The shitty icing on the crappy cake

Sometimes I start wondering if it is possible, however impossible it seems, that my thinking influences the cards that are dealt. When I first started playing, I would make an all-in call on the flop with nothing but a nut flush draw, and I would have every confidence that I was going to hit my outs and take down the pot. What’s more is that I generally always did. If I ended up in a pot with Kings where I had an ace kicker and the other guy had a queen kicker, I had every confidence that my hand would hold up until the river. It was good to be so naive.

Since the horrible beat that I put on Hoy (who had a horrible beat recently in the WSOP, making my lost buy-ins look like so much chump change) in a blogger tournament a couple of weeks ago, things haven’t been going my way all that often. Sometimes I will just make a horrible call, which is bound to happen since I am so new to the game. But all too often I am making the right call, getting my chips in when I am favored, and still losing the hand. I understand that this is the way of poker. If I am a 65% favorite to win the hand, that means that the other guy is a 35% favorite to either win or tie. The thing is it would seem like that 65% should be holding up at least half of the time, and it just doesn’t -at least not right now (variance sucks).

After losing so many favored hands my confidence is just shattered. I am finding myself extremely reluctant to make an all-in call pre-flop, regardless of what I am holding. Sure, I’ll still take a stab at it if I am holding a pair of Kings or Aces -very rarely with Queens, I have extremely bad luck with them- and I do win some of them, but I go into the pot almost expecting the miracle cards on the flop, turn, and river to come and bail the other guy out. So now I find myself slow playing hands out of fear. I have to at least see the flop before I commit a sizable chunk of my stack to a hand, not that it seems to matter since the last two cards always find a way to fuck me over anyway.

The last hand that I played is a microcosm of the way poker is going for me right now. All I could do was get my chips in when I was ahead -way ahead- and stare on in shock and disbelief as the poker gods saw fit to bend me over and take it to me donkey show style. I think I may still be in shock.

This was in an FTP 20k event as it was nearing the bubble. I had about 8,000 in chips, the big stack at the table had about 25,000. I found myself with the black kings on the button, and the hand was folded around to me. I raised 1,500 (I don’t remember exactly what the blinds were at this point, but they were still three digit), which pushed out the small blind, but the big blind insta-called it. The flop came up K-J-J with two hearts. Big blind thought about it for a minute, then pushed over 20,000 chips at the pot -which the more I think about it was probably because he thought he was behind and didn’t think I would call if he pushed his whole stack-. This should have been an instant call for me, but I thought about it for a long time. What could he possibly have? There was almost no way that he was ahead. The best hand that he could have was K-J for a lower boat, unless he happened to have a pair of Jacks, in which case I would really be fucked. No way he has Jacks, so I eventually call it. Since I didn’t take a screenshot, I will show you one that I recreated with a nifty odds calculator:

Huh. He only had queens. I guess he must have been putting me on a mid pair or something. Anyway, when he saw my cards, the guy said, “um. What were you thinking about?” Since it was on FTP, I became an observer faster than I was able to type in a response.

Now, I have been in almost this exact situation before. The last time I was in it with Aces, flop was A-J-J, we got all in, he showed kings, then hit the 10 and miracle queen to win with a royal flush. This time, he was out of suit for that to happen, so I was golden. I mean look at those odds for the kings to hold up. 99.8%, that is about as close as you can get to a sure thing. Well, by now you probably know that I didn’t win the hand, so I will get right to the next odds generator produced image:

Well, I am still almost 98% to win it, and he only has the one out… Which he hit, of course, to send me home. The flopped boat loses to the rivered quads. *sigh*

Just the luck of the draw, right? I will try to find solace in the fact that since I lost it this time, the next 99.8 times I get that hand it should hold up. Comforting…

Well, with that I am gonna take a step back from poker for a couple of days. Not that I am going to quit playing based on one horrific beat, more that I am going to watch from the sidelines for a couple of days after losing a lot of races where I was ahead on the final straightaway. This one was just the shitty icing on the crappy cake.

