PSV

PSV Eindhoven -0.5 [-225]..........$30

Atlanta -10 [-110]............$5.75


Day Profit: +$5.23

Day Record: 1-0-1

Total Record: 188-196-15

Bankroll: $110.98

Total Profit: -$89.02

Christmas Brag, Beat, and Variance.

Merry Christmas Folks!


Brag: My mom cooks the best tamales in the world.

Beat: No Christmas bonus at work this year ='(

Variance: Santa's gift for me? A Boston win tonight.


Boston +2 ($20)


Day Profit: -$20.00

Day Record: 0-1

Total Record: 187-196-14

Bankroll: $105.75

Total Profit: -$94.25

Da Bears!

2 minutes before kick-off.

I've got $70 worth of action on this game. $50 with Rommel from work and $20 with Mauricio. Good news is I'm getting even money and laying no points. Bad news is I run like death against Mauricio. He's pretty much raped me the entire year in sports bets. The last bet I remember winning against him was back in Spring in a Mexico v. Ghana game.

So tonight it's redemption time!

It's single digit weather at Soldier's Field. Bear weather indeed!

I decided to throw $10 on Green Bay +4 on my online account and hoping to hit my middle by having the Bears win but Green Bay able to cover so I can cash on my bets at work and on my $10 bet online.

Oh yea, I also had a play on a soccer game earlier that ended 0-0 making it a push.

Okay, it's kick off time. I'm off to watch the game!


Green Bay +4

Chelsea (Pick)


Day Profit: +$9.88

Day Record: 1-0-1

Total Record: 187-195-13

Bankroll: $125.75

Total Profit: -$74.25



(Day Profit with side action from work: +$79.88)

Need a Sweep

New England -8

New Orleans -7

NY Giants -3


Day Profit: +$25.87

Day Record: 3-0-0

Total Record: 186-195-12

Bankroll: $115.87

Total Profit: -$84.13

Lakes and Pachuca -12-20-08

Lakers -1.5

Pachuca -0.5


Day Profit: -$20.00

Day Record: 0-2

Total Record: 183-195-12

Bankroll: $90.00

Total Profit: -$110.00

Random blog...*very low content*

Nothing new really to report but I'm bored at work and have nothing better to do than write a random entry...

I had a play on the Suns last night which ended up a loser. Like I was telling V over on the Paper Chaser, I've gotten really lazy with the picks lately. All I've really been doing is checking to see what the line is and then looking at each team's home and away record and decide what makes sense. No checking injury updates, past match ups or anything like that. This approach seems to work when I go on a major losing streak and whenever I find myself over analyzing picks. So I just gotta find a balance between some in depth pick analysis with some common sense thrown in there...

Okay anyway, I don't really have any plays tonight. The bankroll is at $110 after last night's Suns loss and I may screw around with some soccer parlays this weekend.

What else....yea not much going on really. Work's a drag, home life is a drag, and I haven't really been in much of a Christmas mood. I found out what my older sister is getting me for Christmas. She consulted with my little sister who knows I love video games so she suggested she get me Mirror's Edge for the 360. Good looking out Narda. Now I gotta work on my surprised face come Christmas morning. As for my own X-mas shopping I really suck at getting personalized gifts so I'll probably end up getting everyone a gift card or something.

Alright I'm rambling on now so I'll stop this here.

A Very Long Entry

Sorry for not updating after my crazy rambling on Saturday and I apologize for the colorful language I may have used, haha. It was just a pretty shitty day overall, but I'll get to that in a second.

First let's backtrack to the casino visit on Thursday.

So I got to the place around 5:10 PM and thinking I may have been too late to register for the 5:00PM Early Bird tourney. But I was just in time and managed to get a seat. The tournament was $20 with 2,000 in starting chips and $5 for an extra 1,000 chip add-on. With 12 minute levels the add-on was a no brainer.

By the way, the place the event was set up in was pretty crappy. It was on the second floor of this theater place and the room was small as hell. There were like 10 tables all together 3 of which were cash games, the other tourneys. The place was really crammed.

