Coming soon: Vegas baby!

I'm reading Phil Gordon's Little Blue Book, his sequel to the Little Green Book. It's educational -- this version has many more hand histories woven with Gordon's tales from the felt.

The only complaint I have so far is that Gordon gives one hand example (page 32) from a 2/5 NL table he claims he played on Full Tilt. The only problem is that as far as I know, Full Tilt has never spread a 2/5 NL game. The site has 2/4 and 3/6, as well as the recently added 2.5/5 deep stack game.

It's not that big of a deal, but it undermines the book's credibility. If you're going to make shit up, at least get your facts straight.

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I played in a new home game on Wednesday on the porch of a house about 15 minutes from downtown. The format was similar to the garage game, with alternating rounds of 2/5 NLHE and 2-10-20-20 spread limit Omaha Hi/Lo.

The regulars are decent, but they're a bit too passive postflop. Even when they hold the nuts on the river, they'll often check to the raiser rather than get a little value out of their hand. That's fine with me though.

It was a surprisingly cold night, and for the first time since I moved to Hawaii nearly a year ago, I wished I was wearing long sleeves. The lone woman at the game found me a blanket, and I started dozing off near the end of the evening.

It would have been a profitable night except for that I got quartered when holding the nut low a few times. Getting quartered is terrible. I need to practice my Omaha game online, but I've had a hard time bringing myself to sit at a limit Omaha 8 table so far. Limit hi/lo games don't appeal to me -- make it pot limit or just Omaha Hi.

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While watching the Hawaii football team lose against one of the few halfway-decent teams they've played this season, one of my non-poker-playing friends was complaining about the late-night poker marathon on ESPN Classic.

"Poker isn't a sport, so why is it on ESPN all the time?" he asked.

Then they showed a clip of some player saying that poker was like a war. My friend griped at that description, because he thought other sports like football and hockey are much more warlike.

I'm not so sure.

Poker is all about dominance, control, competition, greed and manipulation. Poker is a strategic game in which the player who asserts his will to the edge of positive expectation will be the biggest winner. The fastest, strongest and deepest player will win. Weak-passive players will lose.

Sounds like a fierce battle to me.

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The winter blogger Vegas trip is this weekend! I don't get in until Saturday, but it will be a much-needed vacation. I've worked every day except weekends since the last time I was in Vegas in June because I needed to work holidays to build up vacation time. I lost all my previous vacation time when I quit the company to move to Santiago. After Vegas, I head back to Atlanta for a fun week including my brother's graduation and a couple of home games.

Just five days away...

My Dad, who has no idea that I ever make more than pocket change playing poker, wanted me to bring home this empty suitcase that's been sitting in my closet for months.

I told him I didn't want to lug it around during a weekend in Vegas before I fly back to Atlanta.

He said I should bring the suitcase with me anyway.

"You're going to need that suitcase to carry all the money you win!" he said.

Let's hope so!