Kick Me in the Jimmy: A Crappy Day of Poker

Sometimes a bad day can come out of nowhere. Take this past Friday, for instance. I used to love shopping on Black Friday even before the day was called that. However, as more and more people started shopping on that day and lines became ridiculously long, I figured that my best strategy was to stay away from stores. On Friday morning I instead took my car to the shop to have my tires rotated and oil changed. I stopped to pick up some donuts for the family on the way home, then prepared for what I thought would be a great day: poker at the boat! I planned to log in some afternoon hours before being joined for the evening by cokeboy99 (Nick). It seemed like a great day was in order ...

I got to the Par-A-Dice Casino in the early afternoon, only to find that they had a shortage of dealers working. There was only one table going and a few guys hanging out in the room waiting to play. I had called in to get my name on the list but didn't know exactly where on the list I was. Apparently some guys had been waiting quite some time to play. However, a new table was opened relatively soon after I got there, and I selected my seat at the table. Before the game started, I was informed that I wasn't in the first ten people on the list. I grabbed my stuff and waited while they made repeated calls for the ten people to start the table. Only about five or six appeared to be seated. After making a final call -- and a final final call, which started to piss me off, I was seated. Unfortunately, even with the rough started, things got worse.

I was in el foldo mode, not even getting cards that could justify limping in. I finally got to play a few hands and bled chips as the flops didn't connect for me. Then the first big hand of the session came when I called a small raise with K-Q os. I was the only caller. The flop: A-10-J. Bingo! I led out for $15 and my opponent called. There were two cards to a spade flush so I was hoping that the turn would give me a nice low red card. Nope. The turn was a Jack, pairing the board. With no re-raise of my initial bet, I thought I was safe. Or, perhaps my opponent hit a Jack and I could stack him. I bet $30 on the turn and was re-raised another $30.Having less than $100 behind at that point, I pushed and was called. The opponent turned over A-J to show that he hit a full house on the turn. Stacked early on. Yuck. I don't do that very often.

Later on, I called a raise with A-Jos. The flop was Q-10-rag. Someone bet $8 and received several calls. I saw my implied odds go through the roof, so I called the bet with my gutshot. The dealer then turned over a King. Bingo again! But immediately he saw that he skipped over one guy still in the hand. He announced that the King would be put back in the deck. Dang! The new turn didn't help me and I tried to keep calm as I saw this nice pot skip out of my hands due to a dealer screw up. It was his only misstep of his down.

At that point I felt like the karmic forces were not with me. However, with Nick yet to arrive, the evening not having started yet, and with a long waiting list due to the lack of dealers, I stayed in the game. Things got worse.

I continued to get few playable hands and decided to call a small raise with a sentimental hand, K-9. The flop was Kd, 9d, Jd. There were a few of us in the pot, including one guy who appeared to be the crappiest player at the table. After one player checked, he pushed all in with a stack of reds. Against anyone else at the table I would have folded, but I was guessing that I was way ahead of this guy. I called. The other two players folded. The guy flipped over two small diamonds for a flopped flush. Neither the turn or river produced one of my four outs, and I shipped $100 to the opponent. Nick got to the poker room and  walked past the table right as I lost a stack. I gave him a "poker sucks" look and got prepared for my final loss of the session.

Final hand -- I raised with A-J in middle position. Crappy player was the only caller. The flop was A-J-K with two cards to a flush. I raised and crappy player re-raised. Once again, I was counting on the fact that this guy appeared to suck from what I had seen previously. I shoved all in and he called. He had, as you might guess, Q-10. Once again, no "one time" on the turn or river. It was time for me to cry uncle and call it a day. I chatted with Nick for a bit as he was still waiting to get seated, then decided to just play some slots during a special slot promotion time before I went home.

Later on, I was surprised to see Nick at a blackjack table. It turned out to be a crappy evening for him. I hope he posts about the stellar play my opponent ran after I left the table.

Nick and I got some dinner at a local Chili's restaurant. While there, I put out the following tweet: "@nickg_96 and I got our nuts crunched at poker tonight. Good thing we found an elderly lady. We told her she was ugly and we hoped she dies." Well, at least we were able to see some humor in the crappy night.

So, in retrospect, does it seem like I played way too recklessly? In the three hands that did me in, I didn't follow the simple idea that most players in $1/2 NL games play pretty straight forward games. Each time I was raised and could have let the hand go. I am apt to think the first hand was a mistake, but I am not sure about the last two since I had little respect for the player.

I know that recently Rob has been in quite a poker funk. I had not had any nasty poker stuff happen to me for quite some time and was perhaps feeling a little impervious to that. Amazing how poker can humble you from out of the blue. Friggin' game ...

Note: If you don't know where the phrase "kick me in the jimmy" came from: https://youtu.be/RzCnrpfUaAk

And if -- and don't even tell me that this is possible -- you don't know who Beavis and Butt-head are: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beavis_and_Butt-Head