Day One - Levels Seven and Eight

The table is finally broken and I have been sent to the Horseshoe, Table Red 536.

This seems to be a weirdly polite table so far.  When I bluffed at a flop in a battle of the blinds from the big blind, the small blind raised me and I folded.  He then showed me his hand, top pair, and said, “I just wanted you to see that I wasn’t making a play, I really had it.”

The table is not preflop raising much either.  It’s like there is a collective thought that doing that is a little déclassé.  Or, they are setting me up.  It’s happened before.

New guy just sat down and when the guy to my left raised 3x the blinds, he went all in.  Ah, we see that not-so-rare specimen, the Poker Maniac, whose lifespan extends until someone comes into a better hand.  All or nothing!

I am playing too passively.  I folded 99 instead of calling an all-in which would have tripled me up.  I folded 66 which would have won against 33.  I think the folds were right, but man, there’s a timeline in the universe where I make all the right decisions and am sitting on 150,000 chips.  That’s the infuriating part of the game - the missed opportunities, watching the chips that should have been yours nest in front of someone else.

35,000 is where I am right now. I can’t seem to get much above it, or much below it.  The average is now 51K, so I am feeling a little more pressure to elevate, but I have to stay patient.

And AJ comes along to give me a big hand.  Now at 41K, after  firing at a guy who was worrying about a flush.  Up and down, up and down.

The maniac is gone - lost with A10 to AK held by my next door  neighbor.  He is funny, the nice guy who shows his hands.  “You are too decent to play poker,” my left-side neighbor says, and everyone at the table agrees.

I have gotten on a little run.  No show downs, just folds to my bets either preflop or on the flop.  Now 51,500 with twelve minutes left in Level 8.  I have already ordered dinner, which should be ready to pick up when we break.  Still not at average, but getting closer!

Off to dinner and a quick shower!


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