Cash Game @ Scanlon's // 2006 Goals

Long time no speak folks...

I couldn't end the year without a poker session. I had spent most of the day with my beautiful wife. Wanda and I had a late brunch and a movie yesterday - good times. GREAT FOOD at the diner on King St. (Bailey's Crossroads, VA) and a great Broadway musical comedy turned movie, The Producers, for a nicely timed matinee.. Aaaah the love birds.

I was thinking through out the day if someone would've wanted to play last night.. Before I know it, the calls start coming in from Frank and Scanlon. I got to Scanlon's around 10 something during a mini-tournament that Frank, Scanlon, Goldie and Steve were having.. Goldie (Russell) and Steve ended up pretty much chopping it.. and then the cash game started (yay!).

It was definitely a night of hot cards and a few bad beats... Saw 2 or 3 quads... A couple boats.. A lot of two-pairs.. So playing straight up solid poker was money last night (well for me and Steve). The most interesting thing of the night was Steve's weird "calling station" style sucking the money from the other stacks all night. The pros say don't even TRY to bluff a calling station - make sure you have something when you bet into them. Well it was early on and I hadn't played with Steve too much in the past so... I was testing him. This one particular hand.. I was pushing hard at him (I was holding Q 8 offsuit) and the board had all low cards I believe.. Well I bet $4.00 on the turn.. he called.. then a nine fell on the river and I bet $8.00.. dude CALLED and guess with WHAT - Q 10 offsuit... WTF!! ... What a call... See.. I'm not sold that he's just soooo good at reading people. I just think he knew he was on some sort of rush for the night, he was tired and sick so he was just gambling to gamble w/o much strategy, he was starting to build a killer chip stack so he could afford it, and maybe a liiiitle bit of it was him thinking that I was bluffing (I might not be giving him enough credit).. His 10 friggin' outkicked me BARELY and he took down the pot.. Honestly one of the CRAZIEST hands I've played since I started playing poker. He called another big bet on the river and outkicked Frank last night on another hand where both of them were holding ace high (Frank - A 10 and Steve - big slick).

I'm soooo happy that I played last night because I got a chance to play against a new style of player (Steve). He plays both his big hands AND crappy hands like trash... He hardly ever raises pre-flop... Hell, he HARDLY raises period... Dude just calls calls calls calls. He doesn't play poker frequently, so I'm not sure he even cares about his style working anywhere else in the future ('cus it's honestly not a good playing style to practice). It was also good practice at short-handed play. Anyway. Good times. I made $25.00 profit on the night, so I made my money back from losing $13.00 on Wednesday at Quan's 100000000000000 handed cash game (where I lost a good chunk of money to one of Nicky's cousins that looks damn 9 YEARS OLD!) - a solid week coming from a break in playing.. and as always, good experience!

Here are some of my goals for the New Year:

1. Mature spiritually.

2. Continue to practice having fun and not necessarily putting "money first" in the things I do (that includes stuff where it seems the main objective IS to make money - i.e. selling records & poker).

3. Put out at least 4 major releases on Shaman Work this year (and a GANG of street level mix-cds)... I going to do more with my Aljera (www.aljera.com) imprint also.

4. Finish 75% to 80% of my own production album tentatively titled Tone Box.

5. Get Arbitrage, LLC (Me, Willock, Tone, and Paul) crackin'.

6. Write/develop a comedy screenplay with my friend LaTina Emerson.

7. Put my Serato Scratch and my powerbook (FINALLY I HAVE ONE THAT WORKS!) to use and start to DJ here and there.

8. Finish my business plan and lock down solid contacts for my Sylvan Learning Center franchise that I'm going to open within the next two years.

9. Get the 10-person investment club that I'm heading up OFFICIALLY off the ground and turning some solid profits (can't wait to build with you more on all this Albert).

10. Have a large enough bankroll to be able to comfortably sit at the $2/$5 NL tables in Atlantic City and Vegas.

11. Have enough money in the "buy a damn house" part of my savings by December 2006 for at least 50% of a nice size down payment for me and Wanda's first home purchase in the spring/summer of 2007.

12. Just keep the inspired hustle alive PERIOD and make my parents proud - R.I.P.

Everyone bring in the New Year SAFELY!

Peace and Blessings,
Ricardo Craft
www.pokerrico.com