gotta know when to hold them, know when to fold them, know when to walk away, know when to run...

Good evening ladies and gents. Tonight I find myself in good spirits. Why you ask? Because I did fairly well at poker tonight. I may have even won, although I didn't get a final chip count on the rest of the players. We played at Erin and Dave's house. There were six players. We played a variety of games...mostly texas hold em, but some other games as well. My game was a rare combination of intuition, bluffing, and good cards for a change. I folded when I needed to, bluffed and bought a couple of pots on shitty hands, and took in a couple of big wins. I was up big time about halfway through, then stayed in on some hands that I should have folded. That took away a fair chunk of money. Two of my best hands went as such: The first game was similar to 7 card stud, except you get three hole cards and then rotate one out to get your next card. It makes you think about what you want others to see. Very early on I had 2 queens. 3/4ths through the game I was sitting on a full boat.....queens over 7's. I played it so that what was showing was a pair of 7's, a queen, and a ten. I had the other two queens and some other card in my hand. I got several people to throw in money each round...usually 50 cent bets. One guy kept raising...so I raised him back knowing that he didn't have shit showing and couldn't top what I had. It came down to just me and this guy and the last bet I bid a dollar. He folded, so I didn't even get to show my sweet hand. The second was a game called low card in the hole. Each player's lowest hold card was wild for them. Standard 7 card until the last card in which you can choose to pay to have it face up and not change your hold wild. Or, you can take it face down for free and risk it changing your wild card. I had two 4's and a queen up, with a queen and ace as my hold cards. So, right there I had four 4's. I wasn't thinking and asked for my last card down for free...which would probably change my wild card. I was thinking that I had a full boat anyway you cut it. I should have stuck with the queen wild and had four 4's (which I didn't even see). I wasn't thinking, but it worked out. People stayed in, and my last card down was a 4. So, now 4's were wild for me and I had 5 queens. I made a good chunk of change on that hand as well. Overall I started out with 20 bucks and walked away with 32.50. Jade had a really good night too...she ended up 7.50 and had some very well played hands. Other than that I had a productive day off of setting up my scanner/printer, downloading my free credit report, and spending an hour talking to a mortgage broker. There is quite a bit more involved in buying a house than I had even found researching online. I will have to contemplate my options, but it doesn't matter, because I still don't know if I'll have a job. Oh yeah, I also spent last night organizing my mp3's. They are now organized by artist and then by album, and all on one hard drive, so when I set up my playlist I don't have to add 4 files to get all the songs. I got rid of some stuff, and actually freed up a good amount of space. I had a bunch of movies that I had forgotten about that I already have dvd's for. I've also added a bunch of new albums that I bought recently: 2 new System of a Down, new Audioslave, 2 older Butthole Surfers, Scissor Sistors (guilty pleasure), and the soundtrack to Velvet Goldmine. Albums that I'm looking forward to in June include White Stripes, and Coldplay. Ciao for now, hopefully see you all this weekend.

-J