7 April 2006

Where Is Everybody?: The game used to start at 7:00p.m. 7:00p.m. became 7:30 p.m. became 8:00 p.m. 8:00 p.m., tonight, became 8:15 p.m. for the first arrival, and close to 9:00 for the last. (Okay, I know that the preceding sentence was a bitch to follow because of all the periods, but I was handcuffed by the rules of punctuation.) We used to play from seven until three in the morning. That's right, an eight-hour shift. I was the first to start to punk out before three because of my Saturday gig. Then over time, 2:00 a.m. became the default end-of-game time.

Maybe, after seventeen months, we decided that, perhaps, eight hours of poker was a little much, especially with the new limits at which we currently play. Also, we’re not exactly, to put it kindly, as young as we used to be, and I’m sure that many Saturdays were wrecked by very sleepy guys who couldn’t get out of bed.

Remember the days when you could stay out all night with your crew, sleep a few hours, and go right back to your dissolute and immoral and lovely life (so goddamned lovely it makes you ache to know that it’s gone)? Well, those days are gone, so quitting at 2:00 a.m. is probably best

I Like Beautiful Things: Sometimes, you pay out a lot of chips and it feels like your soul has been soaked in lighter fluid and then set aflame. Okay, that may have been a bit much, but what I'm trying to get across is that it's not pleasant.

Sometimes, though, you lose a ton and it doesn't hurt at all. You had a brilliant hand that you could never come off of, even if there were a lot of chips being pushed at you the whole way. You may even have concluded that your brilliant hand was cracked. You're just not going to lay down your cards. I’ve paid $5 to show a boat that I knew had lost to a higher boat, even when my boat was the second best possible hand and nearly impossible to beat. Mostly you just want to turn over your cards. Why? Because they were so beautiful, and beauty should be shared as much as possible.

The Read: I'm holding Q-6 and the flop comes Q-Q-6. I've made the boat (a full house), a monster hand, at this point, the nut hand (that is, the best possible hand). I bet the $5, and Bert, inventor of the Bert Classic and halogen lighting, calls my bet.

Now, I'm just hoping that whatever cards land are under my queens, thus preventing a higher boat from being made. That means that I'm hoping for anything but kings and aces.

Fourth street brings a king. Fuck, an overcard, just what I didn't want. Still, it's unlikely that Bert, inventor of the Bert Light and mood lighting, would be holding kings. The odds aren't there, and, besides, it'd be too cold-blooded for me not to get paid on my best hand of the night.

So I do the only thing that I can do: I bet the $5, hoping that Bert was on a draw and will let it go now, and I take the little money that got into the pot. I'm not going to get paid for my boat, but a little is better than nothing, amen.

Instead of letting go, though, Bert raises me $5. I run the scenarios. He's got K-Q, in which case he beats me? He's got K-6, and I'm going to extract lots of money from him? I decide that he's not playing K-6, because he never would have called my first bet with that less-than-stellar hand. I don't put him on K-Q because then he would have raised my first bet with trip-queens (when one of your cards becomes three of a kind with a board pair).

I'm thinking, then, that he's got the pocket kings, and my hand is no good. Still, I can't throw my cards away; it's just too hard to let go of a boat.

One thing I could do would be to re-raise to see if he's on a draw or a bluff, but it's generally not a good idea to make "feeler bets" just to get info. Ideally, one should be able to extract that information through pattern recognition and close study of the mannerisms/behaviors of one’s fellow players. If I haven't been able to make a read already, then a $5 bet probably isn’t going to help me.

So I can't throw my cards or raise with them. At the end, I'm not even betting my boat. What was an attacking hand has become a calling hand.

The river is a junk card that couldn't have helped him, but I check. Bert, of course bets the $5.

I know that Bert has got pocket kings, the only cards that could possibly beat me. I even say, as I'm getting mentally and spiritually ready to call his bet, "I know that you've got the pocket kings, but I can't come off this hand." I throw in my chips, and Bert, inventor of the Bert Death Spiral and the motion sensor, shows me the kings.

