The Big Orange Poker Room

Well this past weekend I held another NLHE Tourney in the BOPR and we had 18 players show for a good evening of play. We shuffled up at 4pm and turned the lights off around 11pm. When the chips finished flying, the top three finishers decided to CHOP THE POT! What a bunch of sissies in my opinion! Why play to that point only to give up some of your desired endstate. The ONLY one out of the three who made out was Charles who finished 3rd, so the chop added about 50% to his take in.

I didn't fare to well in the tourney this time....popping out around mid field. I DID hit pretty well in the cash game in the loser's lounge however so it MORE than made up for the dissapointing finish in the tourney.

This afternoon I played a 50 FTP points tourney for a $26 satelite token and after 4 hours and 10 minutes took it down for the win! Not bad for two days in a row.

I think my Poker Nickname has been changed to "John Travolta"....based on my several recent finishes in local AND online events on "The Bubble" and JUST outside the money for those events. (Of course, those who like JT's work know one of his roles was "The Boy in the Plastic Bubble").

In my home games, I've finished on the bubble more times than I can count (although I have made it in the Top Three on 3-4 occassions), including at my New Year's Tourney where I finished 6th where it paid to 5th.

Too many times at the local Free Rolls I've finished just outside the money, and most recently at Geoff and Amy's this past weekend where I went out in 5th position where it paid to 4th.

...Last night... well, last night doesn't count because I was the first person out at the final table but since only 1st & 2nd were rewarded at that Free Roll, it doesn't quite qualify as the bubble.

Hopefully, along with the new nickname come a new dancing ability that Travolta is known for....although I tend to think his dancing looks more like he's having an epileptic fit at times.

Happy Tuesday!

You're not going to believe this but it's funny as hell and I feel compelled to relay it.....even if nobody's reading... Monday morning I got up and signed up for a $5 + .50 NL Hold 'em tourney online. About 5 mins before it was due to begin, my wife came charging downstairs wanting to head out and run some errands and go to Lowes for this, and Home Depot for that...and of course... she wanted me to go with her. So as I tried to UNJOIN from the tourney, it locked up and it took a couple of minutes to get my server back up and running... and by THIS time, we were already seated at our respective tables and ready to start this tourney off... so in FINE BOPR fashion, I figgered the BEST way I was gonna get out of this was to just go ALL IN on the first hand or two and dish my chips off to the first Donkey who called me and hop on the road with momma.

I was dealt KTo right off the bat and I was UTG. Pushed all in and had 3 callers! UNBELIEVABLE! Well I hit my King and won the first pot and was immediately moved to another table with 6,000 chips in hand. Next hand I was dealt ATo and pushed it all in again at the button -1. I got 2 callers, one of shich had about 4K in his hand. I flopped 2 pr and took it down for nearly 12K now. I tossed it all again on the next hand with NOTHIN' and a guy with only a few hundred left called and I hit 1 pr to win again! Amazing! The folks at the table were calling me a Donkey and EVERYTHING else that came up in *******, but I couldn't help but laugh at the situation.

Being the creative one that I am.. I figured I could PROBABLY run my errands with my wife quickly and get back in time before I was blinded out of the tourney...yeah right! Long story short....I ended up spending WAY too much time out running errands and by the time I got back, my MONSTER stack was bled dry down to 27th place (out of 300+ players), which I found to be completely ironic that I just MAY have found a new way to sustain life in a tourney from now on......HA HA! Not likely, of course.

Pretty funny story though about something that just simply PISSES me off to no end when those Donkeys push all in on the first few hands in the free rolls, and yet they ALWAYS get a caller or two... or THREE in this unique case...

Happy Hunting!

In the last three days, I've been asked what "Digerati" means no less than 5 times. For those with curious minds... here ya go:

The digerati are the elite of the computer industry and online communities. The word is a portmanteau, derived from "digital" and "literati," and reminiscent of the earlier coinage glitterati (glitter + literati). Famous computer scientists, tech magazine writers and well-known bloggers are included among the digerati.

The word is used in several related but different ways. It can mean:

Opinion leaders who, through their writings, promoted a vision of digital technology and the Internet as a transformational element in society;
People regarded as celebrities within the Silicon Valley computer subculture, particularly during the dot-com boom years;
Anyone regarded as influential within the digital technology community.
The first mention of the word Digerati on USENET occurred in 1992, and referred to an article by George Gilder in Upside magazine. Some sources say that the term was coined by New York Times editor Tim Race. In Race's words:

Actually the first use of "digerati" was in a Jan. 29, 1992 New York Times article, "Pools of Memory, Waves of Dispute," by John Markoff, into which the term was edited. The article was about a controversy engendered by a George Gilder article that had recently appeared in Upside magazine. In a March 1, 1992 "On Language" column in The New York Times Magazine, William Safire noted the coinage and defined it:

Digerati, n.pl. -- people highly skilled in the processing and manipulation of digital information; wealthy or scholarly techno-geeks.

So while I'm NOT a member of the elite "Digerati" club (yet), I've always been looked at by my peers as the geek to go to when they needed something done that involved technical systems. Several years ago someone mentioned going to the Digerati for help... and it stuck. Voila!

Well sadly enough I had to bail out of Scotty's Tourney at the last minute yesterday due to some family matters at home. My son and I had an argument and I didn't think it would be appropriate for me to leave and play cards so soon afterwards. I'm sure my wife appreciated my staying ended up staying at home and playing a little online poker on FTP. I read this morning that Chuck took it down last night so a big congrats goes out to him for the win. GOOD JOB CHUNKY!

I'm gonna do some honey-do's around the house today and finish fixing up the garage.It's looking pretty good now and I've got some good parking space for the motorcycles.

Howdy! I'm Tony and I'm a die-hard University of Tennessee Volunteers Football Fan (But the reality of it is that it just doesn't stop at football... if it's a UT Vols game... I'm interested!), and figured it was time to jump on the Blog Wagon and put some of my rantings on virtual paper. I've been writing down a lot of my thoughts for years in either paper or digital journals, on an ad-hoc basis. We'll just have to see how disciplined I can be with keeping this up for the BOPR.

I'm a member of the Knoxville Poker Players Meetup. The KPPM has a virtual place on Meetup.Com where we share our rambling thoughts on our poker play, local events, pilgrimages to the big gaming sites and of course, our online play. Drawing Dead is the group organizer and does a great job on his blog, which has inspired me to take off on mine. You'll likely benefit from visiting the KPPM and if you're in our area, stop by one of our events and toss your chips in the pot. We also play a regular online event on Full Tilt Poker with a KPPM Members Only Tournament. Come on out and try your luck!

The pic you see above is of my game downstairs in my house which I've dubbed the "Big Orange Poker Room". I used to call it "Man's Land" but since Scotty's room has already been dubbed "Man's Land" and we all know there's not any room for TWO "Man's Lands"!

While I will likely talk a lot about poker in here... I don't intend to limit my ramblings to ONLY poker. I also drive a Harley Road King Custom and enjoy getting out and cruising on it more than anything. I've always enjoyed motorcycles and waited until I retired from the U.S. Army to buy what I really wanted, rather than settling for something mediocre.