Almost back home. Normally I don't really like weddings that much, but all of the weddings this weekend rocked. Congrats to Kyle, Astrid, Joe and Kate, and thanks for throwing a couple kick-ass parties. We had a blast and wish all of you all the happiness in the world.

Flying down to LA for a wedding this weekend. The combo so far of an, innovative airline (Virgin America), posting to my blog in offline mode (iPhone + Wordpress app), and Seth Godin's newest book, "Unleashing the Ideavirus," has me thinking at a mile a minute about ideas for Deuces and generally feeling very grateful for the times the we're in.

I want to get back to the book so I'm going to forego a full review for now, but it's really a phenomenal read about the power of ideas in the hands of consumers in today's marketplace, and the ways you can facilitate the spread of those ideas. I definitely recommend checking it out.

Just got back from KyleB's wedding. He and his beautiful bride, Astrid, had a pretty kickass but very chill wedding on a steamboat on Lake Union/Washington. Congrats to both of them and thanks for an awesome night. I will always remember this as the first (and probably only) wedding with a reference to a soft shuffle during the toast. Awesome.

Chuck showed me that wordpress for iPhone was finally out today. Installed and blogging IMO — updates will be shorter but probably more frequent.

Good day — saw Josh Ritter and Andrew Bird, then hung out with Kate, Chuck and Maya for a few hours afterward at the bar Maya works at. The rest of the week is kind of psycho busy, with two weddings and a flight in a four day span. Still should be fun though…then back to Seattle for some serious DC crunchtime. This summer is shaping up to be epic already.

From down $1600 or so to up about $50 on the session.  Not bad.  Swingy game.  Final hand I got it in vs a 50BB with 9765 (he had AA63) on a T47 board.  I'll take it.  Also coolered and stacked Andrew Wiggins, he played his hand good though, just a cooler (in fact I probably should have folded preflop — AQ(T9cc) vs AAKQcc on a 678cc board.  Fortunately I didn't hit my flush. 

Time to go home now — long day, lots to do this week.  Just made a nice river call against a short stack (felt like a hero call to me but it may be standard or it may be horrible, dunno), calling with AAJd9x on a 23459 three diamond board.  He potted pre, I 3-bet, he called.  Flop and turn check-check, river he bet $52 into $135.  Felt weird, tanked, then called.

+$150 on the day.  Ship it.

Been playing quite a bit of PLO, both capped and uncapped. The games seem great but I've definitely got a lot to learn. I've been playing pretty tight and up until today had been running pretty good. Even today I don't think I'm running that bad, but it adds up fast — down about $1k or so today, mostly at $2/4 capped (losing flips $160 at a time). People get it in ridiculously light time and time again in the capped games so it's really just a matter of learning to fade billions of cards. People really tend to hit and run as soon as they hit anything against you as well, which is pretty tilting at times.

I'm getting better at eyeballing equities and figuring out board textures that you can/can't take it down on 3, 4-ways, especially in the deep games. It can be a lot harder to figure that out in the capped games as any pair usually stacks off.  The game is definitely a math game and I really need to bone up on a lot of my quick calcs.  I'm trying to generally play tighter so that my hands and my/their ranges are easier for me to figure out on the fly, but it still gets really weird in spots.

Hand of the day:

Full Tilt Poker $2/$4 Pot Limit Omaha Hi - 4 players

The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

SB: $207.00

BB: $1259.45

Hero (CO): $821.60

BTN: $436.80

Pre Flop: Hero is CO with J 7 8 9

Hero raises to $14, BTN calls $14, 2 folds

Flop: ($34.00) T Q 5 (2 players)

Hero bets $34, BTN calls $34

Turn: ($102.00) 7 (2 players)

Hero bets $102, BTN raises to $112, Hero calls $10

River: ($326.00) T

Final Pot: $326.00

Hero shows Js 7h 8d 9h (two pair, Tens and Sevens)

BTN shows 6d 5c 4d 3d (a flush, Queen high)

BTN wins $324.00

(Rake: $2.00)

A friend of mine was asking about why I play PLO more in my spare time now than NLHE.  I play the cap games a lot (he was especially curious about this) as I really feel like it's a great way to get a feeling for some of the math (just learning equities) while playing against people who are WAY more likely to gamble it up, but way less likely to go broke quickly (only 40BB at a time).

