A Thanksgiving Turkey

Thanksgiving I went over to the in-laws after work to play a little poker. I had to work the next morning so this probably wasn’t the best idea, but damn it is hard to pass up a game. I played till 2 in the morning. We there were 5 of us playing mini-tourneys at $5 buyins. Nice friendly games. Mom played the first 4 then got tired. The rest of us kept drinking, playing, and talking shit. OK, final stats: Mom -$10, Bro -$5, JV and Mist -$5, and me the big winner +$10. We probably played 8 or so games. Though I did well, JV was the overall winner. We paid 2 places each game. JV was in the money more than not. I would like to see his variance over 50 games. I would guess he would be well in the hole. But the night was his night. He was winning all the races and sucking out often. He would put his chips in bad and need 1 card and miraculously it would appear out of the deck as if Johnny Angel the mind freak was dealing. It was eerie; he did it so many times. But don’t get me wrong, I give him respect for his game. He was hyper-agro all night long and talking shit the whole time that he was taking our chips. You never knew if he had it or not. He actually played pretty Tuff. And just to listen to his theories and philosophies on poker, betting, and gambling in general was well worth the price of admission. He said, “Boy I hate to fold those,” “I like to at least see a flop with those cards,” and, “Those hit more than not,” to the point that I realized that their aren’t any cards that the boy doesn’t like. He was a cool customer with his constant limping and barrage of BS bets and total aggression. Plus he always showed his cards, bluff or not. Basically he had the table half on tilt all night, making calls, bluffs, and raises in response to his overall lunacy. All in all, a great night of low-cost, high-fun poker. Oh yea huge argument on how often certain hands come up. He said that you will hit your pairs on 2’s and 3’s more than any other cards in the deck. He said our odds and outs are just math. It doesn’t mean shit. It doesn’t take into account the shuffling of the deck and luck. Give him 32s any day. We can have our shit hands. He plays the players not the cards. He’s like the fucking retarded Yogi Berra of poker. Fun night. Oh yea, I lost one tourney when my 2 pr ran up against Mist’s Royal Flush. I actually didn’t feel bad about losing the tournament. Ain’t too often you get whipped by one of those live.

But hey, he won, so what the hell do I know.