New Orleans: Day 1 - Deep Into The Night

Event 6

Buy-in - $300
Entrants - 280
Finish - 13th

Given my earlier disaster, I entered this one much more relaxed. I became even more relaxed when I sat down next to a gentleman from Texas intent on having a good time. He began bouncing his chips into a cup holder. One after another in an endless stream. Despite him being in his 60s, I told him I would never play quarters against him.

Good thing I had that moment of levity too, because as I looked around the table, I immediately realized it was one of the toughest I had ever faced. I spotted what appeared to be at least four seasoned tournament veterans and only one real fish. My read was pretty correct as early on one of the younger guys put a beatiful check-raise play on me and drove me out of the pot. It was a beautiful play. But I got him back a little later.

A critical hand happened about 1 hour in. Once again, I had A-Q. It seemed to be my hand of the day and as you will see later, it was not finished. But in this hand, I was sitting on about the same chips I had started with. Since I was in early position I just limped in. A guy all the way at the other end of the table made a standard raise and I was the only one to call. The flop came down Q-8-6 rainbow. I decided to make a play. I checked. He made a raise which was about half my stack. I paused for a second and then pushed everything in. He went into the tank. Finally, he said, "I'm showing you a lot of respect" and folded a pair of Kings face up.

I pulled my chips and and the table chatter became frantic. Everyone debated whether I had hit three of a kind on the flop or if I was full of crap. As I stacked, I glanced up and noticed one of the seasoned players saying nothing, just staring at me. I couldn't help myself. I gave him a wink.

The tournament developed its normal rhythm of ups and downs and soon I was moved to a new table. It was an odd mix of experienced and inexperienced.

In every long tournament, especially one where you are not running very well, a player will reach the nadir point. It is a crossroads where due to bad luck, tiredness or just plan fed-upedness a player will do something foolish. Deep in the brain, the primal instinct starts whispering that things will be better if you just finish the misery no matter what. The result of the nadir point is usually elimination but sometimes it launches the player on a new run which will carry him deep into the tournament. Guess what hand was my nadir point.

Despite my earlier success, I was still grinding around the average chip stack. It had been a frustrating day and I just couldn't get any traction. Once again I looked down at A-Q. I made a substantial pre-flop raise and it folded all the way around the table to one young kid. He pushed all in and I let out a sigh. He had me covered. I didn't think I could take another substantial hit to my stack and face the slow climb back out of the hole. I muttered, "Okay let's get it over" and called. He flipped over kings. I hit the Ace on the flop and took it down. The kid was devastated and I suddenly could see the other side of the hill.

Over the next several hours, I continued to build my stack to more and more respectability. I doubled up again by playing pocket Aces perfectly against a guy who had pocket Kings. I finessed a slow play of a set of cowboys against four players to eliminate one player and drag a huge pot. Suddenly, I was on the edge of the money.

Considering my stack was now way above the tournament average, I walked into the money. Now down to 18 I was moved to a new table with a new set of factors. Of the nine players, six I had not seen all day.

I was sitting on about 40k in chips and the tournament average was about 23k. Only one person had a larger chip stack. As is usually the case in the late stages, the short stacks were eliminated one by one until all that was left were people with decent stacks and decent games.

Late in a tournament, you have to gamble. You must play hands that you know will be close and you have to win. This is where luck starts to factor. To win any tournament, you have to win at least a few of these situations. At about 11:30pm, I put on a clinic on how to lose half your stack. It began when my A-J doubled up an all in player who had K-10 and only got worse from there. Over the next hour I dropped half my stack.

The end came with me holding, you guessed it, A-Q. The other player flipped up A-K and I never improved. Out in 13th place with enough money to cover both buy-ins for the day.

So 13 hours later I was dead even. But it was my second cash in three tournaments and this feels good.

Today, I am not going to play any heavy poker. Maybe just a few single tables. And God help me, if I look down at A-Q, I honestly won't know what the hell to do.

