The Good of Poker

I had a quite unintended interaction on Twitter last week that ended up having a great outcome - not only for me personally, but for one other person I'll likely never meet, and for a worthy charity.

It all started when I happened to notice a re-tweet by Ike Haxton, a pro I follow.  Apparently, an EPT Live viewer had won a deck of EPT cards signed by Haxton, and decided to auction them off via Twitter with the proceeds going to Lung Cancer Canada.  I checked out the auctioner's profile, and saw the bid sole bid at the time was $25.

Sure, why not, I'll play.  I bid $30, expecting to be quickly outdone.  It took a while, but there was another bid, for $31.  Since it was going to charity, I decided to play along.  At this point, the tweets themselves tell the story best:













After that, there wasn't a lot of action, though I kept expecting to get outbid at any time.  It wasn't until much later that evening that the a resolution was reached:



At the end of the day, I was able to start my 2014 charity giving, some kid in Britain got a sweet deck of cards that he apparently really wanted, and $166 was raised for a good cause.  I also gained another Twitter follower when Fleming_clan followed me shortly after his last tweet.  Not sure who it is, but the list of people that follows him includes a bunch of Vegas blogs, a couple casinos, and Scotty Nguyen himself.

So, it was a good day as it stands, but it may be even bigger in the grand scheme.  When I decided to write about this experience, I debated as to whether it should go here on my poker blog, or on my personal blog.  I decided to place it here because this is, to me, what I want my involvement with poker to be like.  Playing the game, I've realized, is almost tangential to what I really want to achieve.  I want to get my name out there, but more than that, I want to be know as someone who is not only respectful to the game and it's players, but uses whatever skills he has to help other people.

How exactly I can do that, I'm still working out.  I already committed, starting last year, to tithe 10% of all casino winnings, above and beyond my normal tithing.  I have the thought of taking an additional 10% and giving it to a poker-related charity, perhaps Poker Gives. That is something I am going to research a bit more in the coming days and weeks.

Either way, I am committed to figuring it out.  I want my $35 to Lung Cancer Canada to be only the top molecule of the tip of the iceberg.

The Followers

I found myself again in a rut.

Not only had I not played a single hand of poker since the SFPT finale, it seems like I hadn't been interested in even reading or watching about the game, much less playing.  I'm not sure why. 

But, unlike the last time, I had confidence that I would be able to climb out of feeling that way. How it would happen I wasn't sure; I figured it would be the act of actually playing some hands, or coming across some coverage on TV that sucked me in.

I did NOT expect what actually happened.

Any time I am in one of these ruts, the one aspect of my poker playing/fandom that does NOT go away is keeping up with Twitter.  I follow any number of poker players, along with God-knows-how-many poker news outlets, media members, and the like.  Only rarely do I interact with anyone I don't know; I can probably count the number of times I have done so on one hand.  I've been trying to branch out with that recently, and in doing so I got a huge surprise.

Searching through my timeline a few days ago, I saw a post from online pro Katie Dozier, which promoted a book she had co-authored called "The Superuser".  I checked it out on Amazon, decided it looked cool, and added it to my wishlist.  As a wannabe author, I know how much even the slightest bit of positive reinforcement can help my psyche, so I fired off a quick tweet:

Imagine my surprise when a few minutes later, Dozier "Favorited" the tweet.  Hey, cool - unexpected for sure, and nice of her to acknowledge.

Then, the shocker:

Wait, what?  I'm still confused as to why she would follow me - there's nothing in my profile or tweets that would be interesting for a poker player, I don't think, except for MAYBE the list of people I follow.

Either way, very cool, and somehow, I feel motivated to get back in the game.  I now officially have the eye of a legit poker pro, and while I don't know if it'll last, it's cool.  (People clean out their "follow" lists all the time for many reasons.)

Some reading of "Bluff" this morning at the gym enhanced that feeling.  I was hoping to play some online today, but work isn't letting me.  Damn it.

I will get to it before Turning Stone in a little over a week, and while there, I want to remember to tweet some results so I have some legit poker in my timeline, and see where that brings me.

SFPT Finale - A Choke Job

The title says it all.

With a chance to lock down my first-ever points title, I choked it away, finishing sixth in a ten player field.  Not terrible on the surface, but Tina finished second, completing her solid run and winning her second title.  Why she wants to eliminate the points idea completely is beyond me.  The only thing I can think of is that she likes the idea of doing a $5 lotto ticket for the bounty, since those seem to win more than others.

What went right: The one good hand I had all night I played for maximum profit, when my pocket kings caught trips on the flop and I won a huge pot from newcomer Erik Alexander, who held A/K off. 

What went wrong: I made a terrible read on Matt on my knockout hand, calling his huge river bet with a flush possibility on the board and holding top pair.  I knew the flush chance was there, but also figured Matt could be representing.  I was wrong, and a count sent me to the rail.  Later, I wished it wasn't Matt in that spot, because if it was one of 2-3 other people at the table, I would have figured the bluff chance was far, far lower, and folded.

I also chastise myself in that hand for the time-honored stupid move of sending good money after bad.  Part of the reason I talked myself into calling was that I had already committed a ton of money to the pot.  Put another way, if the bets hadn't been so big post-flop and turn, I may have folded on the river.

10K update: 3.5 hours added, 139 home game hours, 249 total hours

#BraceletHunting Update: $10 added (bounty from my KO of Vinnie), total now $90.

Next up:  that was the last SFPT tournament until likely mid to late-January, and in between will be the first trip to Turning Stone for Cuffe's birthday without the man himself.  It will be emotional I'm sure, and I'm not sure if I will be up for playing some poker.  It's going to be a spur-of-the-moment decision.

I would also like to come up with some poker-related goals for 2014.  If the Points Championship sticks around, winning that title will be first on the list.