More photos from my New Mexico trip

On Saturday, February 27, Cardgrrl's sister had arranged for us to see a play in Santa Fe, about an hour north of Albuquerque. Her husband suggested that we stop to see "Tent Rocks" on the way. I had never heard of it, but I was feeling game for just about anything.

I'm glad we went. It's a spectacular place. You can read all about it at either the Bureau of Land Management's official site or Wikipedia. The place is chock-full of some of the most strangely shaped rocks, cliffs, and hills you'll ever see. They look as if they were deliberately sculpted by an artist, but it's just combinations of natural forces at work.

As has become my usual practice, I've dumped all my photos onto Picasa Web here. It was heavily overcast the day we were there, so even after digitally tweaking up the brightness and contrast in most of the photos, they don't do justice to the range of colors you'd see on a bright day. Also, can you spot Cardgrrl sneaking into one of the shots?

I don't have any difficulty picking my favorite photo out of this batch. It's this one:



Then again, I have a peculiar fondness for the gnarly shapes of dead trees.

Although much less overwhelming than the rocks and mountains, I was quite taken by the complex masses of exposed tree roots seen frequently throughout the park:








A few other nice pics:













The only thing in Santa Fe that I took pictures of was a monument erected in 1868 in the middle of town, and I only thought that was interesting because of how it had been defaced:




We speculated that the word most likely to have been scratched out by an unhappy citizen was "savage." That seemed to get confirmed when we looked at the other side of the monument, to find this plaque (apparently put there before the defacing was done):




We left on Monday, March 1. I returned to Vegas and Cardgrrl to D.C. In front of the airport's car rental facility she spotted a bit of sculpture she liked and asked me to take a picture of her with it. I have titled the resulting composition "Cougar and lions." It's one of my finest artistic works to date:





The plane passed right over Hoover Dam and the new bypass highway being constructed near it, giving me the chance for the last photo of this trip:



One more installment of the trip report yet to come: An afternoon at Sandia Casino. Stay tuned.

Why you shouldn't drink while you play

I was playing at the Palms tonight. The action was completely driven by two classic maniacs battling for dominance. In one hand, they got it all in on the turn--$500+ pot. After the river was dealt, neither one wanted to show. Maniac A told Maniac B (correctly), "I called you." Maniac B therefore dutifully showed his A-K, pairing the ace on the flop. As he exposed his cards, Maniac B said (unwisely), "You got a heart?" There were, you see, four hearts on the board, and Maniac B had none. Maniac A didn't answer--perhaps didn't hear. He held his cards up in his hand to show Maniac B: Js-9h. (Jack on the flop had given him second pair, which was consistently plenty for him to either shove or call an all-in, in proud maniac style.) He then tossed them back to the dealer. Face down.

Surprisingly, nobody at the table said a word until his cards had been quickly mixed into the muck by the alert dealer. In my experience, there is virtually always at least one person at the table who will pipe up (in violation of both rules and etiquette), and say something like, "You made a flush," or "You've got the winner," or "Don't muck--you win!" Nothing like that happened this time. Of course, once his cards were irretrievable, several voices chimed in simultaneously: "You just threw away the winner."

All he had to do to pocket an extra $500 for that session was turn his cards face up on the table rather than face down. Strangely, in this situation he wasn't even protecting any information, since he had flashed them to his opponent at the other end of the table so that nearly everyone had seen them. The final bit of irony is that he didn't show first at his own insistence, with that "I called you" comment.

Maniac A realized what he had done, accepted it gracefully, and announced the moral of the story himself: "That's why you shouldn't drink when you play poker."

How has my poker week been going?

Glad you asked.

If the picture above doesn't give you a sufficient clue, then let me put it this way, which is the most positive form I can think of: I've won a very nice sum of money--in Sklansky dollars.

Poker dreamin'

Just woke up from strange one.

