Food for thought from TheHuey

First off, we only had ~1 hour to play so the blinds were quite crazy. 15 minute rounds starting at 100/200, doubling to 400/800, and then jumping to 1k/2k.

With only 5 players, (Me [button], Shawn, Manish, Sentil, Venkat) I started the evening with some aggresive semi-bluffs and took the first 2 pots. Then, after sensing weakness, pushed all-in on two pair (K3AA on the board) against Venkat. With a rags kicker, he wisely laid down his hand. I had pocket QQs against Shawn’s Ax one hand and the Queens stood up. Then, continue reading…

What a wonderful year and a day it’s been! Since June 14th, 2005, I have married a wonderful wife, learned that I will be having a baby girl this year, and found a beautiful house in a great neighborhood. Even though I haven’t quite made it yet in my career, my outlook on life has been only getting rosier. From my awesome parents, a loving wife, great relatives, and stellar friends, it’s hard to find a gripe.

As some of you may know, we entered into a contract earlier in the year to purchase a house in Santa Clara. Unknown to us at the time was that the seller had taken out a second and a third loan/loc against their equity and needed a cash infusion to close the deal. Since we were unwilling/unable to give them more money, (It was already priced at the high end of our price range) the deal fell thru (and the unsavory characters are still refusing to release our earnest money) and we had to go thru quite some hassle to secure new housing (We lost our lease and had to find a new apartment within a very short amount of time). Fortunately, we did find a very nice apartment complex (Arioso apartments) in Cupertino that appealed to both Yun and I. It’s been quite nice to be there in a new and bright environment.

So the trigger for that debacle was Yun and I learning that we were going to be parents. We were a little hasty and should have done a little more due diligence regarding the seller’s finances, but how are we supposed to know that? The good thing is that we learned and bided our time until we found the perfect house. It is an old house but the original owners (!!) took good care of it and it is in very good shape. Lots of mature bushes keep the yard quite private but I’m probably going to remove some of them for a garden.

On top everything, at 5:24 AM on my birthday, I got a gentle wake up call in the form of a magnitude 4.7 earthquake. It was 44km (28 mi) away so I only felt the bed shake a bit and the room creak. I was awake already so knew right away that it was an earthquake. Funny enough, it was the first one I’ve ever conciously felt. I’ve been thru a few 3 point quakes over the past 6 years.

So while I hope my next year will be just as exciting, I’m going to be just fine with a less eventful one.

Best wishes to everyone and hope your next year is as wonderful as mine last.

-Huey

On my birthday, my gift from my wife was that I can play in the evening poker game. After receiving her blessings, I half jokingly touted that I was coming home with the winnings. Our games usually run until 8pm or beyond so when I called her around 7:40 and told her I was coming home, she didn’t broach the subject of who won. Only after getting home and spending a few minutes talking to her about it did she realize that I had won.

What a win it was, continue reading…

Game started late at 6:30pm and ran till about 8:05pm. We had 9 players and 3 rebuys for a pot of $60. First place winner, Pinank, was getting quite a few lucky hands towards the end. His A2 beat Mike’s A9 by catching a 2 on the turn (after all-ins after the flop). Second place winner, Huey, let go a few small pocket cards that turned into monsters (96s for a full house), and went heads up with a miniscule stack. Losing pocket 6’s to Pinank’s pocket 7’s. Third place winner ?? got their money back.

Stay tuned for next week’s update, we’ll try to track the winners here.