jasonackerman.com

In other words, you can actually see his eyes without having to move his hair. Both Sam and Zoe have new haircuts… the cuteness in our house is pretty intense right now.

Welcome to my newfound commitment to blogging! I’m writing today from the brand spanking-new Compuskills facility in Lowry – a reclaimed Air Force base that is a cutting edge urban redevelopment project. So the buildings are old, but the facility is new. I’m teaching a Dreamweaver class… as I have mentioned in the past, I’m not the biggest DW fan, but the second day of the DW class is very fun, because I set the students loose on a project and we just go for it… so I don’t have to be up front ‘teaching’ all day… the students just ask questions, and I get to watch them be creative.

Yesterday was the first day off for me in quite some time- a quick look at the calendar shows 2 full weeks since a day off. I don’t remember what we did that Sunday, so maybe not even that. It was difficult to force the rest when there was much web-designey stuff I could have been doing, but the lazy day was much needed. Of course, then I couldn’t really fall asleep last night. So I pulled into the parking lot this morning, realized how early I was (traffic was minimal), so I tilted back the seat and promptly fell asleep. I awoke to the next hour’s weather report and a very creaky neck.

Played a bit of poker Saturday night after church… I’ve figured this group of guys out pretty well, but they aren’t helping me better my skills. I’ve taken home at least double what I started with each of the last two times I’ve played. (granted, we start with $5, so it’s micro-stakes) I did manage to get lucky on one hand with double me up to $10. I’ll spare you the details, but it involved winning a hand where my odds of winning the hand hovered around 10 or 15%. I’d like to play a game that takes on a slightly more serious tone… this game is a blast, but it is only for nickels and dimes, which makes the quality of the play suffer – mine included.

Very little else on the map for me today. One of these days, I’m going to leave the grid entirely for a day or two. I haven’t done that in a while. Until then, my dependence on the flow of digital information into our house continues (would that be called binary addiction?).

there is for the moment a 5-string bass living in my office. i got it out to noodle with, and sam decided to throw down some smoking bass lines. it was fun.

a good friend is in town for a barista competition. he’ll be judging, i’ll just be going to enjoy the sights/sounds/smells and hopefully the occasional taste. i’ve been trying to keep control on the things that have been triggering my acid reflux for the past several months. it’s been ranging from mild to really painful over the last 12-16 months. i’ve just recently been able to narrow down the triggers, and i’ve been keeping a tight reign (mostly) on those things. thankfully, it seems that caffeine and alcohol (ie, coffee and beer, aka, my two favoritest things in the world) are only triggers when i’ve already pushed the edge with some other things, so if i’m good, the occasional beer or espresso (or pipeline porter, if you want to put those things together) won’t send me crying to my room in pain.

this weekend marks my first official weekend at jacob’s well. there are still some details to work out, and the official meeting with the leadership team, but that will come in time. it’s exciting to get hopping on this. there’s so much to be done. for instance, i currently have a large amount of sound gear, functional and non-functional, living in my garage. they moved out of their office, so i’m hanging on to all this extra stuff until we can evaluate its worth, and either keep it or sell it. i’m aiming to sell most of it, so we can buy an aviom system.

some weird stuff going down at the computer school. without going into details, i’m beginning to see why they cycle through instructors so much. there’s some serious passive-aggressive stuff going on. i think it will all work out ok… but the jury is still out on that.

today is the first full day i’ve taken off since february 10th. for those doing the math, that’s almost three weeks. i’ve had days that had some relaxing time, but it’s been that long since i’ve done all day with no work stuff. being near my computer is bad, i’ve almost worked several times today. in reality, i did send off some files first thing this morning, but outside of that, i’m resisting the urge to dive into some projects. there’s enough going on, that it feels like i should be making more money than i really am. it’s a little discouraging to be working a lot and not making all that much. back when i was not working so much, it felt natural to be broke all the time. it was like a trade-off. yeah, i’m broke, but the relaxed lifestyle is nice… only now i’m working much harder and i’m just as broke. that’s not the way it should be. but, that’s how it is right now. and today, i plan on lounging out on our new-to-us couch and reading a bit. i picked up surprised by hope, the latest book by nt wright. he’s basically laying out the theology of heaven and the resurrection, one that is grossly misundertood by christians in general today. i’m only a couple chapters is, and so far it is a very gripping book. once i’m through it, i think i’ll write a chapter by chapter review… it’s worth it and requires more than a passing paragraph. in something completely opposite to that, i also plan on reading through a bit of super/system (a course in power poker!) today as well.

its taken me all morning to wind down and begin to relax. i hope it stays that way…

it’s all about discipline really. that’s the deficiency in my game. i understand pot odds, i get the percentages, i know when to fold ‘em, i can even get a decent read on a player. but something happens when i see certain cards, i forget the rules i walked in with. even a quick internal pep talk during a bathroom break didn’t get it into my head, though it probably bought me a couple hands.

