Bad Beats and Slowrolls for Life

It's come to my attention that I usually sound like a whiny bitch in this blog. It's not really something I try to do, but I do use this blog as a release from the stress in my life and I confide in this digital diary when I need somewhere to go. I don't have many people in life to whine to, so this is a place where, should I feel the need to, I can complain all I want and no has to get annoyed if they don't want to read.

With that said, I also post things on here that are good-feeling in content. I can't really remember if the posts are mostly negative or mostly positive, as I just write to write when I feel like writing, but I know there's also just a lot of "thinking out loud posts" on here too, which shouldn't be construed as one of my incessant ranting writings. I won't lie in saying that I like to complain on here though, so without further ado I present to you this weekend's grievances.

On Friday during the four-minute drive home from work I had a craving that required immediate satisfaction: Gordon Biersch, and poker. Seeing as how LA accommodates both of those needs, I called up Darsky and explained to him that my squeaky wheels needed grease, and shortly afterwards it was made an official plan that I'd head down to Tarzana to meet up with him.

I made it down there at around 8PM and we made our way to GB. After a fun little run around trying to find a parking spot close to the restaurant (aside from the valet, which is definitely not an option with D's Bullitt), we finally sniped a leaving spot and got to eat some food. We had our usual beer and burger (damn it's just so good...) and made our way to the Bike.

When we got to the higher section there was a few $5-5NL going and both of us had our names up on the list. Shortly after we arrived a new table opened up and I took the 8s while Dar took the 9s. We started off with only six seats filled, but the rest of the table filled up before we even got the cards in the air.

Up to this point Darsky had told me that the couple previous weeks at the Bike, the play had been soft and slow, and the general tone was that my aggressive style should make for a slightly "easy" pickup. This was not the case tonight.

We had many $400-600 pots being shoved back and forth across the table with amazing hands, and not amazing in a good way. During the night I saw three different $500+ won when called by a pair of 2's, often on boards such as K-2-8 and things of the such. The action was very fast and very loose right off the bat.

The first hand I was involved in was when I looked down at K-K after a couple rounds of complete nothingness. There was a gangster-ish Mexican guy with an XL white T-shirt and sleeved tats in the 1s who raised. It got to me and I popped it again, as he went all in for $125 while I instacalled. After the board came up 5-6-7, I felt a little something not right. A 2 on the turn didn't hurt, nor did the Ace on the river. I already knew my fate.

I stared at the guy for a second as he blankly stared back. "Okay, I got Kings."

"Oh you got Kings?" this is where he sighs and looks at his cards again. "They're no good."

He flipped over 5-5 for the winner, and I bowed down to his awesomeness in the art of slowrolling. If there's one thing I cannot stand in life, it's slowrolling. I'll rant on this in another post. For this post it's just another bad beat in the weekend.

I ended up coming up a little bit after that, and ended up doubling my under buy-in stack when this hand came up.

I had been showing down nothing but winners to this point, and seemed to be building a tight image at the table. This in itself is hilarious to me, because my general table image is very LAG. People usually don't believe me, and that's how I prefer it. Tonight, however, I had only played premiums for the first couple hours and was still getting my regular action. Maybe my face is that of a liar?

Anyways I looked down at the A-4d and raised it to my usual $20 in EP and got called by the 5s, who had not beaten me in a hand during our previous two squalls earlier in the night. The flop came up K-4-2, and somehow we ended up getting all my money in with another $160+ for him to call. He took forever thinking about it and I started my usual talk with him.

My talk can mean anything, and anyone who has seen me play knows that my table talk is the same whether I have the nuts or I have nothing. I like to think that it's hard to read me, and for the most part I truly believe that it is.

After a few minutes of debate he finally stuck in the call and said "I have a pair." I turned over my A-4 and he shook his head. He had a bad habit of only flipping over one card (another pet peeve of mine, only flipping one card when a winner has to be shown), and showed me a 2.

"What else!" I shouted at him.

"Nothing nothing, just the deuce."

"The two and what else! Come on! You got me beat I know it!"

"No no, just the 2."

The turn and river bricked and my A-4 was good for a $600+ pot. That was the last win I'd see that night. I ended up making a stupid move, though Darsky tried to tell me that it wasn't as bad as I was making it. But it was definitely a move that I am better than making, and it sucked knowing that I ended up going with it anyways. I'll blog about that later, cuz I need to complain about bad beats right now, not bad plays.

I rebought after I busto'd my stack and for the rest of the night I ended up picking up decent hands but being moved off of all of them before I finally made a move with my stack at around $180. I picked up the Kh10h and ended getting the money in on TP+FD against TP with a better kicker. I missed my heart and was busted.

After I made the questionable play the whole night went downhill and I can't help but think that the reason it turned around was my fault. Again, I'll explain the hand in a later post, but after talking with a couple people, it seems that the hand wasn't as bad as I'm putting on myself. I still think I could've avoided it though, and that's what irritates me. I know what level I'm capable of playing at, but sometimes I feel like my lack of every day play keeps me from playing at that level constantly.

We had our regular tourney night at Paullywood Park, where we were having a $20 rebuy tourney with 24 players present. We ended up with a prize pool of $1280, and I didn't get any of it.

I was cruising along with twelve players left sitting on a decent stack when I got nailed again. I raised and got called by probably the loosest, craziest Phillipino guy at our game. The flop came K-8-5 and I shoved after he checked. He instacalled and turned over 6-6. The turn was a 7 and the river was a 4, leaving me with nothing to show for the weekend.

I got beat up for another $60 in the gambling quarter games afterwards, and was treated to some Del Taco by Darsky before I went home. I realized that I had left my sunglasses at Paul's, so on top of losing a bunch of money I left my sunglasses somewhere, which I HATE doing, thanks to four previous experiences of losing $100+ sunglasses.

I finally got them back on Sunday, but then had them stolen while I was at a store on Sunday. I had left them in the dressing room for a total of 35 seconds, but when I went back they were gone. I knew a couple of non-English speaking field-worker-type Mexicans had gone in there after me, and knowing that they are the biggest thieves in this particular store (I used to work at it and we were clued in by security during training), I asked if they had seen or taken my sunglasses.

My question was, of course, responded with by a barely audible "No....soddy" and some Spanish babble as I walked away. If I were to break into rant about how I feel about this particular sect of the social ladder, most commonly seen around SoCal and definitely in the valley, it would turn into another two pages and I would end up turning out sounding like a radical racist, so I'll decline. Bottom line is those fuckers stole my $100 pair of Arnettes.

Needless to say, this weekend had more negatives than positives, so although I'd like to write about the good stuff in life after hearing about my consistent whining, this weekend is hard to turn around no matter how you look at it.

Until next time.