Bert passed me on the turn when my Q-Q-Q-6-6 boat got cracked by his K-K-K-Q-Q boat. At that point, only the case queen (the last queen in the deck) could have helped me, but that means that I only had a 1-in-44 chance (a 2.27% chance) of making my four of a kind. I was dust.

The Damage: Even after that painful hand, I only lost $35.75. Not a win, but I’m still at +$267.75 for the year and my won-loss record’s at 9-4.


8 April 2006

Here Comes the Flood: From now on, I’m not going to Bert’s house for barbecues. It’s not that the food isn’t tasty-ass, because it is. And it’s not because the company isn’t pleasant, because everybody’s cool. It’s that every time that I go to a barbecue at Bert’s, a poker game breaks out, and I get my ass kicked.

Jesse Applies the Beatdown: We’re down to three players, Jesse, Bert, and Big Daddy (I’m Big Daddy).

We had decided to quit at 2:00 a.m., which seemed reasonable, but Bert and I got into a head’s up battle, and my pocket queens held up against his pocket jacks, and, because he was all-in, I knocked him out of the game. Still, there are twelve minutes until two, so when Jesse comes back from a break, I say that we should play heads-up for the last twelve minutes.

Having that idea was my biggest mistake of the night. In those twelve minutes, I lost $49.

First, I had A-Q. The flop comes 8-5-4, and, since I’ve got the board covered, I make a $5 bet, Jesse re-raises the five, as do I. The turn is a blank, and we both check it down. The river is another blank, and I didn’t even make a pair, though I still have the board covered. Jesse bets the $5, and I’ve already sunk so much money into this hand that I’m pot committed. I call his bet and Jesse turns over J-8, which means that he made a pair, which means that Jesse takes the $30+ pot.

I had A-Q against his J-8. I’ve got both of his cards covered, which means that he must pair to win the hand, which means that he’s got six outs, which means that he’s got a 12.5% chance of hitting a pair and taking my money, which he did.

A few hands later, I’m holding J-2 and the flop comes J-7-2. I’ve flopped two pair, which I might want to slow-play to let Jesse lead it for me, but the way that Jesse’s betting, I know that he’ll call if I make a bet, even if he’s on a draw. I put out the $5, and Jesse re-raises. I can’t punk out on this hand, so I re-raise. Jesse calls it. We’ve just each pumped $15 into the pot.

Fourth is a blank, but Jesse bets the five. I don’t have a choice, really, other than to call. Fifth doesn’t help me either, but I still have to call when Jesse bets out the $5. I’m into this pot for $25 when I turn over my cards and say, “I made two pair, jacks and twos, on the flop, but they never got better.”

Jesse turns over J-7, which means that he made top two pair on the flop. At that point, only a deuce would have helped me. I had two outs out of forty-five cards, which is less than 4.5% chance of winning the hand.

A Failure of Nerve: Jesse deals Omaha (you get four cards, but must play exactly two). The flop comes 9-7-5, all diamonds. There's a made flush on the board already, but I’ve also just flopped a nine-high straight. Heads-up, I’ve got a huge hand, but that flush is already out there.

I bet the five, but Jesse immediately re-raises. If I’m betting, Jesse has to put me on two pair with a boat draw, or a made straight, or even a made flush. If Jesse’s re-raising, he has to think that whatever I’m holding isn’t good enough to beat what he’s holding, which makes me think that he’s got a monster flush, maybe even the nut flush to the ace of diamonds that I’m now thinking is in his possession. Still, I have a strong hand, so I call.

A king of diamonds hits on fourth, which is of no help to me, and Jesse immediately bets the five. I’m pretty sure now that Jesse has the flush and that a king landing helps him. Why would a diamond king help him? The more diamonds that are on the board reduce the chances that I’ve also made a diamond flush. Also, if he’s holding a diamond flush lower than ace-high, then a king on the board strengthens his hand.

