Robert Gentel’s Blog

A few years ago I was playing a tournament and was nearing the bubble without many chips. I needed to commit to a hand soon, or the blinds were going to bust me. I was dealt a queen, and then another queen that flipped over before I quickly slapped my hand over it to try to save it from being burnt. Nobody saw the card but the dealer insisted on burning it anyway, denying me the pocket queens that would have kept me in the tournament.

Today I played a brief 1/2 session which ended on a similar note. I played my first hand (KQ) in a multi way pot that nobody hit and I was able to take down and it gave me some chips to play with and I promptly moved off my cards and stole small pots to quickly build up my stack. Then right after I changed gears I was dealt Aces, which got 3-way all in action against kings and 3. The player with the 3s said he thought he was in last place pre-flop but wanted to “gamble” and it paid off for him as he spiked a 3 and ate most of my session profits.

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Tonight was a decent night at the poker tables. I’m no longer playing full-time as most of my friends know, and play only a couple of times a month at most these days while I refocus my efforts on the web development and marketing and sure enough, now that I don’t do this full-time I can’t lose.

I haven’t lost a live poker session this year, and though I don’t know exactly when this streak started it’s been close to a full year now without any live losses. I won 2k+ tonight on the 2/5 tables. I wasn’t getting any hands, but picking my spots to steal the pots I needed to stay even. Then with pocket Jacks two people bet hard in front of me, one of them bet $300 and made me think a full minute about laying it down despite my read telling me this was a bluff.

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After tweeting in praise for Continental I must retract my compliments. See, while they did reschedule the flight I missed free of charge they told me I would have 60 minutes to clear immigrations and customs in Houston and connect to my San Diego flight. I’ve done that before many times so I didn’t think it would be a problem till I actually looked at the tickets and noticed they quoted me the wrong times. My flight landed in Houston at 5:25 and my connecting flight was for 6pm.

I knew it was going to be tight when it took till 5:35 to taxi up to the terminal and deplane, but I gave it the good ole college try, and despite needing to piss so bad my teeth were floating I did in fact clear immigrations and customs, get the train to the other terminal and run to the gate in time. I was already making plans to make a bee line for the bathroom when I was cheerily informed at the gate that “We knew  you weren’t going to make it and we booked you on the next flight.”

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