Conditioning

No, I'm not talking about conditioning my hair, I'm talking about poker.

I'm presently in conditioning mode, gearing up for tomorrow's Second Annual $100 Buy-in Tournament. I'm conditioning myself to be able to stay awake and coherent if tomorrow's game goes late, so I'm staying awake as long as I possibly can tonight. It sucks that it's only 12:30 and I'm ready for bed NOW. It sucks even more that I had some kind of mysterious bug today that rendered me dizzy, nauseous, and with a killer headache.

Dave got home from work and said he wanted to go out to Cabela's and the hardware store... I had the beginnings of a headache so I downed two Alleve, put shoes on, and we went out. My headache was getting worse by the minute, so I kind of leaned back in the seat a little and closed my eyes. I don't know if it was motion sickness from keeping my eyes closed or what, but all of a sudden my face and roots of my hair started sweating, I felt sick to my stomach, tired, and dizzy. When we got out of the car at Cabela's I thought I was going to fall over. Thank goodness Cabela's has nice little benches around all the dead, stuffed animals because I thought I was going to hurl if I had to stay on my feet a minute longer. My headache was still there, too, and it's like my sense of smell was amplified times 1000. Everything stank to me, and it was making me more nauseous by the minute. After Dave found what he was looking for, I asked if we could just go home instead of jaunting off to the hardware store. When we got home, I went directly to bed - in theory a good idea, but I had the spins like I was hammered drunk. I don't know what the hell was going on. I felt so sick I was actually crying. Cragar, being his empathetic self, jumped up and licked my face, then laid by my head for awhile. I fell asleep, woke up two hours later and felt fine, but tired. I have no idea whatsoever what the hell it was, but I sincerely hope it does not decide to reappear tomorrow night. I'd hate to give up the poker game - but I will if I fear I'm going to hurl all over the poker table... Talk about tells - "These cards SUCK!"...BARF! It just sucks to get the spins when I didn't even enjoy any alcoholic beverages to get them.

Anyway, back to the poker, last year's tournament sucked the big one for me, so I'm hoping I can turn things around a bit this time. I must admit I'm a bit apprehensive, for three reasons:

One, last year people were playing like maniacs - bets and pot sizes like I've never seen - it was like everyone went temporarily insane. I don't do well with a table full of maniacs. I tend to get pissed off and start playing stupid. Yea, that's my problem that I have to control, but it's still a work in progress.

Two, we're playing with a couple of people we never played with before. I'm so used to playing with our regular group that when newcomers are there I get all messed up. Another reason why it's important for me to condition myself to stay awake and coherent so I can pay close attention.

Three, I'm kind of going into it with a bad superstitious feeling. We went on a poker bender the last several weeks - actually we did play 2 more weekends after that last post about the poker marathon, and there were only 3 weekends out of NINE that I didn't cash in. So I've been on a winning streak. I should feel good about that, right? Logically, yes, I should. Actually, no I don't. See, I've been winning at the small stakes games we've been playing recently. Winning at one of our $60 buy-ins and then outlasting 130 people in another tournament, I'm beginning to wonder how much of that was luck. Not luck in the sense that I was sucking out on people, but luck at picking up the right hands at the right time (of course, there's some skill involved in knowing what the hell to do with the right hands at the right time). What would have happened if I didn't get those important hands at the right time? I'd be out, most likely. So all in all, I'm not always so confident in my poker skills. I'm suspecting that tomorrow's game - the game that is going to pay the very very nice money that can either finance the IPL for my face or a new MacBook - will not provide the right hands at the right time - that the Poker Gods will say, "um, you've won enough in the last couple of weeks, give someone else a fucking chance, huh? NO MONEY FOR YOU!

Well, the time has advanced now to 1AM - I was hoping to stay up until at least 4, but I don't think it's going to happen. Maybe the extra sleep will do better for my concentration than staying awake. Only time will tell...