I hate poker

well....not really, but it sure has been frustrating lately when I keep getting cold cards.

I mentioned that I played poorly in a tourney last Saturday. My demise came when my AK met pocket queens and didn't improve. Last night at Lottery Larry's tournament of champions game, I had deja vu when I was short stacked and was faced with 5 limpers and I was in the small blind with jack seven suited. My hand was meaningless as there was 25% of my stack in the pot including the blinds and if I could use my short stack while it still had fold equity I could make a push and pick up a nice pot. Even if I get called by one of the limpers It's very likely I have 2 "live cards". It's doubtful I was facing a big pair as no one but the first limper would try to foray into a limped pot with a big pair. So I made it look like I had a good hand and pushed all in and the big blind, the only person that I had no reasonable read on, woke up with pocket queens and went all in himself. The others folded and even though I technically hit a full house (the board was 88833), he had a better full house and I was on the rail.

I can at least claim that my early night was due to grief. My wife called me just as the tournament started to let me know that our last goldfish, Michael, had finally succumbed to whatever ailment his two compatriots had fallen to.

RIP
Michael
2007-2008

While the fish were dying at my house, the fish seemed to be thriving at Lottery Larry's house. I am reluctant to mention hands and names as Lottery Larry has recently taken passages from my blog without permission and put it into his trip report. (he'll be hearing from my lawyers Dewey, Phuc M, Goode, & Howe) I don't wish to publicly call anyone a bad player and criticize their hands. Especially since I am no big shakes myself. I like to think I am always improving in poker, but I most certainly don't make all the right moves nor claim to be an expert. I'll just say that worst hand kept winning. Over and over and over again. Even in the low limit cash game I played in afterwards, I had my aces cracked by 67 with a CAPPED PREFLOP POT! (in other words, the bets were raised and reraised 4 times- the most allowed.)

I can't complain all that much, I had fun joking around and I didn't lose very much money. The best line of the night came from the razz specialist, Dan. A player came over to the cash game from the tourney and started complaining that he was knocked out on the bubble. He started playing alot of crappy hands like 10 4 off suit and was winning big pots. He then claimed in defense of his bad play-

"I was a two-thirds favorite to win that hand on the bubble and I lost, so why should I play good hands if that doesn't seem to work?"

Dan quickly remarked, "Because two out of three times you aren't going out on the bubble?"

ahhh...nerd humor...