I think long and hard about calling the bet, but there are no cards to come that can help my hand. I fold my cards, but I throw my cards into the muck face-up in order to show Jesse what he made me fold. Jesse shows me his cards; He had a lot of face cards, but he didn’t have a flush. He had paired a king, but I had had the best hand. You might be wondering why Jesse would have pushed so much money into a pot when he had to know that he was behind the entire time, especially when I’m not the type of player to attack when he’s not in front. You might be wondering why he raised after the flop when he had exactly nothing. Logically, there were no sound reasons for him even calling a dollar bet, but he wasn’t playing his cards, he was making moves that he thought could get me to fold, and he was right. He punked me.

Damned Barbecue: What did my love of barbecue end up costing me? $119.25, which is one of my worst nights ever. The YTD total’s down to +$148.50 and the overall won-loss record’s down to 9-5.


10-14 April 2006

Special Las Vegas Poker Report: Spring Break, bitches! Five days in Las Vegas, where I always make money when I play poker. Always. This time, however, I took a pretty serious ass-kicking. I only won eighty-one hands in forty-five hours of play. That’s less than two hands an hour, which probably explains why I lost $312.25. God, I hate Las Vegas. I can’t wait to go back.


16 April 2006

Respect to My People: At first, we’re playing three-ways because some people are taking their time getting to the game. Doesn’t matter; all you really need, if there’s enough skill and money at the table, are two players.

I’m catching cards and I’m way up early, I mean by a lot. I’m actually starting to worry that the other two guys are going to run out of money before we have a fourth.

I needn't have worried. Do my boys lose their cool and start making bad plays? No fucking way. They stay calm and clear-eyed and they attack as fiercely as their cards will allow.

It doesn’t take very long before they’ve both gotten most of their money back. I should have been upset, I guess, for having lost the $80 that I had so quickly won, but, goddamn, they were both playing beautiful poker, and it was a pleasure to be in there with them, swinging away at each other. It’s like when you're playing three-on-three at the park and it’s a really close game between two good teams. It’s tense and terrifying and exhausting, and you can’t wait to have that kind of game again.

It Hurt My Eyes to See My Dreams Die: I have 7-4 of clubs, a completely unplayable hand. It’s not even worthy of seeing a flop if there’s any action in front of me. With the big-bangers at our game, though, there’s usually plenty of action, so I fold out. The flop brings a five of clubs, along with two high cards, one of which was also a club, which meant that I had picked up a club-flush draw. Bert makes an aggressive bet, and all of the players behind him also fold.

I had dealt the hand, so I had the cards sitting in front of me. I should have been satisfied that I had made a good play to muck my cards, but I was curious to see if I would have made the flush.

I burn and turn, and there’s the three of clubs. Yes, I would have made the flush, but it would only have been to my seven, which meant that there were plenty of clubs out there that could have hurt me.

I turn the next card, and it’s the six of clubs, completing my gutshot draw and giving me a 7-high straight flush.

This is such a stunning development, that I actually involuntarily stand up out of my seat in shock. It would have been one of the best hands that I had ever had, but it had been an unplayable hand, so I try to derive some comfort from the fact that I had made a solid play. Still, it’s the kind of hand with which you can make a ton of money because nobody would ever see the possibility of somebody having made the straight flush.

It’s like finding out that the girl with whom you were in love in high school but with whom you thought that you stood no chance was actually into you, but you hadn't had the guts to make a move. If only you’d taken that shot.

It Would Have Been Sweet: I fold Q-10-5-X when Bert makes it $4 because I don’t have a made hand, only a crappy straight or queens-pair draw. The flop hits Q-Q-4. I stop myself from cussing my brains out or turning over the table in despair. Maybe the three queens are no good or wouldn’t have held up. The turn is a king, a card that wouldn’t have helped me, and any card that doesn’t help you hurts you, so I’m feeling a little bit better now. The river, however, brings the case queen.