But anyway I took my seat and the tourney started off pretty slow. I chopped a pretty big pot early on where I made a call with J-10 on an x-Q-2-10-A board. We checked the flop, I called a bet on the turn and then he made a big bet on the river and I tanked for a bit. I was sure he had AK and spiked an Ace on the river. I made the crying call though and we ended chopping.

Then I went completely card dead the rest of the way, and with 12 minute levels that's not a good thing, lol. The best hand I saw the rest of the way was KK which I only managed to pick up the blinds with pre-flop.

I ended up getting blinded down to like 3,200 with blinds at 300/600 and pushed with pocket 8s. Got two callers and someone won with like trip Queens or some shit like that.

I ended up somewhere around 15/50 or so.

So I busted out and then was railing the cash games for a bit deciding what to do until the 7:30 tourney started. I had like 40 minutes to kill so I decided to sit in a $200 game super short stacked, lol.

I know I said I didn't want to play cash games unless I brought 2 full buy ins with me but I was only sitting down to kill time til' the next tourney started. So I bought in for $70 and basically lost half my stack by calling pre-flop raises with small pocket pairs, flopping air and check folding.

I ended up pushing my last $25 on the button with Ad9d and got 3 callers. Flop came A-9-10 and I thought I was tripling up. Both dudes checked the flop, turn came a blank and one dude fired like $20 and the other guy folded. River came a King and I thought my two pair was good still good but the other douche bag slow rolls me and says, "Oh I think I have a straight" flipping over QJ.

I still had like 5 mintues to kill when I got a call from Kevin, a guy from the FCP forums who I was suppose to meet there. I hadn't met him before so I didn't know what he looked like. I'm standing there asking him where he is and he's right behind me playing in a cash game, lol.

So we talked for a bit and then it was time for the $80 Mini deepstack tourney. Kevin and I ended up on the same table which was cool. The tourney started off pretty okay for me. I won a big pot early on where I got paid off with pocket Queens on a 8-4-4-2-4 board. I got value on every street by a guy who had A8. So early on I was up to like 13k. But then I started losening up a bit which I really shouldn't have. I started playing bad hands out of position and my stack started suffering a bit because of it.

Then I made two big mistakes that pretty much crippled me. The first one was when I raised on the button with K-10 and got called by the blinds. Flop came A-A-8. Both checked to me and I bet out like half the pot. Got one caller. Turn was check-check and I caught a K on the river. Dude made a pretty big bet and I couldn't bring myself to fold knowing it was a pretty bad call and the line he took meant he had an Ace just about 100% of the time. Whatever I was a donkey and paid him off.

He had A6 obviously.

A little bit later I had KJ on the button again and raised it up to like 1200 with blinds at 200/400. The big blind thought about it for a minute and reraised to like 2600. I had like 7k at this point so it should have been an insta fold. Nope, I called and we saw an Ace high flop. He checks to me and I ponder about what to do. Now that I made the pre-flop call I probably should at least take a stab at the Ace high flop hoping he has something like 99-JJ. Instead I check behind. Turn is a blank and again it goes check check. River is an other Ace. He checks and again I think about betting but instead check and say I have King high. He flips over pocket Kings.

I probably could have taken the pot on the turn or river but really I shouldn't have been in that pot at all so it was a horribly played hand that brought me down to under 5k. I slowly blinded down to 2800 and decided to open shove UTG with AK with blinds at 300/600. Got called by the big stack on the button who had Q-10.

10 on the flop and GG me.

I stuck around for a while sweating Kevin who nursed a short stack for a while also til he pushed his last 3k with A6 and got called by another Q-10. He flopped an Ace, turned Aces up but got rivered and lost to a straight.

We talked for a while and then I headed home since I'd burned my buy in for the 11:00 PM tourney at the $200 game.

Over all I ended up losing $175.

Okay I just realized this might end up being a pretty long entry since I'm barely done covering Thursday night, lol.

So Friday morning I met up with a friend (she shall remain nameless) before work. We were gonna smoke a bowl but had no where to smoke it. We ended up at the park and couldn't light the fucking thing up cause it was windy as hell and like 8 degrees outside, lol. So we scratched that idea and went to eat some chinese food instead.

