Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can't Lose.

It’s only been a few days since a blog entry, but it feels like forever. I wish I wasn’t so busy, but I guess if I wasn’t I’d be pretty bored. So there it is.

Well, there was plenty of poker this weekend to talk about. Actually, just Friday and Saturday. And to tell you the truth, I don’t remember much of it.

Friday was a lot of fun, actually. I was five minutes away from canceling the 1-2 cash game. Five. Minutes. I had gotten a decent, but not great amount, of interest in the game from a bunch of players and then I had 3 very brutal dropouts at the last minute. One of whom was at 7PM! I don’t want to make any feel guilty, but I will.
--Start of Rant--
It takes a lot of effort to get these games going so I would greatly appreciate if people would kindly show up when they say they will. I don’t mean canceling the day before or two days before or the week before. Things happen and that’s cool. But canceling the day of is not particularly cool. Especially if you’ve been a YES the entire week. You know why? Because my own night is based off of whether people will come or not. So when folks sign up and tell me they’re coming, I go and tell OTHER people who have invited me out that I won’t be able to make it. And then, when some folks cancel on me because they have something better to do, that means I have NOTHING going on. Not cool.
--End of Rant--
As it turns out, we got incredibly lucky and the game went off with nearly a full table. I had a few last minute (very last minute) acceptances and W came through to call one of her acquaintances. He ended up make the whole game by dropping (wait for this) $1150 in seven separate buyins. A new league record. I won’t say who it is, because he doesn’t need the publicity. I also won’t say how much he left with but let’s just say that some OTHER players were very happy. I didn’t play at all except for the first 30 minutes to start the game. Then I moved into the dealer position and I stayed there until the game broke up at 1:30AM. It was a blast, even if not everyone did particularly well. I wish I could give you a lot of info on particular hands, but that’s the funny thing about being a dealer. There’s a lot to do and the action in a single hand is not that dramatic. It’s just a mechanical job of dealing cards, dealing with players, moving the action, collecting the chips, changing up and pushing the pot. All while not fucking up. It’s a lot to handle. So no dramatic run downs on the night.

I got some sleep, woke up really really late and arrived at 2PM for a 12PM game at the midtown ‘lawyers’ game. I guess that’s what it is. There was only one lawyer there, but all the players I know there, other than PP, are lawyers. Well, it’s a 1-2 game with a $100 max buy in and there was already about 12 buyins in play with 7 players when I got there. Normally I don’t much care for these short buyin games, but this time I was happier because I got fleeced. Oh, I was doing good for the first hour or so. I was up nearly a full buyin when I ran into trouble. KQ. I raised preflop to maybe $6 and got 2 or 3 callers. The flop comes down K-J-rag, rainbow. It’s dangerous with the Jack out there and I figure I could be looking at someone with an OESD. I pump out a $21 bet, hoping to take it down right there and I get one tentative caller. He’s fishing, I know it. The turn comes a very dangerous Ten. This improves my hand though. There’s about $70 in the pot and I don’t want any more resistance. I think maybe he has AK and I want him to think seriously about the good possibility of my having two pair. Even if HE has two pair, he has to be scared of a made straight or better two pair, right? But only if I push it hard. So I move all in, for about twice the pot. He doesn’t even hesitate in calling. I figure he must have flopped a set, right? Wrong. That pussy licker (sorry, I’m still angry) has KT! He called nearly a pot size bet with KJ on board because he thought his King had the best kicker? I don’t get it. And then he hits his miracle Ten to improve my hand. I still have plenty of outs, with an Ace giving me the winning Broadway straight, a Queen giving me a better two pair, a 9 giving me the winning straight and a Jack giving me the better counterfeit two pair kicker (my queen would have played). But, of course, I wouldn’t be angry if any of those had fallen. It was a five and I busted.

The play was so poor at the table that I felt obliged to rebuy, but this time I was concentrating too much on doubling up and I donked away too much of my stack. So when I flopped an OESD with 35 in my hand (thanks W!) and a board of 24T, I pushed all in for $34 into a pot of $19. I kind of wanted a caller and just wanted to get lucky, but I was surprised when I got called by a player with a pair of Sevens in his hand! Really? A pair of Sevens? Anyhow, the last laugh is on me because I didn’t hit. But I filed away that information for future reference, because it would come up later….in my third buyin. The third one didn’t go any better than the first two, mind you, but I was trying. I even played 69 for a raise in the BB. The flop came 7-8-rag and I bet out on the draw, getting one caller (the pocket 7’s from the last OESD story). Well, I’ll be damned if a 5 didn’t hit on the turn. Oh lordie. A hidden straight. Now here was the problem. There were now two clubs AND two diamonds on the board and I didn’t have either one of them. Which meant there was a possibility he might have either walked into a flush draw or already had one. I HAD to make him pay to see that last card. So I bet the pot, about $21. He thought for a while, talking to himself. He was convinced I had a good hand, even mentioning the possibility of the 69 in his little speech. And then he folded and showed an overpair of Tens. Holy Shit! He folds the overpair on a bunch of low cards but calls with pocket Sevens on a big bet and an overcard on board?!?! WTF? Do I have my hand written on my forehead or something? I am so SICK of not getting paid off on my speculative hands that hit. It’s making me ill. It would be one thing if I was able to use my ‘image’, if that’s what it is, to bluff a lot. But my bluffs are getting called. Now my monsters aren’t getting paid off. I’ve tried everything. I’ve tried betting a lot, to no avail. I’ve tried betting a little, to no avail. I’ve tried trapping, to no avail. I’m in a big funk right now and I can’t seem to crawl out of it. The win on the straight actually put me on the same tilt as the KQ early on. Sure enough, my buyin dwindled to nothing and I lost.

