PEACHFRONT SPEAKS

Recent entries july 4, 2018 - 2018-07-04 the triangle continues of courtney, boobear, & nyota - 2018-07-03 Cookie so cute telling, "Hello" to sparrows - 2018-07-01 lovebirb in love - 2018-06-30 wren with fluffffff - 2018-06-24 Read my new book, The 10 Best Things You Can Do For Your Bird at Amazon or at many other fine distributors like Barnes & Noble, iTunes, Kobo, and more. By public demand, and after a delay of an embarrassing number of years, I've finally put my notorious essay, Ender and Hitler: Sympathy for the Superman, free on the fabulous internets. A bibliography of my published books and stories. Here's a simple card-counting FAQ to get you up to speed on the basics. Here's the true story of the notorious DD' blackjack team, told for the first time on the fabulous internets. No other team went from a starting investor's bankroll of zero to winning millions of dollars. A Sadean take on Asimov's classic Three Laws of Robotics can be found in Roger Williams' NOW REVIEWED ON SLASHDOT!!! The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect. Adult readers only please -- explicit sex and violence. For updates on the "Dead Tree Project" and other topics, you may visit the official fan site, Passages in the Void.. My Bird Lists -- My Louisiana State Life List, My Yard List and, tah dah, My World Life List. HEY! What happened to the Peachfront Conure Files? The world's only OFFICIAL Peachfront Conure site now features free peachfront conure coverage, including a magazine length Intro to Conures previously published in American Cage-Bird Magazine, now free on the web. I offer the best free Peachfront Conure information on the internet. If you have great Peachfront Conure info, stories, or photos to share, contact me so I can publicize your pet, your breeding success, your great photograph, etc. on my site. Thanks.

vegas jan 2011 trip report part 5: eight high wins again 2011-01-19 - 12:36 p.m. Monday, Jan. 17, 2011 -- Monday Blues Got an email back from the parrot guy. Sounds like we could plan for a trip in June. It's high time that I got the elusive Peach-front Conure on my life list. Stay tuned. Beautiful weather in Vegas now. My jacket is too heavy, even at night. Good thing I brought along the gold and black metallic zig-zag sweater. Not a good day at 2/5 NL. I gave back yesterday's win, something that always makes you think that you might just as well have stayed in bed. Too many bad calldowns, too many bad bluffs. My fifth set of the trip, another set of tens, was cracked by a turned flush. I did make one rather good non-standard play, and here it is. Hand #1: Huff and Puff, It Can't Always Be a Bluff I haven't shown down a decent hand all night. The good player immediately to my left is the same guy who sat immediately to my left yesterday, the guy who held KK when I held AA. I'm not picking on him or looking to play pots with him, not at all. I try to avoid getting overly involved in hands with better hand readers. It may be that he's looking to play pots with me, because he thinks I'm a blufftard. Fair enough. The table is currently playing a rather tough, tight game. Under-the-Gun limps, and it folds to me in the small blind. I pick up A ♥ J ♠ -- a hand I don't especially like out of position. I don't mind taking the $12 already in the pot, so I raise to $25. My buddy in the big blind calls, and the limper calls. $75 pot. 3 players. Flop: J ♣ 5 ♦ J ♥ Nice flop, Peachfront! There are no draws out. In a limit game, I'd consider this a classic bluffing flop, because it's one of those flops that is highly likely to have missed everybody when it's heads-up or three-handed. I check. My buddy bets $30, as he would do with a wide range of hands, just hoping to take it down right now if we've missed. Under-the-Gun folds, and now I have a decision. If he's bluffing, then I sure don't want to blow him off the pot. I would like him to continue to fire. On the other hand, if I smooth-call with a clever plan of checking the turn so that he can fire again, this particular player is going to wonder what the hell is going on. I've been check/raising with air and three-betting all night, and suddenly I've gone to sleep? I must have a hand that actually wants to see showdown. So he'll check behind on the turn, and I'll get a smaller pot than I should. Yes, of course, there's always the chance that he holds pocket Fives, for a flopped full house. In that case, good for him, because I'm pot-committed to my trips here with these stack sizes. I'm simply not going to worry about the worst-case scenario. I decide to take the risk of a check/raise here. If he has absolutely nothing, he's done, and I can't make any more money. However, if he has a decent bluff-catcher, say a pocket pair of Eights, then he might play back at me again, hoping to fold out overcards or just hoping to catch one of my bare-faced bluffs. I make it $135 to go, $100 more. He puts me all-in, and I call. The turn is a queen, the river a rag, and my hand is good. Dinner at Noodle Asia. We're actually eating completely off poker room food comps and ramen noodles/oatmeal cooked in the room. Since we're only earning $1.50 in food comps from the V. we have to get it down to a science. We bring our drinks from the poker room and eat one day at the Food Court, the next day at Noodle Asia. We tip on the value of the comp at Noodle Asia, and there's no tipping at the Food Court. Tip for a bottle of Fuji water is $1 in the poker room. Self-serve coffee. So there it is, the glamorous lifestyle of a poker pro. It makes me want to cry every time I walk past Valentino's and remember the blackjack