Then I took the bus and train to work which is probably where I dropped my iPod. I remember having it when we were at the park, but when I got to work I forgot about it til a friend called me up and told me he was at Radio Shack. He said he was going to buy a case for his iPod so he asked if I wanted him to get one for mine. I said sure and then went to get the iPod from my backpack. That's when I realized I'd lost it.

I was pretty fucking pissed by this point and to make matters worse this new manager we have was being a complete dick. We were a man short so obviously everyone had to do a bit of extra work, which would have been fine if the new manager wasn't a complete douche bag about it. I was already tilted from the iPod so I was about ready to walk out if he snapped at me.

So around 7P.M. I walk down to Dunkin Donuts to get some coffee. I somehow managed to drop a $50 bill while paying. On the walk back to Gigio's I couldn't help but laugh at that actually, lol. How bad can I run on one day?

I decided to find the answer to that question by buying some scratch and win lottery tickets, haha. The guys here at work are addicted to that shit. I'll buy one once in a while but these guys are are running across the street to the White Hen and buying some every 10 minutes.

So I bought $9 worth of tickets and blanked on all of them, lol. Statistically speaking I'm suppose to at least get my money back on one out of every 4 tickets according to the odds printed on the back of the ticket. Nope, a nice 0-9er for me.

That was Friday. A pretty shitty day, but now that I look back at it I can laugh since it really wasn't THAT bad. A friend made me realize how silly I was being later that night when she pointed out that it was only money. She was right...

Saturday looked to be a much better day since it was my cousin Mario's wedding. The wedding turned out to be okay, but not great. I was expecting to meet a shit load of chicks but the problem was that half the ladies at the wedding looked like this:

The other half looked like this:




And the rare ones that happened to look like this

just so happened to be an aunt or a cousin.

Sigh...

So the wedding was not all that enjoyable. The food sucked and I didn't even get a chance to get my drank on. My mom wasn't suppose to be at the wedding til late at night when I would already be too wasted for her to do anything about it, but instead she got there when I barely had one Tecate in me, lol.

I spent most of Sunday sleeping and watching TV. I also threw $10 on Dallas against New York, so I ended up cashing on that. Yesterday was another slow day of bumming around the house. I was going to play the Eagles on the Monday Night Fotoball but didn't want to lay the 15 points. I thought about taking them money line for the entire bankroll which would have netted me around $10 but thought better of it as well, lol. So I had no action on the game and instead watched Christmas With the Kranks. Horrible movie by the way...

Anyway, so that was the weekend pretty much. I'm at work right now and managed to only arrive 20 minutes late despite the crazy snow storm outside. Our power here at the store actually went out around 5 PM and we were all happy as hell that we might end up going home but the power came back like 30 minutes later. Bummer...

Oh yea I was planning on hitting up the casino again on Thursday. I was suppose to go with my friend Peter but he just bailed on me today so I'm not sure if I still want to go.

I might just save my money to play this other tournament next Tuesday at the Rockford Charity casino. They're running this special $100+$20 Holiday tourney. 12k in chips and 20 minute levels. I know it doesn't sound great but compared to the other shit they run it's a pretty playable tourney.

Okay I've rambled on way too long. I'm going back to watching the Bulls lose. They're currently in Over Time down by 1. With a 1:52 left on the clock. I've got $10 on them @ -3 so it's not looking great.

I also have New Orleans minus whatever the spread was. I'm too lazy to go check.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Bulls -3

New Orleans - 6.5


Day Profit: -$0.91

Day Record: 1-1

Total Record: 183-192-12

Bankroll: $118.51

Total Profit: -$81.49

Shitty Day

I lost $175 at the casino yesterday and today I lost my $250 iPod that I just fucking bought like a month ago. Oh yea, and I may quit my job today because of our new cunt-bag of a manager.

I don't really give a fuck if cunt-bag is not a word.

I'm extremely pissed off to say the least, but just felt like venting for a bit and will give details later....

Haha, and I accidentally posted this in the Crooked Straight blog, but it's back here where it belongs now.

edit: Okay according to UrbanDictionary.com Cunt Bag is a word.