New Orleans: Day 1 - The Long Day Begins

A pattern is being established. If you click on the poker tag at the bottom, you will see I seem to always do fairly poorly in my first event and fairly well in subsequent events.

Event 5

Buy-In: $500

Entrants - 180

Finish - Somewhere around 120

Winning early is a bad sign. Generally, I like to take a few hands to get a feel for the table. But in this one I looked down at A-Q suited on the very first hand. After a pre-flop raise and a call, then a post-flop raise and a fold, I took down a fairly nice first pot. It would be the last chips I would drag in the tournament.

What would follow would be over two hours of frozen cards and every time something materialized, several other players would follow me in and catch. The worst was a hand where I made a set on the flop and another player caught a flush on the turn. That cost me 1/3 of my stack.

The final moment rang with the theme of the day. After seeing not one face card for almost an hour, I looked down at A-Q again. With a stack only 5 times the big blind, I pushed. Immediately one of the large stacks called. Then the other large stack also called. All I could think was "oh lord I am doomed". After the flop, they both pushed all in and I just let out a sigh of dejection. Turning over the cards, one had Q-Q and the other had a flush draw. With my Ace I still had a chance. But the flush caught on the river and it was all over.

At 2.5 hours it was my shortest outing yet. I drank a beer and considering the karma thought about giving up on the rest of the day. But there was a second event at 3:00 and I decided to give it a try.

Lesson learned? No matter how good, never play the first hand.

New Orleans: Disaster And Recovery

Punched out of the first event early. Frozen cards and couldn't catch. That about says it all.

Finished 13th out of 280 in the second event. Broke me even for the day.

And that's all I got for now. More in the morning.

New Orleans: Day 1

Day 1 at the World Series of Poker New Orleans. Today I'll play in Event 5 - a $500 buy in. Despite the confidence of others, I now know how the deal works. Although I have more confidence after cashing in Tunica, I know the chances of cashing again remains low. So time to play my game and let the cards fall where they may.

Sara is also here and playing in her first big time tourney. Make sure you check out her impressions. So far they have been a severe need for drink and sedatives.

My Morning Wooten: Post Debate Edition

Along with the rest of the political junkies, Jim watched the Republican YouTube debate last night. In a column littered with good time fun stuff, one howler in particular sticks out.

It still had some cheesy aspects to it. One, for example, was the invitation to the retired Army Reserve officer from California brought in make the case that the military should jettison its “don’t ask-don’t tell” policy.

Cheesy? At one point I must have blacked out and missed the segment where the officer ripped off his suit, sprinkled glitter on his face, pulled out a puppet and start squealing like Wayland and Madam.

Isn't it fascinating this is the seminal non-sequiter moment of the debate for Jim instead of the nihilistic yahoo from Texas who wanted to know what the candidates thought of the Confederate stars and bars.

Editor's note: Turns out the gay General is definitely a Hillary supporter and depending on your conspiracy theory flavor of the day, may or may not have been a plant.

Walkscore

Given the state of transportation in Atlanta and all the talk of multi-use development, I thought this was pretty cool.

Walkscore

Try your house. Then try various neighborhoods. Say what you will about Atlantic Station but so far it has the highest score of anything I've found in the ATL.

Hat tip to my absent friend Don who is currently wandering around Oz.

Welcome to New Orleans!

Not a bad drive today. Nearly 500 miles in a few minutes over seven hours. My room is small but charming. But this is not about comfort. It's about cold hard cash. More on that later. Instead of a long rambling post, here are some of my observations from the road.

