The last bus home

It was nice to get a positive comment from ‘Pauly’ of Tao of Poker (these things will turn into links soon, I promise). Like a mere 70% of the population of earth, I imagine I can write a little, so its nice to get a little praise from a published dude.

On the writing note, I am awaiting quite eagerly the inevitable slew of poker novels over the next year or so. And yes, I have thought about trying to write one myself; something about a poker-playing robot private eye who gets caught up in a world of power, money and sex and… hmmm, better not give all my best ideas away.

I am actually, half-heartedly writing a novel at the moment (for ‘writing’ read ‘plotting’). Its about the misery, frustration and futility of long-term romantic relationships. There will not be a happy ending, at least not until Hollywood options it.

The home game last night was quite fun. There were only five of us, and one - the host! - bogged off to the pub before the second of our two no-limit hold ‘em tourneys. (There was also one quick 4-player one before I arrived). So the numbers were disappointing.

In the first game I got a few hands and played very well in my opinion – never made a single costly mistake, stole plenty. I also was pleased that I seemed to be pretty unreadable, since one or two of the regulars have delighted in claiming in the past that I give off ‘loads of tells’. I got heads-up with a 2-1 chip disadvantage, at which point we made a deal because the eliminated players were getting antsy at sitting around so long; the three-handed play had lasted an eternity. Give the amount of heads-up experience I have gathered online lately I would have preferred to play it out, but there you go.

The second game was a big £10 entry and only four-handed, as I mentioned. I couldn’t get started here at all, always getting beaten into the pot when I was considering a move, and somehow developing a very weak trigger finger. I made one decent and brave all-in semi-bluff to stop my stack getting seriously tiny, but as the blinds went up I was still nowhere and was practising my patience. I’ve always been quite good at waiting out a run of poor cards in live play, probably because the game is more interesting to observe than online, and my reward came eventually. I got JJ and QQ in consecutive hands, monsters in a four-handed game.

I went all-in on the button with JJ, expecting a call somewhere because I had been hinting that I needed to make an all-in move sooner or later. Sadly all folded – I hadn’t considered that my stack, though small, still would take a third of any of the other three players’ chips.

So with the QQ and a few more chips, I just made a middling raise. My closest friend of the three made it clear immediately that he intended to raise me all-in; while I welcomed this, something about his predatorial manner did worry me. My instincts were right, since he turned over Aces and despite picking up a straight draw I could not buck the odds.

I did literally go home then, not in a strop (losing with QQ to AA doesn’t hurt much after all) but because I still had time to catch my last bus. I was down £5 for the night.