I was playing heads-up with Todd Brunson. The game was $10-$20 limit hold'em--played with actual cash, not chips. I don't know where we were, but it wasn't in a casino. We were dealing ourselves. We played only one hand, because of how it went down. For some reason, my hole cards were up, but his were not. I made top and bottom pair on a flop of A-6-3, and improved to aces full on the turn. Surprisingly, he raised me when I bet! He could only beat me with A-6 in the hole for a bigger full house. Since he knew what I had, and knew that I knew that, he either had it or was bluffing (i.e., he couldn't mistakenly think he was ahead). He couldn't possibly think I would fold in that spot in a limit game, so bluffing seemed unlikely. I warily called his raise, then called again when he bet a river card that would seem to have been no help.

At that point he declared himself the winner, scooped up the cash, stuffed his down cards in his pocket, and started to walk away. I was not ready to just take his word for it, so I followed, trying to stop him. When it became clear that he wasn't going to be reasonable about it, I punched him in the nose.

It should probably be mentioned at this point that Todd Brunson is considerably bigger than me in any dimension you'd care to name. (Note to self: If you have to reach up to hit somebody in the nose, as I distinctly remember having to do, you may want to reconsider the action.)

It instantly became apparent that this choice for dealing with the situation had been a mistake. His face clouded with rage, and he stopped and glowered at me. I had that sinking "Uh-oh" feeling.

Alas, I cannot tell you how the conflict was resolved, because I woke up at that point. This may have been my subconscious's way of avoiding getting beaten up.

(Photo from here.)

Guess the casino, #435

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Answer: Stratosphere

Sandia Peak (no poker content)

I took a ton of pictures on my recent trip to New Mexico, and spent some time last night and today starting to go through them.

On our first full day there, Cardgrrl and I went to Sandia Peak. Apparently you can get there via automobile, but for heaven's sake, that's not what you should do. Take the tram. It's claimed to be the world's longest, and I have no reason to dispute that: 2.7 miles, rising more than 5000 feet to a final height of 10,378 feet. It takes you through and over gorgeous foothills and valleys. Most people seem to go up there for skiing, but we were just sightseeing--and it has plenty of beautiful views to be enjoyed. The fact sheet says that 11,000 square miles of terrain are visible from the top, and that seems about right. After coming back down to the tram station at the base, we wandered around the park area for a while, finding interesting things to photograph. I admit that I was nearly as captivated by the enormous--and, to me, quite beautiful--mechanics of the tram as by the vistas.

The photo album is here. If I had higher standards and/or more time and patience, I would sift through them and show you only the best 10% or so, instead of boring you with shot after shot of mountains and snow. But if I had to choose my favorite images from this batch, I'd pick these. (I'm trying image embedding from Picasa for the first time here. Click for full-size version.)

From Sandia peak

From Sandia peak

From Sandia peak

From Sandia peak

From Sandia peak

From Sandia peak

From Sandia peak

From Sandia peak

From Sandia peak

From Sandia peak

But for my money, the loveliest images I managed to make (leaving aside those of Cardgrrl, which aren't included here) are these two:

From Sandia peak

From Sandia peak

More on the trip to come over the next few days.

Guess the casino, #434

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Answer: Orleans

That Dwan kid needs a lesson from the Grump

On last night's "High Stakes Poker," Tom Dwan showed us how to misplay the Deuce-Four. He flopped two pair. Nobody bet. He added a flush draw on the turn. Nobody bet. Antonio Esfandiari bluffed the river, Eli Elizra called. The little flip of the wrist you see going on in the screen shot above is Dwan throwing away the best hand. After he saw the winner, he said, "I play so bad."

Well, at least that time you did, Tom. But do not worry. I can coach you on how to play 2-4 for fun and profit.


While I'm on the subject, I did a little 2-4 evangelizing at Sandia casino in Albuquerque yesterday. A four on the turn gave me bottom pair, so I check-raised the original raiser when he bet (as I thought he would). He folded and I showed. Just a couple of hands later, he flopped two pair with his own 2-4 and won a nice pot. The gospel continues to spread everywhere I go.