• The Welcome Center just over the Alabama line has a parking lot that is an insane distance from the bathrooms. It seems much longer when you gotta go.
• Alabama is a strange state. There are ghosts of the past everywhere. Like the monument at the Rest Area which said "We Dare Defend Our Rights". I later learned this is the state motto.
• Speaking of ghosts, entering Montgomery you are confronted with a large sign designating the stretch of the interstate as Martin Luther King, Jr. Highway. That's not unusal but the addendum at the bottom stating established by the legislature in 1976 is. Not sure what that means.
• I-65 south to Mobile is comparable to I-16 in Georgia or the future I-22 in Mississippi. I think there's a requirement that every state have a major highway pass through the most desolate part of the state.
• I-10 between Mobile and New Orleans has lots of bridges. Lots.
• My first indication things are different was construction on the new I-10 bridge over Lake Pontchartrain. Based on the height of the pilings, I would estimate this one could withstand a 30 foor storm surge.

That's all for now. More later as the adventure continues.

Headin To New Orleans

No scenic byways this time. Just a flat out interstate burn to the crescent city. There's poker to be played.

Headline Of The Day

From the Political Insider:

Because when Georgia Democrats party, there’s no substitute for an Applebee’s

Heh. But to be completely fair, I seem to recall a recent local Republican get-together somewhere in Northeast Georgia meeting at a Waffle House.

The Roar Of The Greasepaint...

Oh what lovely political theater.

Crowded rooms, critical votes and to top it off, a hallway scuffle which resulted in the detention of a state Senator.

Since no correspondent from the Drift was present, let's go to the screed masters in the local press to see if we can dope out what happened.

First the AJC:

Tensions flared when coalition members, led by state Sen. Vincent Fort (D-Atlanta), were barred from the small Grady board room before the meeting and were offered instead seats in the lobby with audio from the meeting. But Fort refused to give ground and was handcuffed by security for a short time. There was a scuffle between security guards and several public observers before the meeting was moved to a larger auditorium across the street.

And from Atlanta Progressive News:

Atlanta Police officers physically wrangled with State Sen. Vincent Fort (D-Atlanta), former Atlanta City Councilman Derrick Boazman, and two other activists, during a confrontation with protesters shortly before the 10-member Fulton-Dekalb Hospital Authority unanimously approved a resolution to privatize Grady Hospital.

They report, you can decide. But to provide a little context, APN is the outlet who described the ridiculous incident involving Andrew Meyer as "police at the University of Florida tackled, then Tasered -- or shocked with high-voltage electricity -- a journalism student last week, renewing a vigorous debate in the United States and abroad on police abuses of power and the struggle to preserve free speech." (emphasis added)

After the opening round of Commedia dell'arte, the Grady board got down to the serious meat of the performance. The members unanimously voted to move to a 501(3)c non-profit structure, but with a few conditions.

The new board would be appointed by the current board and would contain at least four current members. The new board would then appoint the subsequent board thus providing a transition phase. However, by leaving in place artifacts from the previous administration, the board has already received criticism of not really changing anything.

The board also demanded written guarantees of funding from both the business community and the state government. Naturally, the politicians, who fear promises in writing like moles fear daylight, cried blackmail.

So where does this leave us?

Despite the hue and cry, Grady continues to lurch incrementally towards both restructuring and state funding. Whether publicly stated or not, most agree both will happen. It's just a matter of everyone having their say in the final act.

In the flashbangs, smudge pots and fog machines, many may have missed the most critical soliloquy in yesterday's performance. Like a barker announcing to the audience the next act will start in 15, Pete Correll illuminated the real deal.

...the Grady board has taken a "courageous first step," he anticipates further negotiations between Grady and some of the parties".

In other words, we ain't done yet.

Picture Of The Day

Storytelling at The Wren's Nest

I know I've been pumping the Wren's Nest a lot lately, but dammit, you need to get your butts down there.

The Banana Republic Of Dekalb

Decaturguy already hit on the upcoming legislative battle over the Dekalb CEO but I want to take a dip in those fetid waters myself.

But let's clear some things up first.

Please feel no need to send me emails explaining how the county government works or to expound on how previous CEOs also received harsh criticism. I've been a Dekalb resident for over 20 years and although I only recently researched the nitty gritty, I've always had a pretty good understanding of the system of government.

