In the midgame, the poker gods decided to throw me a bone, I guess. I sucked out twice - once I got all my money in with middle pair, and open-ended straight draw, and a flush draw, but it turned out my opponent had flopped the bottom end of the straight and was slowplaying. I needed my flush to come on the river and it did.
Then, when heads up, my opponent slowplayed aces, and when I hit my top pair with 67 on a straightening board, I overplayed it and got myself stuck. I was still 34% to win, though - a 4, 6, or 7 would save me, and a lovely 7 came on the turn to flip the stacks over. I was then able to out-aggress my opponent to the victory. Of course, at $10 stakes, victory means a small $34 net in your stack, but it still beats losin'.
I've decided that reading this blog must be dreadful stuff - nothing but whining about bad runs and losing 70-30 battles and pissin' and moanin'. To that end, I'm going to try very hard to get rid of all that junk and focus on interesting hands that made me think, win or lose, and also throw in some real life stuff (though my real life is pretty dull).
The accompanying picture is of the kids on Halloween. The tall one to the left is my neighbor - a wonderful girl whose life has been very tough so far. Her mom is in jail as a habitual drug user - her dad, my next door neighbor Fred, has full custody. Now Fred, who I've mentioned briefly in this blog, has been officially diagnosed with Type B Lymphoma - there's a beer-can sized tumor growing in his neck, and he has a neck bulge like Frankenstein right now (complete with scar). Chemo starts this week, and doctors are hopeful so far that the cancer is localized and they'll be able to knock it out. Fred is a good man - he works hard supervising a small concrete crew that do driveways and parking lots, along with some residential waterproofing. He works 70+ hour weeks in the summer and gets 4-5 months off in the Cleveland winters. He exerts more sweat in 1 day than I do in a month as a programmer-geek who barely requires deoderant. Fred's attitude has been strong through this whole sickness, and I admire his toughness now even more than before.
I'll probably be cutting down on online poker for the next week or so. I have some night stuff I need to spend some hours on here this week. Then, next week, I'll be in New York for work, and I probably won't make a big effort to get online while there. I think I could use the break, actually. Plus, I still have plenty of time the rest of the year including 5 more vacation days and the official break between Christmas/New Year's. There will be lots of poker in the offing.
1 comment:
Good lookin' kids. Good thoughts go toward Fred. You sound like a good neighbor.
For what it's worth, I like reading your blog, and, as a ring player, appreciate the tourney talk.
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