No more chances

Boy, it’s always good to get back home after being away for a week. Phoenix may have been a full 10-15 degrees hotter than Wichita, but considering the fact that the humidity in Wichita is 10x that of Phoenix, it wins the “Worst Weather” award. But hey, I’ve always been a fan of the “dry heat” (it would seem that I’m a fan of quotes, as well).

Thursday I finally got a chance to go play some live poker. Since Wild Horse Pass happened to be the closest to our hotel, that’s where we ended up. Having no rental car, beggars can’t be choosy. Plus, having had a lackluster experience there the last time I was in Phoenix, I was viewing this as the second chance trip.

Wild Horse took that second chance and fucked it all up.

For now, let’s ignore the BIF (that’s Butt in Front) parade. Let’s ignore the pervasive putrid stench of desperation that saturates the place. Let’s ignore the guy with the grey brick dinosaur of a Motorola flip phone hanging off of his belt and my wonderment that someone still actually has one of those. Let’s focus only on the poker room.

Pure Shite.

I think it was dirtier and running worse than the last time I was there. When we arrived I counted the list for 3/6, it numbered 16. Number of empty tables? 5. Number of dealers milling around playing grab-ass? I counted 6. After waiting for 20 minutes I asked why they didn’t start a new 3/6 table and I was told they were considering it. Fucking great.

45 minutes later I finally got a seat. They never did start that game.

Highlight: I won my first hand with QJs on the button when I completed my OESD on the turn to take down a nice pot. Even though the games are by and large pretty rocky here, I seem to have lucked out and got on a table with a few donators. Hooray!

Interim: I am forced to dump a several hands like AKs, KQs, etc when the flops COMPETELY miss me. Having taken down a large pot on my first hand seems to have the effect of making people want to take shots at me, which would be great if my nice starting hands would become something.

Lowlight and Session Conclusion: The donators are low on chips and we’re 8-handed. I’m up a little over 10 BB’s after about 1.5 hours. Kill pot and I get KK, woohoo! Hit a set on the rainbow flop, get raised and reraised when a second club comes on the turn (no straight possibilities). Beaten by 83c when the backdoor flush comes on the river. Crub Frush, indeed. Table breaks ½ hour after the vicious beat and I’m stuck 6.5 BB.

The only thing left after our table broke was a bunch of crammed full 2/4 tables with a waiting list that stretched all the way to Prescott and a short-handed 8/16 game. Did they start any new games? Nope. Did I go home highly annoyed? Yep.

No more chances for you, Wild Horse.

Thanks for all the advice in the comments on the last post, and for what it’s worth I am currently reading both of Dan Harrington’s books right now. Damn, that volume II could almost be considered a tome. Put I and II together and you definitely have one. However, I think the general malaise of the last post has more to do with me being slightly depressed than a problem that is specifically poker related. Like I said, I’m trying to dig deeper into this, so don’t be surprised if you see some seriously non-poker business going on here in the near future. I think I will give another online room a go though….I’m thinking of hitting up Absolute or Poker Room. Any thoughts on which of those are better and why? I used to play Poker Room when I first began playing online, but I know a lot has changed since then, and I have never played at Absolute.

And now we return to our previously scheduled schoolwork, already in progress….

Something is off

The $2-6 Spread Limit game at the Excalibur really fucked me up, and I’m sitting here hoping that it’s temporary.

I hate online poker right now.

In fact I’ve spent the last week pondering the possible who’s, what’s, and why’s of it all and I still don’t really have a satisfactory answer so I’m going to write about it in the hopes that it begins working itself out.

I actually have no idea whether or not it was the wonderfully easy pickings at the Excalibur that is solely responsible, but I doubt it. I didn’t play very much during the Vegas get together, but that being said it was still more time than all of my previous live sessions combined. It was so much fun. Combined with the utter softness of the games, playing online definitely and immediately became less than appealing. But why, though? It’s not like the online games are that much tougher (at my level), and I’ve never been one to shy away from a challenge, but perhaps my subconscious disagrees. I think sometimes that perhaps my subconscious is just some 400 lb. fleshly behemoth too heavy to get off of the couch and drowning in Cheetoh’s, eschewing the frustrating and sometime soul squeezing challenge of consistently crushing online games for the easy and most of the time mindless money that sits at a live table for the taking. He pines for the low limit live games the same way he pines for everything that he won’t get off his fat ass to go after.

That’s theory numero uno.

Usually, some donking around at the $5 SnG’s will get me over this type of a hump when it rears its ugly head. Not so much this time. I’m playing OK and my results are OK, but I still find myself with a serious amount of disproportionate tilt when I catch the inevitable beat or make a retarded play. If someone decides to be a rude jackass it makes me kind of sad. I really can’t believe I just admitted that, and when it happens I can’t believe a faceless internet gnat made me feel like that, but there ya go. The fact that I’m even paying enough attention to it for it to affect me makes me want to kick my own ass for being such a punk bitch. However, taking a step back I realize that these are indicators of a deeper problem that seems to be making an appearance. The question now is, what?

So, there are the beginnings of theory #2.

Did I mention I’m in Phoenix all this week? Nothing like the rock-your-world desert heat to put a person in a contemplative state, eh? Well, that and sitting in a training class all day long.