We drove all day Tuesday, I spent the evening catching up with Jared at Roadrunners. He got a fire lit up his ass last month while I was gone and was fixin to get outta Dodge for a bit. A few weeks ago he texted me, "Hey, want to ride pedal bikes across the country?" I responded with, "Lol no ty, I'd rather walk from Mexico to Canada on the Pacific Crest Trail." I didn't hear from him for a week, when he calls me up and says he wan't to do it. He did a bunch of research already, brought up the AT on his own, and asked questions. I can't do a thru hike this summer due to the WSOP and the simple fact that we wouldn't be ready by April when we would need to leave. The thing is thought that I do want to do the entire trail, but the WSOP will be every summer for as long as I do this thing I do. But, as much as I am afraid of settling down, it is something I want to do before I get <em>too</em> old.
Speaking of old at Joe Cada's victory party I met Baby Grand. After meeting me he says, "Dude, so, you're like a dinosaur and stuff. You've been around forever." Gobbo calls me grandpa all the time. And, in 2003 shortly after moving to Colorado, my boss who was 30 blew his Achilles at an indoor soccer game. The doctor told him that shit starts falling apart at 30.
So I'm 28 now and still feel young but have plenty of reasons to feel old at times, especially when 20% of my opponents in $10k+ buy-in poker tournaments have not heard of Planet Poker and could have dated my sister when she was in Jr. High.
Anyways, I tell Jared that I would be interested in doing something April and May but be back in time to be fresh for the Series. Over Christmas I was having visions of hiking the trail until the WSOP, go to Vegas, return to trail, and haul ass to Canada to complete a thru-hike. Too bad I'm not in 21 year old river guide shape anymore. But, since Jack lost his mind and there won't be tournaments worth going to in April, I definitely want to use the time to get out and do something.
We kicked around ideas at the bar for a while, he still wants to do something epic and raise money for charity and possibly make a film or something. I kinda just want to go on a bunch of short trips, maybe climaxing on the John Muir trail, a two week long journey over some of the PCT from Whitney Portal to Yosemite. He and I hiked a bit of that trail in high school, just going from Yosemite Valley past Vernal Falls and the big frosty pool to Nevada Falls.
Ting is though, dem women folks don't likeum boys leaving for long.
Was good to see him though, and I'm sure we'll have some sort of adventure this spring.
Wednesday I thought was Tuesday. I made it through all day without figuring this out. I played online a bit, putting in 21 sit-n-goes and 4 hours of cash games on Ultimate Bet. I broke about even. I then cracked Mass Effect 2 and finally started playing it. Good game, feels a bit watered down from the first one in the customization department which is my favorite nerdy feature, but the gameplay, storyline, and options are better. I played that til dinner, ate, and then headed to the Venetian to play 5-10 cash. I lost $68 in 5 hours or so.
The next day, which was Wednesday of course, had this plan: Mass Effect til 5pm, then the Wednesday night online tourneys, then meet Gobbo at the ARIA to play in the Wed night $20-40 HORSE game. This plan worked great until 4:50pm when I fired up the computer, it wouldn't fire cause HP laptops with Vista suck, I finally was able to get online at 5:04 pissed, and the first thing I notice is 52 people in the 100r. I'm like, WTF? Then I look at UB and see the guarantees are smaller and can't find the $1k. I'm so confused. I then hover my cursor over the clock, and it pops up "Thursday, February 4th." Still not convinced, I check my phone, and it confirmed that it was in fact Thursday. LOL. Now what? I decided to go to the Venetian because I thought the game was decent and was unsatisfied from the night before.
I was home at 8:30pm after getting two cheeseburgers, no onions or tomatoes, fries well, and a medium Dr. Pepper from In-N-Out. I was $2k poorer. I ran poor, made one questionable shove over Jeff Williams... 7 handed I think, I open in the hijack to $50 with AQo. I'm $1k deep. The player in the cutoff is very loose mid 50's persian dude, is $250 deep, posted $10 + $5 dead, and calls. Folds to YellowSub in the BB who quickly makes it $230. Pretty gross spot cause it's such a great spot to iso/squeeze, I decide that Sub's a sicko enough that shoving is +EV so I say, "All-in," dude folds, Sub snaps and says, "I have the MTT nuts," I ship my stack and buy back two stacks of chips for cash. Always humiliating.
About an orbit later I open black queens UTG to $40, the same Persian dude shoves $240, folds back to me he calls, and the board runs out Axx, x, x. I called him, he shrugs, looks like he has KQ and is thinking of mucking it, and takes a good ten seconds before rolling over AQ.
I quit. Went home. Played Mass Effect til 3:30am.
So that makes today Friday, and I'm headed over to Panorama in a lil bit to play Magic and draft the new set Worldwake. Should be fun.
