Mean Gene

Time for a breather

Played a little yesterday, and it made me realize I need a little time off. Been playing a bit every day, not too long (except for Saturday) and after the lousy run I've had I need to recharge. As my previous post relates, I had a night where I played 100 hands and won three. The day before I played a full hour without winning a pot. Last night I played nearly an hour without winning. I really started to think that I might NEVER win a hand again. I mean, couldn't I flop the nuts just once? Just once, to give me faith again, to give me a little confidence?

I thought I'd done just that about 20 minutes in, when I had pocket kings and flopped a set. We're in business. But there were two diamonds on the board, and when a third showed on the river and I got re-raised I knew I was dead. Sure enough, 5-7 of diamonds beat my three amigos.

Later I had 6-3 in the big blind and flopped two pair. I bet and raised through the flop and turn, and on the river another six presented itself. So I have a weirdo full-house, there was no preflop raise, so it was very unlikely anyone had a pocket pair to beat my boat. But...I couldn't shake the horrible feeling that I was about to get skunked. The bet was raised to me and I should've re-raised. But I couldn't pull the trigger. I just called, and...won. Won a nice big pot. I nearly barfed on myself.

I won two other quick pots with pretty lousy hands when the betting was checked around twice and I caught a pair on the river. I ended up $15 for the week. Not bad, but after being up $65 it seems a hollow victory. Oh well, a quick breather, and then resume the struggle.

I'm going to write more stuff than just hand histories here, honest. I'm thinking maybe some poker fiction. I mean, you just KNOW that a flood of poker movies and books are flooding to market right now. Maybe I should jump on the bandwagon. Thing is, what do you write about? How about the traditional Hollywood underdog story--guy who's never played in a casino wins a World Series seat online, he knocks out his poker idol, and goes all the way to win the whole thing. Oh, wait, that's been done, in real life. How about a woman 9 months pregnant gets to the final table of the WSOP--oh, Annie Duke nearly pulled that off. How about a writer goes to cover the tourney, gets in through a satellite, and ends up becoming the story when he makes the finals. Whoops, Jim McManus beat me to that one.

I think I can come up with a good idea. Something set far away from the bright lights of Vegas and Foxwoods. Something set here in Pittsburgh. Actually, I already have an idea, the skeleton of a plot. Just need to think it over a bit more. I'll be posting stuff here about it, maybe some excerpts.

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