LittleWyvern.com

It’s been a while since I’ve posted and even longer since I’ve posted anything meaningful; though arguably I never have. The longer I put it off the harder it is to write, and so I might as well just pop this virtual cherry and throw up some words. Be warned, however, for though the fingers do their keyboard dance my heart just isn’t in it.

I don’t like recap posts and do my best to avoid that sort of thing. But still, it’s been a while, and so here you go.

Two weeks ago I was in Chicago for ten days.
This past weekend my brother was in Las Vegas.
This upcoming Friday I will fly to Baltimore for eight days.

Done and done.

Moderately entertaining and discussion-worthy happenings took place in Chicago, but enough time has passed that I don’t really feel like talking about it. Moreover, and I know that I’ve said this a few dozen times, because of the makeup of my humble readership I feel awkward to the point of silence when it comes to certain topics. Who knows though, that may change.

My brother’s stay was somewhat entertaining, highlighted by an uneventful and slightly depressing 25th birthday. Truth be told it was the day before my birthday that was most fun. My brother and my roommate spent about ten hours playing poker with me this past Saturday. That is hardly an abnormal session for me, but because of my company the games took on entirely new flavors. I won’t bore anyone with hand recaps or the like, but I should mention for those who are interested one funny anecdote.

My brother had been playing $1-$2 no-limit for about an hour while Matt and I played in what was probably the most difficult $4-$8 limit game that I’d ever seen. My game selection varies with my mood and to start the day I felt like kicking back with a fixed structure game. Unfortunately for us, our game began short-handed and of the 6 of us at the table I would hazard to guess that every single one of us was at the very least a semi-professional. Normally you can count on that game having at most three strong players, but it became clear within the first few hands that this table was insane. Oh, and I should mention that in addition to playing short-handed with really good players we were also playing with a half-kill. That means that whenever the same person won two or more hands in a row the limits would jump up to $6-$12. Do you have any idea how often that happens when there are only six people at the table?

So anyways, I took a quick trio of super shitty beats and decided to try my luck at no-limit instead. I moved to the first open seat at my brother’s table and played it cool for a while. Finally I made my first real play at a hand with pocket aces and by the turn I had maneuvered myself all-in. My aces were good and I doubled up. But then the fun started because seated immediately to my right was a middle-aged asian woman who decided to make a comment about my hand. For no reason in particular my mind kicked out an unplanned retort which would impact my game for the rest of the day.

“Oooh! Pocket Aces! Nice Hand!”
“Yeah, thanks. First time ever!” (I was going for sarcasm here, but she didn’t pick up on it at all.)
“Really?!”
“Yeah, and it was even better than I thought it could be!” (Surely she would pick it up now…)
“Wow! I’ve only been playing for six months. I love this game.”
“This is my first time playing, but it sure is a lot of fun!”

That went on for a little while. Across the table I could see my brother biting his lip to not laugh too hard. The stupid little lie developed over the next few hours, masterfully nudged along by occasional comments along the lines of “I just want to go all in. It looks like so much fun on TV!” Somehow, not only did the lady not see through the ruse, but a few other people at the table began to buy into it as well. I was even lucky enough to receive a small lecture from the man in Seat 1 about how television editing makes it seem like people are all-in much more frequently than they really are. At one point the lady told my brother that he should teach me how to play since I was so apparently inexperienced. He enjoyed that comment, but for the sake of our lie I couldn’t defend myself.

Eventually the situation caught up to me, though. It came about that three other players were involved in what was developing into a rather large pot. One of the players made a big bet and the second player began asking the bettor a series of questions. The first player responded with what I felt was some really bad gamesmanship (meaning that his attempts at being deceptive made it very, very obvious what he was holding). The banter continued for at least a full minute before the third player, who was waiting behind the second’s action, told them that they weren’t allowed to talk about their hands like that. The first player objected and affirmed that he could do whatever the fuck he wanted. The dealer didn’t know what to do. So I stepped in.

The rule is pretty clear in my mind; two players are not allowed to discuss the hand while another still has action. The dealer offered the reasonable but incorrect explanation that ‘anyone with cards’ can say whatever they want. I refuted the point, but before a decision could be made I was confronted by another player.

“How would you know what the ruling is?! This is your first time playing.”

Crap.

In other news:

>> ~14 hours and ~80% finished with Metroid Prime. I need to finish the game before I leave for Baltimore. It is completely horrible to leave somewhere in the middle of a 20+ hour adventure game only to return a week later and have absolutely no idea what the hell is going on. My review of the game? It is incredible.

>> Football starts on Thursday and since my roommates are hardcore about the stupid game I figured I would try to take an interest this year. To that end I have entered their fantasy football league with plans of ignorant domination by a team of former superstars long past their prime. I still don’t really care about the game, but there’s no better way to become interested in a sport than to bet money on it. Expect to see the V-Town Naked Bootlegs in the league finals.

>> I have finished rebuilding my desktop computer. Per usual, what began as a chipset replacement has ended in the creation of an almost entirely new machine. New board, processor, memory, hard drive, power supply, and video card. Literally, with the parts that I took out of my computer I can assemble a complete second computer (technically, it would just be the first one). Rather than deal with the hassle of trying to sell my parts I might just buy a new case and put together a media center for our living room.