Cunt Bag (n):

Shithead, vicious, evil person that represents a manifestation of all that is wrong with the world... The ultimate worst insult that you can use to describe your friends...

edit #2: LOL, okay so I just got back from my break here at work where I took a walk down to Dunkin Donuts and managed to drop a $50 bill somewhere in between. Yea, when I was about to pay the lady for the coffee I saw the $50 in my pocket and then put it back cause I wanted to give her the $20 on my other pocket.

So when she gives me the change I put it back in my pocket and see that my $50 is no longer there. I probably dropped it when I was trying to put it back in my pocket and someone behind me immediately picked it up. I know for sure that I didn't give the Dunkin Donuts lady the $50. That's not even a possibility cause I clearly saw me giving her a $20 and besides I've known that lady for years and she wouldn't pull one on me like that.

Anyway I spent around 5 mintues trying to look for the fucking bill emptying my pockets and looking all over the Dunkin Donuts place but no luck.

I guess I'll just chalk it up as another loss in this shitty shitty day.

I wish I was making this shit up cause it's really getting ridiculous now, but nope.

I'm just running sickly bad.

FUCK TODAY!!!

S'LDKFJHASK;DJFHSKA;DJFH;SKJADFHKASJFHKEHNKDSJFNSKJ
KDSFNASLDKFJSADKLFJDSALKFJSADKLFJALDS;KFJL
SADF,MNADSK;LFJSLADKFJSLADKFJS;DLAKFJSAKLDFJSKJDFSHK

Tournament Grinder

I called someone to cover for me at work today so I could hit up the Charity Casino. I won't be playing the $200 game though. I'm short on cash and have promised myself that I won't be jumping into a cash game unless I bring two full buy ins otherwise I feel like I'm playing with scared money.

Anyway, I'm going to be hitting up a couple of tournaments instead.

I plan on playing the 5:00 PM $20 Early Bird which has a horrible structure but it's only $20 so whatever. The plan for this one is going to be ultra aggression early on so I can accumulate chips early since it's a 12 minute level structure. So I won't be surprised or care really if I bust out early on this one.

Next I'll play the 7:30 $80 Mini Deepstack. This has a little bit of a better structure and the one I hope to go deep in. It's 9,000 in starting chips with 20 minute levels. Again not a great structure but playable at best. If I somehow end up going deep in the early bird, I'll have to multi table between the two tourneys.

Final one I want to give a shot is the late night 11:00 PM $40 turbo. I'm not sure if they're even running this tonight but if they are I'll jump in it as well.

So hopefully I can final table at least one of these and take home so nice cash. If not, oh well.

Alright, I'm about to go take a shower and then hit up the mall to buy some clothes for my cousin's wedding on Saturday. Then back home for a while and I should leave for the casino around 4:00.

I've never been to this particular charity casino so I really hope they're not too big on the carding thing. Its 18+ but I still haven't gotten a new ID since I lost mine a while ago. If they do end up carding it's going to suck major balls.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Shit, lost the Bulls game by a couple points the other night. Going to throw $20 on the Bears tonight. They need this win to remain in the race.

Bears -3


Day Profit: +$0.00

Day Record:0-0-1

Total Record: 181-191-12

Bankroll: $110.33

Total Profit: -$89.57

Snowy Tuesday

It's so slow here at work that I thought I'd catch up on my blogging a bit since I haven't written in a couple of days as well as sharing a picture of the snowy view I have here at work outside the window.

That's one of the driver's car and as you can see by the snow accumulation in his car, he hasn't been on a run in a couple of hours, which he's not too happy about.

Ha, anyway...

So De La fucking Hoya got completely owned last Saturday by Pacquiao . That's it for him, I think. He's gotta throw in the towel and go back to whatever else it is he does.

Lost $20 on the fight to a guy from work, but lucky for me he only wanted to bet $20 since I was trying to get him to go up to $50. I was also lucky that I completely forgot to place a bet on De La Hoya on my BookMaker account. Remember I said I'd wait til right before the fight to place my bet, hoping the line would go down?

Well half way through the first round I'm like "Fuck! I didn't place my bet!"

Of course it turned out to be a genius move on my part.

