Eff Poker

Eff Poker.

I ran into three separate two-outers on Wednesday night, which ended up costing me about 2 buyins at the cash tables, in addition to leading me to tilt out of the Mookie as well as I was never able to gain any traction on the worst night I've had at the virtual felt in several weeks. I got my first premium hand in the Mookie in weeks -- pocket Aces in the blinds -- about an hour in and in the middle of the pack with less than 40 runners remaining of the 53 signups, and I just smooth called a late-middle position preflop raise from a shortstacked pushmonkey to set up for the kill on the flop. When the flop came all raggy, I checked in the largeish pot, knowing that PM basically had to push to protect the pot that was already about the size of his remaining stack. He pushed in his last 1500 chips or so, I instacalled with my pocket rockets, PM showed pocket 4s unimproved, the turn ragged off and then as I'm counting up how many chips I'm about to have, another 4 hits on the river, and my heart skips a beat. I managed to nearly double back up off of Waffles who made a rare appearance outside of World of Warcraft, but my psyche never recovered from that two-outer to crack my Aces when as it is I waited until after the flop to get it all in way, way ahead. I guess 92% isn't even enough for me in the Mookie these days. In past weeks I've tried 65% favorites on the flop, I've tried the 80% allin preflop domination favorites, and now even the 90%+ hands to hold up postflop, but nothing seems to work for me over in the Big O. Maybe one of these days I will have to get down to Austin to perform an exorcism at Mookie's place or something, but until then it's all just very disconcerting.

A bit later at the cash tables, I move allin on the flop with AK on an A94 two-suited flop, and my opponent instacalls me with just pocket Jacks. Nice play, Shakespeare! But a Jack on the turn once again did me in with the two-outer, and poof! One 2-4 buyin gone just like that. Not ten hands later at another cash table, my QQ fails to hold up against 77 allin preflop, and once again I am looking at a zero balance below my name despite knowing I've been playing great poker on the night. At this point I pushed allin in the Mookie with my remaining stack, still shortish but with enough chips to have perservered much longer if I wasn't tilted, and quickly lost in I think 33rd place. At the same time I opted to just turn off the pc, leaving myself with just more than the starting stack in the Dookie razz turbo tournament, where I think I got up in the morning and saw that I busted in 14th place or something. But at least I know I will live longer not having had to put up with the kind of bullshit I regularly see when I play razz on full tilt. I mean, in the 7 hands I stayed awake for in the Dookie, I had gotten stuck with the bringin already 3 times, representing 42% of the hands at a fucking 8-handed table being brought in by the same guy. Of course the sample size of n=7 on Wednesday is nothing worth relying on, but the fact that this happens phucking every time I sit down to play razz, combined with the ridiculous number of high pocket pairs and runner runner runner boats I also happen to run into often in this game made it seem like an easy decision to just get out of dodge and hit the sack for the night.

So how do I erase the memory of Wednesday night's filthy poker results as quickly and efficiently as possible? I think I will get right back on the horse on Thursday, as the latest Riverchasers tournament is being hosted by newly-40 Al at 9pm ET on full tilt (password is "riverchasers") for which I am already registered. I'm also hoping to start off the night with a little Wii Tennis, which I have not played in about four days since another marathon session with my brother in law this past weekend. I'm going to tell myself that my lack of playing Wii Tennis is the cause for my Wednesday night meltdown in poker land. Anything to keep denying that I go on tilt every time the Phillies lose another fucking game that I know they can and should be winning.

Eff Poker.

See you tonight for the Riverchasers. Bring on the 11-year-olds.