Impulse buy

Date: Sat, May 17, 2008

I was browsing around the garden department of Lowe's this week, and spotted this super cool clay chimenea for only $79. I recently had pavers laid down in the backyard and put in a little flower garden. I had to have it. This piece adds a little atmosphere to the back patio. It's not like we have any need for a fire on a summer night in Florida, but wtf, boys like to start fires and I'm just a boy at heart. After half a bottle of wine last night, I sparked it up for the first time. Took me awhile to get the fire going, but the six miserable months I was forced to spend in boyscouts eventually paid off and we had a roaring fire for several hours before passing out. I polished off the rest of the wine (A 2004 Napa Merlot) and crushed the 1/2 limit games on FullTilt while enjoying the smell of pine and the crackle of the fire.



Tomorrow night we make smores.

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lost dog

Date: Tue, Apr 29, 2008

I saw this blown up photo this afternoon during lunch. There were several scattered around the downtown/northshore area of St. Petersburg. It kind of touched me. And made me sad. I can only imagine how badly the owners are missing this little poodle. $5000 is quite a reward. I don't blame them one bit. If $5k would have brought back little Lucas, I'd have given it up in a second. I wish them luck in finding their dog, and if I still have any St. Pete. Readers, please keep an eye out for the little white poodle.

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What are the odd of this?

Date: Mon, Apr 21, 2008

Saturday night at the Derby Lane $100 nl table, I was dealt pocket ace's three times in a row. I don't think I've ever been dealt a pocket pair three times in a row, much less the same pocker pair.

Even betting aggressively, I went to showdown each time. Won the first one, won a side pot the second one but lost to the guy who was all in, and lost the third time to a gutshot straight draw.

So, what are the odds?

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Decker's Journal - 2008-04-13

Date: Sun, Apr 13, 2008

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2008 World Series

Date: Tue, Apr 8, 2008

Forgot to mention in my last post - I'll be trying to Qualify for the 2008 World Series of Poker. You should too!

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It's Alive

Date: Tue, Apr 8, 2008

Hard to believe it's been over four months since my last post. Yeah, I'm still playing online. Certainly not as much as I used to. I manage to log a couple hours a day on FullTilt or Stars. I'm mostly alternating between the $5.50 and $11 NLHE Sit&Go's. It's where I get the most bang for my buck (IE: lose the least in the longest amount of time). I'm actually holding my own at these games. When I'm in the mood and playing my "A Game", I can profit. However, I've been suffering from a mild case of poker burnout lately, and rarely approach the game as I should.

Live sessions at Derby Lane have gone well. I'm on a three session winning streak and feel like most of the time, I am the best player at the table. Or at least one of best. By the way, I consider winning session, a session where I win enough to cover my bar tab and maybe put a few extra bucks in my pocket. I'm focusing entirely on the $100 NL games now and have amped up my aggression quite a bit. It's definately helped my bottom line.

I need to start posting more. I actually still have sponsors willing to pay me for advertising here and I am not ready to give up that little income, just yet.

Can you tell my mood is a bit "blah"? I just wrote out a pretty hefty check to the IRS...

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Happy New Year

Date: Tue, Jan 1, 2008

As I recover from a bottle and a half of a strange tasting Australian Merlot, that had a very high pepper content, I figured I would link to some of my best and most memorable posts from 2007.
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Unfortunately, they aren't any. Have a Happy New Years!

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Commodore Casino English Blogs <-- Paid Sponsor post

Date: Fri, Dec 7, 2007

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Derby Lane bad beat jackpot

Date: Sat, Nov 17, 2007

Second hand of the night at the NL table. I try to limp with J9s, However the player to my left makes it $10 to go. I drop. Player to my right calls. everyone else drops. The one in a million flop comes AAA. The Laotian dealer mumbles "this be a possible bad beat hand". The bad beat at Derby is when J's full of A's, or better, gets beaten by quads or better. Both hole cards must be played. These two players are betting each other pretty heavy, which is not good. A bad beat hand must go to showdown. Luckily the player to my left had the case A. He wasn't going anywhere. The turn and river were baby cards. When betting was done, the player to my left shows his hand, AJ, for quad aces. The player to my right lets out a hoot and turns over pocket K's. Then the rest of the table burst into celebration. We hit the bad beat. At Derby, the "beatee" gets 50% of the jackpot, the beater - 25%, and the rest of the table who was dealt two cards splits the remaining 25%. The Jackpot was a modest $8800. My take was $370 and two rounds of drink that the big winner bought for the table.

The rest of the night went fairly well and I managed to cash out a meager win, even after giving half my chips to the cocktail girl.

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Decker's Journal - 2007-11-16

Date: Fri, Nov 16, 2007

Our first real cold snap rolled in last night. It was in the 40’s this morning which is, quite frankly, freezing to us native Floridians. However, this comes at a good time, as I am having a few projects done around the house (by trained professionals), and the workers continuously leave all my doors wide open. At least now I don’t have to worry about air conditioning the neighborhood.