As far as criticism of the "unique" position of CEO, it has been there since the first day Manuel Maloof sat in the chair. Anytime you have a government run by a "benevolent dictator" there will be carping. Perhaps, instead of emailing me, you should consult your elders about the raucous early days of the Maloof administration.

Also, I live in Rep. Kevin Levitas district. I have admiration for the guys and gals on both sides of the aisle who represent the northern area of the county - even to the point of flying in the face of friends to defend Mike Jacobs.

I've always stated with pride that Dekalb is home of the moderates. From Republican Dan Weber to Democrat David Adelman, many times this bipartisan coalition is the only sanity saving us from the true bull fruit looniness under the Gold Dome.

But on this one they are wrong.

Not because the Dekalb system is a perfect form of government. It is not. Not because they do not think they are doing their constituents right. I'm sure they believe this to be true.

They are wrong because they have now joined a growing wave of State-led strong arm tacticians and because the alternative is worse.

It's always funny to hear someone from Georgia preach the beauty of small government. It is true we have far fewer regulations than most. There are practically no protections for employees. Developers have run wild and despite the lunacy which sometimes comes from those in power lax growth regulation has certainly contributed to the current water crisis.

But big government is not always so obvious. One needs only to look at the recent acrimonious creation of the city of Johns Creek. Once the dust settled, the business of creating a city was at hand. And what was required of the potentates of this new city? They had to go to the state legislature for permission.

Any form of local government must be approved by the state legislature - probably not a bad form of oversight in a general sense. But the Johns Creekers also had to ask the Gold Dome poobahs for permission to form a parks and recreation department. That's right. A local municipality cannot hire a few guys to pick up trash in the local picnic area without the stamp of approval by the full Georgia legislature.

This fact makes the current argument against the CEO position having too much power ring a little hollow. The pools of power never go away. Only the lifeguards change.

But it cannot be avoided the structure of Dekalb's government is the purview of the legislature. So let's instead look at the alternative. We don't have to go far.

Dekalb is the second largest county in the state. Fulton is the first.

Fulton has a much more traditional form of county government. One which certainly could be the model for the legislation now proposed by Levitas and Jacobs. Power is dispersed among the various commissioners with a board appointed county manager running day to day operations.

The result of such distributed power over a huge infrastucture is instead of a single strongman, Fulton has individual fiefdoms. lorded over by their elected representative. And you want discontent? The Fulton system has worked so well the voters have for all practical purposes voted the entire county out of existence. It's no shock the "let's form our own city" push began with north Fulton's Sandy Springs and then metastisized to Johns Creek, Milton and Chattahoochee Hills.

There has always been an uneasy truce between Dekalb and its various towns but compared to the neighbors to the west, the tension has been no worse than the typical family Thanksgiving dinner - lots of sniping with everyone warily glancing about, but no one leaves the table until the pecan pie is served.

And all of this hullabaloo is over the hours of operations of the local speakeasies.

Oh, they will deny it with flowery talk of reining in meglomaniacal leaders and responding to the outcry of residents but even a blind pig can see Jones recent veto of the rolling back of closing times is the flash which caused the fire.

But even that misses the more important questions.

Every time a local government acts in a way which chaps a few behinds, do we really want the state legislature to ride in and play fruit basket turn over? Isn't that really just trading one strong arm for another?

January Preview

The Insiders have a nice little piece previewing the upcoming session including an interesting take on the apparent rise in power of the minority party.

Money quote:

[House Minority Leader Dubose] Porter told of sitting down recently with a top business executive just back from overseas. The message offered was that Richardson’s plan to end all property taxes by shifting and expanding a statewide sales tax hasn’t gone down well with service-oriented companies eyeing expansion into Georgia.

Christmas for Georgia political junkies may come a little late this season. But oh the presents we will unwrap in January.

Georgia Gang Howler Of The Week

We've got two today.

