I had him pegged all along!!

The season finale of 'The Mole' was Monday night, but I didn't get to watch it because of my softball game (we lost 12-1, so that's it for softball this year). However, thank God for DVR! I got around to watching it last night. For those of you not familiar with the show, there's a group of contestants who try to complete certain tasks as a group for money. However, one person in the group is The Mole, and that person tries to sabotage the group's efforts to accomplish the tasks, therefore trying to keep money out of the pot. At the end of each episode, they have a quiz about the identity of The Mole, and whoever answers the fewest questions correctly is eliminated.

Since the first episode, I'd thought that Craig was the Mole. Craig was a likeable guy who nobody would suspect. He also wasn't in very good physical shape, so that alone would hinder a lot of the more strenuous physical challenges. Some of the contestants helped throw some of the challenges, just to throw off the other contestants in the quiz, but Craig just seemed to me like he was the Mole. Last night, I found out I was right! He was the Mole! Finally! I've been watching this show since the first year, and I've never been able figure out who it was until much later in the season. There's something fulfilling about watching a show all season and thinking that you know what's going on, and then have your suspicions confirmed! It was pretty exciting! Well, as exciting as watching reality TV can be. Now, it's just Big Brother!

Another frustrated Nationals fan - who'd have known?

Saturday was a pretty eventful day. I went to our company picnic at Mineral Springs park in Pekin. During the picnic, they held a scavenger hunt competition. And if you know me, you know that I am all about scavenger hunts. We divvied up into teams of no more than four, and they gave us a sheet of questions that we had to figure out by going through the park and finding the answers. The questions were like "How many pillars on the building at the pavilion?" and "Whose name is engraved on the plaque next to the kids climbing wall?" We answered all the questions, and in the end, we got 2nd place. Team Picken was first, and if you know the Pickens, you know they're more about scavenger hunts than I am. First place was $200 and second place got us $160, which, split four ways, isn't bad for an hour's work. It really was a lot of fun, and I hope they do another one next year!

Then after the picnic, I went to see Lewis Black perform at the Civic Center Theater. He's one of my favorite comedians of all time, and he didn't disappoint. He was hilarious! My buddy Brad and I each bought a CD and waited in a line of about 300 people to get his autograph. I figured, what's better than a Lewis Black CD, but an autographed Lewis Black CD! Lewis was pleasant to everybody he signed for, and he even took time to pose for some pictures with anybody and everybody who wanted one. When I got up there, he noticed my Nats cap, and hilarity ensued...

Lewis: So, what are wearing a Nationals' cap for in the middle of Illinois?

Tuck: Oh, I've been an Expos fan since I was this high - when they moved to Washington, my loyalty went with them.

Lewis: Yeah, I'm from DC and I'm unfortunately a Nats fan too.

Tuck: Yeah, they're not doing too good this year.

Lewis: They're the third team that's been in Washington - they'll probably leave sometime soon.

Tuck: Nah, they'll stick around I'm sure. They'll turn it around.

Lewis : Oh yeah!?, Well f@*! you!! Listen, we've got a brand new stadium, we get 30,000 people there every night, and blblblbll, we're 24th in payroll!! 24th!! You'd think they'd spend some GD money on the team! If they spent some money, then they'd turn it around...

He was getting really agitated and red in the face talking about it! It was great!! Then Brad's father came in and started commenting about part of Lewis' act - Lewis just turned 60 and he felt old. Brad's dad came up and said that's he's not old just because he's 60 - he knows lots of trees that are 60, and they're not old. They shared a laugh and parted ways, but our conversation was over. Just when it was getting good! He was ranting to me just like he does in his act. It's pretty easy to rant about the Nats these days. Who'd have thunk he was a Nats fan. I knew I liked that guy for a reason!!

Look ma, no stains!!

Our softball season, actually, is not over. We played in the sweltering heat Monday night and won our first tournament game, 15-14. It was an exciting game. We got ahead by 5 runs early, then fell behind by 4 runs later. Then we tied it at 14-14. In the last inning, we scored once, and they didn't score. Our next game is Monday at 7:00, so my Mondays won't be freed up just yet.

Last night was trivia night at Double A's, and there were at least 19 teams there. My parents and sister Kelly decided to come out and play, along with some of Kelly's friends. We had our usual cast of characters there (Dubby, Haney, Toby, Jeff, Scott and Mary) and we ended up winning! We really got lucky on a few questions - we totally guessed what fraction of an iceberg shows above water, and got it right, and we had a difference of opinion among our team on the question about which country has the largest coastline. We went with the right answer again. Things just happened to fall our way this week. I was also happy to see that Kelly's team got 2nd place. It was a fun time, as always.

