Mean Gene

I Get Some Satisfaction

After my whining to start off yesterday I did go outside and lay in my hammock. For about five minutes, as it was about 135 degrees and the sun bore down as if God was holding a magnifying glass above me. I stopped over my parents' house, made myself a nice little lunch, and not wanting to expose myself to the Gobi outside my window I played a little air-conditioned poker.

Took second in an SNG, an improvement on my third-place finish from earlier in the day. Again AQ was my downfall, as my opponent held jacks this time instead of kings and I didn't improve. I had him outchipped by T100 and I wasn't quite able to battle back. But a cash is a cash, and after I braved the outdoors and did some re-mulching, I decided on a 2-table SNG to pass the time while I furiously rehydrated.

Which I won, thank you very much. Early on I found my stack whittled from T1500 to T1000, but I just waited for a hand at my rather-tight table and doubled through with queens vs. tens. The chips moved back and forth, with me picking up my fair share, but one player put on a suckout display to rival the Luckbox himself. She (I call her she because her name ended in "ette") was quite shortstacked, but within ten hands her K-10 defeated K-J, her pocket sixes outflopped pocket tens, and she went runner-runner to make a straight and crack aces with A-10. It was something to behold, especially as I'd wisely stayed out of her way.

I finally made a move when I flopped a set of 8's and check-raised the chip-leader all-in. He made a boo-boo, making a 2K continuation bet into a pot holding only T1200, and that pot-stuck him but good. He called drawing dead, and a few hands later he was out. Tsk.

I lost a chunk of my stack calling a shorty with A-5 and losing to pocket sevens, but I quickly won them back with some strong betting and blind steals. Ah, is there anything nicer than having a player on your right who will surrender her small blind time after time? And a player on your left more than willing to concede his big blind? That's the situation I found myself in, though to be fair an orangutan could've taken the chip lead with all the blinds I was handed.

The suckout queen was eliminated in appropriate fashion--she held aces, the other guy held K-6, and the flop came K-K-6. That left me heads-up for the win with nearly equal stacks, but I bullied him out of five pots in a row to take a big lead, and applied the coup de grace when I called with A-7 against his A-6. Victory, she was mine.

Fascinating how into the game I was. How much fun I had. The stakes were hardly worth mentioning, but I was very focused on winning. The butterflies were in flight when I bluffed at a 2K pot hoping I wasn't leaning into a check-raise. Hard to imagine how it must feel when there are thousands, millions on the line. While I played I was watching this past week's WPT event, and poor JC Tran getting beat by a 1-outer (it might not have been a 1-outer, I have to re-watch) to get booted from the Commerce Classic event. Just a brutal beat, and Alan Goehring went on to win. Just as in the previous WPT event, when Michael Mizrachi hit a two-outer to beat Erick Lindgren. And one night I threw in a tape and watched Danny Nguyen somehow win by hitting runner-runner sevens. Among other jaw-dropping suckouts (hitting quad jacks to beat Men the Master's queens, for example). As Jesse May said, it isn't the skill in poker you need to come to grips with--it's the luck. If you can't handle the luck, you might go crazy.

I noticed something about my own online play. When I play ring games, I tend not to do very well. When I play SNGs, my bankroll goes up. Perhaps, just perhaps, I should stick to SNGs until I get my ring game in better shape. Or, just stick to SNGs and keep on winning. It's a thought.

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