The Conclusion of the Poker Marathon

We played poker this past weekend, making it the seventh weekend in a row of poker for us. For most poker players, I'm sure this is no real biggie, but playing poker on weekends for us pretty much consumes the entire weekend, which means absolutely nothing else gets done.

Let me elaborate:

If we're playing a regular Saturday game, I try to stay up as late as possible the night before to "condition" myself. When we first started, I had no problems staying awake until 4 or 5AM Saturday morning, but lately I've only been able to stay awake until 2AM at the latest.

That means Saturday mornings do not exist. I usually don't see the light of day before noon. If I get up any earlier, I'll be too tired when it gets late in the game Saturday night. The rest of the day Saturday is usually occupied with mundane tasks, nothing too mentally challenging. By 5:30PM we're out the door, have food and gab with our poker buddies at 6, and are down to business by 7PM.

Our games are tournament-style, so quite often they last until very early Sunday morning. Last week when we came home the sun was already up. That also means sleeping until way past noon on Sunday. By the time we finally roll ourselves out of bed, we grab some food, pick up Cragar from his sleepover at Gramma and Grampa's house, then often veg out the rest of the night.

So after seven weeks of this, I'm very, very tired. On the bright side, I also have a nice chunk of change in my pocket.

I managed to squeak a 5th place finish out at the American Legion tournament a couple of weeks ago, and also won 2 of the other small games we played. I placed third at our last $60 buy-in tournament, and this past weekend, I placed first in the $60 buy-in tournament. So 5 out of the last 7 times we've played I managed to cash in. Not too shabby!

Actually this past weekend I wasn't expecting too much. I wasn't really feeling in the poker groove, I just wanted to have fun. The six other people we usually play with on a regular basis are great people and just fun to hang out and shoot the shit with. So early on in the game, I wasn't really paying attention, I was being silly, knocking back a couple of drinks (which I normally won't do when I play poker - may as well say, "Here, take my money please!"), then I looked up at the board where the prize payouts were written. Then I stopped drinking and started paying attention. I was still having a great time, but I wanted to concentrate a little more on the game.

My chip stack was getting low - I was down about $20 in chips from where I started. I was sticking to my fairly tight game of waiting for the goods and hammering from there. It was winning me small pots - I guess I was playing just a bit too tight because not many people would really want to stay in a pot with me.

It started turning around for me a little later when I was on the button and the first player to act raised a pretty hefty amount. I hadn't looked at my cards yet - I absolutely refuse too look at my cards before it's my turn because I don't want to give away any information - and the guy next to me was taking time to deliberate whether or not to call the raise. While he was thinking, I was running possible scenarios in my head. What kind of hand would I need to call? What kind of hand would I need to re-raise? I made up my mind that if I looked down at a high pair or A-K, I'd call. If I looked down at K-K or A-A, I'd re-raise all-in. I really liked the second option much better since the blinds sill had to act behind me. The guy next to me ended up folding, I looked down at my cards, and guess what? A-A, baby! No kidding. I was mortified to hear a little chuckle escape from my mouth. So much for not giving away any information. I quickly tried to cover it and re-raised all-in. The blinds folded and the original raiser called. He flipped over A-Jo and my Aces held up for the win!

I got quite a nice stash on that pot, but there was still a huge chip leader at the table. At that point, I thought the rest of us would be playing for 2nd or 3rd place. But then the chip leader lost a huge pot. Most of his chips went to the guy sitting next to me. After that, another player went all-in for an extra couple of chips and the guy sitting next to me called. I looked down at A-Js. I also called. The flop came out A-rag-rag and my opponent went all-in. So much for checking it down. I debated a bit, sensed that I may be making a big mistake, but then realized it took him a little bit to call the all-in raise in the first place. I muttered something like, "I'm probably making a mistake..." and called. My opponent had A-10o, and my A-J held up to knock both of them out. I think I was the chip leader at that point.

When I got to heads up, it was oscillating back and forth between me and my opponent, and honestly I don't even remember what hand I won with. Something like pocket 10s or pocket Jacks.

I was pretty surprised I did so well, especially since I honestly wasn't feeling in the groove of the game. Sometimes when I play it's almost like I'm on autopilot and it's effortless. This game wasn't like that. But it still worked out.

Then we broke the tradition on Sunday and went shopping. I used my winnings to buy a nice new flat-panel TV for the office. Not too bad.

Next month we're having a $100 buy-in tournament. I think I'm taking a poker vacation before that one. I really don't want to be burned out for a prize payout like that will be.

The upside to winning all this poker? If I do well in the $100 tournament, I'll be able to finance the Intense Pulsed Light treatment for my rosacea since the insurance company won't do it. That works for me!