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.

life is a joke that takes too long to tell or, why DID the pileated woodpecker cross the road? 2010-04-24 - 8:18 p.m. I was just thinking, Hey, I haven't noticed that Yellow-Crowned Night-Heron in front of the Walgreens lately, and there he was on Friday afternoon, stalking the savage drainage ditch. I also noted a Mississippi Kite on the way to Biloxi. Today's sighting of note was a Pileated Woodpecker flying across the interstate. Nice catch. I played a long time Friday, but I didn't record any especially deep hands. The big hand of the day was when I caught AA against the other guy's KK. He was an aggressive player who frequently raised with very little, and he'd raised before the flop to $25, and now I pick up rockets in the big blind. I don't want to scare him away, but he's seen a lot of bullshit steal-raises from me in that position, with a lot of nonsense hands, so I figure I can get away with three-betting to $75. He calls, and away we go to see something like a Q 8 3 flop. He could have a set of Queens or even a smaller set here, but it's infinitely more likely that he has absolutely nothing, so I check and let him bet, in hopes of getting some more cash out of him. He bets all right, and at some point, we get all in, although I don't remember the details of whether the final push came on the flop or the turn. In any event, his miracle King never falls, and I scoop a huge pot. But it doesn't take a genius to play AA versus KK... I'm not gonna say that the Biloxi players think I'm a donkey, but let's just say that as soon as I strolled in this fine Saturday early afternoon, they opened the 2/5 NL right away. And I mean right away, as in, I saw only four hands on the 1/2 table. It played short at first, while they called around to let their buddies know, Hey, the fish is here but I like short, especially when there's a compulsive calling station in the game -- and I'm not talking about myself. The lady in question played every hand, and called virtually every flop and turn, so the pots were protected from too much high craziness by the other players. I swear, the only player she could beat was me. I'm not too much into "bad beat" tales, but I'll tell this story here, because it sets the stage for another hand much later in the day. Since pot odds meant nothing to her, and she didn't have a problem building a big pot with second pair and abandoning it on the river, or calling off her stack with top pair, no kicker, it wasn't long until she was playing very short-stacked. At that point, here's where I get involved in a seemingly silly hand. I have Q9 in late position, and she's already limped in under the gun, so everybody else wants to play too, so there are a lotta other limpers, and so I make a "pot sweetener" raise of an extra $10. The flop comes Q 8 T, which I don't really love it, but she bets out a small token amount, everyone else folds, and since she's very short, I go ahead and put her all in. We flip over our cards and she's got me dominated with her QJ. "Why do you go all in with that?" she asks. "You were trying to buy my pot?" "Yeah, I thought I could steal something." The very quiet, seemingly nitty-as-hell, plays one-hand-an-hour late middle-aged white dude on my right obviously observed the hand. He made a mental note: She'll shove all-in with top pair, no kicker. But he forgot to make the mental note that my opponent had a very short stack. And that's important information for later, as you will see... And now for the slightly deeper hands... Hand # 1: You ever see the movie A Clockwork Orange? Well, Alex got to be about 80 years old, but he's wearing the same hat and still drinking milk -- heck, he ordered two glasses to be delivered at a time, natch -- and, for an 80 year old or any year old, he actually seems to have a complete No Limit game. I don't know if Malcolm McDowell is still alive, but if he's been dead a few years, he probably looks a lot like this guy. Anyway, you don't gotta be beautiful to play poker, and this particular old coot is not my favorite opponent in a hand by a long shot. In fact, if I can pull the wool over his cynical eyes, I've got to count it as a moral as well as a financial victory. To set the stage, the calling station has finally busted out, and the table has now filled up. While the calling station was there, I couldn't really make "plays" because, hey, she's gonna run you down. So I look like I'm playing pretty solid, reasonable poker for the time being. "Alex," as we'll call him, since his name actually starts with a B and not an A, limps in early. Another dude limps, and it gets around to me. I pick up a beautiful 6 ♥ 3 ♣ on the button. I know, I know, but I've been there 90 minutes, without any opportunity to make any ridiculous plays to advertise that I'm the goose in this game. Hell, it's my chance to steal something. I raise to $25, expecting everyone to fold. Ha ha ha ha ha. The big blind calls, Alex calls, the other dude calls, and it's a $100 pot. Effective stacks are around $300 -- the size of my stack. Flop: Q ♥ 4 ♦ 7 ♣ I don't C-bet EVERY FRICKIN' TIME in position with 3 opponents. With my weak hand, what I'd like to do is see if two or more players are interested. If only one early position player shows interest, I can play back at him and steal the pot with nothing -- or next to nothing, since I do have a well-hidden gutshot draw. But if two people wake up, fine, I'm done. So everybody checks to me on the flop, and I check, interested