Photo quiz

I realize that this is completely out of the blue, but so what?

This is a picture I took this morning of Nina's yard. Her cat, Loki, is in the photo somewhere. Can you find him? It's like "Where's Waldo?" but with a kitty.

Right-click/open in new tab to embiggen.

Give up?

Scroll down for answer.

PokerNews article #21

It's up now, here:

http://learn.pokernews.com/poker-strategy-theory/you-can-say-these-words-at-the-table-but-be-careful-when-you-4675.htm

Be careful about those action words at the table!

Remember: it's a skill game

I drove out to Harrah's Cherokee today--first time in a couple of months. It was one of the wackiest, up-and-down, roller-coaster sessions I can remember ever having.

I started with $300 in play. Within 30 minutes that was down to $95 because of a nasty one-two punch. One was being on the bad side of AA versus KK. Two was flopping top set (queens), versus the nut flush.

I rallied back to $280 with a few small pots, then trapped a guy for all his chips on a flop of A-Q-x with my A-Q against his A-K.

Lost some with my A-J versus a short stack's A-Q, all in before the flop, flop jack high, looking good for me, but then he rivered a four-flush to beat me.

Lost about $100 more with Kc-Ks on a flop of 5c-6c-10c, versus a young woman's 5d-6d. All-in on the flop when we were both almost exactly 50% to win. I didn't catch.

Just as I was texting Nina to whine about my rotten luck, I had 9-4 offsuit in the big blind, unraised pot. Flop 9-9-4. A guy with a bigger stack and A-9 in his hand called my flop and turn bets, thinking he was trapping me, then raised me all-in on the river, giving me a clean double-up. That put me up to $356. (Flopping a full house is an advanced skill. I've been honing my technique for years now. Please don't try this at home.)

Finally, the same young woman whom I had raced before gave me her whole stack of nearly $200. I had Ac-Kc. Flop had three more clubs. (Yay, crubs!) She check-called my bets on the flop and turn with a straight draw, got there on the river and paid off my all-in bet. Only six river cards win me her stack there--it had to complete her straight but not put a scary fourth club down.

The whole session was just crazy luck, some of it good, some of it bad, but just enough more of the former than the latter that I left with $547, a $247 profit.

Probably the most skillful thing I did was walk away before the roller coaster took another plunge.


Addendum, July 11, 2014 

The flopped full house hand became the jumping-off point for a whole post from Rob: http://robvegaspoker.blogspot.com/2014/07/to-slow-play-or-not-to-slow-play.html