Minny Win

I spent the 4th of July at the lakes with some family. The next day my dad and I hit up a $100 dollar tourney at the Shooting Star Casino on the White Earth Indian Reservation. The turnout was very low (14 runners) as we got started around 2pm. My dad and I get seated at the same table. The play was pretty weak for the first few levels - lots of limping and calling of small raises from poor position. A good table to be at. I win a decent number of chips during the 2nd level with a baby flush, but lose most of it when I lost with pocket jacks on consecutive hands. I am down to around 3k (started with 5k) after the first hour. Pops had about 6k or so. I upped the aggression during the 2nd hour. The table was still pretty passive and I was able to collect the blinds and bets of some limpers by moving in with AK and pocket 10s. At some point we got down to the final 10 and I had about 10k in chips and my dad was still hanging in with 7k. The top 3 paid.

I take out a short stacked older gentleman when my AA dominates his 78 offsuit. One time cheap leader totally donks off his stack in less that 1 orbit and I ended his misery when my AK beats his Q10. We were down to 6 and I was sitting pretty good with 18k in chips. My dad was on life support and went to battle against another shorty. My dad had QQ and he was against AJ. The flop came J high, turn rag, river A. Pretty sick beat for pops, especially since I had folded a weak ace. An older woman went out 5th when she called a reraise with QJ offsuit. When we got down to 4, we agreed that the bubble boy would get his money back. The other 3 guys were pretty solid and the chip leader was winning alot of pots uncontested. I was down to about 16k with blinds at 1/2k. I raised to 8k from the button with KJ offsuit and the small blind tanks for a few minutes. I figure him for a small pair or maybe AJ/A10. He decides to push and he had me covered by a few thousand chips. I was pretty much committed here and made the call. He shows QQ, but I get lucky when a King pops up on the flop and no queen is dealt. A few hands later and we decide to chop it up. After tipping the dealers I get out of there with 400 bucks. I've only played in maybe a half dozen live tourney's-and this one was pretty small, but it felt pretty good to go home a winner. Hopefully, this is a good omen for my 2 day donk-trip to Vegas starting this Sunday.

Also, best of luck to Iggy who is grinding away in Day 3 of the Main Event as I write this.

Maritime

Thursday night Maritime played a free show at the Gasthaus, which is a basement bar/restaurant in the Union at UWM. Immediately upon entering the place I was overcome with the all too familiar smell of the Gasthaus' infamous french fries. If you have ever ordered food there, you'll know that it comes with about 8 pounds of these taters - and they are god awful. I wanna puke just thinking about them, even though I occasionally still eat them.

We had a few beers (PBR) before Maritime took the stage. I spotted lead singer and emo trailblazer Davey von Bohlen readying himself backstage, which also happened to be the mens bathroom. The show started off with was announced as the first three songs on the bands forthcoming record Heresy and the Hotel Choir, two of which can be downloaded off the labels' website and the video of another is embedded above. Those three songs sounded damn good, and gave me hope that the new record will measure up to the bands last one.

The rest of the show was very good as well, despite the less-than-optimal venue. There was a decent pocket of people near the stage that were into the show and then other people were strewn about sitting at tables and looking half-bored. Maybe they had all become ill from eating the food there.

Bloc Party

Last Tuesday Bloc Party came through Milwaukee and played at the Pabst Theatre downtown. I was introduced to Bloc Party in the summer of '05 by a friend on our way to our 10 year high school reunion. We listened to 'Silent Alarm' and I immediately fell in love with that record. Over two years later and I finally got a chance to see them live. Bloc Party released their sophomore record a handful of months ago - it is pretty rad as well, but isn't nearly as energetic as Silent Alarm.

This was the first time I had seen a show at the Pabst. Maybe it was where we were sitting - 3rd level in the balcony, but it sounded fucking amazing in there. As soon as we walked in I saw a giant sign advertising $3 tallboys of PBR and I knew this was going to be a good night. We were able to catch a good part of the set by the opening band called Smoosh. I felt like a dirty old man watching them play. The were pretty good though, even though their 8 year old bass player took off during the second song and never came back. The next group was named Final Fantasy. They were even more nerdy than the name implies - the band consisted of a dude with a violin connected to some kind of looping machine and a girl who placed art work over an overhead projector that seemed to go along with the different songs. Not as bad as it sounds.