That’s right, I would have made four of a kind, the best hand that I would probably have made during the course of our game. Sometimes, though, it’s hard to get paid for such a great hand because everybody would be fearing that exact hand. This was not one of those cases. How do I know? Because Bert and Jesse go all the way to the showdown and Bert turns over pocket kings. Bert had made the K-K-K-Q-Q boat, a pretty amazing hand and one that he would never have come off of.

Bert’s bet to protect his hand did exactly that, knocking me out of a hand that would have gotten me paid.

Knife Fighting With Jesse: Jesse shows up late to the game, and he starts handing out the bad beats. Twice, he caught up to me on fifth-street, even though I had led the betting the whole way. Those two hands cost me $50, minimum, in investments, and probably $30 in profits. Do the math, and you see that that means a -$80 swing against me. Jesse also did the same thing to my big bro.

My big bro can take care of himself, no doubt, but I was still tired of seeing everybody pay out to Jesse. The thing to do, then, is to make Jesse pay as big a penalty to try to catch as you can, so that when he doesn’t, he suffers.

Another thing that you want to try to do is to get him in isolation plays, that is heads-up, so that if he does pay out, he pays out to you. Three-way showdowns usually mean that a big pot has gotten built up, which is always nice, but they also mean that there are twice as many cards that can hurt you.

On one hand of Omaha, I was holding A-Q-Q-X, so I had a solid pair and some ace protection (that is, my having one ace reduced the chance of an ace being in somebody’s hole cards or landing on the board by 25%). The flop came with a queen as the top card. I had flopped top set, which, at that point, was the nut hand (the best possible hand that anybody could possibly have). I checked it, Jesse bet the $5, and I made it $10 to go. He called, and when we finally got to the showdown, he paid out a nice little total to Big Daddy (I’m Big Daddy).

I Have Issues: It’s almost 3:30 a.m., and the agreed-upon last hand of the night has just been dealt. I look at my hole cards and find that I’m holding Q-5-5-4, with Q-5 diamonds. One low pair and a strong flush draw. Not at all a decent hand, and one that should be folded if there’s much betting in front of it.

There’s much betting in front of it, so I should fold. The thing is, though, that it is the last hand of the night, and it seems kind of wussy to fold out so quickly. I call all of the pre-flop bets and miss pairing up with any of the cards on the board. The best-case scenario would have been to hit a 5 on the flop, giving me a set with which I could have attacked. I did, however, pick up a diamond flush draw, which I then call to the end, only to miss on the river.

On that hand, Jesse and I pay Bert at least $25 each. What was Jesse playing to the bitter and brutal end? He had made a set on the flop and had a legit hand to defend or with which to attack.

You may be asking yourself, “Why did this dude chase a flush to the end without already having a made hand?” and you should be proud of your tough question. You could probably get a job at the New York Times. Why, then, did I chase? Because I’m a pessimist every place else but at the poker table. The world has shown me, again and again, that life is mostly just a series of ass-kickings, big and small (mostly big), but sitting at a poker table, I forget all of that and still dare to dream.

What did my dreams cost me? Tonight, except for that above-mentioned flush-draw hand, not very much. I won $41.75, got my YTD Total to +$190.25, and improved my won-loss record to 10-5.


21 April 2006

I'm Big Daddy: Not really, but that's what I sometimes call myself at the game. As in, "Big Daddy calls" or, more likely, "Big Daddy folds."  

I figure that the invocation of the third-person will somehow make me seem more powerful, somehow. I need all the help I can get because everybody who plays at our game is a successful person, and I have to fight strong feelings of inadequacy.

At least I'm not busting out with the Pluralis majestatis. Maybe I’ll try it one day. “We, at this juncture, feel that it would be most prudent if we were to cease contesting the outcome of this hand.” “We shall be sallying forth to the kitchen to acquire more cookies.”