to see who or what will attack on the turn. Turn: K ♥ It's checked to me again. Hey, guys, no guts, no glory. It's time for me to make a move. I bet $40, big blind folds, Alex calls, other dude folds. $180 in the pot. River: A ♣ Dude, I don't know what you were drawing to, but it wasn't that. When Alex checks to me, I make a bet that looks like it "wants" to be called of $50. Alex is too smart for me, and he folds his K ♣ 8 ♣ face up. Tee hee. Needless to say, I'm not gonna be the one to flash my mighty six-trey of offsuitedness. He doesn't need to know just how evil I am. Hand #2: Ace/King, the classic reverse implied odds hand that loses big and wins little...for once I'm on the right side of it In this hand, my opponent is a knowledgeable professional player. I believe he is also a pool hustler, but he's got both his arms, so he's not the one-armed pool hustler guy. Another sharp player, and certainly not the kind of guy I came to play, but sometimes "stuff" just happens. The guy I called "another dude" in the previous post open-raised $50 Under the Gun. He way too frequently opened from early position but almost always, it was for $25, so I'm thinking pocket Jacks, although there's always the chance that he has a genuinely big hand like AA or KK. The two players between us fold, and I look down at Q ♠ Q ♣ -- sitting as I am, in an early middle position, I see little value to raising. I'll smooth-call and gather more information with my pea-picking $315 stack. AD --"Another Dude" -- has about the same amount. It folds around to Pro Player in the big blind -- I'll call him "PP" here -- and he looks right at me and at my stack. He thinks for a minute, and then he goes all-in. He saw the IMOM carry off the same squeeze multiple times yesterday with AK, and it feels like the same identical play. My simple plan is to fold if AD calls and to call if AD folds. Yah, he could sure have AA or KK, but you know what? For $315 in my stack, I really don't care. It's America -- land of unlimited rebuys. So AD folds, and I call. Flop: Q ♥ 8 ♥ 2 ♥ Whee, I has finally flopped a set after all these beers and years. I flip over my queens and say, Let me guess, you have Ace King of hearts. He sighs and doesn't yet reveal. Turn is a black card, River is another black card. He flips over A ♥ K of random. "I would have had to get it all in on that flop anyway, with my nut re-draw," he says. Absolutely right. Proof that sometimes you can play perfectly and do all the right things and you still don't book the win. I didn't out-play the dude or do anything special at all. I just got lucky. But, hey, I'll take it. Hand #3: Sometimes it pays to be known as the goose of the game Yeah, so, you remember that foreshadowing about the quiet dude to my right who hardly ever enters a hand and hardly ever says a word? The guy who made a mental note about my crazy, spazzy, loose-ass play? Well, here's the pay-off hand. Effective stacks: I'm the shorty with about $700 in front. Quiet Guy -- let's call him QG -- limps. I look down at K ♦ 7 ♦ on the button and, fuck it -- sorry, Mom -- I'm in the mood to steal something. Seriously. I'm tired of all the jokes about how I only play AA, KK, QQ, and JJ. (Maybe the jokes are meant sarcastically?) In any event, I raise to $20. Big blind calls, QG calls, and away we go. $60 pot. Flop: K ♣ 7 ♠ 5 ♣ I has flopped top two and you don't. Tee hee. Checked to me, and I bet $40. Big blind folds, and now QG check/raises $100 more. Yeah, yeah, he loves the freaking check/raise, because he also thinks I'm a big blufftard. If he entered more pots, he'd be a big pain in the ass. But I already know that he enters rarely but, when he does, he loves the check/raise. Hey, I has top two and you don't. I make it $200, and now he slows down for a minute, and seems to struggle. True, it could be ye ole Hollywooding, and I'm never eliminating the chance of a set based on Hollywood alone, but some guys are more addicted to the bullshit than other guys, and this guy usually acts pretty quickly and efficiently. He's a time is money guy, like myself, as opposed to "camera on stage/seat three" guy like some old dudes I could name. In any case, he eventually calls, and I feel I'm pot-committed on any non-club turn because the pot is now $540. Turn: Q ♥ I shove all-in according to the plan, and he struggles with his conscience for a long ole time. I figure he's trying to think if he has the right odds for his flush and/or straight draw -- the worst case scenario is 8 ♣ 6 ♣ which really does have to call -- but he goes into the big think for years and finally does put his chips in. River: 4 ♦ Well, if he held 8 ♣ 6 ♣ he just beat me with a straight, but lucky for me he doesn't play that crap. When he flips over A ♣ K ♦ for a top pair, top kicker hand, then I'm truly flummoxed that he thinks he's the winner. I quickly flip over my somewhat embarrasssing K7...but, you know, if he'd just raised pre-flop, I never would have been in the hand at all. He wudda cudda shudda won a small pot instead of losing a huge all-in. And, at that point, I'm too deep for a simple 2/5 NL game at my stage of development so I drive home early enough to see the spectacular sunset with all the rays coming down out of the sky like a Bible painting plus the aforementioned Pileated Woodpecker who flew right in front of my car but got safely across the road. And why did the Pileated Woodpecker cross the road?* *probably to get to the other side... back - next All Rights Reserved, Copyright 2002-2017 by Elaine Radford