Welcome to my uneventful life.I truly wish I had more to write about these days, but I'm kinda stressing out over my job hunt/possible relocation, so it's been rather tough to focus.
Not only that, but I wrenched the hell out of my knee a few days ago, and it's bothering me pretty badly. I hurt it about ten years ago, but at the time, the Doc said that I could take drugs and stay on crutches for two weeks, or bite the bullet and get minor surgery. Eff that. I took the drugs and the crutches, and every few years it sends me a reminder. It's an annoyance, part of getting old, I suppose, but one of the side effects is that it keeps me from getting much sleep. It's a dull ache, but occasionally a quick, sharp pain if I land on it or twist the wrong way. It's also manifested itself with the 'avalanche effect'--that is, I started favoring it when I'm walking around, and that's made my lower back hurt too.
Mamasan will be the first one to vouch for the fact that I'm the last person to go visit the doctor or get a prescription, so you know it started to bother me when it's become irritating enough that I spoke to an acquaintance (one of the guys I play poker with occasionally) who is a retired doctor and he gave me the once-over yesterday and then steered me towards some meds. It's helping, but my lack of sleep combined with the drugs has made me quite lethargic these past couple of days. I'm totally out of it, and feel like I have been for about 36 hours.
On the other hand--since I've got nothing else to do after performing the daily job hunting ritual I do every morning, I've been playing a lot of poker. I finally qualified for that free-roll at Sunset Station, and word around the campfire is that there will only be six of us at the tournament next week. Sounds like a prize-money chop to me...
I tried to go down and play there at Sunset again last night, but the room was dead by 9:00 pm. No game at all--they sent the dealers home and turned off the TVs, I guess. So I headed over to my old favorite, the M Resort. I haven't been there in almost three months--that night I lost my entire stack in six hands when I flopped either trips or a full boat four times and lost all four hands--anyhow, they had no 4-8 going, and only one table of no-limit. The rest was all 2-4 showdown poker. (Same thing at Green Valley Ranch this week--I've been there twice and couldn't get into a game bigger than 2-4).
So I put my name on the list for no-limit. I've barely played any no limit since I took that epic beatdown--yeah, I should've realized it was a statistical anomaly at the time and immediately got back on the horse, but damn, I'm here to tell you that you don't feel much like getting back in the ring after Mike Tyson treats you like a chew toy for 12 rounds... It was that bad (I didn't even write about it).
Eventually, there were enough extra players on hand to start a short-handed game. Immediately, I could tell the difference in my game. I'm a decent 4-8 player--I consistently make a few bucks almost every time I play, but I'm a much much much better no-limit player. It was like my brain had totally shifted gears when I got back into it, and I felt like I could read my opponents pretty damn well. Twice I made *huge* lay-downs that saved me big $$$ (pocket Queens and yes, pocket Aces). When I laid down the Aces, I showed them, which earned a gasp from the entire table, but then my opponent showed his fours full of eights and I was vindicated. It's like I could tell that although he called my first bet, he was itching to raise. Seriously, it was like I was reading his mind and I could hear him saying to himself 'not till the river, not till the river....'
So yeah, I was playing well. I lost about as little as I possibly could on that hand.
The problem is, we were short-handed, and me and another guy at the table just cut it up and broke the game. He started with $180 and cashed out with over six hundred, and I started with two hundred and cashed for $393 when we ran out of opponents after just 45 minutes. He opted to go play 2-4 and chase the high-hand jackpots, and well, I decided to just call it a night and just come on home. Slow night in Vegas--at least as far as a decent 1-2 no-limit game was concerned. And I didn't feel like driving down to the Strip, either.
Anyhow, it feels like I've got my mojo back at the no-limit game. I won't be able to play again until Friday night, though. Tonight is poker night at Casa de Mikey, and Cyndi and I have plans again on Thursday. However, I may be playing the no-limit tournament at Green Valley Ranch this morning. My buddy James won it yesterday, and he wants to go back and hit it again. Since I don't have a damn thing to do, I'm probably gonna load up on coffee and pain medication and gimp my ass on down there to GVR and give it a shot. I haven't played in a tourney since March Madness (fifth place--woot!), but I think it'll be fun.
But that's all I've got from here. Life goes on, although it's rather dull at the moment. Y'all have a good Hump Day!
Mikey
No comments:
Post a Comment