Friday, October 1, 2010

A bad beat, with no malice

It's early on at the Mook, and truth be told, the Karma was poor. Every hand I decided to play was stepped on, every flop not connecting, every attempted blind theft sniffed out. Before a half-hour goes by, I find myself having lost half my god damned stack.

I take a quick peek at the other table to see my best friend, my mortal enemy, love her or hate her you have to...um...hate her, the Veryest Very Josie, already having exited from the tournament, her pocket aces having been cracked by pocket queens.

My outward reaction: Aww, man, what a shame.
My inward reaction: Tee hee hee!

And it was that reaction, methinks, that led to the karmic explosion of what happened less than 10 hands later.

In middle position I picked up A9o. I decide to play the hand (for me, A9 is a 50/50 thing in middle; sometimes I do, sometimes I don't) so I throw in a standard (3x) raise. Two to my left snap-calls. Uh-oh, thinks I. If I don't connect on this one I have to drop it like it had herpes.

Flop comes A9K, two clubs. As the new Nike commercial says, Boom!

Villain bets, I raise, he shoves, I call with my remaining few hundred. He turns over AcQc, and all The Crafty Southpaw has to do is dodge a Q or a club, right?

Wrong. Turn comes a King, my 9's are counterfeited, and his Q outkicks me for the win. Ohhhhhh lordy.

Does this suck because I lost? No, not at all. He had outs galore - 9 clubs and three queens (so I thought) made me 52/48 to win so I knew I had a tough road. But fuck a duck (sorry Duck), I got shitcanned with what one of my tablemates called "a phantom out." God dammit! It was like I survived a gun battle only to shoot myself in the balls reholstering my weapon. But oh well - it happens; in the end I more or less lost a coin flip and that happens half the time. And, in fact, figuring in the Kings in the Villain's outs, he really had me 60/40, so the play ended up following the odds.

So: like I said, I'm not mad, or bitter, or even nonplussed. It's just a good story. And hey: I lasted longer than Very Josie, so I got that going for me.

See you Wednesday at the VJ and the Mook. And please, stop by Josie's blog and give her a virtual pat on the shoulder; she could use it.

4 comments:

  1. Everyone lasted longer than I did! I was the first one out. Second time I was Gigli in the mookie. Thanks for having me re-live that. :)

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  2. Funny - your reaction to Josie's exit was *IDENTICAL* to my reaction!

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  3. Yes, Pokey, that's HIGHlarious.

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  4. You take it so seriously... Have you guys ever played cash on any of the sites? I'd imagine you'd do alright & be a lot less frustrated. The variance of a tourney is probably more frustrating to deal with than cash games because of the simple fact that you can buy back in.

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