Safe at home

I'm back at home after four days in Albuquerque with the lovely Cardgrrl. I did not avail myself of the computers of our hosts (Cardgrrl's sister and brother-in-law), which makes for what I think is the longest stretch I've gone without checking in on email, RSS feeds, or the web generally in the last several years. I used my phone to check Twitter a bit, but probably only about 10% of the posts from the last few days.

There is much catching up to do, many photos to look through, etc.

Guess the casino, #433

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Answer: Excalibur

Guess the casino, #432

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Answer: Treasure Island

Guess the casino, #431

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Answer: Venetian

Guess the casino, #430

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Answer: Treasure Island

Point me in the direction of Albuquerque

I admit it: when I was a kid, I loved "The Partridge Family." I wanted to be as smart-alecky as Danny Bonaduce (though I grew up a tad more sane than he did), had a crush on Susan Dey, and wished I had a mom as cool as Shirley Jones. So it is perhaps not surprising that my first real awareness of one of the most strangely named (and hard to spell) cities in this country came from a 1974 Partridge Family hit and the accompanying episode of the television show.

Today for the first time ever, I'm heading there. My BFF Cardgrrl is visiting her sister for a few days, and I'm joining them. I am not planning on taking my computer, so probably won't be posting anything until after I get back to Vegas. But I do expect to spend some pokering time in the Sandia casino. Look for me there if you live in the area.

In the meantime, for those of you who may have missed the musical gem referred to in the first paragraph above, enjoy this sampling from the relevant episode:





And for those of you who have difficulty playing Flash videos, you can listen to the song on Lala.com with no video here.

Guess the casino, #429

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Answer: Santa Fe Station

Guess the casino, #428

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Answer: Planet Hollywood

Guess the casino, #427

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Answer: Golden Nugget

Thanks but no thanks

I got an email today from PokerStars that was so weird that at first I thought it was a prank or fishing expedition of some sort. But after a while I realized that it was legit.

Here's the offer: I write a series of five blog posts, and they'll give me a $22 entry into one of the upcoming SCOOP tournaments. Each blog post has to contain a specific sentence, embedded in which will be a link to--guess where?--PokerStars. The first required sentence was included in this email, and then four subsequent emails will say what sentence and link must be included in the subsequent blog posts. There are some additional prizes (more tournament entries, of course) for being especially clever about incorporating the requisite words.

I won't be doing that. At first I thought about writing a mud-slinging post about how sleazy the whole thing is and how I'm repulsed that Stars would sink so low. But on reflection I thought better of it. I like PokerStars. I genuinely do, and they don't have to pay me to say so. Furthermore, they have been very generous with freerolls for us lowly bloggers for only the minimal shilling work of putting up their logo in one post.

There's an old joke about a man and woman at a dinner party, and they get to discussing whether she would have sex with a stranger for a million dollars. She allows as how she might. He then asks if she would do it for $10. She gets all huffy and says, "What kind of woman do you think I am?" He replies, "We've already established that. Now we're just dickering over the price."

Well, it's kind of like that. I'm willing to do one post with the logo as the price of my admission ticket, but even though it's only a difference in degree rather than kind, I'm not willing to do five posts with specified sentences and embedded links. That's probably logically inconsistent, but it's how I feel about it. I have been offered a lot more money than the Stars offer represents to write posts on particular subjects with embedded links to the sponsor's site. Some places will even offer to write the whole post. I just have to put it up, pretend that I wrote it, and collect the money. I have always turned down such things. I want this blog to be my voice, and I'm uncomfortable with mixing the content and the sponsorship. The ads are the ads, the copy is the copy, and unless I clearly tell you otherwise, there is neither spillover of content nor influence on what I have to say.

(To their credit, nothing in the email from Stars says that I couldn't be entirely open about the fact that the post is to gain a tourney entry, etc. The other offers I mentioned all come with the caveat that I can't tell readers it's a paid thing. That's what makes me feel that I'd be sullied by accepting them.)