The not so genius move of the night for me was not taking my guy Rommel up on a bet some time around the 4th round. He'd bet on De La Hoya and even though Pacquiao was already owning him pretty badly Rommel asked if I wanted to bet another $50 with him. He'd give me Pacquiao. I thought about it but ultimately pussied out believing De La Hoya was just one good round away from gaining momentum and kocking out Manny. Of course that never happened and I missed my chance of turning a $20 loss into a $30 profit.

Sunday I had a somewhat break even day losing $2.56 after going 1-2. I hit my Bears pick but lost a soccer pick as well as $1 on a prop bet for the soccer game. Then last night I hit MNF play to bring the bankroll to $120.33 for today.

I've got just one play tonight with the Bulls -7.5 against the Knicks. Didn't really research it. Just threw some money on them so I could have a reason to watch the game here at work. They're looking good so far up by 12 half way through the 2nd quarter.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bulls -7.5


Day Profit: -$10.00

Day Record: 0-1

Total Record: 181-191-11

Bankroll: $110.33

Total Profit: -$89.67


---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Okay, a couple more Gigio's pics just because I'm messing around with the camera settings on my laptop.

Golden Boy

Big fight is finally here. I already had a $20 bet with a guy from work, me taking De La Hoya. So I'm throwing down some more money on him on BookMaker.

I haven't placed the bet yet though because right now the line is at -195. It was down to like -150 last night and I should have taken it then. Now I'm probably going to wait til right before the fight starts and hope it goes down again.

I also have a shit load of other plays on the NBA and NCAA football. My man V tells me we're going to make some lunch money today, lol.


USC -32

Missouri +16.5

Miami -11

LA Clippers +1

New Orleans -14.5

Atlanta +6.5

Atlante PK



Day Profit: -$2.73

Day Record: 3-3-1

Total Record: 180-190-11

Bankroll: $113.65

Total Profit: -$86.35

V-Money is HOT!

Our homie V-Money over on the Paper Chaser is red hot right now with his picks and has manged to make a crazy bankroll come back after being down to around $35 a couple of weeks ago. He had a solid +$50 even after deciding to follow me on my Santos pick.

So once again we're tailing the V-man on his two picks tonight which are Clippers and Lakers.

Both for $10.

LA Lakers -12.5

LA Clippers -1


Day Profit: -$20.00

Day Record: 0-2-0

Total Record: 177-187-10

Bankroll: $116.38

Total Profit: -$73.62

Facebook Oddities

LOL, I just got done reading a newspaper article that got me thinking about how weird Facebook and other networking sites actually are when you look at it from a simple sociological point of view.

For example, every couple of weeks I get a friend request from a complete stranger whom I've never heard of and I usually just end up accepting the friend request. So what if I've never heard of Dafney Angelis from Corpus Christi, TX. She looks like a solid 8 on her profile pic and she wants to befriend me. How can I possibly say no?

Now, if a perfect stranger approached you on the street and asked to see your photo album, all of your contact information, a list of your favorite books and movies, favorite activities as well as your religious affiliation (I'm not even sure of that one myself) then you'd probably run away as soon as possible. Well, unless it was a really hot chick obviously.

Then there's the whole "Relationship Status" on Facebook that's a complex taboo of its own. What if the current chick I'm fooling with thinks I'm a creep for suddenly declaring on Facebook that we're dating when we're in fact a little bit more than friends but not much more. Or what if the same chicks gets pissed for the exact opposite reason.

"Hey Vic, what's up with you not accepting my dating request on facebook!? What are you too ashamed to acknowledge our relationship publicly? Huh!?"

I actually got burned pretty badily one time when I started going out with a chick and then let Facebook know about it. The next day at school this other girl I'd been spitting game to was completely ignoring me and I had no idea why til' her friends started calling me a jerk and an asshole for just messing with this girl's feelings. Facebook had let them know I was now
"Currently in a Relationship..."

Ha...

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nice 2-0 day yesterday with some last minute plays on the Cruz Azul game. Will hope to keep it rolling today with Santos against Toluca.

Santos is coming off a very convincing series knocking out San Luis who had the best record in the regular season. And with the aquisition of Blanco from the Chicago Fire for the play-offs Santos has I believe, at least on paper the best team in the league. Not to mention they're the best home team of the past two tournies having lost just one home game in all of 2008.

