On losing, part 3

I'm only down like $1k on the trip at this point. I'm not sure why the thought of coming home with a loss chapped my ass so badly. If I were home, I would have taken a break, checked myself into the “poker hospital” for at least a week and not played until I didn't feel so bad. But, yeah, like I said, nothing else to do there. When I eventually lie down, I doze in and out for a couple hours at a time, instead of ruminating about my stupidity, my brain fixated on the monomaniacal thought of how I'm going to make it right. When thinking about this sequence of events, it is this night I think of most. I think of how I could have taken the car we rented and driven a few hours to visit my parents, relax, and in a day or two come back to play the tournaments we'd gone down to play in the first place. But, no, I didn't do that at all...
- On Losing, part 2
- On Losing, part 1


I got up in the afternoon, on maybe four or five hours total sleep, put two $5k bands in my pocket, walk downstairs to the casino, find a seat at the $10/$25 table, open one of these bands and empty the contents onto it. This table features Chad Brown (Bluff magazine's 2006 player of the year), Amnon Filippi (as seen on High Stakes Poker), and a bunch of tight/pro looking dudes who I'd played with the other day. If you can't find the sucker at the table...

I sit down and start playing hard, and bluffing hard, up a little, down a little. I am about even when I get the J9 of clubs somewhere in middle position. I raise to $150 or so. Brown is the only caller. Flop = XXX, two clubs. I bet the size of the pot, Brown calls. Turn = Q of not clubs. Brown checks, I go all in for about $3500. The pot is a little under $1k at this point, and so, this bet was a retardedly huge over-bet.

I had this sunglasses sthick I'd do in these days. Where I'd keep dark sunglasses on top of my head until I'd get involved in hands, when I'd pull them down, put my put my chin in my hands, and cross my arm on my bicep. It was kind of a shield that I felt somewhat fearless behind. So, I have the glasses down, I have my hand covering half my face, I'm sitting in seat eight, and I'm staring at Brown in seat two contemplating his decision.

I'm surprised that he hasn't folded quickly. Instead he keeps looking at me, looks back at his chips, looks at his cards, looks back at me. The table is silent, all eyes are on Brown's eyes that keeps looking up at me, down to the pot, down to his chips, down to his cards. I'm not nervous in the slightest, not because I was sure he was folding, but more because this is really the zenith of degenerate gambling, of being caught in a tailspin of losing where rational thoughts are replaced by the sickly monomaniacal instinct of trying to get even. I didn't consider the risk/reward of the amount I bet, I didn't consider who I was playing. I made a frustrated and stupid play. And Brown hasn't done anything yet, he's asked me no questions, he's said nothing to the table, he's postulated no theories on what I had, or discussed his thinking. He just keeps looking up and down. I sit motionless in the same position, staring at him.

After two or three minutes he says two words: “I call.”

By the time I've registered what's happened, the dealer has put the river card out. When I finally look at it, I'm praying it's a club. It's not. It wouldn't have helped me anyway. A few seconds later, I come to my sense and say, “I missed, jack high,” he turns over Q4 of clubs. As I'm pushing my chips, all of my chips, towards the pot, I say “good call.” Brown just nods in response to this without looking at me, as he takes the pot in. The guy next to me, is astonished and says “how did he call that?” Well, I guess, because you don't get to be player of the year for nothing.

I reach into my pocket and put the other $5k on the table...