Collapse

Friday night: Having played poker tight and, presumably, predictably for the past few months, I come out swinging in the tournament, but run into walls hard and crash badly. The cash game goes a little better, as I catch trips for the first time in a dog's age and get paid, and my regulars take pity on the condition of the basement (we had water damage last week, which is a big damn deal in terms of time, expense and inconvenience, plus I get to fast from all food and liquid starting at 10pm for Saturday morning's festivities) and leave some cash in the tip jar. My regulars are good people, and one of the best things about living where I do. It's certainly not the weather, the commute, or the schools.

Saturday morning: I'm having blood drawn at the local hospital in connection with a continuing medical condition that's been a significant drain for, oh, the last four months. My weakness with needles is complete and total; I can't watch them being inserted on anyone, let alone me, which made watching "The Wire" very difficult, but let's not get too off track here. Seven vials need to be filled, which is to say, we're going to be here for a long time.

And then longer still, as the vein gives up the ghost on vial number five, and we have to go find another vein. The phlebotomist does this well, but it's still pretty brutal, and I leave knowing that my left arm isn't going to work very well for the next 2-3 days. Yes, I am that bad with needles.

Saturday night: Having bailed on a movie night with friends (too far, the condition means I should not eat late at night, which will make post-movie diner just awkward, I'm just not into scary movies), I've put the kids to bed at a leisurely pace. Faced with several more hours of the same kind of basement tedium work that I've now been doing for a week, something in me snaps a little, and I decide to go play in a local poker game instead, held by one of the sometime regulars in my crowd. I've missed the tournament, but what the hell, there's a cash game, and the people there play every hand to the river regardless of your betting pattern. If I just stay patient, maybe I can catch a hand and win back the grocery money.

Besides, it's better than moving more piles of crap back and forth. Right now, if you showed up outside my house with a truck, I'd put a ton of crap into it, just to be rid of the moving of piles.

So I go. I get pocket queens early and lose with them, something like the fourth time in a row that's happened in the last week, and then the game gets big, with 11 at the table until some are bounced. Drawing low, I go all in and get paid off six times the bet when my straight hits the river, so I'm up 50% on the night despite getting very few cards and hitting no flops. It's 2:30am now, four plus hours into the game, when I finally catch cards and position: Ace-King, unsuited, on the button. For the first time in hours, I raise pre-flop, and the family pot draws down to four. The flop is J-J-10, which gives me overs, the gutshot, and a little hope that maybe my pre-flop raise kept some J-4 or 10-2 hand out of the mix. I make the continuation bet, and no one flinches, because what the hell, I've played four hands in four hours, I must not have anything now. I love these guys.

The turn is an Ace, so now I've got top pair, top kicker, and two-thirds of my original stack left. There's only three hands that really scare me now: Js, 10s, or J-10. There's no flush on the board. I'm really hoping that someone's got A-Q and thinks I'm weak. There's also something like 300% of my buy-in in the pot. I go all-in.

And the guy that follows every hand to the river, the guy that pays every player in the world except me, it seems, calls. The two others agonize over their cards for a few minutes, then fold. And my A-K is drawing dead to J-10, and has been since the flop.

I'm having a year, folks. Having a year. Actual sports content later; sorry for the emo.