The project I’m most excited about is a new paver patio I am having layed in the backyard. About 10 years ago I built a decent sized wooden deck out there. It served It’s purpose well, but over the years the Florida sun and rain has taken it’s toll on the wood. Plus, decks are out, paver patios are in. Sure, I could have done it myself, but who wants to do all that digging, leveling, more digging, more leveling, etc. I’m hoping it will be done before the Thanksgiving holiday. Can’t wait.

My Fantasy Football team suffered its first loss last week. Due largely to the absence of Tom Brady. My record still stands at a very respectable 9-1. The next closest team is 6-4. This week I go against Tony Romo and Terrell Owens. Could be trouble. Since I know how much everyone loves reading about FF. Here is my lineup for this week:

Tom Brady
Wes Welker
Laveraneus Coles
Chad Johnson (Hines Ward and Lee Evans warming the bench)
Joseph Addai
Earnest Graham (Only because Lamont Jordan has been sucking)
Dallas Clark
Josh Brown
New England Defense.

I’m praying for at least two Brady to Welker end zone connections. Another 5 td performance by Brady would make very happy.

I’m back in Sit & Go mode on Full Tilt. I’m playing the $10 single tables, both 9 and 6 player games. After I get a few more under my belt, I’ll post some stats (assuming they’re not to embarrassing). So far after 25 games, my ROI is 76.2%. Of those 25 games I bubbled 4 times. It seemed a lot more then that. Probably because that is one of the most frustrating things for me. I’m heading out to play live tonight at Derby Lane, and possibly Hard Rock, if I’m not already in a drunken stupor at midnight, which is when the track closes. Fifty – fifty that I make it to Hard Rock.

Speaking of Hard Rock, the Indian casinos here in Florida just got approval for Vegas style gambling, to include Blackjack and Baccarat. I could care less about Baccarat, but am excited about Blackjack. The Hard Rock closest to me, in Tampa, just had their ribbon cutting to celebrate their new 150,000 sf expansion. The Dog and Horse Tracks in Florida are none to happy about this development, as this will be even more business pulled away from them.

Good weekend everyone.

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poker

Date: Tue, Oct 30, 2007

I got two paid sponsor reviews that I have to put up in the next few days, and I'd feel kinda guilty putting up stuff like that without putting up a real update, so here goes:

I'm trying to cashout $110 that I have in my The3Dpoker account. I forgot it was even there, but discovered it after a cursory check of all the old sites cluttering my desktop. I would have pissed it away at their $0.25 - $0.50 NL tables, since that is all they ever had going, but unfortunately they finally banned us Americans. I'm putting my odds at ever seeing my money at a solid 50-50. Good thing is I never deposited at this site. I started out with a free $10 promo about 2 years ago.

I'm continuing to eke out small profits at the Full Tilt NL sit and goes. Mainly playing the 2 table 18 player games. If I took it more seriously and played my A game, I could beat these games for a lot more then I am.

I've been running well live at Derby Lane. I finally grew a set and started sitting at the $100 buy in NL tables. It helped that the $1-$5 tables are becoming scarce. Patience and tempered aggresion has been golden.

K, now I feel better about pimping for some money

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Poker Stuff

Date: Sat, Oct 20, 2007

I think I have resigned myself to the fact that the only way I will ever be a consistent online winner is by grinding away at low limit hold’em and sit and go’s. Sure, I could dedicate myself to better learning the wildly popular no limit game, but for what? So I can watch half my bankroll disappear with one bad beat? Wait, no – if I practice good bankroll management I would never have that much of my BR at risk at any one time. Still, I constantly read about players who I believe are experts at the NL games, but still can’t seem to consistently win. In fact, I’m not sure I know of anyone who is a consistent long term winning NL player. I’m sure they’re out there, but they are few and far between. My August experiment might have been to short lived, but after investing donating almost $600 in the NL game, I decided to throw in the proverbial towel. It’s just not worth it to me.

So for most of September, I frequented my old haunts – the Full Tilt $2/$4 limit games. Yes, it’s a boring grind, but at least it’s a modestly profitable grind. I am posting mostly winning sessions playing 2-3 tables for about 3 hours a day.

Play Online Poker

And finally for October I am almost soley playing multi-table sit&go's. Boring also, but profitable so far.

Yes, I'm following the Absolute Poker debacle. What they need now, in addition to the indepedent audit, is to hire a good PR firm. their reputation might be salvageable if they would stop making bullshit press releases, which show ignorance and border on flat out lying.

Check out AlCantHang for details on the upcoming "Battle of the Bloggers II" events.

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US Open tennis. I have a new favorite player - Bethanie Mattek

Date: Wed, Sep 5, 2007

Titty bar meets grand slam tennis. Hello, Bethanie!





This lucky ball boy seems to share my opinion.

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Decker's Journal - 2007-08-24

Date: Fri, Aug 24, 2007

Bad Blood is ready to step up and defend his Fantasy Football championship. If you're interested in playing in the DFFL, drop me a comment here with your email address. We'll need at least six more teams to get it going. Yes, it's free, and I will provide a trophy to the winner.

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