days of five course meals by a celebrity chef with a different wine tasting to accompany each course...but it is what it is. I can't expect the V. to treat me to Valentino's on the lowly $12 an hour or whatever they're earning from my rake. Still not drinking. It doesn't seem to help much with the dreams, but I do think I'm slightly more alert in the morning. There's no time to sit with a drink anyway. My laughably limited quiet time is in the morning. Tuesday, Jan. 18, 2011 -- Soooo Sleepy Back on the winning track at 2/5 NL. It's that time of trip when I start thinking that the trip is too long. I was getting really sleepy by the end of the evening's play. I pulled out a decent win after a rather meh start to the day, however. My sixth set of the trip, a flopped set of Jacks on a Queen high board, came against a short stack who held AQ. I got his lowly hundred dollar stack, sigh. At least I encouraged him to re-buy for $300 and put some real cash into the game. Some hand histories... Hand #2: One Tiny Mistake Costs $235, Sigh I'm on the button, but there was a lot of musical chairs going on, and to make a long sad story not much shorter, I didn't realize I was on the button. Three limpers, I pick up A ♦ 7 ♦ and, instead of raising here as I would often do, I just limped along for $5. 6 players. $30 pot. Flop: A ♥ 7 ♠ 3 ♥ It's checked around to an aggressive young pro with headphones. He's a little bluffy, and I've seen him make some hopeless bluffs, most recently a patently silly attempt to bluff a short-stacker who is already pot-committed. However, he was losing that day, and today, he's winning. But he's still been caught in a number of bluffs in a relatively short period of tme. He makes it $15 to go. He might have an Ace, or he might hold a flush draw here. It folds to me, and I make it $45 to go. Everyone else folds. He calls. Turn: 5 ♥ Sheesh. It's highly likely that I've just been outdrawn but I can never be sure against this guy, and my top two pair is still a reasonable bluff-catcher. When he checks, I check behind. River: K ♦ Although I know that he's got some deception to his game, when he checks again, I think there's still some chance he may hold a big Ace that wants to get to showdown cheaply. I bet $50 and plan to call a reasonable raise. He makes it $110 more, which is fair enough, given the pot size. I call, and his K ♥ 2 ♥ is good. I'm only a little bitter. If I'd raised before the flop, he would have folded, and I would have won $25 instead of losing $200-odd. Argh. So not a terrific start to the day. On the plus side, though, I was more than willing to get all-in on this flop, so I'm glad he didn't get frisky there. I could have lost my stack here if he was playing more aggressively. Took my dinner break at the Food Court and then worked my way from the must move back to the same table. My win for the first session was unimpressive, but despite a semi-rocky start, I did OK in the evening. Didn't really get involved in any big pots, though. On the must move evening game, when I held a roughly $400 starting stack, I did one big play where I overlimped a raiser and 2 callers in a $100 pre-flop pot with AJ offsuit, a hand I often fold in this situation. I think I know enough to realize how much it's worth in a multi-way pot, and I decided that, this time, I'd play it since I was in position, and the raiser was a very deep weak-tight 5/T player who goes too far with his overpairs when he's outdrawn. The flop is something like J ♠ 6 ♠ 2 ♦ and the pre-flop lead checks, so he holds AK or AQ and won't go further in this multi-way pot. A Slavic guy I haven't played much, but who I can tell from other people's play against him must be a known bluffer, now bets $75. The young man between me and Slavic dude smooth-calls the $75. You know, it isn't a good idea to float when you have a player to act after you. Even if that player be a middle-aged lady, and you just KNOW in your gut that she's going to fold. It's a little bit of an overbet, but I like my chances here, and I go ahead and shove all-in. They fold, and I take a nice pot on the flop. Anyway, it's like that. Other people get involved in big tests of manhood, but I'm just taking a lot of folds. Today's profit comes from stealing, and a big hand like the stone cold mortal nuts is worth the same as a semi-bluff draw to the flush. Hand #3: You Might as Well Steal I'm on the button with 8 ♠ 6 ♥. Two limpers, I raise to $30, blinds fold, one middle-aged Asian man who is new to the table calls. We haven't played together before. 2 players. $70 pot. Flop: 3 ♥ 4 ♥ 4 ♦ There is nothing on this flop to make anyone fold. He checks, I check behind. Turn: 2 ♦ It's a longshot, but if he holds an Ace, and a five falls on the river, I could stand to make a lot of money because I hold the six for the higher straight. When he checks, I again check behind to give it an opportunity to happen. River: 7 ♠ No five has fallen, and now I am wondering if I can possibly make a convincing river bluff-bet with my 8 high when I already checked both the flop and the turn. Before I have to reach my final answer, he tosses his hand in the muck with a gesture of disgust. My 8 high is the winner and still champeen. "Easy win," says the young man next to me. "Ah, he knows I have him high-carded," I say. However, the disgusting part comes when I actually do hit my nut straight draw on the river. I'm holding an offsuit 97, and the final board is something like 5K864. I semi-bluff raised the turn, and my opponent called, but he wouldn't pay the final all-in on the river. back - next All Rights Reserved, Copyright 2002-2017 by Elaine Radford