Here's my awesome PLOL (maybe add a few more LOLs?) hand of the day.  It's cap PLO so a lot of people just go "whatever" but it's fun to sweat and try to figure out who is winning before the money is shipped, I guess. 

Full Tilt Poker $2/$4 Pot Limit Omaha Hi - 5 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

UTG: $271.05
CO: $259.50
Hero (BTN): $800.00
SB: $542.40
BB: $209.20

Pre Flop: Hero is BTN with A J K 9
UTG raises to $14, 1 fold, Hero raises to $48, 2 folds, UTG raises to $150, Hero raises to $160, UTG calls $10

Flop: ($326.00) 7 J 8

Turn: ($326.00) Q

River: ($326.00) 2

Final Pot: $326.00
UTG shows 3h 3d Qs 9s (a flush, Queen high)
Hero shows Ah Jh Kd 9d (a pair of Jacks)
UTG wins $323.00
(Rake: $3.00)

Going tonight.  So stoked.  Photo courtesy of my new iPhone and the HaHaHa application.

It's official, I'm really digging the Newton Gravity running shoes.  Today went for a ~3mi run and the only thing slowing me down was Echo, our Anatolian Shepherd/Golden Retreiver mutt/tank hybrid.  What I'm noticing after a run: I feel more sore/tight in my calves, but feel no pain in my knees/ankles.  A day or so after, I feel more quad soreness, but again, I think this is all a good thing, as it seems to me that I'm using muscles more, pounding on joints less, and am running a tad faster too (we'll see how that holds up as I work my way up to actual distances).

Right now, they're definitely on my recommended list — if this keeps up soon they'll be on my omgwillhehutthefuckupaboutthis list though.

Chuck and Jay get here later this week.  Still looking for a house/apartment for them to stay in.  It's going to be a very productive few months for DeucesCracked, IMOIMO.

Not much going on in the poker realm lately.  I've been playing $1/2 and occasionally $2/4 cap PLO while putting up videos, which has turned out to be pretty profitable and usually fairly fun (people are so bad at this game) but I really haven't played much lately, so no real poker news.  I did, however, get an iPhone yesterday which means I'm going to be even more omnipresent on DeucesCracked (woo!).  The wait was 2 hours and it looks like Verizon or AT&T (they both blame the other right now) screwed something up so I can't get incoming calls on my new #, but that's ok.  I really dig it so far but I'm more interested in it as a network device and in ways that people use the functionality of it combined with the SDK and app store, which has been pretty impressive.

I'd say the most impressive app (not necessarily useful for me, but very cool) is called Shazam.  It's very very cool.  You start up the application and hold up your phone while a song is playing (the song can be on the radio, on a movie, in a TV show, at a restaurant or whatever).  It will "listen" to the song for 8 seconds, and then tell you what the song is.  And it works.  It's really impressive.

Here's a link to a video podcast of it in use.

I'm more interested in the potential of the iPhone as a networked device in the future, and things are really looking great given what's already out in the application store.  I'm using Shazam, NY Times reader, Pandora, and I'm trying out a program called Evernote for dynamic note-taking.  I'm using EasyTask for my GTD-style to dos and have been just getting into MobileMe for push-sync of iCal+Contacts+Mail.  I'm very impressed with it as well, and Kate loves it because she can add events to "our" calendar that I'll see instantly. 

For a non-poker post this is going to be a bit long, because I also tried out my shoes from Newton Running yesterday.  It's going to take a while for me to get used to this and to get used to running with more of a forward footstrike than a heelstrike, but it's going to be good for me.  I went for a 2.55mile loop (it felt shorter even though it was 80+ outside) and I really felt the shock absorption more in my calves than I have in the past.  Other than the fact that it's going to take a while for me to get used to, I would say that I really really like the shoes and I'm very likely to end up being a convert.  My goal is for an overall base fitness level where an 8mi run is reasonable and I can run a half marathon more or less whenever I want to, so I think this is going to help a lot in that regard.  Really only aiming to run 10-15 miles per week for a while, but I really think that will be enough to help my mental and physical state and help me get myself back to where I want to be, fitness wise.

More soon — time for a few coaching sessions.