sunny and 70 degrees

good times
Yesterday was probably the worst day I've ever worked at BWW. We were incredibly busy, and a little short-staffed. To make matters worst of all, I woke up with a bizarre, nagging pain on the left side of my back. It would go from maybe a 2 or 3 on the Wong-Baker scale at rest to a 4 or 5 when I bent my arm, took a deep breath, turned my torso, tried to lift something, or tried to walk... basically, whenever I moved. I couldn't leave work early, because we were too far behind as it was, and nobody wanted to come in to finish my shift, so I had to work the first two-thirds of my heinously-busy day in intense pain, which made me a little cranky. Luckily, it went away by afternoon, and with it the fears that I was coming down with the cancer.

Last night, save for 20 intensely windy and rainy minutes, the weather was absolutely perfect. I chose to take advantage by having a few friends over to grill; the roommates are all home for Easter, so I had the house to myself. It was a veritable festival of testosterone; we shot the air rifle, sparred, built a fire, and ate lots of charred meat. An excellent time was had by all.

Today, BWW was as low-key and relaxing as yesterday was painful and stressful. We had an extra cashier training with us, and she's simultaneously cute, smart, and willing to do whatever nobody else wants to. The day was made all the sweeter by the comfort of the upcoming two days off. I look forward to sleeping out of spite in the morning. The weather was equally nice this evening, as I puttered around the yard picking up beer cans and shooting them off the picnic table. The scope on Travis's air rifle, which I had previously thought was useless, is actually most excellent, and I fancied myself a professional sniper as I lay prone beneath a tree in the backyard, picking off stationary beer cans from 20 feet away.

poker stuff
I meant to go out tonight, but instead ended up playing $10.50 heads-up tournaments on PokerStars. This was my first time playing them as anything other than a distraction, and I got the idea after reading a couple of articles that were linked to from 2+2. I'll post links next time, as there are a couple of things I'd like to discuss in them. My first impression: totally freakin' awesome. I went on a nice little heater, winning 7 in a row before finally running into someone that knew how to play heads-up poker, tilting immediately, and losing before level 3.

I like being able to intimately know my opponent; in a normal sit 'n go, I don't spend much time worrying about each individual player, as I'm usually 4-tabling, and there's no way to tell who will make it to the bubble, where reads really come in handy. In "match play," as it's known, the beginning of the game provides a nice place to feel out your victim and play some cheap, speculative hands (1500 chips, blinds start at 10/20 and go up every 10 minutes). I also like that if you get lucky, and/or if your opponent is really terrible, you can be counting his money after 5 minutes of play (ex. I flopped top two pair during Level 1, and my opponent flopped bottom two... he was, shall we say, a little disappointed).

It's much harder to autopilot; in fact, it's impossible. I tried two-tabling the heads-up games and hated it; there's too much detail, and the hands come too fast. Playing so many hands gives you the opportunity to really fine-tune your game; just tonight in five hours of play, I learned a little bit more about how to effectively change up your style when the game situation changes, or when your opponent starts catching on to your bullshit.

There's another poker blog to add to the list... the best information here is contained in the last post, where we learn as much as we want about ICM, the Independent Chip Model. Long story short, it's a way to figure out how much of the prize pool you have in front of you when you really just have a stack of tournament chips, and it gives you a way to think about how much equity you stand to gain or lose when you make move X. Anyhoo, here it is.