Bloc Party opened up with the first song from 'Weekend in the City.' They covered what seemed like a good chunk of both albums, but most came from Silent Alarm. The highlight had to be when Kele made his way out into the crowd (with the help of a very long microphone cord) during 'She's Hearing Voices.' At some point he disappeared from view, only to return doing a backwards somersault just after getting on stage. Go see them if you have the chance.

The Detroit Cobras

A friend of mine was in a band that came through Milwaukee a few years ago and they played at Mad Planet. There was an all ages show in the afternoon and a 21+ later at night. Mad Planet is in Riverwest neighborhood of Milwaukee, which is a really awesome area, but it can get pretty shady especially if you go a little west on Center. At some point during the afternoon show I had a strange vision of someone bursting into the club and mowing a bunch of people down. I didn't think much of it at the time. Between the all ages show and the night we walked down to the Riverhorse and then on to the Foundation for a few drinks. We ended back up at Mad Planet in the "backstage" area downstairs. Some dude in a local band that was opening the evening show went into this long story about some massacre that occurred on New Year's Eve outside of what is now Mad Planet.

Last Thursday I ended up back at Mad Planet with a friend to catch the Detroit Cobras show. I had never really got into them, but I was able to give some of their stuff a bit of a listen before going to the show. What I had listened to was good, and the show they put on was great (see obligatory grainy cell phone photo).

Two bands preceded the Cobras, The Willowz and Dan Sartain. Dan Sartain was, I presume, Dan on guitar and vox, and some dude on drums. A two piece! Fucking awesome and t(he)y made a pretty great racket. Although apparently Dan had some pretty crunchy B.O. and he was spotted stealing a poster off the wall near the bar at Mad Planet. The Willowz, on the other hand, had absolutely no redeeming qualities. All of the band sported the same haircut despite the fact that they all seemed to vary greatly in terms of age, weight, and sex. The lead singer also made a conscious decision to don a Kid Rock-like hat and they fucking droned on for what seemed like hours. I went to the bathroom at some point during their set and heard the guy next to me remark to his friend that he "hoped for fucksake that they will be off the stage soon or that someone comes in and murders them."

T minus 24 hours

This time tomorrow I will be descending into McCarran for a quick two night Vegas trip with a few friends. Plans: Planet Hollywood/Sahara/other cheapo tourneys; Dealertainers; Cherry-breaking Pai Gow session; 20 dollar trick at check-in; betting on the Twins; ; Free booze; Buffets; Pizza Palace; Cash games at IP/MGM/PH. I'll try and whip up a decent trip report when I get back.

I got wind of this awesome thread on 2+2 where Steve Albini offered himself up to answer a ton of questions regarding pretty much anything. If you are a music nerd like me, you'll love it. The result turned out to be a very candid Q and A session between Albini (who trashes Urge Overkill about 100 times) and a bunch of people. I think the thread is still alive. You might remember my run-in with Steve at a 7CS table on pokerroom.com.

insert trite phrase here

330pm - First hand. 85 off. folded.

338pm - I've got last longer side action bets with two RGPers. 20 bucks from each to the winner. Haven't seen a flop yet after a dozen hands.

346pm - Didn't play 1 hand the first level.

358pm - First guy out on our table. He was bad. lost with 106 suited.

400pm - - 2 out of 4 times while in big blind (50%)
- 0 out of 3 times while in small blind (0%)
- 0 out of 21 times in other positions (0%)

405pm - first raise from middle position takes down the blinds.

413pm - will eventually need cards. best hand i've had (AJ suited), i had to fold. took down another uncontested with MP raise.

422pm - donked off half my stack with 87 suited on a 72Q flop.

429pm - can't even make the first break. I raise to 1200 from MP with AQ. BB calls and flop comes K106. I bet about 2500 (3/4ths of my stack) and he raises me all in..................with 77. I call off my last ~1000. Don't hit. Nice play there BB. Nice play me!