I'm thinking I might take a half day off work on Thursday - I'm already taking Friday off to go golfing down in Findlay, so it would make an even longer weekend. Plus, I have be in Peoria by 4:00 to get my oil changed. When I bought my car, I bought one of those service packs where I get free oil changes and maintenance checks. That's a great thing, but the latest appointment they'll make is 4:00, and I work until 4:15, so I'm going to have to leave an hour early anyway - might as well make it 4, right?

And one more thing - I went to Kouri's for lunch today - I ordered the spicy BBQ wings, and I didn't get anything on me! Unbelieveable, huh? I know, I didn't believe it either!

Somebody's got a case of the Mondays...

Well, today is Monday, and for many years now, Monday delivers a specific schedule for me to follow. From the beginning of September to the beginning of April, bowling starts at 6:00. My Monday bowling league is going to be a lot different this year. We've bowled with the same cast of characters for a handful of years now, but this year, that cast is going to change. Sean and I will be returning, but gone is Kim, who's going back to school, and Craig, who is getting a new job. Replacing them will be Matt, Dubby, maybe Jeff and hopefully, we'll be able to find another bowler as well. We only have to have 4 bowlers each week, but having 6 on the team makes it easier for us to find replacements when we need them. The league is a lot of fun, and I'm sure it will be so again this year.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves, because it's not September yet - it's August, and on Mondays from April to August, I play softball for Community of Christ Church in Pekin. I've played on this team for maybe 8 years or so, and we've got a team full of great people. We've actually improved since we've played, but we're not exactly a powerhouse. Tonight will most likely bring an end to our season. The Pekin City Tournament starts tonight, and if (when?) we lose, our softball season will be done for another year. I don't know what I'm going to do with myself the next few Mondays. I'll be like a school kid on a snow day - not knowing what to do when his scheduled existence is taken from him. The schedule will return in September, but for now, it'll be nice to just wing it!

Speaking of schedules, I just realized that starting in September, I'll bowl on Mondays and Wednesdays in Peoria. That's not so bad, but this summer I've also been going to trivia night at Double A's in Peoria every Tuesday and Thursday, so my winter schedule's either going to be jam packed, or it's going to have to change. I can't see missing Tuesday trivia, but Thursday sports trivia might become expendable. I mean, I have to do laundry some time, right? We'll see...

Hand Statistics

I promised some more poker hand statistics, so here you go.

Here's my updated top ten hands. The number in parenthesis is where that hand ranked the last time I posted my stats - you'll see a few of them have changed)

1. AA +$278.00 - dealt 115 times (previously 2)

2. 88 +272.11 - dealt 110 times (1)

3. QQ + 259.15 - dealt 102 times (3)

4. KK +225.15 - dealt 97 times (4)

5. 99 +216.30 - dealt 117 times (5)

6. JJ +168.15 - dealt 105 times (8)

7. AKo +162.65 - dealt 220 times (7)

8. ATo +144.57 - dealt 241 times (6)

9. AKs +120.60 - dealt 77 times (9)

10. AJo +111.00 - dealt 233 times (-)

Some observations...

• Aces have finally overtaken Eights as my most profitable hand, as they should be.
• My six most profitable hands are strong pocket pairs, but tens are nowhere to be found.
• Of those 6 pocket pairs in the top ten, I've been dealt Aces more than any hand except 9's. That's a good thing.
• I ordered the list by total dollars won by the hand. If I had ordered the list by dollars won per hand dealt, QQ would be my most profitable, with +2.54 every time I'm dealt it. 88 comes in next at 2.47, and AA is third at 2.41.

And here are my worst ten hands.

1. JTo -64.70 - dealt 213 times

2. A8o -57.55 - dealt 240 times

3. 77 -55.72 - dealt 125 times

4. 74o -51.85 - dealt 218 times

5. 64o -51.25 - dealt 200 times

6. 97o -49.00 - dealt 226 times

7. 94o -48.80 - dealt 248 times

8. Q8o -46.50 - dealt 226 times

9. A5o -43.50 - dealt 235 times

10. 33 -41.65 - dealt 109 times

I was shocked when I saw this list. Some stuff is understandable - JTo I can understand, since it's a hand I play often, and times when I flop top pair with it, I'm often outkicked. Same with the small Aces - even if an Ace flops, I'm often still behind. Seven's surprised me being so bad, since Eights are virtually the same hand, and they're my second most profitable. But what really surprised me was the junk hands on the list (74o, 64o, 94o). These are hands I always fold preflop, but yet here they are on the list. The only way I'd ever see a flop with them is for free in the big blind - I must have seen some free flops, caught a piece, and eventually lost. This just shows me that even if I catch a piece of the flop with a crap hand, it's still a crap hand, and I should proceed with caution.

