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.

I went back to picking spots and taking down small hands while waiting for a real hand to play, when I was dealt a burnt queen (it too flipped over). When my next card came I remembered the tournament and managed to think “I hope it’s not a…” to my self before peeling back the card and confirming my fears. Cash poker games are a tedious grind, while you wait for those kinds of hands. I was already planning to leave within a couple hands (I always try to leave when the blinds work around to me) but that made me pick up on the spot. The dealer offered a timid “sorry”, I told her it was no problem but that was the end of that session.

And because I’m logging my sessions on this blog (that I and a random robot are the only readers of) I should mention that the streak is intact and I turned a $120 profit for the session (2 hours) despite the bad luck. I’m going to start playing regularly again. Not full-time again, but at least weekly. The poker game in Costa Rica seems to have picked up a bit and I want to test its profitabilty in a mix of 2/5 Clarion casino games and 1/2 Colonial casino games. But next time, please please don’t burn the queen.

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.

  I pushed all-in and the other guy folded and was relieved to hear that I was right, he had “air” (meaning nothing in poker jargon) and even more relieved that he was going to call my final $200 or so. Hitting a set on the flop allowed me to ignore the rest of the cards that came, and I doubled up (and didn’t see what cards he was calling with). So my $500 buy-in was now over $1000 and I stole a couple of small pots while waiting for my next hand.

The table was gunning for me, and starting to loosen up so I moved off my cards a bit and started calling in position with suited hands and low connectors when there were a lot of players in. I bled out a bit while missing a few flops but then hit what I needed with a K8 of diamonds. The flop had an Ace/rag of diamonds and I used body language to indicate that I hit (looked down at my chips immediately after flop was dealt and appeared to be sizing up a big bet). There were 5 players in the hand, but they checked to me, letting me check for a free turn.

The turn came diamond rag, giving me the nuts and I slow played, only calling the small turn bets. At the river, there were 4 of us left, and the first to act bets out $100 and the next guy calls. I do my best “gamble gamble” body language in a huge overbet and push all in for over $1,000. The next guy folds and the action returns to the guy who led out with $100+. He was clearly suspicious of my huge bet, and the pot was pretty big just because of how many people were in. There had been a couple of all-in bluffs previously and he was determined not to be outplayed. I didn’t think my overbet would have any biters, but I immediately began to play the role I needed, putting off a couple of subtle tells. When he stacked up around $900 to call I acted (only with the eyes, too much and they think you are doing it on purpose) like my heart just sank and kept eye contact (looking around casually is a tell that you have a hand so I did my best “I’m trying to scare you off the pot, but I really don’t want a call” act). He bought the act (which is as much a credit to his bad play as my “all in the eyes” acting job because there is no hand he could have that he should not have folded without much thought) and doubled me up again leaving me with a 2k+ stack and lots of room to work the table a bit more.

I changed gears and played most of the rest of the night tight, and picked a couple of spots to steal my way to a couple hundred more in winnings here and there. I finished the night with about $2,900 off my $500 buy in, which was a nice night for a 2/5 table and that extended my run of winning sessions. But this brings me to the disturbing thing about the poker tables. A couple of weeks ago, I played poker with a gentleman who subsequently passed away that night. I only met him that night, and it didn’t personally affect me beyond the usual weird feeling about whether to feel better or worse about taking a dead man’s money on his last night alive but the thing is this is not the first time this has happened in the last year. He died of a stroke, but earlier another poker aquaintance died driving home from the game.

Given that another poker aquaintance was murdered  in 07, and that I last saw him on the poker tables as well made for a disturbing déjà vu or two. It has wierded me out a bit, and I wish I were taking more bad beats and losses and that the poker players were living to play another day.

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.”

I asked what they meant, I’m there, the plane is there and a guy just got on the plane right after I arrived, but when they handed me the next flight’s tickets it was clear that they bumped me for someone else and there was no use trying to argue about it. In any case it’s untoward to argue with a ruptured bladder so  when  nearby bathroom caught my eye that was that and their evil deed was a fait accompli and in Houston I was to stay till after 9pm.

My single protest was a heartfelt “fuck Continental” at the restroom urinal. When heads turned inquisitively in my direction I held the traditional stare at the wall not a foot in front of me and didn’t explain. You aren’t supposed to look sideways at a urinal anyway, you are supposed to stare at the wall in front of you like it’s a mile away and you need to make out the words on a sign…

I called my buddy who had already rescheduled the airport yet again and sheepishly informed him that there had been yet another missed flight and that I’d be gettting in close to midnight. Then I had some time to kill so I headed to the parking lot and read a few books. The first was one of those self-help books I loathe, but that several friends insisted I read and that I happened to have with me. It was The Richest Man in Babylon, whose cliffnotes can be summed up as: 1) save money 2) make your money make money 3) don’t risk it on dumb investments. In other words, nothing revolutionary here, but at least it was a very short read.

So I picked up Freakanomics, and was well into that by the time my next flight came around. I finished it on the plane, and while it was interesting it was superficial (I’d love to have seen more substantiation of the claims made, even though I don’t necessarily disagree with them) and I’ll write about it when I finish the rest of the “bonus material” in the book.

But I digest. What I really came to write was that I retract my praise of Continental. I refrain from heaping scorn, but they no longer rock in my book.