So, PokerStars, I am sincerely grateful for how you've dealt with poker bloggers in the past, and I hope such generosity will be repeated in the future. I don't think the current offer is as ethically problematic as those advertisers that want to, in effect, silently buy a post. But it's still just a little much for my taste.


Addendum

I now see that Bastin received the same offer and already beat me to posting about it--see here. I'm sure if you follow many poker blogs you'll be hearing about it. And if you see the same sentences suddenly showing up in several places, now you'll know why.

Poker faces

From the new episode of "High Stakes Poker," this week's contestants for best poker face are Gun Hansen (doing his Viffer impersonation) and Tom Dwan (who always seems to make an appearance in these posts).

Guess the casino, #426

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Answer: Riviera

Guess the casino, #425

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Answer: Rio

He said/she said

Interesting discussion about the special challenges women face in getting professional sponsorship from poker sites as the first of what I understand will be an occasional ongoing "he said/she said" series at http://www.womanpokerplayer.com/. See here and here.

One of the points made by both discussants was emphasized--in what I must assume was an unintended manner--by one of the ads that popped up for me next to the "his" essay (they probably rotate so you may not see the same one):




All else being equal, which version of this woman (assuming it's actually the same person, which I kind of doubt) is more likely to land a sponsorship deal?

By the way, to the writers of the series (both of whom I am pleased to call friends), I just have to say: The whole idea would be pepped up if you were to sling a little mud at each other--you know, like the "Jane, you ignorant slut" remarks in the old Saturday Night Live parodies of "60 Minutes" debates. (Yes, I'm just kidding.)

Poker gems, #345

Jennifer Tilly, in Bluff magazine, February, 2010, p. 49.


Neither of us cash in the Five Diamond. Trying to get my 15K back I play a game that is too big for me, and lose my whole stack to Viffer. He has this uncanny ability to only have a hand when you finally decide to shove on him. I feel a little sad looking at the empty spot in front of me where my chips used to be. Slowly I get up. The key to cash games apparently, is knowing when to quit. Lately, it seems, I only leave the table after someone has made me their bitch.

Not much poker in February

More obstacles to poker ahead.

Something I haven't mentioned here before is that I occasionally do some consulting work related to my previous life. There's not a lot of such jobs, nor do I really want there to be--one or two a month, typically, usually taking no more than a day or two each. It makes for a nice infusion of cash and a break from my usual routine. But I had a big, several-day one sent to me just before I left for Utah, and must now get it done this weekend, which might mean no poker. Plus I just learned yesterday that another equally big one will be arriving within the next few days.

On top of that, I am going on a quick trip to see the delightful Cardgrrl next week. She will be visiting family in Albuquerque from Thursday to Monday, and I have been invited to meet her there and tag along. I can't pass up that opportunity, so I'll be flying off to New Mexico, a state I haven't visited since I was a little kid and ran around the Four Corners monument during a family road trip. There should be some poker involved; I'm hoping to spend a good chunk of time in the Sandia Casino poker room while in the neighborhood.

These big projects, the vacation to Albuquerque, and the emergency trip to Utah make for a highly unusual confluence of distractions from the tables and the blog. (Of course, Sandia is likely to generate some tales, but the telling will probably have to wait until Big Project #2 gets done after my return.) Bear with me. All will return to normal before you know it.

An unusual day

Yesterday was a pretty strange day, full of one-of-a-kind experiences.

Car trouble

It started by dropping off my car for some repair work. I had grown suspicious of the shop I have usually used; it's under new management lately, and I think they are now both less competent and more prone to selling services I don't actually need. So I've been exploring other options. The one I tried yesterday is called Hondatronics. As the name implies, they deal almost exclusively in working on Hondas and Acuras.

