But the sun is shining and I'm still making hay--the poker room is about as busy as you can imagine. Yesterday, when my phone *didn't* ring at 4:00 am, I was feeling pretty good about prospects for a day off. And when 11:00 am came and went with blessed silence, confidence was pretty high. So I put a load of laundry in the washing machine, took out the trash, brought a couple of boxes up from the garage, and signed up for another $33 sit-n-go on PokerStars.
I figured that would kill about an hour and a half, then I would do some shopping, get my oil changed and my truck washed, go visit the eye doctor, and then get my manicure done.
But sometime after noon, I got the call.
Yep, they needed me to come in at 2:00 pm. So I pushed back everything on my to-do list and re-scheduled that nail appointment for next week, all while kicking ass on PokerStars and winning another tournament ($135 cha-ching!).
When I made it down to the casino, I could see that we were slammed. It turns out that I started my shift by pushing seven tables in a row--that's three-and-a-half hours without a break. Luckily it was a fun day and the time went by fairly quickly, so I wasn't too upset about getting worked like a slave.
On one of the no-limit games, I witnessed the Mother-of-All-Getting-Outplayed hands. It was a thing of beauty, and I wish there was videotape of it, because it was a textbook example of one person playing perfectly, and another one playing like a complete f*cking donkey. Basically, on a 1-2 no limit game, a guy in middle position raised to $15, and got three callers, one of them being the chick in the big blind. The flop came kinda raggy--all middle cards with no chance of a flush. Mr. pre-flop raiser bet $25, and the gal in the big blind raised it to $50. He just called and said something stupid like Be careful, I know I've got ya beat already.
The turn was a low card, like a two or a three, something completely inconsequential. The gal in the big blind checked, feigning weakness, and he bet $50. She just called. I burned and turned a ten on the river, completing a pretty raggedy looking board. The gal in the big blind checked again, and this time the guy bet out a hundred, saying Look--I've got a big hand here, I'll show it to ya, trying to get her to give up without a fight.
Undeterred, she immediately re-raised to $400, which would put the guy all-in. I've dealt to her often enough to know she had a monster, and I figured she had trips on the flop. But I just sat there watching, and Mr. I've-got-a-monster went into the tank for a minute, but he wouldn't shut up. He kept talking and giving away more and more info about what he had, so as I was sitting there, I'm thinking, This chick either has flopped trips or a funky middle straight like Mike McD's final hand on Rounders, and this asshole only has pocket Queens, Kings, or Aces, and is too f*cking stupid to lay it down...
But this idiot kept talking for about two minutes straight, like he was on TV or something, and looking around the table, everyone was rolling their eyes and I could tell that absolutely every player at the table knew what he had, and that he was beat. But he insisted on letting us know what a good player he was with all of his 'expert' analysis.
He finally couldn't let his ego take a bruise by laying down a big hand, and called with his last $300. He flipped over pocket Queens, just as I suspected, but his opponent showed her flopped straight, and I pushed the $800+ pot put to her. He swore, punched the table, kicked his chair, and stomped out of the poker room, while everyone else was telling him what a donkey he was. I chuckled to myself and pocketed a $20 tip.
After that, I finally escaped the poker room for a half hour and snuck back to the dining room to get some dinner, but it was all complete shiat. I mean, absolutely nasty crap that nobody would eat--liver and onions, some sort of baked fish that had seen better days, veggies that had been sitting too long. It was awful. I ended up with a bowl of cottage cheese and some canned fruit, which really didn't hit the spot, but it was something to fill the hole--I was starving.
On my way back to the poker room, I ran into Beth--she was just coming in to work, so I apologized for canceling our appointment earlier that afternoon. But she was completely cool with it, saying she took the rest of the afternoon off once she saw that I wasn't gonna be there--she was just too tired. On the other hand, she wasn't working her normal area of the casino that night, she was in the slot section near the poker room, so I we got to chat a bit once my line-up only had me pushing two tables at a time.
Around 7:00 pm or so, the realization hit me that I was scheduled to be in the next morning (today) at 6:00 am. Oh, that was gonna suck like crap on a stick--get out of work at 10:00 pm, then have to be back eight hours later? Oh hell no...
So I found my boss and told her my scheduling dilemma, and she said she'd work on getting some other poor schmuck to come in at six in the morning. About an hour later she told me that I was off the hook, but that she'd call me around noon and I'd probably be coming in around 1:00 or 2:00 this afternoon. Hell yeah--not only did I get to sleep in, but that's a *much* better shift, money-wise. While I appreciate the old codgers and their boring 4/8 limpfest for giving me *something* to do every morning, well, the later it gets, the juicier the games are.
I finally got outta there at ten pm, with a pocketful of cash to show for my efforts. I was beat, of course, it was a very long day. As I was standing at my locker, changing back into my street clothes, Beth came strutting by, and stopped to talk for a bit. It was a nice change of pace--I hadn't seen her in almost a month, and last night we got to chat every time I had a break.
Anyhow, she told me that she had a long break and was gonna go get some dinner, and like a dumbass, I said, Well, have fun--I'm going home and going to bed!
About five seconds later I did the mental face-palm thinking You idiot--go with her!, but by that time the moment had passed. Yeah, I might have supreme confidence and some mad skillz with other chicks, but she always turns me into a stuttering mess. Why? I don't know. She doesn't make me hurt like Kimmy
Once I got home, I grabbed my clothes from the dryer, came upstairs and took a shower, then thought about playing another tournament. But I saw that Sticky was playing, so I just watched her instead, and she won third place in her tournament for a nice $200 payday. After that, I was just beat, so instead of watching some TV or playing in my own tournament, I went to bed.
When I woke up this morning, I got into another one of those $33 sit-n-go's, but I was playing way too tight--I could tell right away. Hell, I was on the blind with pocket deuces and didn't even call a hundred-dollar raise, opting to fold instead. There were three other callers, and the flop came out 2-4-2, which would've given me four of a kind with an aggressive bettor behind me. Talk about missed opportunities! I could've easily doubled up on that hand, because the guy was playing like he had Aces. I tried to loosen my game up a little, and got on a rush, but got crippled when my pocket tens ran into trip Queens. I went out in eighth place, feeling like I wasn't playing my A-game, so I'm taking a break from the online poker for a few hours. I may try once more before work this afternoon, but I dunno, I'm just not feelin' it right now.
Anyhow, that's all that's goin' on in the world of Mikey--work, sleep, poker. Larry the surfing sailor is in town, and we may get together later tonight, I'm not sure though. Tomorrow night I'm having dinner down at The Range steakhouse with one of my readers who's also in town, and then Friday I'm having dinner with Derek, Lars, and a couple other guys down at Stack. So my free time is going to be *extremely* limited for the next couple of days--I'm still on call the next two days, and scheduled to work all weekend, so blogging may be light-to-non-existent.
Mikey
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