Mean Gene

Crap and Double Crap

The niece and nephew slept over last night, and I figured we'd watch a movie, they and the wife would go to bed around 9:30, and I'd play a little poker. But the kids wanted to watch "The Grinch", and not the good one either. They wanted to see the one with Jim Carrey, and if I'd had my druthers Mr. Carrey would be seized by the authorities, chained, locked in a trunk and tossed in the Atlantic Ocean. My druthers mean nothing to Bryce and Hailey, and we watched the movie. Well, about a half-hour into the flick I started to doze off, the pizza and beer I consumed anethetizing me quite nicely.

I nodded off around nine. When I woke it was 1:30AM. I was still in the recliner, the TV was still on, and I was alone (give or take a cat). I felt like a small bus had hit me. I'm not a napper, and I love my quiet Saturday nights. I'd planned on watching the football game and playing some cards. That, alas, wasn't going to happen.

But I wasn't ready to go to bed, so I flipped the stations and "Iron Chef" was coming on, so I decided, what the hell, maybe at 2AM I could get a seat at PartyPoker and try a SNG. And that's what happened, first table I tried I got a seat at a $5, and I cleared my head and played some no-limit Texas Hold-Em. Hoo-ah!

Well, I might have stayed fast asleep. No, I didn't get knocked out first--I actually finished fourth. I finished fourth, and I didn't win a single hand. No, I take it back--I had AK under the gun, raised it 90 bucks, and had no callers. So one my one win of the night I merely stole the blinds--when the blinds were 15-30.

One guy at the table annihilated everyone else. At one point I think he had 5500 chips and remaining four of us had 2500 split among us. He made some good bets, but he also got lucky--he flopped a set when his 10s when up against pocket jacks, and he made a flush to knock out a guy with pocket aces. He could do no wrong.

I could do nothing. I had my AK and junk every other hand. Well, I had pocket 6s, played them to the river, and got beat by pocket 10s. Didn't lose a lot, but I didn't have a lot to lose.

That's where I really showed my no-limit inexperience. You aren't going to get huge cards every hand, and you have to make some aggressive plays to steal a few pots. I was doing that pretty well when I was playing on PokerStars, but I've been gunshy the last 2 times I played. Finished 2nd and 4th, but in both cases I was mostly a bystander. In the game last night I got shortstacked to about 300 and just hung on and watched the chip leader knock everyone out.

I wanted to sit tight and see if anyone else got whacked so I could end up in the money, but I finally got a decent hand (AJ) and raised half my stack. The guy in second spot went all-in and I felt committed. One thing I don't like about PartyPoker SNGs--when two players go all in, they don't turn the cards up. So I saw the flop come garbage, the turn come garbage, and the river show a beautiful Jack, giving me top pair. Our cards were then flipped over, and I saw that I'd been up against pocket Kings. That gives us the first "Crap" of the evening.

The second "Crap" I discovered just now, when I started to play my tape of the "Showdown at the Sands". Odd, the tape was rewound to the begining. I fast-forwarded, and found that the last third of the tape had some infomercial on it. Oh, crap. Somehow the VCR remote got pressed and it taped over the last two episodes. I accuse my cat Bert, I think he went to sleep on the recliner and maybe laid on the remote. I'm sure FOX will re-broadcast it, but it's still irritating. I'm accumulating a substantial poker video library, and I hate to lose this one. Oh well, spilt milk.

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