Session reports.
I’m not just back at the game and the story: I want to escape poker while in poker. I know it’s a lot to ask, but there is nothing else for me, as far as I can see. I want to pass through, and when they look again, be alive and dead. For now, though,…
With some determination after an unscheduled night of gastronomic and alcoholic debauchery, triggered by having realized I left the crock pot on while driving in a lethargic rush hour, I made it to the little card room. The fog had well settled- it was time to do the dark things humans do and this was…
I’ve found an unusual game at a small cardroom previously unknown to me. Worn out by emotional fatigue and the stress, frustration, and guilt of spending down my bankroll on various relaxations, I’ve wanted to warm up to the bigger games – 5/10 with our old friends such as the Sommelier, the Banker, the Koala,…
Perception is a great theme of poker. Dealing with information. Evaluating actions. Filtering misinformation. Judging your opponents, sometimes at a glance, and sometimes, over years together, like smiling, vicious colleagues who have been stealing each other’s work. Tougher questions, too: range versus perceived range, that great tension of technical poker which can occasionally cause tantamount confusion or…
Differing from the first installment of this slightly dull series of posts, aimed specifically at the die-hards (including myself) and the cubicle grinders who read my pieces on smartphones between hands or on the toilet at work, these spots were part of two adjacent but brutal sessions where very little went my way in terms of results.…
Over the course of two consecutive sessions, both entirely profitable and generally satisfactory, I was involved in hands that had me second guessing myself then and now. What makes them worth commenting on is, oddly, even if I was right to act as I did, I’m wishing, in a combination of poker degeneracy and intellectual curiosity, that…
It’s hard going, trying to come back from troubles. I don’t feel well. My heart races when the latest idiot leaps behind my car while I pull out of the garage- my nerves are shot from a month of distress and I don’t take it with usual equanimity and disdain. Worse, my body is tired, my lungs…
“AWISHALLINAPUSHINDA!” Giant Head exclaimed. Since nobody at the table speaks Giant Head as well as I do, I did let loose a short laugh over his brief mistake. He was trying to say Awishallinafoinda, meaning he wanted to go all in or fold, but instead suggested that he wanted to shove or push. Oh poker…
Otto doesn’t win much at the bigger games. If you were to mention his name to me, the image that would form in my mind is that moment when he pushes his chair back while leaning deftly to his left (he’s thin and young and dexterous), grabs his remaining one dollar chips, wishes everyone good…