About poker, not running

I was going to blog about running today (a little more than two miles if you were wondering [17]). But then the Spartans lost spectacularly to the school that shall not be named and I was a little grumpy about that and was flipping through the stations to find some mindless fun and I saw that Mean Girls was on. I've already seen the movie and I remember that it was indeed mindless fun. But I couldn't really remember anything else about it. So I watched. And about ten minutes into it I realized it was the kind of movie that doesn't really need one's full attention. So I started playing poker (1). And since I've just finished that session, I've got poker on the mind and I think I'll bore you all with it.

Remember that blogger freeroll I played in a while ago? Well, in order to play in that I had to start a PokerStars account. It seems that they weren't happy with the fact that I didn't have any real money in my account, so on Tuesday they gave me five dollars to play with for two weeks. The problem I have is, does the two week limit include the money that I win? After fourteen days will they take the seven dollars I've won as well as the original five they gave me? If so, they've got a pretty sweet deal going there.

But anyway. I felt like a dick in the session I just finished playing. For those of you who don't know, there are a lot of unspoken rules in the world of poker. Probably one of the biggest rules is not to say anything that might influence the action of a pot that you aren't involved in. Well, someone did just that. I had made a sizable bet and the only player still in the hand with me was taking a long time to decide what he was going to do. While this player was thinking, someone else tried to guess what my hand was. Even though that guess was wrong and probably didn't influence the other player very much, I felt the need to tell this guy that he shouldn't have made that comment. I wasn't rude. I didn't swear or call him names. But I felt like a dick afterward. I don't know why. Rationally, I feel justified. But emotionally, I feel like a dick. Weird, huh?

I'm grateful for Mean Girls (20). It's better than it probably should be.

The mission

I've come to the realization that this blog has gradually veered from its original purpose - to make me into a better person. Now, I'm not saying that the blog is entirely to blame. But I'm pretty sure it's mostly the blog's fault. I mean, come on, it is the blog's mission. Isn't it?

Anyway, I'm going to use the upcoming NaBloPoMo to get this blog back on track because without the proper guidance, most blogs will deteriorate into narcissistic ramblings about how certain things suck and certain other things rock and will often dedicate lengthy passages filled with deep philosophical ruminations on the greatness of America's Next Top Model. So my first post of November will be a revisiting of the list. I will track my progress and update the list where necessary. Then I'll throw myself back at the list because I've been straying from it for a bit now. And that's what you, my deardear readers, have in store next month. Yay.

On a different note, I'm good at poker. That's not just my opinion either. I can now cite a second source for that information. So I was playing in a sit-n-go (a small tournament that starts whenever a certain number of players sign up for it) and it was down to just me and another guy. After I made a play to build up a pot for myself (I'll spare you the details), some observer chimed in with a "your good." Now two people think I'm good at poker. I'll try to forget the fact that one of them doesn't know the difference between your and you're.

I'm grateful for a random stranger's validation of my ability to do something I probably shouldn't be doing in the first place (20).

I'm so gonna put all my stuff in that

Today was the Pokerstars World Championship of Online Poker. 1,337 bloggers played in the tournament, and the top 81 finishers got loot of some sort. How did I do? Good. Quite good, actually. 53rd. In a field that big, I was thinking I would be lucky to finish in the top 500. And I was lucky. And unlucky. And then lucky again. And then unlucky again. And I think you get the point. It was a poker tournament. Tournament poker is like that. Sometimes you have to take risks you wouldn't normally take in a cash game, and so do your opponents. And things happen.

Finishing 53rd got me what I believe they labeled the traveler's package - a pokerstars duffel bag and two decks of waterproof cards. So yeah, I'm awesome. I totally smashed all your barrels. If I had outlasted eight more bloggers, I would've won an iPod nano. That would've been pretty cool. But I'm still pleased with my results.

I'm grateful for my new sweetsweet duffel bag (20).