72suited.com » gaming

Poker, TPT, video games, golf, Stanley Cup finals.

Jim — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 16:15:11 +0000

It’s been a while since I posted, which means I have a lot to talk about. First, Poker. I’m still only playing on Thursdays in the Twitter Poker Tour, where I was in first place for a week but had a terrible showing last week on Full Tilt resulting in me dropping to 2nd place overall. My brother asked me last night, “are you done with poker except for Thursdays?”. No- my interest has just waned a bit, but I expect I’ll be back to my addictive ways eventually. Which brings me to video games. I’m still addicted to Call of Duty: World at War on Xbox 360, but I’m starting to get burnt out on it, in fact last night I looked at my other games and almost played another one. Now for golf. I hate golf! When is our next tee time?! I have the classic love / hate relationship with golf right now. In just over a week I leave for our annual golf trip – 12 guys golfing until we drop for 5 straight days. It’s a blast but I have again developed the snap fades (screw it, I’ll say it, the SHANKS!). I’m a decent golfer, hover around a 10 handicap, but the shanks have been turning my brain to mush for the better part of the last 3-4 years. I can be playing the best golf of my life, then I hit one SHANK, and can’t shake them for weeks or months. I really don’t need this just before we leave for what SHOULD be some of the best golf of the year. And my Red Wings. They’re up 2-1 against the Penguins who avoided a sweep with a win last night. Shh…don’t tell the media though, they think that win last night was for the Stanley Cup! I admit, the Penguins played great last night, but the referees certainly didn’t hurt their cause. At one point, the Penguins had too many men on the ice for 20+ seconds. Come on refs / NHL, you have to be a little more covert than that.

Alright, I’m off to the golf range.

Call of Duty: World at War hiatus to come to an end tonight.

Jim — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 15:34:48 +0000

Today marks the start of another double XP weekend for Call of Duty: World at War across all platforms. It’s been 6 days since I have even turned on my Xbox 360, but with a chance to rack up some double XP and possibly even enter the 5th level of Prestige, I see a lot of Call of Duty in my near future. I’m guessing 6 days is the longest I’ve gone without playing Call of Duty since I got it in January this year. Sad I know, which is partly why I made an effort to take a break from it. I had plenty of chances to play, I even had the game in my hand once and was going to put it in, but put it back to prove I could do it. OK, that sounds worse than it really was, it wasn’t as difficult a struggle as I make it sound. This nice weather helps, being cooped up in the house all winter makes it easy to just sit there and bug out in front of the TV.

photo by Joshua Morane.

It’s official, Poker has taken a backseat to the Xbox 360.

Jim — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 19:13:14 +0000

In fact, now that I think about it, everything has taken a backseat to the Xbox 360. This blog, poker, productivity. I’ve been playing hold em in the Twitter Poker Tour every Thursday night, but that is about it (check out this weeks event). Every other waking moment I’m playing Call of Duty: World at War on Xbox Live. I keep thinking it has to get old soon, but it doesn’t. Here is a stat for you: from 3/2/09 to 4/7/09 I have played 118 hours of Call of Duty. Even I am shocked at how pathetic I am. I suppose I could have worse habits. So there you have it, if I’m non-existent, I’m either at work, asleep or playing Call of Duty.

The Call of Duty addiction continues.

Jim — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 20:35:26 +0000

I need help. I know I play too much Call of Duty: World at War on Xbox Live but I can’t stop myself. I see my addiction only getting worse in the coming week. Tomorrow, March 19th, a new Map Pack is being released. Tomorrow also marks the start of a WEEK of double XP. This is not good, or it’s great, depending on your perspective. The problem is Prestige. What is Prestige? Prestige is starting over from scratch when you reach level 65. You see, as you level up by gaining XP, you open up new weapons and perks. When you complete challenges with weapons you get new attachments for the weapons. Level 65 is as high as you can go though, at this point all weapons and perks have been unlocked, all that is left is working on challenges. When you Prestige though, you wipe the slate clean, everything you earned through 65 levels is gone and you get to do the whole process again. You might wonder why someone would want to do this? Because the process is addicting, not having all those precious guns and attachments makes you want to play so you can get them all back. You can Prestige up to 10 times and when it’s all said and done you also open up 5 more custom classes. Holy crap how could I forget about the custom classes!? You start with 5 custom class slots to build your own unique weapon loadouts. Through Prestige though you can open up to 5 more custom classes, a total of 10! Ten combos of guns, perks, attachments, grenades, sidearms! Anyway…I was originally planning on staying at Prestige Level 2 for a while which could help stave off my addiction, because as soon as I Prestige all I want to do is play so I can get all the goodies back as quick as possible. Then they announce a week of Double XP, and now I may have no choice but to Prestige again so I can take advantage of the double XP. Do you see how this can be addicting?! Probably not…like I said, I need help.

Poker has been on the shelf while I fired 87693 shots.

Jim — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 20:31:35 +0000

Some Call of Duty stats from my online play.