Everybody I had consulted had agreed that the scary squeal emerging from under the hood was a failing power steering pump. Well, I'll spare you the details, but the Hondatronics guys did an impressive diagnostic job, eventually discovering that the trouble was, in fact, in the pulley that turns the belt that run the power steering pump, though that was not at all obvious. In fact, when it was all said and done and the mechanic showed me (with great enthusiasm, like a first-grader excitedly telling his mother about the first day of school) the parts he had replaced and how it all worked and fit together, I was mightily impressed with the acumen it took to figure this out. I thought about writing it all out here, but it would take too long and probably not interest anybody. But take my word for it--it was a serious piece of automotive detection to find out what the trouble really was. It took them 6 1/2 hours instead of the 2 that had been estimated for the pump repair, but it was perfectly understandable, under the circumstances. This place has quickly won my confidence in their skill and honesty, and will be the first place I turn for car work from now on.

Jackpot!

One of the other lovely coincidences of Hondatronics is that it's a five-minute walk from the Orleans. Now, the Orleans is not on my top ten or even top twenty favorite places to play. But it's pretty consistently profitable, so if I can spend the car-repair time making money playing poker instead of reading books and magazines, it's a bonus. (And with a car that's nearly 18 years old and has 170,000 miles on the ticker, time in the shop is just a given.)

So off to the Orleans I went. I got my name on the list and sat down. Within a minute or two I heard one of the dealers yell out, "Jackpot!" and pandemonium broke loose. The Orleans is one of the few places in town with a bad-beat jackpot. Lose with quads or better and you, the winner of the hand, and everybody else in the room playing the same game will share a jackpot that is kept at a minimum of $50,000. Yesterday it was at $58,650. Given that this was morning and there were only four tables running, the "room share" worked out to $1173 apiece. Not a bad bonus for just sitting in a game when the thing hit.

I snapped a photo of the jackpot hand, quad aces beating quad nines:





What I had not anticipated was how this event would bring the room to a complete standstill, as far as me getting into a game was concerned. I waited an hour and 45 minutes, almost all of which was because everything stopped while they worked out the horrendously complicated paperwork involved in that sum of money being shared by that many players. The room staff didn't even try to get anything else going in the meantime. At one point I counted 55 names on the lists waiting for games, but nothing was happening. It was about an hour before play resumed on any of the tables. During that time, all the players were just sitting around doing nothing, though they didn't seem as irritated as the people waiting to play. After all, they each had nearly $1200 free money coming, and we didn't.

If I had had any idea how long my car was going to take and how long this jackpot mess was going to take, I would have caught a shuttle bus to the Strip and played somewhere else. The delay was seriously aggravating. I attribute it to incompetent room management, that they were unwilling or unable to accommodate literally dozens of people wanting to play for an hour and a half.

This was the first time I've ever been in a poker room when a bad-beat jackpot hit. I'm not looking forward to it happening again, unless I'm going to be one of the ones to profit from it.

Tell me how to beat you

I did eventually get a seat and played for about five hours, making a little over $200. Not stellar, but certainly more profitable than anything else I could have been doing with the down time.

There was only one hand worth telling about. The donator at the table was a drunk guy who fancied himself an expert player, but was really not very good at all. He was highly unpredictable, however. As happens so often, he had been on a sick run of good luck before I got to the table and for the first hour or two thereafter (amassing so many chips that he stopped bothering to stack them, and just kept them in a big messy pile in front of him), but then had both luck and his own fatigue and overconfidence push his fortunes the other way, and he started to give them all back.

At one point I found the diamond A-K in second position, and raised to $8. Drunk guy was on the button and reraised to $23. This was the first 3-bet I had seen him make, so it gave me pause. On the other hand, he had sometimes raised with things like 9-3 offsuit, and he was overly fond of bluffing (I had snapped him off a couple of times myself), so I wasn't ready to credit him with just A-A/K-K, as I might with a local rock in the same situation. I called.