Dick Williams:

Our friend at Peach Pundit, Erick? What's Erick's last name? He criticized the gang or some of his people did, because we don't talk enough about local politics and we're not specific enough. And you know he closed up his shop Tuesday for Thanksgiving and we're here talking politics. I want him to know that.

Well, even though Erick is King Daddy over at Peach Pundit, he ain't the be all and end all. There are several front page contributors and if Dick, self-admittedly technologically challenged, actuallly read the site, he would see there were several posts during the Thanksgiving holiday.

And for comparing a blog which produces content daily to a once a week, 20 minute talking bobblehead television show, Dick, you get a gift basket of apples and oranges.

And the Phil Kent streak continues...

And my loser again still is last week's loser, Sonia Murray. I still couldn't figure out her column in the Access Atlanta...it's just unitelligible.

You know. The obsession with Sonia Murray is bordering on creepy.

The Wren's Nest

We have a disturbing tendency in this town to not appreciate our important cultural landmarks until they are on the very cliff of doom. Fox anyone?

Which is why you should take a listen to the Georgia Podcast Network's Mostly ITP episode with Wren's Nest Executive Director Lain Shakespeare. Also check out Wren's Nest Online.

In no small part due to the controversial Disney film Song Of The South, Joel Chandler Harris' monumental contribution to American culture may be the most misunderstood in our nation's relatively brief history. And I doubt most Atlantans realize the key to unraveling the knot of myth is easily discovered right over in the West End. To twist one of Lain's analogies, why would you rely solely on the atrocious Ben Affleck Pearl Harbor movie when you can go to the Arizona memorial?

Drop by and give Lain and the folks a visit. You just might learn sumpin.

Georgia Blog Carnival

The carnival is back in town! Go over to Facing the Sharks to enjoy some of Georgia's best.

Also, the carnival will be stopping by these parts on December 7th, given the significance of the day, I expect some fascinating submissions.

You can submit entries using the Georgia Blog Carnival form or email them directly to me griftdrift@gmail.com or to gamind@mail.com.

Intermittent Griftdrift

I'm on the road for the next several days. Don't pee on the furniture.

Kathryn Johnston

Jason points to an article by Radley Balko remembering the anniversary of the death of Kathryn Johnston.

Ms. Johnston didn't actually wound any of the officers. They were wounded by fragments of ricochet from their own storm of bullets. And there was no marijuana. Once they realized their mistake, the officers handcuffed Ms. Johnston and left her to bleed and die on the floor of her own home while they planted marijuana in her basement.

As I said in the comments, I can't think about this tragedy without becoming incredibly sad.

There is no law, order or justice in "no-knock warrants". None.

Dover and Darwin

We seem to be all over the place today but this is just too good to pass.

In 2004, the tiny town of Dover, Pa. became the latest battleground in the evolution wars. The result of the school board's decision to require science teachers to read a statement including the specious "evolution is just a theory" argument along with a recommendation for students to read the Intelligent Design screed "Of Pandas and People" was a monumental estasblishment case in Federal Court.

PBS Nova has produced a documentary which not only tells the better than fiction tale of the case but gives one of the best lay explanations of both evolution and science I have ever seen.

It's two hours long but it is worth every precious second. Watch it. Make your friends watch it. Make your children watch it.

Many might see Dover as the highwater mark of the ID movement, but it all it takes for the scurrilous beast to rise again is ignorance.

Watch the videos here.

A Southern Firewall?

Southern Political Report's Tom Baxter poses an interesting question.

What happens if Edwards or Obama upsets Clinton in Iowa, possibly critically wounding the front-runners campaign.

It may all come down to Florida.

Obama has put a lot of effort into building a grassroots organization in South Carolina, but he’s still a distance from overtaking Clinton in the polls. If the race takes this course, be assured we’ll see former President Clinton in South Carolina a lot. If she falters in South Carolina, Florida, where Clinton has polled huge leads, would be her ultimate, and pretty desperate, firewall.

Still think the DNC won't count those Florida delegates?