Re-Buys and Re-Drinks

Ugh.

I have spent the last 62 hours in one of three states: drunk, asleep or hungover. It is the last which I have lugged to work today.

Having to work on a holiday is bad. Having to drive to work in a biblical thunderstorm because your train isn't running due to the holiday is worse. Having the storm knock out the power at your workplace for two hours, leaving you with little to do but plead for the clock to move faster is just plain horrible.

I don't know what lapse in judgement sent my dear and patient wife and I to the bottle last night. It became a frenzy, a sloppy descent into a stupor. Maybe because she was kinda pumped about my Final Table finish, much more so than when I informed her at 4:30 a.m. on Saturday. So she wanted to sweat me while I played another. So, onto the 4:45 p.m. $10/$1 tourney on Stars. And onto the mixing of Double Bloody Marys at 4:46.

A pretty tame tourney. I was cold-decked the entire time. I could barely keep my stack out of the bottom 10th percentile. I felt like a bug trying to crawl out of a wet bathtub. The highest pocket pair I got was fives. I went out with AJs (naturally). Flopped the jack and got called by pocket 10s, who made a runner-runner straight. Not that I can complain or anything. I caught a one-outer this weekend. No bitching about bad beats for a week. It's in the rules.

So, another two hours plus in a poker tourney and that's probably it for the weekend, right? No? "Let's play another one!" slurred my dear and patient wife.

It just so happens there's a $10/$1 re-buy starting on Stars in seven minutes. Oh, serendipity!

I'd mentioned my previous re-buy experience, so fastened myself in for some serious early round action. It was not to be. My table was very tight. I got dealt a couple big hands (including my first AA in what seemed like a millenia), but couldn't get any action. Nobody else really could, either. Coming up on the break, I was just below the starting chip count, so I re-bought. And got the T2000 add-on for good measure. Still a well-below average stack, but plenty of chips to play with.

I got moved right after the break and the table was much more to my liking. Some loose action going on and I started to slowly chip up. Late in Level 7, I made a killing with K5o in the BB. One limper and SB see a flop of Kc 10s 5c. SB makes a bet, I re-raise, limper re-raises, SB goes all-in, I call, limper calls. Limper has a crappy K7o. SB has a frightening QcJc. He is, in fact, a slight favorite with his draws. But he doesn't catch and I triple up, promting a celebration of Swedish teen-ager proportions, if Mattias Andersson had been pretty much drinking for 3 straight days.

It was soon after that, or thereabouts, that my dear and patient wife asked me the strangest of questions:

Do you have any pot?

Well, of course I don't have any pot. I haven't had any pot in roughly seven years.

Don't you keep some around for emergencies?

Yes, I have a little survival kit: a Mexican seed bag, an empty 7-Up can and some Chef Boyardee raviolis.

Now I have to re-focus, because getting high DOES sound like a good idea and my mind starts to wander.

I make it to the second break with an above-average stack and get moved again. To the steroid table. Lots of aggro rage going on there. I soon found out that stealing was not an option. Multiple pre-flop raises on every pot. I need to pick my spots. I lay down JJ once pre-flop. The guy who forced me to lay it down then started playing at me with all his worth. I let him, for a time.

Until I busted him with my pocket 10s to his pocket 8s. An ace came on the flop (the only overcard) and he re-raised my bet all in. A third player in the hand folded. Good thing, too. He said he had jacks. I would have had to fold if he stayed in. But deep in my adaptive unconscious, I KNEW my 10s were good when I got heads-up. Cue another drunken celebration.

Then I fucked up. Late in the third hour, I made a bad play. Tried a steal with Q9s and got re-raised by the BB. It wasn't that much more for me to call. In fact, it was an easy call and even when he showed AKo, I had live cards. But I didn't improve. And worse was the fact everyone saw I played Q9s. They were playing at me before, but now they REALLY played at me. And I lost a couple of pots I would have won if I'd had any respect at the table. My aggression had become uncontrolled, riding a wave of Ketel One destined to crash headlong into the shore. Unimproved medium aces called me all the way down; missed straight draw with bottom pair called me all the way down. Nobody would give it up.

Me, in my drunken reverie, realized this just a little too late. I was down to 6x the BB and had to push with 10s again. Got three effing callers. Worse, they had all four overcards live (and AK, an AJ a QJ). The jack is what ended me, 135 from the money.

And that's where the party ended, for me anyway. I was angry at my stupidity. Nothing worse than an angry drunk who's also depressed at choking away his stack. I power-smoked a couple butts and passed out.

My dear and patient wife apparently had some more fun, owing to the kitchen remnants of what appeared to be quite a late-night feast. I also found a highly entertaining e-mail in my box this morning.