darts while watching the 7th and 8th innings of the Twins game. My first dart game was terrible and Nick ended up overtaking Rob's early lead to win. In the second game, I finally got my hand settled down and ended up winning a close game easily. Everyone had everything closed out except the bullseyes. I had two bullseyes and 74 points. Rob had 0 and 54 and Nick had 0 and 34. So it was basically bullseye to win! I ended up getting a double with my second dart and won with 99 points! Unfortunately the Twins lost both last night and tonight - so much for our fantastic start after the All-Star break.

I won at spoofing today on a gutsy 1-call with 0 in my hand; guess I won't be winning at poker. Good luck anyway :)

Quick Notes

We played some pretty good volleyball Wednesday night, but only managed to win the first game. All-Heart award goes to Bob, who was perfectly consistent and served us to victory in our only win.

Harry Potter was pretty good, although they changed a bit too much for my tastes. Good movie, just not the book. It was fun to play hooky though and see a movie. We went to the outlet mall afterwards and I got a new shirt and the kitchen scoops I wanted so it was a doubly-beneficial trip.

Nick got the first-ever Thursday night royal flush tonight (correct me if you remember another one by someone else) and still managed to be first out :( Later James got one in our second game of Crazy Pineapple, which I took second place in.

Twins won their first game back after the All-Star break. Keep it up guys!

And that's your adventure snapshot for this Friday morning! I should have pictures, but I'm too lazy to upload them, maybe later :)

The Last Four Days

I just feel like writing, so here's some random stuff that's been going on.

On Tuesday, the boys won at softball! Congratulations!

On Wednesday, we went 1 for 3 in volleyball, winning the final game of the night. This moves us up to sixth place! We have a bye this coming week because of the holiday, but we'll be back with a vengeance on the 11th!

Thursday was poker. We had a pretty big crowd - 20 people came over and 15 of them played. Nick and I both made the final table but quickly lost; Dmitry ended up beating Katie to end the game. I think the large crowd was due to the three special guests we had coming; unfortunately, only one of them made it and she didn't play. In her defense, she was only 12 days old then so her hand-eye coordination isn't quite conducive to playing poker yet.

The final table, minus Sergei (he disappeared with his chips so I didn't know he was still in)

The "Good Luck" cake I had made. The "Good Luck" was directed at everyone. The cake was because I felt like getting one!

Earlier in the day was my division's work picnic. It was a lot of fun, but also slightly unsettling because half the poker crowd was missing. I played in an impromptu volleyball tourney. We started off with fours - Andrea and I were on one team and the other six players were men. Our team lost. More guys wandered over and we ended up playing fives next - our team won! Finally, two more guys showed up so the last game was sixes. We started off badly, going down 0-8, then we rallied and came back to 14-10. We ended up winning 18-16. It was a lot of fun, although the ball was a rock! I have a large bruise on my knuckle from bumping that ball. It was interesting to play with Rob not diving at balls - he had on new jeans and didn't want to ruin them :) I also had good luck at the bingo table, winning a $5 gift card and a beach towel. I then won the "final" prize of the day, which was sort of a booby prize but exciting just because it was the last one they had. Finally, I won one of the raffle prizes, a $25 gift card to another place. Fun!

Today was a half day - awesome because we're not going anywhere this weekend. I came home from work, listed some stuff on eBay, took a walk, and took a nap. After Nick got home we went over to Dave and Smeeta's for supper and games. We played a high-scoring game of Puerto Rico. Nick was smoking us all early but ended up in last place. Final scores were 49, 52, 56, 57 and Dave won. If Nick had had one more mayor turn he would have tied Dave! We also played Euchre; both the guys and the girls won one game apiece before Dave and Smeeta had to leave for the airport. Joe Mauer also got his first major league grand slam (3rd homer of the week!) as the Twins pounded the Tigers 11-1.

And thus goes this week's adventures!

Again!

Drew took me out with ACES again. This time I had a slightly better chance - pocket 9s. What are the odds two weeks in a row? Good thing he's a nice guy ;)

No Poker Love

No boasting this week - Ed, Nick and I were 2nd, 3rd and 4th out. I outlasted both of them :) Not sure who won - no one I've talked to seems to have stayed until the end!

Ruthless Luck

In volleyball tonight we were beat by the strong winds. We lost our first game (against the wind) 17-25, won the second (into the wind) 25-13, and lost the third (first half against, second half into) something like 14-25. So a 2-1 start to the season and it was pretty crazy - balls making right angles or being bumped forwards but ended up behind you. Maybe next week will be a tad less windy.

After volleyball, Dave came by and fried up some eggs while I used my KitchenAid to make the first batch of banana bread out of my rotten bananas (bought them just to make banana bread). We played two games of Settlers. In the first, I was ruthless, getting Dave to trade me all the cards I knew he'd give up and then using my monopoly to get his wood, then using a soldier to move the thief off my five before rolling a five, getting Nick to trade me a clay, and building a road and a city to win. Nick was pretty mad when he realized if he had built a road on his previous turn he would have been the winner! In the second game, my numbers kept getting rolled and I won in about twenty minutes - Dave was next closest with six points. Oddly enough, the thief was never active in the second game and only moved once by a seven in the first game. Helped keep the games moving right along. Smeeta will be back soon so maybe we'll be playing more games with Dave not leaving us quite so often.

And that's the night. Hoping for some more Ed vs Karin tomorrow evening :)

Karin v Ed - Round 2

I won this time :) Ed tried to take me out when there were only 3 players left - I had a straight on the river and went all-in and Ed called on a flush draw, which he made on the river. I thought he had me covered, but I miscalculated and still had about 150 left. A string of good cards (or bad cards when the others had worse) and I won again. I'm so glad my bad poker luck seems to have ended for at least a little while.