It Was a Bloodbath: KayJay won $261 and I won $172.25. Everybody else left with empty pockets. The only thing that kept KayJay from walking away with all of the money was the fact that I was taking it from him.

I was acting behind KayJay, and since, like Jesse, he likes to get his pre-flop bets in, especially if there hasn’t been any action behind him (which, like Jesse, he tends to read as a sign that everybody else has weak cards), I knew that I could check-raise him into oblivion. Some people, when they've been check-raised, take it as an affront and will automatically call. KayJay's one of those people.

Eventually, after they’ve been attacked with a few check-raises, these bettors will start checking instead of betting their hands, even when they have betting hands, which gives you the opportunity to get free cards if your hand isn’t that strong.

Only a few times did KayJay and I get to a showdown, and I won nearly every single one.

I Was His Jesse: Usually, Jesse sits to my left, which means that he acts behind me, and I could always count on him to bet it for me. That way, I can hide the strength of my hand or get in a check-raise. Jesse, if he’s in a hand, tends to lead the betting. Sometimes, however, Jesse won't bet, and I'll miss out on a chance to build up the pot. On those occasions, I'll say something like, "How come you didn't bet it for me?"

During one hand, KayJay bet his cards, I raised, and everybody dropped out before KayJay called. We're heads-up, and I like my chances. At this point, I'd been taking a ton of money from him, and I kept running isolation plays on him even when my hand wasn't that strong because I thought that I could hustle the quan out of him by getting him to fold.

KayJay, though, with the 10-8 that he's holding, flopped the 10-10-10-8-8 boat, which meant that he was never going to come off of his hand, no matter how hard I pushed. I did have pocket nines, which gave me outs for straights, a runner runner flush, and to a boat of my own that would only get me my ass kicked. I also could have hit runner runner for four of a kind, but that was highly unlikely.

I led the betting until I folded to his fourth-street raise, and KayJay made a comment declaring the supremacy of his tactics vis-à-vis the just-played hand. I rejoindered that perhaps playing a flopped boat was not the most difficult of poker problems. He wisely countered by noting that he had let me lead the action, which, after a brief introspective moment, I had to acknowledge as having been, in fact, a quality play. It was at this point that I said, "Yeah, I was your Jesse" to Kay Jay. I should state here that Jesse had talked some "smack" about how I had hung myself in this particular hand, so this was a quality burn on my part, especially since it had made mention of the one part of Jesse’s game that can be exploited: his tendency to always be on the attack.

Jesse Versus Big Daddy II: A few weeks ago, Jesse and I had a ferocious twelve-minute heads-up battle. Well, honestly, it wasn't that ferocious; Jesse beat me like a one-legged stepchild (hey, I didn't make that up; I heard it in The Apostle, and it's permanently engraved in the brain now), and I gave him a ton of green.

It's the end of the night, we're down to three, Jesse knocks the other player out, and then it's just him and me. Rematch time.

The Bluff: Jesse deals Omaha, I have a nice starter hand—a lot of paint (face cards)—and some of it's suited. When Jesse bets out, I raise, and he calls. The flop misses me completely. Jesse checks and I bet the $5. Jesse calls, but I can tell that his hand probably isn’t very strong. Fourth street misses me again, but I've been leading the betting the whole way, so a check now would seem like weakness and might lead to Jesse making a bet that I couldn’t call after fifth street. Still, it’s another $5 on what is a busted hand. The best that I could make at this point was a high pair, but a high pair in Omaha is almost always worthless.

The cards on the board, though, make it look like I might be betting a stronger hand than the one I actually hold. I bet the $5. Jesse throws away his cards, and I turn over my cards to let him know that I had been on a busted draw and had then bluffed him out. What’d Jesse have? Two pair.

