$45 plate of rice

That's not such a bargain, especially given The Muck's half-off comp and even considering that it's pretty damn good seafood fried rice. Michelle and I have always made that joke, going back to the time a meal would be fully comped while you were in a game. It was always: You wanna go get a free dinner? Sure. And then later, when we each lost a rack of chips, "Well, that was a pretty good $200 free dinner."

Tonight, I dashed down after work to play some 4-8 and have something to eat. It was a good game, but the callers were undeterred by a raise or even two, and enough cards fell wrong for me that I ended up booking a loss. No long, boring bad beat stories, but twice I lost to players who called three bets cold with A-7 offsuit or 4-2. I only played a couple of hours, but it could have been worse. Down $45 for the night.

Running chip count:
2 sessions of 4-8: $64 up.

Buy in for $100, cash out $72k

You gotta like that action, especially in a 4-8 game. Thanks to an unusually big bad-beat jackpot this week at Muckleshoot Casino -- The Muck -- that's exactly what some lucky bastard did.

The jackpot's been growing for weeks, and since it rolled past $100,000 a couple of weeks ago action in the room has been crazy. Last weekend, with the jackpot at about $130k, all 18 tables were going and still we waited an hour for a seat. You just knew it was about to pop. And with so many people playing for the jackpot (translation: loose), pots have been big and juicy.

Unfortunately, real life prevented Michelle and me from making the drive from West Seattle to Auburn all week, and when we got there last night we knew the jackpot had been cracked even before we walked into the room. Some energy had gone out of the place. Sure enough, although we arrived at prime time -- 8 o'clock on a Friday night -- there were several open tables and no board. Michelle walked right into a game; I was in action within 10 minutes.

Turns out they hit the jackpot on Monday, during the day shift, in a 4-8 game. I didn't get all the details, but apparently it went off at $143,000 and change, so the big end was nearly $72,000, the small end about $36,000 and table shares of more than five. Beats working.

I had a decent session last night, playing 4-8 with my friend David and a few familiar faces around the table along with a steady stream of two or three fish. Withstood a couple of hours of cold papers, then rallied to finish up a rack before calling it a night at about 1:30.

As an experiment I may regret, I'm going to post my chip count here for the life of this blog. So far:

1 session, 4-8. Net win: $109.

Opening with nothing

So far I've got the blog-launching equivalent of about a 6-4 offsuit -- not much more than an idea of a hand, barely enough to get involved. But with a little luck, you never know. Something could develop.

I hope to use this space to build a Seattle-area poker guide, tell some stories from the tables and analyze some hands. If you've got ideas, room reviews or suggested links, please let me know.