So my roomate has a blackjack shoe...

The past two nights i've been fronting the house against my roomates...they've consistently been going way up then losing it all back and more from like 5 hands. Blackjack is the worst game ever...unless you are the house. We're not playing for any real stakes though...just something to do. But man...I just don't understand the allure of playing games like that.

My buddy's birthday was last weekend and we all went to blackhawk. I came mostly to drink and play penny slots...thus eliminating my costs for the drinks. But man do they try hard to not serve you at some casinos. Then a guy with us won 7500 off of a $5 slot on his first and only pull. Crazy. The crazier thing was that they didn't even try to keep him in the casino! No comps, not even an offer for a free room voucher for during the week. I feel like that's just bad business as they let his money just waltz right out of the place.

This all has led me to the conclusion that casinos are some of the most depressing places. I hadn't spent too much time outside of the card room till this past weekend and man...people are seriously degenerates. And that depresses me a lot. For some reason when I see a degenerate poker player type i see a bullseye, but in table games i just feel bad. Poker really does turn on my ultra competitive mode. Meh.

Anyways I lost 3 pots all with aces in omaha hi two nights ago all getting the money in pf. Twice against other aces. Once against kings who made a flush. Omaha pf is so stupid...but the games were playing so loose it was hard not to get a significant pot going.

So i've played in a few home games as of late and have had tons of fun doing so. I've also ran into some pretty weird situations with some proficient players. In the first game I played in there was clearly only one threat at the table and we both knew that about eachother before the game started. This of course changed everything about how the game dynamics went. If him and I were in a hand together we would both change strategies accordingly. Of course that ended up in a few hands in which a leveling war of sorts occurred.

For instance, in one of the biggest pots of the night I flopped a flush draw, turned a gut shot draw as well, rivered 2nd pair and successfully value bet with a 1/4 pot bet. This was all out of position when villain raised pf and i was in the blind.

It's hands and games like these in which I remind myself that no matter how bad I run I still actually know what I'm doing, and i can still beat the game overall (well...at the stakes i play).

The other games I've played were against my drunk roomates who more or less just like to gamble. Coming away from these a winner is as simple as getting a part of their action while it lasts. For instance in one hand I flopped quads in position after I raised a limper. Was bet into on the flop of JJ9, as well as the turn of 9, and then was bet into big on the 6 river. I raised all in and he insta-called with T8 for a straight. Everyone was trying to tell me how good I played the hand. Of course I never mentioned that it was more about how badly he played it... 

But the only one of my roomates who is decent has been on a tear in all of the games we've played. He's come out up at least 3 buy ins in every game. Luckily I'm pretty familiar with his tells as to when he wants a call from me. He was a psych major in college and likes to try and screw with my head (only after I screwed with his once for a big pot which tilted him like crazy). It must be nice to run that good.

Online I haven't played much, but I did just get a sweet 26 inch HD tv that i'm currently typing this on. I've been so busy watching movies on it though I just can't seem to get the motivation to play. oh well, probably not a bad thing overall considereing how much i played in december.

Anyways, hope everyone had a good holliday.

~Justin