July 2017

Cancer: 6/22-7/22
For 34 years you have been painstakingly removing a single hair from the head of each of woman you murder -with plans to weave them into a belt. A mishap involving a a candle-warmer, a vacuum cleaner, and the police breaking down the door to take you 'dead or alive' will bring your collecting days to an unfortunate end.

Leo: 7/23-8/22
Your plan to rook your boyfriend into marrying you by faking a pregnancy will fail this week. There are several reasons why this plan will fail: 1) you have denied him sex for your entire relationship, promising him that flower on the honeymoon. 2) You actually are pregnant. 3) You've been wearing a T-shirt that says 'Gold Digger' on it since the day you met him. 4) The single strand of hair that the Cancer (horoscope above) pulls from your head will be the one and only time he leaves his own DNA at the crime scene.

Virgo: 8/23-9/22
Okay, maybe the stars have been a bit harsh. They know you are a good guy, but you've made a lot of mistakes. The stars are willing to meet at Gina's Coffee Shop on July 12th at noon. If you aren't there, you may as well write off visitation of your kids.

Libra: 9/23-10/22
98% That is the specific number you will give your wife before you jump out of the plane. That optimistic chance of survival will slowly fade as you realize that gravity doesn't care a great deal if you have your arms out or not: Terminal velocity is terminal velocity. Your attempt to recreate the famous scene from the movie Point Break will end just as it should have in the movie: A horrible mass of flesh and bone several miles away from the guy who actually did have the parachute.

Scorpio: 10/23-11/21
The stars have a huge "to do" list. As such, your childhood wish to have sex with Anna Nichole Smith will finally come true this week. No, there's no way to stop it. The stars do apologize for the lateness of the fulfillment of this request, but they think your friends will count it anyway.

Sagitarius: 11/22-12/21
You've seen the movie The Number 23 exactly twenty-two times. You've built your life around avoiding that number. You''ll feel supremely confident when you leave your house on 07/12/2017. But, on 07/12/2017, you will step onto the sidewalk only to be struck and killed by a drunk driver. The time of impact? Exactly 11:01:00am on 07/12/2017. You will have exactly enough time to add up the digits of the date AND time: 1+1+0+1+0+0+0+7+1+2+2+0+1+7=23. Your realization that any date, time, or irrelevant number can be made to equal 23 will be moot.

Capricorn: 12/22-1/19
The stars have been watching you. And your daughter. Oh my, how we have been watching your daughter... Blah, blah, something about a star rising in Orion, blah, blah. The stars will definitely offer you better guidance once that daughter is of legal age.

Aquarius: 1/20-2/18
Every man wants to die a hero. That's human nature. But you have obsessed about it. When little Johnny accidentally starts a fire in his trash can this week, you should calmly walk out of the house with everyone else. If you happen to stand in Johnny's room screaming "take me, I'm the one you want!" That action may be ill-perceived by the police. The firefighters aren't even going to respond; the trash can fire burned itself out without even melting the plastic of the can.

Pisces: 2/19-3/20
Billy-Ray has been wearing that mullet for thirty damn years, so you figured yours would be fine, too. You'll soon realize that Billy-ray can rock that hairdo because he doesn't have to get it near the shake machine at Dairy Queen. You, on the other hand, have to get those lovely locks right up in there. Or, your now-naked scalp did.

Aries: 3/21-4/19
While the police report will read "failed attempt to jump the Grand Canyon", and the coroner's report will read "severe blunt-force trauma", everyone who knows you will know that they should have read "Eh, I think I can make it."

Taurus: 4/20-5/20
Rape. It's a big, scary word. It will also be the most appropriate word for what the biggest guy in jail is about to do to you. Please confer with a Cancer for advice on how to handle it.

Gemini: 5/21-6/21
Yeah, your Lyft driver is also carrying a knife. Unwanted advances will also result in removal of the penis. Keep it in your pants. Unless, of course, the Uber driver already handed it to you. In that case you can wave that thing around like a flag. You're probably not going to get a ride, but you are going to be one in a very exclusive group of men who can 'wave it around like a flag'.

Leave a Reply