After an extended hiatus, the wife and I had another home game last night. We’ve found that among all of the different formats, the participants enjoy the tournament format over all others, so we decided that we’d go that route this night.
If I had to declare an official drink of the Human Head home game, it would mostly likely be Bass, since that it what I find in my oversize paw four out of five times. However, this night I decided I should do something different. Should I give the nod to Iggy and pick up some Guinness? Naah, not tonight. The dark and heavy loveliness of that esteemed beer didn’t seem quite “right”. Should I give the nod to Al, pick up some SoCo and begin finding reasons for shots? Well, it HAS been many, many, many years (11 to be more specific) since I had any of that stuff thrown down my gullet, so the idea seemed like a good one at first. Upon further reflection, though, I realized that I have plenty of hair on my chest for the time being and decided I’d save my re-acquaintance with SoCo for Vegas in June.
After more pondering than was really warranted for such a decision…..
…it finally dawned on me that tonight’s nod would go to Red Stripe, the official drink of the Tao of Poker. I haven’t had one of these lovelies in several years, and they sound perfect for this evening.
We raised the buy-in to $10, since a couple of nights with $5 buy-ins left us feeling wholly unsatisfied. For the first time, I actually had to deal with players who are slowly but surely improving. My brother, normally the biggest fish since the appearance of the whale that swallowed Jonah, discovered that people can be bullied with chips. He got a sizeable stack in the first tourney and used it to pretty good effect, taking down a second place.
By this time I was on my fifth Red Stripe, and was fast remembering the power contained by that innocuous little bottle. A bit of herbal realignment and we were ready to begin the second tourney, this time with seven of us instead of nine, since some folks had to leave.
A friend from school, Bruce, made an appearance for the first time, who has really never played poker before, and just watched the first tourney since he showed late. As he bought in for the second one, I wondered to myself how long it would take for him to call his way to no chips as is the case with so many new players. Damn, Bruce learns effing QUICK. He lasted about halfway through the field, actually making a couple of really nice moves, including slowplaying a flopped straight to bust someone. He ended up getting knocked out when he just called with KK and I managed to hit my ace when after checking my A4o in the big blind. I’m almost scared to have him back.
In spite of my being hammered shit, the wife and I took the entire prize pool in the second tourney when we ended up together in the top two spots. Nice. Ending up +$20 for the night is always better than losing, especially when you can pull it off in such an altered state.
One thing is for sure, I need to not forget about my friend, Red Stripe, in the future. A very nice beer that allows lucidity even after seven or so are consumed. OK, maybe that’s not entirely correct, since Mrs. Head had to take over dealing duties when I accidentally raked a players entire chip stack while building an all-in pot. Surprisingly enough though, I managed to remember what each player had and get them straightened back out in a correct manner.
Nonetheless, Mrs. Head declared me ill-equipped and barred me from touching any chips or cards that weren’t my own for the remainder of the evening.
God bless her, Thinking Big at the times I cannot.
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