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Swag is Fun!

I was being a bit of a ham today after receiving my Nit-hat! The Bike was giving away a hat to everybody who registered for the WSOPC Main Event, and although I didn’t play…I had a pretty good connection to get one for myself.

Helllllooooo from The Bike!

Just a quick post to keep you up to date...



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Welcome to 2012!

My resolutions for this new year are the same as the last... live life one day at a time and do my best to do no harm in the process.

I Owe Owe It's Off to Work I Go...

As so many people around the world are celebrating the last few moments of 2011, I'm getting ready to do what I do at The Bicycle Casino for the WSOP Circuit Tour tournament series starting on the 1st of January.

I'll be making the hotel across from The Bike my home for the first few weeks of the year and, although it's unlikely that I'll have time to play any events, I'm packing a few "The Micros" t-shirts just in case. After all, I'd hate to be caught off guard without a li'l #RunGood up my sleeve.

I'm very hopeful that, with the right balance of hard work and perceverance, 2012 will be my up-swing year. So, I say, "Farwell 2011... Hellooooo 2012!"

Happy New Year!!

I Am Nightingale

Yes...I'm playing Skyrim! And after having finished both the Dark Brotherhood (Listener Rank Assassin) and College of Winterhold (Arch-Mage) quest lines, I am about to begin the ceremony to become an Agent of Nocturnal. Not long now before I am the new Guild Master of Thieves!

Ahhhhh, it seems like it was just yesterday that I was running around Cyrodiil as the Grey Fox...those were the days.

Look What I Found!!

I was rummaging through an old dresser and stumbled upon this $2 that was trapped in the back of a drawer ... it took me a while to remember why I saved this particular bill. Then I looked at the date: 1976.
For those of you too young to know, the $2 was specifically printed in 1976 to commemorate the Bicentennial if the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The 1976 Series are the absolute nuts.
I just wish that I was smart enough way back when I got this bill (I think I was 8 years old) to know folding it would ruin the value of the bill.

Christmas Tidings from My Family to Yours

The last time I took pics of our shoes (mine, my 14 year old son and 11 year old daughter) was during Easter and I has the biggest feet. Now, just a few months later, I have the smallest.

Have a happy holiday with the ones you love!

'Tis the Season for Tying Up Loose Ends and Forging New Beginnings

I haven't written much this month, sorry about that, but I've spent much of December trying to figure out the direction to go in 2012.

With the World Series of Poker Circuit Tour landing at The Bicycle Casino on January 1st, I've spent lots of time spinning my wheels preparing for the 9 days of live stream table coverage for Poker Netcast. I've booked some exciting guest commentators for Live at the Bike and even taped some marketing and promotional inserts for when the players and commentators on on break.

I haven't played all that much poker this month, but the few times I had, I can hardly say that all went well. One night it took me 12 hours to dig my way out of a $600 hole and go home with a small $200 profit, and another night I couldn't win no matter what I did. After having Aces cracked, Kings cracked, etc., etc. by some pretty sick underdog hands, I finally called it quits when I lost A♥K♣ to A♠K♠. We both rivered Broadway...but his was suited. Yes, the Villain hit a royal flush and... since it was at The Bike, he didn't just get the last of my $100 remaining chips after they all went in preflop, he got a $500 iPad2 for the win! (If you're wondering, the odds of being dealt a royal flush are 2,700,000 to 1.)

Josh, Seat 2

Now, one might think that seeing a royal flush would be the one-time moment of the month...but no. Last Tuesday, after the Live at the Bike $1,000 no cap $5-$5 + $5 ante game wrapped up, the players moved over to another table and I stuck around to sweat some of my friends and gossip. Well, if you had watched the show (and it is still available to view for free, just log-in first, then click here) you know that my friend Dany in Seat 5 and Josh in Seat 2 were stuck several thousand for the night. In a hand similar to my Ace-King hand above, Dany all but stacked Josh with A♥T♣ v. A♦T♦. Dany when all-in on the Ace-high flop so the two discussed running it twice but, after seeing that they had the same hand, they figured it was a chop and let the board run out. Dany went runner, runner for a 4-card flush and that was that! Josh got so frustrated that he took the remainder of his $1,200 in $5 and $25 chips and tossed them into the Dealer's tray (and I mean tossed), got up, told the dealer to buy something nice for his kids and left. The Dealer was so incredulous that he tried to give the chips back and called for a Floorman. As the Floorman, the Dealer and players at the table tried to sort the whole mess out, Josh called from his cellphone to confirm and insist that the Dealer keep the "tip." Talk about a "Wow!" moment. What's worse is that I was seated right behind the dealer...Josh missed my open purse by just two feet - DAMMIT!!!