i was invited to a home game tonight, 14 players, $10 buy-in with 1 rebuy or add-on for $10. all but 2 added on or rebought, so there was $260 hanging out in the prize pot. after last week’s experience, i was hoping for something better than last place. sticking around into the final table was my first goal. i’d worry about higher goals once i got there. the final table was going to be 9, so i only had to outlast 5 guys, but my confidence level wasn’t there. i threw down my ten bucks and went at it. i drew 3rd position, which immediately put me into the big blind. nothing like paying to play right out of the blocks. everyone checked around to me, so we watched the flop (i so should have taken notes to make this report a little more exciting), and what happens but i flop a straight, 10 high. action is slow, so i’m certain nobody else is drawing anywhere close to the straight, but there’s a 10 and a 9 on the board so i suspect someone’s hanging out with mid-pairs. something tells me, even with no experience to draw from, that i have these guys beat, so i start pushing the bets. blinds were 5/10, and the action got remarkably heavy right away. these guys were going to call my every bet! turn and river were rags, and next thing you know i’m starting to build a chip advantage. 5 hands later, i’ve got 2:1 on half the table and 5:1 on some of the table. i push hard with a pair of jacks, and even harder after flopping the set. the guy everyone was scared to play at the beginning goes all in with me, and is stunned to see the 2 jacks in my hand, he’s beat, and has to rebuy already. it goes like this for the next hour, winning some small hands, even being a bit of a bully and 3x or 4x raising with a garbage hand just to steal the blinds, and it was all working! do i really have game?

it soon became clear that not only was lasting into the final table a given, but having enough advantage to simply wait into the money was quite possible. we hit the re-buy deadline, and i dropped $10 to get an add-on, just to build my advantage. i’m into the pot for $20 now. a couple short stacks from the other table fall, and there we are. 9 guys left. i outlasted the 5, and i’m looking around the table at one stack comparable to mine, a couple medium sized stacks, and 5 hopelessly small stacks. all we have to do is attack those 5 and i’ll be in the money… all i have to do is stay smart, and stick to my plan– always lay down the tempting garbage hands (A/K/Q/J/T with a lower card, especially when they’re suited), push the premium hands hard (even KK, much as it pains me), and trust my instincts. if i think i’m beat, i probably am.

one guy falls quick, and then the hand that probably turned the tournament for me.

i’m BB, raise 3x with KK. Yes, KK. UTG folds, next position calls, rest of table folds around. flop comes down AQ8, rainbow. that ace scares me. all he’s got to have is one ace, i check, he raises over the top (500 i think). so there i am, with a hand i need to push. i’m holding at least a 5:1 chip advantage, but i’ve let about 2000 chips slide off my stack in the last 10 minutes, and KK has fallen to Ax way too many times for me to be comfortable with this. i go in the tank, think for several minutes, and finally, with over 150 invested in the pot, pretty good pot odds, and a read on my opponent that i think my kings are good, and i let my fear get the best of me and laid them down. that was my chance, and i couldn’t take it. that was the start of my slide. fortunately, i had built up enough stack to watch another player drop (my brother!), and tightened up and watched 2 more fall on one hand, which burst the bubble and landed me in the money. i was at least guaranteed to make back my $20. played a few crappy hands, started getting those marginal tempting hands one right after the other, laid most of them down, then caught A8h, spotted a weakness in my opponents hand (knew he didn’t have face cards), and went all-in. he turned over a pair of tens, and i sat helplessly and watched the flop, turn, and river in succession offer me no assistance at all. 3 aces in the deck, and none of them hit. i even managed a flush draw out of it, and couldn’t catch a heart on the river.

i finished 4th place, and the short stack i laid my kings down to finished second, for $80. i think that hand ultimately cost me at least $20, if not 40. i got my $20 back, and pretty much got a free lesson in tournament poker. here’s what i learned:

1. discipline is more important than you’ll ever realize. so much of tournament poker is outwaiting everyone else. you can climb up 3 or 4 places in a few minutes by laying down the right hand, especially early when the blinds are manageable.

2. when you go in with a plan and don’t stick to it, you can’t expect your erratic play to help you win.

3. pushing the table around with the big stack is not the same as being loosey-goosey.

4. always play your hand the way you know it should be played, not the way you’d play it in a previous game, on a previous night. if it was good enough to play then, it’s good enough to play now, regardless of the board. the minute you start letting fear creep in and make you play hands based on bad beats of the past, you’re on tilt, and will be until you can forget it and move on.

overall, i felt pretty good about the game i played. i pushed when i needed to, i folded when i should have. with the exception of a few hands at the end, i played a decent game, one i’ll be able to live with, for the most part. next time, i can only improve. the cards may not allow me as good of a finish, but i can handle losing if i know i played a solid game.