So there you have my poker statistics rundown. Exciting reading, I'm sure!

Home game recap

So Friday night, I hosted a Texas Hold'em tourney. It was your typical $10 entry, no rebuy tournament, and there were 14 people who attended. Hopefully everybody who came over had a good time- thanks to everybody who played! I didn't have very high expectations for myself in this tourney - this is only the second tourney I've played all summer, and in the first one I finished 6th out of 7 - not very good. My strategy was to play super tight and only enter pots where I held huge pre-flop hands. That way, I may not win the whole thing, but I'd last long enough so I wouldn't be one of the first to bust out.

Early on, I didn't get any of those huge pre-flop hands, but I was pretty fortunate on one hand in particular. Blinds were probably 15/30. I was dealt A8 of spades in the small blind. There were about 3 limpers, so I limped in as well, and the big blind checked. Flop came JQK, all spades. I checked and it checked around. The turn was an A. I think I put in 60 or so, and had 2 callers. The river was a blank and I bet 100. The big blind (Brett) came over the top and made it 300 to go. Third person folded to me - I made it 600 and Brett called with the straight. That got me over 2K in chips (starting stack 1500) and I was feeling pretty good.

The other big hand I played was calling Gordo's all in preflop for about 900 with ATo. Gordo doesn't have any problem pushing big stacks with a middle ace, so I called him. Luckily for me, he turned over A8o and my hand held up. However, looking back on the hand, it was a pretty silly call on my part. It worked out for me this time, but ATo isn't the hand I normally want to risk my tournament on. Gordo could have just as easily had AJ, or better. Of all the hands I played Friday night, that's the one where I look back and think that I played it wrong. It happened to get me the chip lead though, so it all worked out.

Once we got down to one table of 9, I had a pretty good chip lead. The very first hand at that table, I was dealt pocket 9s and raised preflop, which got the blinds and a limper (Jason) to fold. After that hand, I wasn't really dealt anything the rest of the night. I was able to play really tight and watch other people bust out, until we were down to four. By that time, Sheets and I were pretty short, and Toby and Zooks were way out in front, about even in chips. Sheets moved in with AJo and Toby called from the BB with 93s, which of course ended up winning. I was only able to last a few hands longer, when my K8 went up against Zooks' K7 - she was able to turn a 7 and I went to the rail in 3rd. Toby and Zooks split first and second - I think Toby had 10,400 and Zooks had 10,800 when it got to heads up, so a split was definitely the way to go. Congrats!!

I felt pretty good about the way I played. I don't remember playing in a tournament when I never got dealt any big hands pre-flop. The biggest pair I was dealt was nines, and they never saw the flop. I had AQ once and KQs once, but that's as good as it got. I played pretty solidly with my marginal pre-flop hands and made the most of each opportunity as it came. I guess, in the end, that's all you can do.

Back in the swing

Life's funny sometimes. Well, at least my life is. Back in January, I was a regular blog poster and a more regular online poker player. I was pretty much blogging every day, and playing poker even more often. In fact, I think I averaged about 4 hours a night on PokerStars during the week and more often than that on the weekends. In other words, I was a poker junkie. I couldn't get enough of it. I must have burned out pretty quick though, because as I write today, I went from the middle of January until the middle of July without even playing one hand of online poker, until...

...the Thursday night before our camping and canoeing trip, I was pretty bored. I got on the computer and noticed the PokerStars icon on my desktop and thought 'I haven't done this in a while, why not?' I played maybe about a half hour that night and won $20 playing .25/.50 limit hold 'em 6 seated. But more importantly, I think the desire to play had returned. For some reason or another, online poker had lost all it's enjoyment to me. I'm sure it couldn't have been the fact that I was playing 40 hours a week and burning myself out in the process... nah!

Anyway, now I'm a little older, and hopefully wiser. I've got the poker bug back, and this time around, I think I'll be going about things a little bit differently. I've been playing online here and there for the past couple of weeks, but never for more than an hour at a time. I'm playing lower limits (now up to $.50/$1.00 limit 6-seated) than I was back in January, and it's still really enjoyable. The results show that too. When I left the game back in January, I had $177 in my account. Today, I have $290 or so (had it up to $323 a couple of days ago, but took a few tough beats). The plan is to pace myself so I don't have any future long absences from the virtual felt.

Blogging again, poker again - it's just like old times!

By the way, I noticed back in January that I posted my best 10 hands, with a promise to post my worse ten. I'll do that sometime soon, with an updated list of my ten best.