Birthday Weekend

If another day had passed by without a game of poker in it, I might not still be here. I might have perished off the side of the Earth. I might have spontaneously combusted and there might have been no noticeable remains of my body left. I might have fallen into a black hole in the ground, only to get eaten by the planet and never be seen again. But thankfully Darsky had a hankerin' for that good ole' Chumash so I'm still alive and breathing.

Suffering through a horribly boring Friday night, I sent an SOS to Dar to come up and play some Chumash poker. He responded with a "tomorrow night" and that was that. He arrived, we ate, we played. We took off to Chumash at about 5PM and showed up to only ONE 2/5NL game. The 1/2NL had four tables going, of course, so we were at the mercy of the poker gods to open up some new 2/5NL games. Fortunately for the both of us two new tables opened up within twenty minutes and we both took seats at different tables.

I felt good going into it (of course, as I wouldn't go if I didn't). I got off to a quick decent start by catching a small straight for a small pot, but after that I just couldn't get off the ground. I was getting outflopped, caught on, and getting unlucky. My first big pair was QQ, which I raised to $20. I got called in two places behind me, one seat being a tight-ish player I'd seen before, and it folded back around. The board came up A-K-x, and I checked to the two callers and a betting war ensued between the both of them, each chopping up with AJ. Two hands later I picked up KK and raised it up to $20 again after one limper. Both blinds called as did the limper, giving me position. The flop came up 7-7-10. The small blind bet $25, the big blind called, and the limper raised it up to $70. I thought for a second before letting it go in light of the action, and there was a chop again with each of them holding A7.

So needless to say there was major action, and I just needed to catch a hand and I would get action on it all the way down. Unfortunately that didn't happen. I ended up widdling down to around $100 when I looked down at AKd on the button. There was a raise to $20, a call from a kid sittin on around $800, and I pushed with my $100 in position. The original raiser folded, and the kid called if off with the 56h. The board came up 4h-6x-7h, making me about a 10-1 dog. I turned the A, but was still facing major outs. Another 6 hit the river and I rebought. Over the next three hours I just couldn't get anything going. I picked up JJ and QQ, but couldn't play after the flop on either of them. Widdling down again I got caught with a bad kicker on my Ace and decided to take a walk.

I hit the casino floor for a couple minutes to take a breather, and headed back to the poker room ready to go one more buy. I waited to get a seat at Darsky's table, since we always have a blast playing the same table and our styles of play allow us to stay out of each other's way. He was up, and we started to have a good time. I was down to about $150 from my $200 buy, and finally caught a hand. I checked off my 99 in the big blind after four limpers, and had a beautiful looking A-9-3 flop. We got three way betting action, and a 3 on the turn filled me up. I ended up doubling and half up on that hand and finally had gained some ground. Unfortunately, the fun wouldn't continue long.

I ended up working my way to around $500 when I picked up AA. I raised it up to $20 and had two callers, one who was sittin on around $120, and the other who was sittin on $200. The board came up 10-high and the 1s pushed in. The middle seat called off, and I reraised to put him all in. He ended up calling with 99. The turn was a 9 and that was another hand lost to bad luck. I ended up getting QQ and KK one more time, letting the Qs go to an Ace-high board facing action, and I won a small pot when I flopped a third King. Darsky had been stale since building his stack to around $900 earlier in the night, and we decided to leave. I was sittin on around $350 by this point, and raised it up to $15 with the 45s and got two callers. The board came up Qs-xs-xs, and I bet out $45. I got called twice. The turn was, of course, the 2s, and the small blind pushed all-in for $1,000. I racked up my remaining $200+ and took off, disappointed in the night's occurances.

My buddy Mitch was up at Chumash as well, and ended up coming back with Darsky and me. We called up Joe on the way back and the four of us went to go grab some food before returning back to my place where we all crashed at about 5AM. Then in the morning, it was my birthday! Darsky took off and Mitch and I went downtown to go to this Mexican place for brunch. We met up with my little lady friend and her friend, and had all-you-can-drink margaritas and mermosas until 2 o'clock.

After that we we to a couple more bars downtown, and drank the day away. We headed down to the Lounge to play some pool, that which I was doing horribly. I'm usually ok, but when I'm drinking I don't think I can make a single shot. Oh well...it was still fun and then we parted and Mitch and I headed to Ventura. I dealt a small $5 tourney at Mitch's house, and then I tagged along with the group as we headed down to the bowling alley. We got a few pitchers of beer and bowled for a few hours. All around it was a good time, and Mitch and I bet on most of our games. We all left the bowling alley at around midnight, and we ordered some pizza before I took off back to Santa Barbara at 2AM.

All around the weekend was great and I had a lot of good company. Next weekend will probably be even better, as Darsky, Mitch, and myself are all headed out to Vegas! We'll be there from the 8th-11th thanks to John, who got us a cheap, cheap room at the Aladdin.

Until next time.