Online Poker: Cruel Mistress

I just dropped the wife and kid at the airport.  Fun morning, beginning with a 6:00am "suggestion" to forgo even brushing my teeth, as we were somehow already late the moment the alarm went off.  Morning ritual, out the door.  No toothbrush.  No coffee.  No poopy.  No good.  Even with a kid, 6:00am is still really goddamn early.  Especially after the night I just had.

6:00am:  Wife is mean.  Husband is moody.  Kid is overjoyed to be going on an airplane.  (Asking with 100% sincerity if she can fly the plane.) 

I was up writing and playing in an online poker tournament until 2:00am.  And, by writing, I mean, lamely checking my Amazon sales rank (ranging this week between 29,000 and 310,000.  Look out Christopher Hitchens.)  This mind you, for a book that doesn't come out for 60 days.  Yes, I'm that guy right now.  Neurotic, narcissistic, riddled with insomnia, a walking zombie. 

These are some long nights.  I'm not sleeping.  I read a lot.  I watch TV.  But, inevitably, I find myself online.  And, if I'm online late at night, the poker demon (I call him, Gamblor) visits.  Online poker is the one vice (gambling vice that is) which I still allow myself.  For me, online poker is akin to methadone for a recovering heroin addict.  It's a lot better than the gambling I used to get tied up in.

I hate the new poker world.  It's full of chaos, bad calls, and insufferable players who think they are a lot better than they are (no doubt, myself included.)  Plus, with the anonymity of online play, people can make terrible calls and either get rewarded for it, or, at the very worst, leave the table without the shame and embarrassment they'd feel playing the same way in a live game.

Case in point: last night. 

I joined a $14,000 guaranteed payout No-Limit Hold'em tourney.  It started at 11:00pm.  The buy in was $24.  There were 662 players. 

In the last few weeks, I've been playing very well due largely to some concepts discussed in a great new book I read by Anthony Holden called, Bigger Deal.  Bigger Deal is the follow up to Holden's acclaimed 1992 poker classic Big Deal.  (Holden is a highly respected writer who writes about poker, not a poker player who writes books.  Believe me, it makes a difference.)  The tips that have helped my game so much come from a portion of the book where Holden goes to a "poker camp" run by Howard Lederer and his sister Anne Duke.  (If you want the tips, buy the book or go to the camp.) 

Anyway, the tips have really helped my game.  I've been winning enough to gin up the courage to play in last night's marathon $14,000 tourney.  I started out hot and just kept rolling.  Within a few rounds, I was sitting on $7,000 chips.  Soon enough, my stack hit $15,000, then $25,000, and finally, after 2.5 hours, I was in seventh place armed with a mountain of chips worth just over $40,000.  Players were dropping like flies as the blinds and anties were well into the thousands per hand.  I was within spitting distance of the final table.  Out of the 662 that started, there were only 38 players left. 

All I had to do was stay away from a few of the bigger stacks and I'd be fine. 

The hand:

• From the big blind, I'm dealt Kh, 7s.  (Nothing special but, in position, I get to see the flop for free.)
• Flop comes Kd, 7c, 4d.  (I make two pair.  The first position (with $65K in chips) bets $9K.  Flush draw?  Set?  He's been wildly aggressive, so I'm not buying what he's selling.  I re-raise to $20K, sure that he'll fold.  No.  He goes all in.  Arguably pot committed, and sure of my read, I make a quick call.  I'm all-in. 
• The pot is now over $80K.  To my delight, I was correct.  He was bluffing, ugly bluffing too.  He's holding 4h, Jd.  A lousy pair of fours! 
• The turn is a 9d.  He now has four diamonds.  No.  Don't tell me.
• The river...2d.  Runner, runner diamond flush. 
• I lose.  I did everything right.  I still lost.
• I come in 38th, winning an anemic $62.  First place was $3,400.  Had I won that pot, I'd have been in the top five.
• Rubbing salt on the wound, the moron who risked $40K chips on a pair of fours types "ha-ha, LOL!!!" into the dialogue box.
• I want to hurt a puppy.
• I want justice. 
• "Ha-ha, LOL?" 
• I taste bile.
• It's 2:00am and I'm so full of poker rage sleep is the last thing on my mind. 
• Haunted by the call and the comment, I finally drift off to sleep at 3:00am.

Online poker, just like the real thing?  Ha-ha.  LOL. 

 

Comments

[Brian Stanford]

Gamblor was also Homer's personification of Marge's compulsive gambling. That's a classic line.