The flop was J-10-x. While I was deciding what to do, drunk guy bet $20 out of turn. (He did this a lot. He just wasn't paying attention, and was always overly eager for it to be his turn, as if he had ADD or something.) The dealer had him take it back. I checked. He put out $25. The dealer made him reduce it back to the $20 he had bet out of turn. I called, partly hoping to hit the nuts if a queen came, partly because he was most often just a one-barreller if he missed the flop and was up against somebody whose play he respected.

Turn was another jack. Once again while I was pondering my options, he bet out of turn: $50. The dealer made him take it back. I thought for a while about what to do, finally settling on a check. Strangely, he checked behind. The dealer pointed out that he had already committed himself to the out-of-turn bet. He protested, "I changed my mind. I don't want to bet now." This was an interesting development. I really would have been happy to take a free card with him, but I thought it was best to continue my usual policy of not talking during a hand and let the dealer sort it out. She called the floor. While we were waiting for the floor guy to come over, drunk guy started talking, and that proved to be his downfall.

Apparently my pause before checking had put a notion in his head that he couldn't shake. He said, "Come on, let's just check it down. I know you have a jack, and you checked to trap me. You want them to make me put that money in so you can raise." (I hadn't said anything along those lines, but that's apparently how he interpreted the situation.)

Now, some players are skillful enough in deception to make a speech like this when holding the stone-cold nuts in an effort to induce a bluff. But he was, frankly, too dumb and too drunk to pull that off. His mini-tirade continued for 30 seconds or so while we were waiting for a floor decision, and the longer it went, the more certain I was that he was calling it exactly as he saw it.

So, when the floor made the only possible decision--that his $50 bet had to stand--and drunk guy shook his head in disgust as he reluctantly put the chips back in, I did what he told me to do: I check-raised to $150! He immediately said that he couldn't call. He hemmed and hawed, but finally did as he said he would have to do, and folded. Then, as a last touch, he said, "Out of respect, I'm going to show you what I'm folding." He had A-K in hearts.

I sensed that he was hovering on the edge of some serious tilt and could be toppled right into the abyss with the smallest push, so as I was raking in the chips, I flipped up my cards and told him, "You had an excellent hand, sir."

I was right. That pushed every button he had. Among other things, he said, "I was just about to leave, but now I'm going to stay just so I can play against you again!"

Bring it on, dude! I love it when people target me for vengeance. They will nearly always try to force the issue with a lesser hand than they would usually bring to battle, because if you're zeroing in one just one opponent, it effectively means that you can't wait for your premium hands, or your target won't be there. You have to go with what you have when your target is playing. That automatically gives your target the huge advantage of choosing when to play for big pots. (For a story of a time another guy got mad at me and kept me in his sights for the rest of the session, see here. For another story of how a drunk opponent told me exactly how to beat him, see here.)

Sadly, he didn't follow through on his threat and I didn't get to tangle with him for a big pot again.

Social evening

They finished with my car just barely in time for me to make the dinner date I had previously set up with Jennifer, one of my playing partners from the blogger tournament in December. She was in town to work for the PokerStars blog on the big NAPT tournament at the Venetian. We were joined by C.K. for dinner at the Grand Lux at the V. (I see that Jen has already beaten me to writing about her evening, here.) They had to take off right after dinner to get ready for a big Stars party.

I played in the V poker room for about an hour, then headed off to the airport. Shamus was coming to town to work the same gig as Jen, and I had offered to pick him up at the airport. He unknowingly walked past me at the airport (I had my nose buried in a crossword puzzle to pass the time), and as we were talking on our cell phones, trying to determine our respective geographical positions, I had one of those weird moments when I realized I was hearing his voice through the phone and through the air simultaneously, and looked up to see him standing about six feet in front of me.

