I hit a new low!
I just got back from losing the most money in the shortest time ever. Ouch.
I promised myself all today, to motivate, that if I finished another chapter -- which I did (mostly) -- I could leave the house for the first time in 48 hours and join my regular Thursday night game. It was still poker, I rationalized, plus J___ was not only reopening the “regal beagle” for poker business, he had also played in a tournament a few days before with Howard Lederer.
I had to hear the story, and it seemed like a sign since I had just heard from his sister, the amazing Annie Duke who may have the eternal lock for my favorite female player ever after she played the WSOP eight months pregnant. What could be more badass than that?
So I shut down my computer and headed to Chelsea for a game that was supposed to start at 8:30. When I showed at 8:45, no one was there. I don't really watch the news, but J_____ works at a newspaper. When I called him, he informed me he hadn’t left work yet because of the craziness in New Jersey. He said he'd be leaving in a half hour, though. Now, I literally haven't watched TV in over a week, but luckily the rest of the gang informed me, as we loitered outside, that the hold up was due to the amazing admission of New Jersey Governor McGreevey’s that he “was a gay American” and had an affair. I am reserving commenting until I catch up on the facts.
What this meant was that the Thursday night boys and me waited around until almost 10 p.m. when J____ could leave his newspaper and hop in a cab. Since I had only allotted a break from 8:30-midnight, I was agitated and almost left. I should have.
I was so caffeinated from the entire 2-liter of diet coke I had drank in the previous 3 hours, and just so generally stressed out that I couldn’t concentrate. I kept thinking of what I needed to write and recalling irrelevant statistics. I don’t think I’ve ever played quite so poorly –- or gotten beat on so many two pairs by flushes and straights in a night. It was only 11:45, not even two hours after we got the cards in the air, that I had lost all my money. Sure I wasn't getting good hands or hitting the flops, but seriously, it was no excuse. I was calling everything for no reason at all. It wasn't even that I was reading people incorrectly -- I was always, every time, right about when I was beat. But I kept staying in there because I wasn't trusting myself.
In any case, it was good to get out of the house, and we did come up with a lot of good alternative, double-entendre, headlines for tomorrow's newspapers that you won’t see. Though the only one I can remember at this very moment is “Governor McGreevey Packs it In.”
Someone should do a top ten list. But right now I have to write something about not playing when you’re concentration is hopelessly, pathetically shot.
How embarassing is it, also, to be the person at the table who's writing a book about poker and be the sucker for the night?
I promised myself all today, to motivate, that if I finished another chapter -- which I did (mostly) -- I could leave the house for the first time in 48 hours and join my regular Thursday night game. It was still poker, I rationalized, plus J___ was not only reopening the “regal beagle” for poker business, he had also played in a tournament a few days before with Howard Lederer.
I had to hear the story, and it seemed like a sign since I had just heard from his sister, the amazing Annie Duke who may have the eternal lock for my favorite female player ever after she played the WSOP eight months pregnant. What could be more badass than that?
So I shut down my computer and headed to Chelsea for a game that was supposed to start at 8:30. When I showed at 8:45, no one was there. I don't really watch the news, but J_____ works at a newspaper. When I called him, he informed me he hadn’t left work yet because of the craziness in New Jersey. He said he'd be leaving in a half hour, though. Now, I literally haven't watched TV in over a week, but luckily the rest of the gang informed me, as we loitered outside, that the hold up was due to the amazing admission of New Jersey Governor McGreevey’s that he “was a gay American” and had an affair. I am reserving commenting until I catch up on the facts.
What this meant was that the Thursday night boys and me waited around until almost 10 p.m. when J____ could leave his newspaper and hop in a cab. Since I had only allotted a break from 8:30-midnight, I was agitated and almost left. I should have.
I was so caffeinated from the entire 2-liter of diet coke I had drank in the previous 3 hours, and just so generally stressed out that I couldn’t concentrate. I kept thinking of what I needed to write and recalling irrelevant statistics. I don’t think I’ve ever played quite so poorly –- or gotten beat on so many two pairs by flushes and straights in a night. It was only 11:45, not even two hours after we got the cards in the air, that I had lost all my money. Sure I wasn't getting good hands or hitting the flops, but seriously, it was no excuse. I was calling everything for no reason at all. It wasn't even that I was reading people incorrectly -- I was always, every time, right about when I was beat. But I kept staying in there because I wasn't trusting myself.
In any case, it was good to get out of the house, and we did come up with a lot of good alternative, double-entendre, headlines for tomorrow's newspapers that you won’t see. Though the only one I can remember at this very moment is “Governor McGreevey Packs it In.”
Someone should do a top ten list. But right now I have to write something about not playing when you’re concentration is hopelessly, pathetically shot.
How embarassing is it, also, to be the person at the table who's writing a book about poker and be the sucker for the night?
posted by Toby Leah Bochan at 12:58 AM
1 Comments:
Hello! Hard on yourself!
AK
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