Okay, okay, in all seriousness, I hear that Josh has done that before and I dare say...mighty generous of you Josh! While most would give a Dealer a hard time (to say the least), you probably made his holiday season brighter.

Anyway, this may very well be my last substantial blog of the year, and oh what a year it has been. I considered writing a long winded "Year in Review" blog, but I'm not a big fan of dwelling on the past. No, I'm more of a go forward kind of person because I've found I trip over fewer obstacles when I'm looking ahead.

I'll be on the Plaza floor at The Bike for the first two weeks of January, covering the tournaments, coordinating commentators and guest hosts, and doing whatever else I need to do to make sure the series runs as smoothly as possible. I'm hoping that a positive series will be the first step in a prosperous new year.

On a side note, I've been invited as a guest on Short Stacked Radio tonight. I'll be on at 9:30 p.m. EST (6:30 p.m. PST). I suppose I'll just be peddling my wares, but I think it's still pretty cool to be invited onto the show, thanks Mark!

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I Guess I'm the Whipping Girl of the Day

Since hitting the Super Jackpot in November, one of the things we want to start doing to help promote Live at the Bike is extract the hand that won the biggest pot and post it as the "Hand of the Night." To clarify, the decision of what hand is chosen is not mine to make. The hand is selected by the Producer of the show.



So, I played on Live at the Bike last Friday and as it turned out, I was involved in the largest pot of the night. I was really excited when I found out that my hand had been selected and I felt honored. Now, if you watched the hand, you'll see that there were three people involved and I flopped the nuts. There is some debate as to whether or not Todd (Seat 9) played bad and got lucky on the River or Robocop (Seat 1) played bad by letting him get there, however I'm not in the mood to analyze a hand involving a non-poker player because there's just no way to know what he was thinking.

While it may look like I insta-called Robocop's re-raise before the flop, I had been watching him the whole time (notice that he had made his decision to re-raise without looking at his cards). I raised from the cut-off with a fairly large Ace, it's not an unreasonable play. After I put my bet out, I had a feeling Robocop was going to reraise me but he appeared anxious, so I made the call based on my read that he seemed uneasy. If he had been defending with 9s or Ts, I had two overs and position. I had a plan going into the hand and I believe that I do not need to justify my plan or my play, especially given that I flopped the stone cold nuts. It's not like I was chasing a 1-outter to the River. So, why is it that people are hating on me on Youtube?

I'm sorry that Robocop lost the side pot. Many professional poker players might have tossed Ace-Queen into the muck pre-flop against a raise, re-raise, smooth call. But Todd is just an amateur that hadn't even heard of the Bicycle Casino before sitting in the game. I had nothing to do with the way Todd played his hand and I had nothing to do with the way Robocop played his. In fact, as you watch Robocop after the flop, you'll notice that he paid almost no attention to me throughout the rest of he hand. I may have been behind pre-flop, but I wasn't privy to my opponents' hole cards and once I saw the texture of the flop, I got it in as good as it gets. I had no part to play in the way the hand played out after that. The reality of it is, the hand started out as a cooler with A♠J♥, A♣Q♦ and A♥K♥ having been dealt the way it was and in those situations - bad beats are bound to happen. That's poker.

All that being said, somehow I'm the donkey to blame, the "stupid b!tch" at fault, etc. Wait..what?!?! I don't get it, isn't No Limit Hold'em a flop and turn game? Nobody wins a big pot without seeing a Flop, and more chips are lost on the River than are surrendered on the Flop and Turn combined. It would be great if I knew what everybody's cards were before I played each and every hand so I could always make exquisite plays. Forget about poker, my life might be perfect if I made nothing but the best decisions. But I the reality is that I make mistakes, lots and lots of mistakes. Sometimes they pan out, sometimes they don't.

I don't really know what I did to deserve the horrible, nasty comments being directed at me on Youtube, other than play Ace-Jack in position. There are always general comments and I don't mind those. It was the targeted ones based on my gender that made me feel like I had no right to be anywhere near the table that ruffled my feathers; compounded by the fact that nothing had said on Youtube about Todd or Robocop. Is it pick-on-the-girl-day? I don't even think I occupied more than 60 seconds of the entire 7 minute video, but for some reason I was the sole target of hatred from angry people hiding behind the anonymity of made-up screen names. Some of it was so petty, I couldn't even understand why anyone would go to the trouble of typing the comment in the first place. In the end, the decision was made to remove all of the comments.

I enjoy doing what I do and I find that most of the regulars that play on Live at the Bike and at The Bicycle Casino are friendly people. I rarely run into problems on Facebook or Twitter, so I was taken off guard by the nastiness of the faceless Youtube-bullies. It really sucked being the whipping girl.

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