Chumash II – Trip Report cont’d

Continued from trip report I

…I was crippled after my loss to the Fisherman. With only T600 left, I began looking for a hand to get it all in with. With blinds at 50-100, that was my only move. I did manage to double up once and dragged the blinds in a couple other rounds to keep myself alive. But I eventually ran into a stopper. It was folded around to me on the button with K-Qo. This was a great spot to push my last few chips in. I figured I would only take down the blinds but I didn’t mid getting called. Unfortunately, it was the Fisherman’s big blind and he called, saying, “I’ve got an ace.” He then turned over his cards, revealing only a 7. Then he slowing fanned it to show the ace. I laughed and said, “Hey! You can’t tell me you have it and slow roll.” Anyway, his ace held up and the tournament came to an end for me.

I took a quick scan around the room but didn’t spot any of my friends. So I decided to check outside the tourney room for anyone that had already been eliminated. I didn’t immediately find anyone but ran into Joe after a couple minutes. It turned out he was knocked out of the tourney just a minute or two after me. And he was the last one from our group! Wow! That was a first. We were all out by 12:30.

Joe and I found everyone else playing Let It Ride. We were all hungry so it was off to our traditional post-tourney spot, AJ Spurs. We made it over there by 1pm and ran into a new predicament. They didn’t open until 4pm. We’d never had this problem because we’ve always had at least someone last past 4 o’clock in the tournament. Oh well. We opted for Anderson’s Pea Soup. Thems was good eats! Kid had two bowls of pea soup which would make for rough waters (so to speak) later that night. I had a monte cristo because I hadn’t had one in ages and felt like being really unhealthy. Surprisingly, Paul had never eaten or heard of a monte cristo sandwich. I still can’t figure how that is possible.

After lunch, we went back to Paul’s cabin and played some more cards of the silly variety. By 9pm, we were ready for dinner and headed back over to AJ Spurs. We got lucky this time because they were closing at 9:30. Huh? 4 – 9:30? Whatever. After a really good steak and a couple drinks, we split up. Everyone was done for the night except Kid and me.

We went back to Chumash and hit the poker room. It was, as Kid described, pretty dead for a tournament weekend. We took the only seats readily available at a $5 NLH game, him in the 6 seat and me in the 7. Just sitting in that game, I was breaking one of my unwritten rules…Don’t drink and play. I only had two drinks with dinner but it was enough to loosen me up. I was too loose. I was having a ton of fun but that is usually secondary where poker is involved. This time, focus was secondary at best.

I played too many hands and made 0 lay downs. Actually, the hands I chose to play weren’t all that bad. But I was acting too fast, resulting in missed bets and over calls. The truth of the matter was that my opponents (I was usually heads up after the flop) were calling big bets on the flop and hitting their draws against me. Several times, I had two pair or better up against a straight or flush. I knew I had the worst every time as my opponents would min-raise me on the river but I never got away from my hands. One of my more valuable abilities is laying down losing made hands. But I didn’t do it even once that night. The result was two lost buy-ins.

Amidst this madness, Kid and I were playing side bets on suits/colors. I had spades and hearts (I think). With a buck at stake each hand, I was getting my ass kicked at that, too. I waived the white flag after dropping around $15. You own me, Kid. We left after I lost my second buy in. But at least Kid was playing well and easily left winner.

That’s all for now. I’ve got one more day of the trip to recap. So stick around.

SEEYa