Before/After (Hibachi)

Adhering to the criteria of this class is going to be impossible on certain posts. Therefore, I'm going to leave a code for Prof. Eshkenazi every time I would like to decline having a post graded. Let me think of a code... how about... Hibachi, in honor of local pro basketball hero Gilbert Arenas? Yeah, I think Hibachi is cool. If not, let me know if that's uncool.

Anyway, tonight is Wednesday, and for different people that means different things. In sports, you have the big North Carolina/Duke game, for which ESPN is devoting full coverage. Of course, for me it means two things. First, I'm going to be up on this campus until 9:30, which means I will undoubtedly update my basketball blog as well. Secondly, and most importantly... tonight is poker night.

You'll be seeing a ton of these entries as the semester goes on, and if you happen to see me Thursday mornings, well, you'll know why I look like utter crap. To catch you up on how I'm doing this year, check out my live journal, which before this class was my one and only venting outlet in terms of poker.

If you choose not to click on the link, I'll do a quick synopsis of my play so far this young year. Money wise I'm looking good, up $478.25 in 7 sessions. Anytime you're in the black it's a good thing. My first few sessions were quite masterful, a seminar in perfect tight-aggressive play. My last two, however, have been anything but.

Last Friday I netted $130, but honestly my game felt a little off. More or less I was getting lucky, hitting miracle flops, turns and rivers with marginal holdings (I plan on creating a vocabulary list just so that what I'm spitting isn't complete jargon). And then, this past Saturday I totally collapsed.

Players call it being "tilted", and if you're new to the game I'll show you what being on tilt means. In short, it's when extraneous variables (bad beats, annoying players) cause a player to do irrational things at the table. In this particular situation, Shawn Sheikhan's antics got the best of Phil Hellmuth, one of the best players on the planet (and if you don't believe him he'll surely tell you). No one is immune to tilt, and as good as he is, Hellmuth is no different.

With me, I ended up getting into a pissing contest with my boy Matt Baker. He had been jabbing at me all night, but I'll tell you about the play that ruined everything. Baker was on the button and he made it $4 to go, which meant $3.50 more for me in the big blind. In most games the standard raise is three times the big blind, but at this game there is no "standard raise" per se. I looked down and saw K-10 of clubs. I thought he might be trying to steal my blind, so I called.

The flop came A-7-2, two clubs, and since the ace was a club I had the nut flush draw. I could have bet, but I checked it to him. He bet five. I'm drawing at 11 outs twice, giving me about a 30% chance to catch, with $17 in the pot and only $5 more to call. I could have raised to see where he was at, but I called.

The turn was a blank for me, I think it was something like a four of hearts. I check, and he bets again. At this point I'm putting him on an ace, so I'm beat, but I still have one pull of the deck with my 11 outs and I only have to call $5 into a $23 pot. I call.

The river is a king of spades. I catch my king, but like I said I put him on an ace. I checked, and he fired a bet of $13. While it may sound like a decent amount of money, $13 into a pot of $36 is a value bet, AKA Baker silently screaming, "Please call me!". In effect he was pricing me into calling.

But, the ace. He was representing a good ace, and I thought I was beat. I folded.

He flipped over Q-2 of clubs! ACE HIGH!

From then on Baker outplayed me like crazy. I was calling him when I should have folded, folding when I should have called. It didn't help that he was a complete chatterbox, even going as far as telling me what he had before the flop. He REALLY got under my skin, and admittedly I don't tilt often. That [synonym for female dog] really pissed me off.

But, with poker it's all about moving on to the next hand, or in this case the next session. I plan on doing a better job of that tonight.

Glad I got that out of my system.