My Biggest Loss

I remember when I used to blog it up almost every day here on the Crooked Link. These days it's looking more like a couple of posts per month. So again, I do apologize for that. But like I said in my previous post, my job schedule has been kinda goofy the past few weeks. But now that my guy Z. quit and I'm working more days, it'll probably mean more time to blog since I seem to do most of my blogging from work.

So what have I been up to the past two weeks? Oh I don't know, just having the worst poker session of my life is all. But I'm getting ahead of myself here. First let's backtrack a bit to where I left of in my previous post (7/6/09). I decided to take that week off from Gigio's and try to put in some solid time on the tables. I had a solid session on the 8th, cashing out for $475 (a +$275 profit). It was kind of a short session, playing around 4 hours but I felt good about my game and was also running extremely well. In fact I won the my biggest pot that day like this:

5 limpers before me and I limp in the small blind with Ac6c. Big blind checked and 7 of us saw a flop of 9c-5-c-2x.

I check, as does the big blind and a short stack in early position goes all in for his last $12. The rest of the table and their pet Chiguagua proceed to call the $12 including myself. Then the big blind decides to go all in for another $100 on top. It folds back around to me and I contemplate for a bit before making the call, getting almost exactly 2-1 on my money. (There was $198 in the pot, and it cost me $100 more to call). I know at worst I'm a 3 to 1 dog here, but knowing I'd been running good lately helped me make the call.

As it turns out, I was in better shape than I thought, as my opponent turned over Q-9o for top pair and a look of disgust when he sees I called him with a flush draw. A beautiful club hits the turn and I have my opponent drawing dead. I dragged in the $300 pot as I'm serenated by the losing player's bitching about how unlucky he is...

Anyway aside from that pot, I just picked up a couple small ones here and there leading to the +$275 for the day.

I definietly loved the venue where that charity casino was held. It's probably the nicest place I've played live poker and a super nice contrast to the usual dirty smelly venues the charity casino usually hosts their events.

It was held in a country club out in Bensenville and I decided to snap a couple of pictures for the blog.

Outside the Country Club's banquet hall.

They had about 8 cash tables running.

Waiting for a table, with my $200 buy in.


Nice view.

Grinding out my stack.

Final cash out: $475

Anyway I left feeling REAL good that day because I'd managed to build a nice little $800 bankroll with the profits of the last 3 sessions (+$415 on the 2nd, +$150 on the 6th and +$275 on the 8th.)

Of course this all went to shit, and my ship came crashing down the very next day. I realize $800 can't even be considered a bankroll for playing 200NL but just knowing that I built up that $800 on the tables had me feeling pretty invincible. In fact $800 in just 3 sessions of poker had me wondering why the hell I still had a real job. I soon found the answer to that question.

So the next day (the 9th) I decide to hit up the 200NL tables at a private game. I got there around 9:30pm and by 10'oclock I was already down one buy in ($200). My second buy in didn't go to well either as I ran my top pair into a set and then lost a couple of smallish bullshit pots. I considered quitting at this time but said fuck it and reloaded once again. Bad mistake. I tilted off that buy in with stupid donkey plays like re-raising out of position with marginal hands and getting myself into some tough spots. I finally got all my money in with what I thought was a live flush draw only to realize I was drawing completly dead when my opponent called with a bigger flush draw.

I hung around for a while, trying to absorb the fact that I'd just lost $600 in about 2 hours. The guy who runs the game told me I could play on credit which I didn't want to do. I still had another $200 in my pocket as well, but I decided to just call it a night and left.

Now, for having just lost $600 (the most amount of money I've lost in a single day) I think I took it pretty well. I didn't let my frustration show as I left the game, and really the most upset I got was on the drive home. But once I got home I told myself I wasn't going to let the loss faze me, and instead I rolled up a blunt and chilled the rest of the night watching TV.

I haven't been back to the tables since. I used up the rest of my "bankroll" to go out with friends and shit, and since I took that week off from work, I haven't had any money to try and rebuild. I could still hit up that private game if I wanted to and play on credit since I'm a regular at that game, but I'd rather play with my own money.

Hopefully maybe by next week I'll have a couple of buy ins saved up and I'll go back to get my revenge. Til then I'm still going to try and update this blog as often as I can, just rambling about random bullshit.

Shit, this post is getting a little too long so I'm going to cut it off right here.

Peace and good luck at the tables!