Anyway, I think I'm not going to play until at least Saturday, I'd like to spend time at the library getting some non-poker writing done.
8/26 Up $1805, 22 fucking hours...
I buy in for $1500, in the first hour or so I get the improbable nuts with Q9 for a turned gutshot. Two other dudes in the hand, all the money gets in when I have the nuts, on the turn. One dude calls with pretty bad odds to hit his 7 high flush to suck out on me. I buy back in for $1500, I'm about even when I try to bluff James Woods off his pair of Jacks. Stupid stupid bluff of me, I put him on pretty much the hand he had, but my stupidity was thinking that he could fold it. He kept going on about how I must have a set, but called anyway. So I'm down $3k, and break the money management rule and buy in for $2k.
I'm just even and even and more even, spinning my wheels with no big hands for hours and hours. As the night goes on the players get looser and dumber, and I find no positions to capitalize on any of it.
And I break the how long I should play rule. 9 hours, 10, 11 hours... I got there at 6 or so, it's 5am, I'm seated facing the door, and I see the parking lot light up in the dawn light. But, I'm stuck, I'm pissed about it, and I'm focused completley in the zone and focused on getting at least some of it back. The world kind of evaporated around me, I am just poker, just this table, and just these men, this table of men who didn't have to be anywhere to be on a Monday morning.
But, the cards are still against me, and I lose and I lose, as I just can't make a hand. My last $1k is sucked out as I have KQ, flop comes K6x, and dude put me all in on the flop. I insta-called. He had a pair of 67 that he would hit two pair with on the turn. So, I'm broke, I'm down $5k, I've been playing for 15 straight hours at this point. But, wow, I'm focused, and I can't recall a hand where I put the money in bad, and the table is full of either people that I can read easily, or who are just aggressive donkeys.
So, I break another rule, and I walk to the cashier, and $5k out of my account. I walk back to the table, dump the chips on it. I get reactions like “uh oh! We're playing now.” And I was there to play. I knew I was the best player on the table, and I was just in no mood to go home with a $5k loss, and so I just started playing super super aggressive. Maybe raising 25% of the hands, all medium sized raises, $100, or $120. And losing, and losing, and finally, I'm down like $1k from the last buy in (so $6k total loss, $4k on the table)...
It's about 10am, The sun is approaching it's zenith in the afternoon sky, there's not much light coming through the door of the casino, but I know it's bright out there, and I know it's going to hurt as I walk out to the parking lot...
I get 99 on the button. Me and 3 others call a $100 bet from a tight dude in early position. Flop = 678. Tight Dude bets $300, folds around to me, I make it $700. He's thinking, he's thinking... I'd been talking too much for the past few hours. Jabbering to anyone who'd listen to me, mainly to keep myself focused, swilling coffee, doing so many chip tricks I'd started to get blisters. And in this hand I'm like “come on! You have aces? Put your money in! You have Ace King? Throw it away.” Anyway, he goes all in... barf... But... It's only $1170 for me to call. And so I sit there and do the math... well, let's see 10 outs is 1.6 to 1. $1170 x 1.6 = $1872. So, there only needs to be $700 in the pot for me to call, there's already $1400 in from our bets on the turn. So, it's clearly a call.. but for $1k.. and after 15 or so hours of losing I'm really kind of frazzled, and it takes me a long time to do this math. Anyway, I finally get everything straight, I call, he shows KK. turn = 5, (straight!), river = K (giving him a set of K's as if to just punch him in the stomach...). Yay I still have no profit. I'm still down like $1k at this point...
Finally, around 11am they get a must move table going. This pretty good young poker star comes from the table and sits to my right. He's giving me a scouting report on the action at his table. I'm genuinely enjoying talking to him when I get KK under the gun. I limp, and continue with our conversation. It's folded around to the small blind, who just completes. The kid nonchalantly grabs a stack of white chips and makes it fucking $600 into what was a $60 pot. In the five seconds I think about it, I find it suspicious, maybe he has TT or QQ, the possibility that he might have AA doesn't even enter my mind, but then again, I wasn't really in a mood to entertain such possibilities and I insta-all in. SB folds instantly, the kid sighs, and calls! I don't even have time to realize what's happened, before the flop is being dealt, with probably the most beautiful King I've ever seen in the window. As the turn and river are dealt, he turns up his aces, I turn up my kings, kind of sheepishly, almost as if to apologize to him, but man, what could I have done? I'm feeling this hand kind of played itself, there was no way that I'm folding KK to that suspicious looking huge-overbet, and if I think about it for a second, just call and see the flop, I'll take his stack anyway.
Eventually I get KK again, and take a bigger than it should have been pot from the old dude the kid was telling me about. I'm up maybe $2500 or even $3k at one point. I'm no longer playing with any aggression, as I just feel the energy leave me almost as soon as I get up. I have somewhere around $12k in front of me, and I have no desire to gamble anymore. I am feeling I've managed to escape, and that I want to leave. I'm like a well fed shark, just digesting after the big kill. And I leave soon after.
Rest....
I wander around like a zombie for maybe three days after this. I smoke way too much pot, and sit on my ass way too much. I have no brain for anything, nor do I really want one as it's nice to just be stoned and spaced out. Feeling good from having my first winning month since May, for having my first $10k month in, man.. I don't know... maybe ever? (I don't feel like figuring this out right now...).
8/31 Up $3160 in 3 hours
On Friday, I had a friend coming to town to play a show. I'd kind of resigned to not playing for the rest of the week, as I was going to visit my brother in San Fran for labor day weekend, and I had to go to that show on Friday, and I'd finally just started to feel recovered from the Sun-Monday session. But, I hadn't played for awhile, and I was just feeling a hankering for it.
So my day went like this:
I retrieved my lost ATM card at a bank of america in a part of town I have no idea existed.
Decided that I should go to the commerce to get some money out of my account, for my trip to SF. But not play, as I didn't have the time, I hadn't written, etc etc. No way to play. No play, no way.
When I'm pulling in the parking lot, I figure “Hey, I'm here, what's the harm in playing for a couple hours?”
Play for 45 minutes. Win $1425. Mostly on having AK flop = KXX, turn = K, he bets every street. Yay!
Leave to go home, eat something, shower, change, and go to the show.
I get there, early, as it turns out that in LA a club saying "doors open at 8," doesn't mean "bands go on at 9” like it would in NY. No, in LA it means that bands go on at midnight.
But! I have no LA friends to kill the time with.. And, since I'm 15 minutes from the Commerce, why not go back and play?!??!!!!
Play for 60 minutes. Win another $1735...
3 good bluffs,
1 semi-superstar call on a tilted player.
I hit the nuts on this kid twice, 1st time he thinks I'm bluffing but folds anyway for my $600 river bet. 2nd time he insta calls with top pair for $500.
I only lost one or two pots that I put $100 into.
Leave to see the show, which wasn't so great. But the place was amazing, amazing. 3 floors of hip hop shows, all for one price, all going at the same time. The front room is freestyle, the middle room is local acts, and then they have this pretty big outside stage where the headliners perform. I was really impressed with the freestyle and the local kids. Wow, some of them were really amazing.
More rest
The next morning (Sat), I get up and drive the 6 hours on hwy 5 from LA to SF. That drive is kind of amazing at how flat it is. For some reason I thought that CA was as densely populated as NJ. It is not, it turns out it's a desert. Anyway, nice family time in SF. Good times, much wine drunk in Sonoma, much karaoke sung in SF. The drive back wasn't quite as fun as the drive there.
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