July News & Notes

- Summertime at the Post Office means one thing: Vacations. It's called Primetime, and more people are allowed to take vacations. Naturally, that means less workers, and more overtime.

However, this year is different. We had two carriers retire yesterday, and they were both overtime workhorses. There was someone else who went out for back surgery, and won't be back until sometime in September. Between the three of them, that 140 - 150 hours per week that need to be covered.

What that means for me is a hell of lot of overtime. I've been getting off work most days this week between 6:30 - 7pm, and I really don't feel like playing poker after I walk in my front door after 7pm. I've only played one day since I got back from Vegas, and I will probably only play once or twice a week for the rest or the summer.

Of course, less poker means less blogging. I've been trying to do an entry every 2 - 3 days, but it will probably slow down to one or two a week.

- As I've mentioned a few times, various home game players made the journey to the WSOP last month. A total of six players played in seven events, and we went 0-7. Nobody won a Bracelet, or made it to a Final Table. Nobody cashed in an Event, or even made it to Day 2 of an Event. Hell, nobody even made it to the Dinner Break of Day 1. One or two of them didn't even make it out of Level 1. Overall, a very pathetic showing for us at the Rio.

Certainly, there was some bad luck involved. Besides my AA vs KK hand, another player (Colin) had his AK run into AA on a A K x Flop, and lost most of his chips. He did make a bit of a comeback, but it's hard to recover in these smaller chip tournaments.

- Some of the casinos out here (Atlantis, Peppermill, and Grand Sierra) like to offer Free Play to their customers. Most of them do it on various day during the month, and the amount depends on your Players Card's level. I'm haven't been dumping large amounts of money in the Pit, so most of my offers are in the $5 - $10 range, with the occasional $15 or $20. They also have a couple of days each month when you can exchange Comps for Free Play, usually at a rate of $2 Comp equals $1 Free Play (or $100 Comps = $50 Free Play).

At first, I was ignoring these little offers. But in April, I started to take them more seriously. It's free money, and it takes very little effort by me to get it. Since many of the offers are on Mondays or Tuesdays, I drive around to the various casinos to collect the Free Play, and I may or may not play any Poker. However, I wouldn't bother if it was only the $5 offer, becasue I didn't think it was worth the gas or my time. I also did the Comp for Free Play exchange at the Peppermill and Atlantis. I used the Free Play on Video Poker, either Jacks Or Better or Deuces Wild.

Since April 1, I'm up $430 with this Free Play. That's certainly not retirement money, but it's not chump change either. I look at it as Rakeback from the casinos, just the Online sites used to do back in the good olde days.