I have played very little poker lately. I am addicted to Call of Duty: World at War on Xbox Live. Let me put it into perspective- I have some games that I haven’t ever played but I keep playing CoD. I’ve even seen my wife play some of these “other” games and thought they look really cool, but all I can think about is playing CoD. I don’t think I’ve ever been so hooked on a game. A couple times yesterday my eyes hurt. I think the addiction is finally starting to wear off some. I played a lot this past weekend and I can honestly say I’m getting a bit burnt out. My wife will be happy to have her husband back. Don’t get me wrong, I won’t be going cold turkey on this, I don’t think I could do that, but playing every waking moment isn’t all that appealing anymore.

I have been playing poker, mainly in the Twitter Poker Tour every Thursday. Beyond that I might play a random session here or there, nothing consistent. I’ve done well the last 3 weeks in the TPT but didn’t cash in any of those events. I finished 6th (on the bubble), 12th out of 44 and then 7th (one removed from the bubble) the last 3 weeks. Those bubble finishes have been frustrating but I know I’ve played well and one of these times I’ll win that coin flip. Other than the TPT I’m still playing 5NL hold em and recently the bankroll has been as high as $338 and once almost crept back into the $200′s. Currently it rests at $324 but I really haven’t played enough lately to impact it much. I see that changing though, now that I have overdosed on Call of Duty.

My week in poker didn’t include much poker.

Jim — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 19:08:32 +0000

I played two days last week, Thursday night in the Twitter Poker Tour (at Full Tilt Poker) and Sunday evening on Pokerstars. I went out 18th out of 37 in the TPT, I got all-in with Q-Q against 7-7 and a 7 flopped. What are you going to do? I’ll take my chances in that scenario everytime. Sunday I played over 500 hands at $5NL and didn’t fair to well. I took a break and watched the Pistons get beat by the Rockets then decided to try to get some of that money back. I played in a bunch of the Double or Nothing turbo sit-n-goes to give them a real chance, but I didn’t fair too good in them either and I’m still not much of a fan. So not a very good week, but I wonder if the limited play had something to do with it. I felt like I was playing way looser than I normally would, like the money didn’t matter- you know like so many that don’t seem to care at micro stakes. Basically I think I was looking for action because I haven’t played much lately. I’m going through a bit of a phase though, I am totally addicted to Call of Duty: World at War on Xbox 360 and Xbox Live. I’m not even that good but damn it’s a blast. So when I have free time right now I find myself wanting to play that rather than holdem. Anyway, this phase will pass and I just need to remember to get my head straight before I sit down to play holdem. Call me captain obvious, but I need to get into a certain frame of mind before I play holdem, I need a certain level of focus. Now, is it 5pm yet? I need to get home and work on getting a scope for my M1 Garand semi-automatic rifle.

Lions and Poker and Xbox, oh my!

Jim — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 17:50:22 +0000

Today is my last of a 5 day weekend, and what a great 5 days it’s been. I think I’ll even get to see history today. I don’t see anyway the Detroit Lions (0-15) get a win on the road against the Green Bay Packers (5-10). Meaning they will have the worst season in history. I keep trying to find the silver lining in this (and yes I am a Lions fan), and I think I’ve found it. If the Lions go 1-15 next year, that will be a marked improvement. Lets dispense with the unpleasantries and move on to the real important things in life, Hold ‘em and Xbox.

With 5 days off I’ve obviously played some hold ‘em. Not as much as I would have if I hadn’t got an Xbox for Christmas though. Regardless I’m pleased to say my bankroll is up to $286. I wish I could say that is my all time high, but earlier in the day yesterday it was at $289, then back down into the $270′s, so all in all I’m happy with it being at $286 at the moment. I’ve been playing $5NL, which might sound strange considering I was playing $10NL. If you think about it though, on PokerStars the buy-in for both is $10. What this means is at $5NL I can play the same amount of hands for the same stack sizes ($10) but at half the big blind structure. Essentially I’m playing each hand for roughly half the price while still playing for $10 stacks. It makes sense in my mind anyway. I’m not saying I’ll play $5NL forever, I’m just saying that I can take this route for now and hopefully the bankroll will be over $300 soon enough, and then I’ll probably take a shot at $10NL again.

Holdem has taken a backseat to the Xbox 360 this week though, which I got as an early Christmas present, and I’m officially addicted to it already. At first I just had the games that came with it, Lego Indiana Jones and Kung Fu Panda. Fun games in their own way, but for Christmas I also got Halo 3. I’m not very good yet, but getting better, and it’s addicting no matter how bad I am. Just a couple days ago I signed up for Xbox Live Gold so I’ll be able to play online multiplayer when the time comes, i.e. when the red target on my back is smaller. So many games for the Xbox have Live online play capabilities and you can probably argue it turns some great games into awesome games. Yesterday I bought 3 used games for $40 (they’re all classics or as they call them Platinum Hits) and I also ordered Call of Duty: World at War online for $34.99, I just couldn’t pass that up. So I’m slowly but surely feeding my Xbox addiction. Well it’s back to work tomorrow for two days and then ANOTHER 5 day weekend! I love the holidays.