I played some live poker tonight. I had tried two other times, but the casino didn't have any games running. Considering that one of those days was a Sunday, I felt sorry for the casino and myself.
I showed up at the casino at 8ish and had a seat soon after. It was only $1/$2 NL. There was a Russian dude two seats to my right who told the waitress that he wanted "Russian vodka." You can't get any more predictable than that, I figured. But then an American to my left ordered Bud Lite.
I had brought a book. Read three chapters of it. The book saved me, because if I'd had to sit in one of those chairs for three hours and rely on nothing more than interaction with the other poker players, then I might as well be playing Russian Roulette with a BB gun in the parking lot.
From my $200 buyin, my stack had whittled down to about $98 when I was dealt AKo. It folded to me, and I raised to $10. Small blind called. Big blind, a very small stack, went all in for $22. I figured a shove would make SB fold, so that's what I did.
He owned himself by calling with ace ten offsuit.
Flop J 4 2 rainbow. Turn ten (of course). River queen (of course).
So that boosted me right back up some, but I continued to passively whittle away at my stack from boredom until I said fuck it and went home a $62 loser.
When I first started playing live poker, I used to show up feeling some kind of excitement. Cold hands. A general feeling of nervous excitement. I could play long stretches and actually enjoy myself.
Now casinos just seem like suckholes. But at least I can say that I went. So there's that.
I showed up at the casino at 8ish and had a seat soon after. It was only $1/$2 NL. There was a Russian dude two seats to my right who told the waitress that he wanted "Russian vodka." You can't get any more predictable than that, I figured. But then an American to my left ordered Bud Lite.
I had brought a book. Read three chapters of it. The book saved me, because if I'd had to sit in one of those chairs for three hours and rely on nothing more than interaction with the other poker players, then I might as well be playing Russian Roulette with a BB gun in the parking lot.
From my $200 buyin, my stack had whittled down to about $98 when I was dealt AKo. It folded to me, and I raised to $10. Small blind called. Big blind, a very small stack, went all in for $22. I figured a shove would make SB fold, so that's what I did.
He owned himself by calling with ace ten offsuit.
Flop J 4 2 rainbow. Turn ten (of course). River queen (of course).
So that boosted me right back up some, but I continued to passively whittle away at my stack from boredom until I said fuck it and went home a $62 loser.
When I first started playing live poker, I used to show up feeling some kind of excitement. Cold hands. A general feeling of nervous excitement. I could play long stretches and actually enjoy myself.
Now casinos just seem like suckholes. But at least I can say that I went. So there's that.
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