Home at last! Long road trip. The Indy meetings were really good from my perspective so there's a bunch of good upside for my territory which means, Mo Money, Mo Money, Mo Money!!!
On the family front, I made it back to Ohio for the rest of the week until today (well it was Sunday). I just got settled and thought I'd do a quick recap. I got to see White Bread's kids, which is always fun for me. I also got to meet his boys for the first time, they're 4, but I don't get back to Ohio very often. It's a huge pain in my ass to travel for pleasure and I know that the Poker action is few and far between. I got to spend Thursday night getting all liquored up and silly (ya, I know, you're shocked) with White Bread. Then I crashed on his couch. Apparently the kids were talking loud in the morning, but I never even noticed, I was out cold. It was WB's day off on Friday and when I finally awoke it was just me, him and the boys. So Uncle Nick got some catching up time.
First off, they wanted to watch a movie so we checked out Narnia, FYI There are NO Lions in that movie. I have to adjust my great movie criteria to include Zombies, Naked Chicks and Lions for a movie to be truly great. I managed to convince the boys that there were Zombies in Narnia which ought to keep them busy hunting for them for a couple of weeks. I then proceeded to assert my dominance of Mortal Kombat although one of the boys is a pretty good player and has his own unique strategy; he just presses the Kick buttons rapidly and manages to beat up on everyone, except me. I did have to give him some props on the couple of occasions when he did beat me. In my own defense, I was playing characters which I had no idea what their moves were. Once I settled in though, it was all over. To quote The Cincinnati Kid, "You're just not ready for me yet." ;-)
On the Poker front, White Bread managed to put together a ring game on Friday night. It was only 2/4, but I didn't give them a lot of time to prepare, although they don't play much higher. One of our oldest and best friends, Kevin, said that he'd go out drinking with us Thursday, but was his usual No-show. He did say that he would definitely make it for the game. When I pulled up to the house with Dad, White Bread was pulling the SUV out of the garage and shouts to me, "Guess who called and cancelled?" I instantly thought, Mother Fucker... "Kevin..." "Yup." He had 2 alternates lined up but they were No-shows since they didn't have guaranteed seats, I can't really blame them. That asshole has screwed a game with me on the only 2 occasions that I've been in town in 5 years. He's off my fuckin friends list. That's just about the only sin that would cause that to happen too. Just say that you might not make it up front to a Poker game and we can fill the seat. We had an open chair as soon as one guy busted out early and went home.
That's another thing that bothers me, but not as much as a No-show. Don't come to a game under staked. The seat has value and there are other people that will fill it with a proper stake; at least in theory. Maybe I'm just spoiled with the ready availability of Poker games in California and Vegas is just a short 1-hour flight away. In the few home games that I play in, AKA The Bond Traders and BD's, the table is locked and loaded. BD's sometimes flounders with a couple of short stake players, but they're more like alternates anyway. Short-handed games just suck. At least this game was the king of passive games.
They're so proud of how tight they play that they completely lose all aggression, not that they ever had much to begin with. I rammed and jammed the pots and got up around $260 early, but then a couple of the calling stations caught miracle rivers on fat pots to take me down a bit. I ended up the game winner $123. Still a good finish, but it was only a 5-hour session.
I saw not one, two, but three hands were the winner only called on the river with the nuts. Talk about terrible play. 2 times they didn't even know what they had, they were just calling to be calling. The other time I had 2 pair on the turn and pumped it up, when of all people White Bread only called with the nut straight. He said that he was just being nice, that didn't stop me from calling him a pussey though. I was good for a couple of more bets easy with that strong of a hand and their weak play.
Later dad and I got into a hand with two other players and it was a board that even I couldn't really get excited about betting since I down shifted on that hand. The board ended up A8833 (or something closely resembling). Dad led out on the River and I instantly raised; the other two guys folded. I picked up my hole cards and said, "we're chopping right?" "Ya, I'm playing the board," he replied. Saturday he asked me why I raised, did I actually think that they would fold. I said, "There was nothing to lose. They didn't have a pair or they wouldn't have checked it down." He thought about it and then agreed. Those are the easy money hands, my mistake was not betting the turn and at the very least building the pot a bit more. I probably still would have chopped with dad, but at least the calling stations would have paid to see the river before mucking.
Not a bad game, but then again; any port in a storm will do. Just no such thing as decent action in that part of the world. No money to speak of in those dying towns, so $100 looks like big cash to them. Every time that I do go back it just solidifies what a great move I made getting the hell out so many years ago.
I'm off the road this week and already have the No-Limit at BD's plus at least 2 trips to Bay 101 on deck. Back to making some real money.
Nicholas has left the 3s