Life and summer plans

It is good to be done with another semester and back home in Billings. I now have three more semesters left in school. Hopefully those will fly by so I can get on with my career. I am also really looking forward to coaching next year. It will be a great experience for me.

As for back home here, my mom underwent a successful major neck surgery today. I just got back from visiting her in Intensive Care. After hearing what they all had to do to her, I have been really nervous the last couple of days. Thankfully the surgery went well and she should only be in Intensive Care tonight and she could possibly be home tomorrow. She said the numbness in her hand was gone and her shoulder was no longer in pain so hopefully the operation fixed everything. I feel so awful for her because she has been through more physically than any other person I know: cancer that had reached her lymph nodes which doctors gave her a 3% chance of living, a disease that makes her constantly tired, and this problem with her spinal column that was gradually making parts of her body numb and weak, not to mention her awful allergies. God has definitely been with her throughout all of these troubles and I can not thank him enough. Heck, if she didn't survive cancer, I wouldn't be born. The doctors still don't know how she survived it since she chose not to do chemotherapy or any type of treatment because she was pregnant with my older brother at the time. I just thank God that he has kept her in my life.

In other news, my 21st birthday is coming up here on May 31st. Dave is flying in from Seward to celebrate and hang out in Montana for a little over a week. There is going to be a live poker tourney on the 3rd that we will probably play in. Other than that, I'll try to give him some sort of Montana experience. We will be driving back to Seward on June 6th, because he has to be back on the 7th and I am going to work basketball camps at Concordia from the 10th through the 23th. After that, I will probably spend a few days in Hastings with Leah before returning to Montana.

On July 7th, I will be chaperoning my high school youth group on a servant event down to Juarez, Mexico. We are going spend a week building a house for a family in need down there. It will be a pretty simple house, but hopefully we can help them out as well as spread our faith to them and other Mexicans. We will fly back to Billings on July 14th and I really have no idea what my plans are after that. That is the plan for now. I'll update once again when something interesting happens.

Live Poker

I went to the casino today for the 3/6 limit game and it turned out to be a drunken NL game which was fun. I got there and everyone had overs chips which meant that if everyone in the pot has an overs chip, they are playing NL instead of 3/6. Anyway, I looked around at the table and saw a couple guys with $300+ so I decided to buy in for $200. The game (which has one $2 blind) immediately wakes me up when I sit down and see the guy on my left push all in for $100 with 35o after a raise and a reraise on a A4QT board with less than $50 in the pot. He got called by both and surprisingly his 4 outs were good, but he missed. Anyway, I sit down and play tight and watch the action. At this time we are 6 handed and 4 out of the other 5 guys were slurring when they talked. Let me tell you about this guy on my left (the 35o guy). He is a guy with 3 fingers on one hand and was wearing a Nascar hat. Every time something a bit odd happened at the table, for example, a flop all of the same suit, this guy would get up and yell in a hickish voice, "Only in America...Viva Montana!" I mean just when I thought Montana's reputation couldn't get any worse, I run into this guy and realize why we have that reputation. Anyway, it doesn't take me long before I realize that two of his brothers are at the same table with us and they are not quite as bad, but still big time hicks. I found out that they are work construction together. I need to set the scene a little more.

We get down to four handed... me and the three brothers. Seat 1 (really drunk guy who doesn't fold), seat 2 (sober brother who was awful), seat 3 (me), and seat 4 (Nascar drunk who doesn't fold and never misses an opportunity to splash $40 into an $8 pot or to push all in). So I sat back and waited and waited. I get AsAc and beautifully get it all in preflop (pot is capped at $300 in Montana) against KdQd and Kh9h. Board comes 8h6h8d4sTh and I lose the pot and my $100 in it. Oh well... I must continue. A little while later I get in a hand with seat 1 with KJ. I raise preflop to $7, he min raises me to $12, and I call. Flop comes K73 rainbow. He bets out $10 and I call. Turn comes a J. He bets $20 and I push for around $80 more and he autocalls with 66. LOL. River blanks and I ship the pot.

The night continues and amazingly the two guys get more drunk. Every pot for the next two hours had minimum of $150 in it. For example, everyone would limp and then the flop would come and Nascar dude would push all in for $200 into the $8 pot. Sometimes he would get called by second pair and they all took turns passing $150 to each other. It was insane to say the least. God, please give me a hand! Then this hand came up... Nascar raises to $10, Seat 1 min raises to $20, Seat 2 calls, I squeeze QQ out of the blind and push all in for $200 with the guaranteed best hand and not really wanting a call from Ace rag. Nascar frustratingly folds, Seat 1 folds, then they talk their brother, the sober one, into calling and he flips over AhTh. NO ACE!!! I faded the ace and ship the max $300 pot.

Alright, one last hand to tell about and it is probably the craziest hand I have ever seen, even crazier than the three guys with 56 all flopping two pair on the internet. It is getting late and Seat 1 takes a bathroom break. So we are playing three handed and Nascar has been playing blind for the past hour and a half, only looking at his cards when someone pushes all in on him (yes, he was pushing all in blind based on his stellar "reads" on his brothers). Oh crap, that reminds me of one more hand where he pushed all in blind on his sober brother on a board of A24J ($40 pot) and his brother finally called the $130 after 5 minutes of thinking with Q5. Nascar flips over 92 for the winner. River 9 for good measure. Anyway, back to the crazy hand. Nascar limps blind, Sober limps on the button, and I check with Qh8h out of the blind. Flop comes Jh6h3h, I check. Nascar bets $20 blind into the $6 pot, Sober raises to $60, I push all in 100% sure that I have the best hand. Nascar decides to peek at his cards and he repushes all in and sober calls fast. At this point, I still think I'm golden... probably up against the 7 high flush draw or pair of Jacks of Nascar and the K high flush draw of Sober. My heart sinks when Nascar flips over Kh5h for the King high flush. Then sober flips over Ah7h for the nuts. I then start chuckling and asked the dealer if he even shuffled. I said that the first burn was probably a heart and sure enough, it was the Th. Haha what a cooler! 3 handed and we all flop the nuts, 2nd nuts, and third nuts. The dealer and room manager were in awe, they took pictures of the board and the three hands. Oh well, I only lost $100 from that because of the $300 cap.

So I played for about 4 hours and made only $75 but it was the most exciting time ever. I have never been in a game where implied odds played more of a factor. I told the poker room manager to give me a call whenever those guys come back to play because I guess they come there every now and then. Enough is enough, I'll post some other time about my life.