Tao of Poker

Horses Don't Bet on People and Neither Do I

I sat 11th in chips with 23 players left. A vile feeling infected my testicular region. My balls started to tingle and automatically shrunk. They knew a bad beat was coming. It had been two hours without one. I was due.

It was 2:30am. Widespread Panic melodiously played on my iPod. Their Halloween show from Las Vegas (which I happily attended) was keeping me fired up. I rarely played tournaments these days. And I never play the 180 person $20 SNGs on Poker Stars.

But there I was, unable to sleep on a lonely night in the big city and not courageous enough to summon the creative juices to write. I pathetically sat in a poorly lit room and accepted my fate.

I crave the action. I need excitement.

I was just one of millions of other junkies gettting their late night fix. Some were smoking tarless cigarettes. Others were masturbating to Malaysian elephant porn. Serious addicts shot junk into their veins in some flop house on the bad side of town. And in the basement of a suburban cul-de-sac a tweaker from Ineverheardof, Kansas brazenly snorted three lines of crystal meth and fired up his 23th table on four different poker sites and somehow cleared his mind for a nanosecond to get involved in a pot with me.

I made good calls along the way and the deck hit me in the face harder than Ike Turner used to lay the smackdown on Tina. I won three big coin flips. I hit a flop with AK vs. 88. I out flopped 10-10 with A-J. And then my 9-9 held up against J-10s. My pocket aces held up twice. I caught cards, hit flops, and persuaded my opponents to fold when I semi-bluffed. The field went fast. 20 gone. Then 45. Then 69. Then all of a sudden there were three tables left.

And things got ugly.

Tweaker from Kansas chased a flush. Just 5 more places from the money, I lost a big pot from a testicle and brain numbing bad beat. I had the guy dominated preflop too. If I won that hand, I'd be second in chips and have a shot at the real money. Instead, I lost and bounced in 23rd place. Two hours and five minutes wasted.

I could have folded and pussied my way into the money in 14th place after I got chipped down and made a steal with a weak ace only to get bad beated by another nimord. But I didn't.

At least I cracked A-A with the Hilton Sisters on my $3/6 table during the SNG. I flopped a set and turned a boat. All he had was A-A on a board that had a flush and was paired. He capped it on the turn and river. Nothing is sweeter.

I've made good decisions in the few tournaments that I played. MTTs aren't a heavy staple in my poker diet, so I pay more attention and focus when I'm playing them. With one or two a week my concentration level is at it's peak. There was a time when I'd try to squeeze 10 different MTTs a day in.

I hit a big pot in a $5/10 ring game on Party Poker to break even for the day. From the little blind I limped into a 6 way pot with J-9. I hit the monster flop of 10-8-7. Biggest pot of the week for me. Capped on the river. I love that rare and exhilarating feeling that consumes you when you have the nuts and it get raised back at you. That's the ultimate high.

Too bad I won an online pot, because I would have ejaculated in my shorts in real life. If that was a casino cash game and the dealer pushed that massive pot my way, I would have slowly fondled the chips like it was the soft and supple breast of that 19 year old sorority girl that stumbled into my room at the fraternity house after she had ten too many Jello shots.