I waited while he got checked into his room at the Venetian. While doing so, I spotted an opportunity to catch a picture of him while still preserving his super-secret identity, which only, like, 7000 people know:





We then headed back downstairs to the Grand Lux (it's very strange to enter the same restaurant twice in one evening). He had dinner while I chowed down on the dessert I had skipped earlier. It was an item I haven't seen on the menu there before: "Cupcake Collision." It's three chocolate cupcakes with a bunch of vanilla ice cream and whipped cream:



Sorry for the bad picture--low light of a restaurant is to blame (and lack of flash on phone camera). Good stuff, keeping me fattened up for the slaughter.

It looks like Shamus, too, is ahead of me in posting about his arrival. See here.

Anyway, I had a lovely evening with three friends and finally headed home after what turned out to be a highly unusual but pleasant and interesting day in Las Vegas.

Guess the casino, #424

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Answer: M Resort

Guess the casino, #423

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Answer: Mandalay Bay

Guess the casino, #422

To reveal the hidden answer, use your mouse to highlight the space immediately after the word "Answer" below.

Hint: At first glance, it may be hard to tell what you're seeing here. It is the reflection of the main casino building in the mirrored exterior of one of its auxiliary buildings (at night, obviously). Even if you don't recognize the structure, you might be able to guess the casino if you put your imagination to work on the distorted, backwards, red neon lettering in the reflection.





Answer: Circus Circus

Guess the casino, #421

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Answer: Caesars Palace

Confidential to Kara Scott

Kara:

On the above board, As-Qs is not the "nuts," and Ks-2s is not the "second nuts," as you said.

I know it's your first episode of the new gig, but really, you have to pay more attention. People notice these things.


Your pal,

Grumpy

Poker gems, #344

Phil Hellmuth, on "High Stakes Poker," season 6, episode 1:


Hellmuth: Durr [Tom Dwan] and I gamble, buddy. We put in 16,000 each when the blinds were 200 the other day. He had 10-jack, I had 9-7 offsuit.

Antonio Esfandiari: How did that work out for you?

Hellmuth: Not well.

Guess the casino, #420

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Answer: Venetian

A little poker wisdom from Willie Nelson

Yesterday on my drive home from Utah I was listening to my one and only Willie Nelson recording, the two-disc compilation shown above. I hadn't heard it in quite a while.

I was struck by these lyrics from "Nothing I Can Do About It Now":

I've got a long list of real good reasons
For all the things I've done
I've got a picture in the back of my mind
Of what I've lost and what I've won
I've survived every situation
Knowing when to freeze and when to run
And regret is just a memory written on my brow
And there's nothing I can do about it now.

...

And I could cry for the time I've wasted
But that's a waste of time and tears,
And I know just what I'd change
If went back in time somehow
But there's nothing I can do about it now


(You can listen to the extremely catchy song here or watch it embedded below, at least until somebody cries foul on the copyright issue and yanks it off of YouTube.)

Great advice to remember. You misplayed a hand, misread an opponent, mistimed a bluff, maybe even did something as boneheaded as to forget what your cards were, and you lost a bunch of chips as a result.

Now you have a choice. You can sit there and sulk about it, replaying the mistake over and over again, wallowing in your misery. Or you can say, "There's nothing I can do about it now," let it go, and move on to the next hand.

One mental exercise I have sometimes found helpful is this: When you have a problem or issue over which you have no control, picture it as a pencil in your hand. Mentally squeeze it as hard as you can, representing all the effort you have expended in vain. Does it accomplish anything? Nope. You can't remold the wood. When you're ready to acknowledge that you have done everything useful there is to do, and nothing more that you can do will change anything, then stop squeezing the pencil. Picture your hand opening and letting the pencil fall to the floor. That's it. You have let it go. It is literally out of your hands. Now you're free to put your mind to work on something over which you do have control--like the hand the dealer is pitching your way right now.

Of course, there's also the point about figuring out what you'd do differently so that you don't make the same mistake again. Sometimes you do that on the spot, sometimes later when reviewing your session privately or with a friend or coach. As long as the intention is to plug a leak in your game rather than to pour salt in your own wounds, it's a useful exercise. But then when it's done, you file the lesson nonjudgmentally in your database of poker experience, and let it go.