One last thing about the game too. There was a player there, I won’t say who, who really thinks he is god’s gift to poker. Now, it wasn’t my house so I’m not about to say anything about it, but it wasn’t his house either, though he was playing the role of host for the game. He made me, and some other players, feel a bit like amateurs simply because we weren’t conforming to his own sense of rules and structure. He explained it later by saying he didn’t want us to ‘walk into a casino and look like amateurs’. Um, dude, if you don’t want to look like an amateur, don’t set up a home game with crappy cards, crappy chips and bad manners. It didn’t help , by the way, that the guy (and he was the one with the KT) had built up a HUGE chip stack (900 plus) and it was essentially backing his case. My point, other than to call the guy a douche in public (man, I’m unusually angry today) is that I DON’T want my own players to feel that way about me. And I hope they don’t. You see, *I* think I go out of my way to make everyone feel comfortable and not feel stupid in any way. But that’s only my own opinion. If any of *you* feel that you aren’t comfortable, for ANY reason whatsoever, in my games, please take me aside and tell me about it. I will accommodate anyone in any reasonable request. If you feel you’re not up on the rules and/or strategy, but still want to play, I’ll provide free lessons. If you want a particular player to be nicer because they’re being hard on you, I’ll take them aside and talk to them. If something else is bothering you, I can do something about it. I want Wall Street Poker to feel like family.

Anyhow, that being said, I left the game on Saturday and spent the rest of the day relatively pissed off. E is in Chicago for the weekend so I can’t see her and I just got my butt handed to me. So I went home and did what I had to do. I watched TV. Not just any TV. Friday Night Lights. E is a big television fan and I want to be able to watch shows with her, so when I asked her a few weeks ago to pick a show that we could watch together, she picked FNL. I got the boxed set about two weeks ago and I had only watched one episode since I got it. It was good, but I haven’t had time to watch it at all. But this weekend, I was a trouper. Sunday and Monday (I was off for Veteran’s day), I truly vegged and got it done. And I’m proud to say that all 22 episodes have been watched, chewed on and digested. And I’m somewhat ashamed to say that I love it. It’s a fantastic show. Aside from two extremely hot young ladies, who frequently appear in cheerleading outfits, the show is really well-written and acted. True, I don’t have much of a basis of comparison, but I’ve seen awful shows, and this isn’t it. So go, watch it, enjoy, get hooked. I know I did. E arrives tonight and I’ll be seeing her soon enough to gush about Tyra and Lyla and Buddy Garrity and Coach Taylor and Matt and Julie and Riggins and Street. But please, shoot me if I turn into one of *those* people.

Two last things to talk about. One, my band, Negative Ken, is playing at The Pussycat Lounge on Friday at 10PM. I expect the readers of this blog to make a turnout. It’s a strip club for god’s sake! And no, there won’t be any strippers on stage with me. In fact, the nudity is downstairs while I’m playing upstairs in the very clothed music venue. But I might be flashing some thong, if that’s the only way we can get paid. J The Pussycat Lounge is at 96 Greenwich Street at the corner of Rector, in beautiful downtown Manhattan. Due to time needed to practice, there will no Wall Street Poker this coming week leading up to the gig.

The other thing I need to talk about is my Gall Bladder. I am getting it removed, as some of you know, and the date has been officially set. December 5th is the date. I’ll be going to Mount Sinai hospital and getting three small Laproscopic incisions made beneath my right rib cage while another incision will be made in my belly button. Then, various tubes and wires will be places inside all of these incisions and the gall bladder will be snipped away while the tube is tied off. Then, the organ will be take out of my body through my belly button. Afterwards, all the tubes and wires and such will be removed and I will make a short recovery of, at most, a week. My parents will be coming up from Florida to take care of me (not my idea) and there will be no poker between Dec. 5th and at least Dec. 12. Please wish me luck, because as routine as all of this is supposed to be, I’m still scared shitless.