Finally

Went out looking for a walking boot (cast). Hit a couple of major pharmacy chains, only type around here any more. While on my trek I actually noticed something I’ve obviously seen many times before. While supposedly people are mainly going to a drug store for drugs or something in that area because they are sick, the large chains put their pharmacy counters as far away from the front door as possible making sick people walk the maximum amount through their stores. Obviously a marketing deal from the looks of all the crap they have in there any more. It’s that crap that prompts this little spiel. After walking through the whole store on a bad foot, 2 stores actually, I get to the pharmacy counter and inquire about the boot. I received the same answer at both stores, they don’t carry such things. Now I didn’t expect them to have such a thing in inventory, too many sizes and models to carry, but I did think they would be able to order one. No they said they don’t even bother with such stuff. Oh, they can carry toaster ovens and alarm clocks, spearmint leaves and laundry detergent but god forbid they actually carry something that deals with an illness. There are two more chains in the area but figured I would hear the same from them so decided to save myself the walk and take a chance ordering online and hoping I got the right thing. With drugstores trying to become supermarkets and supermarkets adding pharmacy counters the lines are getting blurred. The supermarkets are winning the battle though as you can get cheaper generics in the supermarkets.

Back to some poker. End of the month has arrived and with it the final game of the Buy in league. I started off hot winning the first two games then tapered off a bit but still scoring in 3 of the next 5 games. I dnp in one and sat out one as I had no money on the site. Normally that would have been good enough but a late addition to the league arrived in the 3rd game and decided to put some pressure on. I had a chance to lock it up earlier when he stumbled and a win would have put it out of his reach but alas, I only got a 5th which enlarged my lead but not significantly. If he won last night he won it all. If he finished between 2nd and 4th I had to do no worse than two spots behind him to preserve my win. To further complicate matters a third contender had thrown herself in the mix but while a very good player she still needed to win and hope the two of us did not point to take it down so she was an outside shot. As it was she ran into some problems and couldn’t make the game which left it a two man race.

Game started and I knew right away the poker gods were pissed at me. In addition to there being a slightly bigger field than usual making it tougher to win obviously I find my main opposition two seats to my left. In addition to my immediate left is the league moderator who has already told me she planned on taking me out and making me sweat the finish. Nothing comes easy. Further proof of the ire of the gods was the fact that I was wishing I was playing acey-deucey for the first hour to 90 minutes instead of NLHE. They even teased me a bit as Venti, table name of my main opponent, lost a couple of decent pots early and was a bit short for awhile. He was able to build his stack back up however before they grabbed him and moved him to another table. At least he wasn’t on my left any more. In the meantime I was just folding along. Couldn’t even make a play with my garbage as the table was aggressive and there was usually a raise before my turn when I had position. All in all maybe a good thing as it kept me in the game even though my stack was slowly dwindling. It seemed my luck changed all at once, as if the poker gods got tired of their game and said enough. I had just won a big pot, doubling me up when Venti showed up in the chat box congratulating me, saying he was out of the game, meaning I had the league won for the month no matter what. It was nice but I still didn’t want just the back door, I wanted to finish with a bang. I finally started to catch some cards and as the blinds went up the aggressiveness seemed to slack off and I was able to make a few plays and somehow found myself reaching the final table with a reasonable stack. Needed more than that as only top 5 got points and as I already had my 5 scores for the month so needed a 4th or better to improve my total. Play went on and I played solid but not spectacular and took out a few players and made it to 4 handed with the second stack. Then we were 3 and it got interesting. Top stack was an unknown to me but had over double my stack. I was 2 with a couple thousand more than the third place player, who I knew was a good one. The leader played excellent big stack poker; either that or the deck had jumped up and spanked him. I know there was a lot of stealing going on. Finally slowed it down a bit when I caught a big hand the same time the chip leader did. Mine was bigger and he doubled me up and even though he remained in first he was only a few thousand ahead. It was a tight 3 way and I lost a few chips back to the leader. Stayed that way until he took out the 3rd place player and had a good sized stack on me again as we entered heads up. I was able to get him to double me up and even out the stacks a bit but was never really able to overcome that lead and got a bit frisky and made a play at the wrong time and wound up in second place. Oh well, while a win would have been nice I can’t complain about 2nd. Kept me from feeling I got in the back door for the league win.

As for that win I got myself an entry into AP’s 40K Sniper some Sunday and 10 bucks a month for a year added to my account on Reefer. That’s nice as it will keep me in the league games on Reefer for a year. Add in winnings on Cake and AP and UB and I’m covered for league games on those sites for a couple months. Two sites for the league have no funds so will have to debate about what to do with them. As for the Sniper that’s going to have to wait awhile as my daughter is on her way down this Friday for spring break visit and while I play some when she is down here I won’t be able to give that game the attention it needs while she is here so it will wait until she goes home. It also gives me a seat on the forum team for the Forum War games. Wanted that as I had a lackluster showing in this month's games. The structure on the site sucked as I think I have mentioned before. April's games are on AP with a better structure and will hopefully allow me to redeem myself.

OK, that’s about it for now. Thanks for the listen.