I don't suppose that Willie Nelson has poker specifically in mind when he sings that song, but he's got a point. As with many things in life, once the thing is done, it's over and there's nothing you can do about it now. Crying about it is "a waste of time and tears." Put it behind you and get on with the next hand.

Guess the casino, #419

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Answer: Mirage

Things seen along the way

I'm back home again.

This post is just to share a few thoughts about my trip that have nothing to do with what its central purpose was.

First, my rental car was a Suzuki SX-4, seen above. I expected to hate it as a crummy little econobox from an also-ran manufacturer. But the thing surprised me. It turned out to be both a competent, comfortable highway cruiser and a nimble in-town runabout. It averaged 36.6 MPG over my 1134-mile trip. (Not quite as good as the 39.2 I got with the Toyota Yaris a year ago, but (1) there was a lot more city driving in the mix this time, and (2) it's a larger car, being more comparable to Toyota's Corolla than the Yaris.) I was impressed enough that I would consider buying one if I were in the market for a new car. Here's a favorable review from my favorite car magazine.

I should also put in a good word for Fox Rent-A-Car. First time I've used them. They not only undercut all competition in price--and by a large margin--but they gave me a brand-spankin'-new, never-before-rented car that I liked, and made the whole process the most friendly and hassle-free car renting experience I've ever had. Just about every other agency makes me feel like they're sure I'm planning to either destroy or steal the vehicle, and they're really reluctant to let me drive off with it. Fox will be my first choice next time around.

(One demerit to the company: I picked up a tiny windshield chip from a random flung highway pebble. When returning the car, the attendant checking me in didn't notice it, so I pointed it out to him. He said, "You shouldn't have said anything." I guess that honesty is not high on the list of personal qualities important to Fox in selecting its employees.)

OK, on to the things I saw on the trip.

First, I saw a whole bunch of mountains. For a long drive through the Rockies, I guess that's not too surprising. It's interesting that mountains look so beautiful when seen in person, but just don't capture well in photographs (unless you're Ansel Adams). But my best attempts are here. I especially like the interplay of clouds and land formations in this one.

While driving around Salt Lake City looking at nursing homes, I passed this collection of rusty sculptures for sale. They were whimsical enough to amuse me.

My parents have bird feeders at their house, and one morning this pretty finch came for breakfast.

I took my time on the drive back, stopping more frequently than I usually do to take pictures and do other dawdling. I stopped in the town of Beaver, Utah, which is just about the halfway point between Salt Lake City and Las Vegas. I had wanted to stop at the Cache Valley Cheese store there, but it was closed.

As I was making my way back to the interstate, I noticed that much of the town is abandoned and falling apart. My friend Cardgrrl has a photographic blog, "Something Beautiful," in which she frequently mentions her quirky fondness for things that are old, rusty, and decaying--man-made structures and objects that are slowly being reclaimed by nature. (It's a taste that my reader Wolynski apparently disapproves of, based on this blog post. But different strokes....) She encourages readers to find beauty in such unexpected places. So I decided to accept the challenge and see if I could find bits of beauty in two of the dilapidated buildings of Beaver. The results are here and here, with the most interesting shots from those batches, I think, being this one and this one. A barbed wire fence kept me from getting as close to the brick building (house? school? church?) as I would have liked.

Interestingly, I have a lot of combination poker players/photographers among my readers and among the blogs I follow: Cardgrrl, Wolinsky (here and here), Bastin (who was the first to point Cardgrrl to this humble blog, a small act for which I am immensely grateful), S (here and here), Vegas Rex, Memphis Mojo, and Oh Captain (here and here). I will probably never be as good as any of them, but it's kind of fun trying my hand at it once in a while.

Guess the casino, #418

To reveal the hidden answer, use your mouse to highlight the space immediately after the word "Answer" below.




Answer: Texas Station