I've got two plays on them. One for $20 on the spread which is a pick. Going with that just to cover my losses a bit if the game happens to end in a draw. Odds on that are -210. Then I've got $10 on the moneyline which I was able to grab at -117 after it was all the way up to -142 earlier in the day.

So esentially it comes down this. If Santos wins I win about $20. If they lose I lose $30. And if they tie I lose $10.

Oh yea, I got my first bet down for the De La Hoya v. Pacquiao fight on Saturday for $20 with Mauricio from work. And tomorrow I'm suppose to hear from this other guy to see if he wants to go double or nothing on some money he owes me from a while back. He said he'd let me know by tomorrow.


Santos Laguna -0.5 (-117).....................$10

Santos Laguna Pick (-210).....................$20



Day Profit: -$10.00

Day Record: 0-1-1

Total Record: 177-185-10

Bankroll: $136.38

Total Profit: -$63.62

Not Quite Done With Soccer

Cruz Azul -0.5

Cruz Azul v. Atlante Over 2.5


Day Profit: +$16.15

Day Record: 2-0

Total Record: 177-184-9

Bankroll: $146.38

Total Profit: -$53.62

$0.84

Yep, my online poker bankroll now consists of a whopping 84 cents, lol. The plan was to use the last $40 or so that I had to grind the Stars $4.40s but instead I played some $10 HU matches and ran horribly.

There was one match in particular that lasted almost an hour. I managed to get a small lead very early in the match and had my opponent drawing to three outs for all his chips but he spiked his card on the turn and I was down to like 200 in chips to his 2800. I somehow ninja'd my way back to even though and after lots of chip lead changes I finally lost a race for my whole stack.

That's pretty much how the other matches went. Unable to win a race.

I'm not sure when I'm going to deposit some more money since Stars took away the Money Gram option and my debit card never worked for Stars or Full Tilt. It's cool though, since I don't really have the money to deposit with anyway since I'm going to be spending a lot of money on Christmas shopping as well as getting some new gear for my cousin's wedding in a couple of weeks.

So I probably won't have some disposable income until the end of the month. The sports betting will have to satisfy my gambling urge.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

So Grace and I ended up not going to the Circus last Sunday. The day was pretty ugly with rain/snow and cold as hell so we opted for a movie instead. We decided to go to the movie theater that's like 2 blocks away from my house. The same one I deemed the crappiest movie theater in Chicago a while back.

But once we got there we saw that they had closed down the place for good. Ha! See, I wasn't the only one who thought it was a shitty place to watch a movie.

Anyway we ended up just going to Borders instead, which incidentally is where we always end up when Grace and I hang out.

So it's still undetermined whether or not I have a clown phobia...

Anyway on to something completely unrelated. I think I've been playing waaaaay to much Call of Duty 4 on my 360. For the past week or so I've been having this weird ass dreams were I'm in the game running around shooting people with my MP5 or my P90, and calling in air strikes. Weird as hell. Then I wake up in the middle of the night wondering what map I'm playing.

I can't help it though. That game is just so fucking addicting. I've been trying to put in a ton of time trying to Prestige. Currently at level 47. Should be at level 50 by the end of the week.

The rest of my game's have pretty much been neglected for the past month or so except for Rock Band 2 and a little bit of FIFA 09.

I haven't even played EndWar since buying it a couple of weeks ago.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

The sports betting bank roll is looking a bit healthier than the poker bankroll, lol. I had a play on the Texans yesterday after following Chaser's advice to take them. So that's brought up the bankroll to $122.05 And tonight I'm sticking with the Chaser man and his winning streak. Let's hope we don't jinx it up, haha.


(All for $10)

Portland -7.5

Clippers +11

Utah -2


Day Profit: +$8.18

Day Record: 2-1

Total Record: 175-184-9

Bankroll: $130.23

Total Profit: -$69.77


I'm still debating whether I'm going to put any money on the De La Hoya v. Pacquiao fight this weekend. If I do, it'll probably be on De La Hoya who is currently a -200 money line favorite. I'd probably bet with the guys at work though since they'll give me even money on him. It's definitely going to be a good fight. Pacquiao has pretty much owned every Mexican he's been up against earning himself the nickname "The Mexicutioner" but I think this fight will put an end to that.