The Last Hand: I have pocket sevens and two face cards. Not great, but workable if I hit a seven on the flop or pair one of my face cards. When Jesse bets the max, I raise him the max. I’m not really holding a raising hand, but one way to counter aggression is with more aggression, especially heads up, and especially after you’ve bluffed a player off of a strong hand.

The flop comes 7-5-2. I have top set, and if the board pairs, I'll have a boat. Top set is already a powerful hand heads-up, but a boat will truly get me paid off. I could bet it here and try to lead the action, but I'm pretty sure that Jesse will bet it for me. I check, and Jesse does indeed bet the $5, which I smooth call.

Fourth street is a deuce. I make the 7-7-7-2-2 boat, but I check it to Jesse. He bets out $4 and I immediately say, “Make it nine.” At this point, I know that Jesse’s committed to the hand and that a raise will get a call, which I want, and not a fold, so I can make my raise. without throwing away money that I could make on fifth-street betting.

After fifth lands, I bet the $5, and Jesse, after thinking about it for a second while he has a half-frown on his face, says, “I’m not going to let you punk me out again,” which meant that he had vocalized what I had hoped was going through his mind, that I was playing another busted hand and that he probably had me beat. I turn over my boat, and Jesse looked none too pleased.

In Summary: Like I said, I pulled a ton of green. With the above-mentioned total, I’m at +$362.50, which means that I almost doubled my money in one night, and my won-loss record is now at 11-5.


28 April 2006

Gambler's Anonymous: It was suggested by Big Daddy (I'm Big Daddy) that, perhaps, those of us in the poker crew have gambling addictions and that, perhaps, some type of counseling or memberships in a self-help group (Gambler's Anonymous was an organization that was mentioned at this point by one of my fellow players) may be in order. I though that perhaps we could take a half-hour break during the poker game, have a little Gambler's Anonymous meeting, and then go right back to the poker game. I thought that it was a brilliant plan—acknowledge the gambling problem, pretend to work on it, and then go right back to gambling—but Jesse, wise man that he is, pointed out that this meeting would only delay the end of the game by half an hour.

Until Two: I'm the first at my big bro's so I set up and wait. Bert, inventor of the Bert Classic and the Roland TR 808, was next, and then my big bro made it. All we really need to get started is three players, so we're getting ready to get the cards in the air when another car pulls into the driveway. Most of the other players weren't expected for a little while, so we wondered whom it was who had just arrived. It was Ivan, poker player deluxe and designer/programmer of this here website. Ivan's been at the game a lot less than he ever has. Life, you know, but it was good to see him at the game.

Usually, I have to leave the game early (because of my stupid Saturday job), but, in honor of Ivan’s presence, I said that I’d go until two, even if that meant that I’d be more zombied out at work than usual. Luckily, I've been completely half-assing it at my Saturday gig since I started, so it’d be hard to tell that I was completely exhausted.

The Automator, Part III: There are those of us who are lightweights, who can get drunk just by looking at a beer. Our game is pretty chill. Some of us might drink a little bit, sure, but nobody ever gets all boozed up and starts acting like a nitwit.

I should say here that I hate being around drunks. I find them to be annoying in the extreme. In fact, on two previous trips to Las Vegas, I’ve almost slugged it out with two guys who were drunk and acting stupid. One of them tried to put his arm around me because, as boozers are wont to do, he wanted to be my buddy. I told him, “Bro, you need to get your arm off of me,” which he didn’t like. He asked me, “What the fuck is your problem?” and I said that I just don’t like talking to drunks. The conversation devolved from there and I had decided that if he were to take a swing at me (I was sort of hoping that he would) that I would beat him to death with a chip tray. Not really, but if it was going to be on, it wouldn’t have been on for very long.

The time after that, another drunk moron was showing his about-to-be-mucked cards to his buddy all the way across the table. I told him that he can’t be showing his cards to other players because we were in the middle of a live hand. He flipped out and half-yelled at me that he’d been playing “fuckin’ poker” in “Vegas” for a long time, etc. I reiterated that it was not cool to be flashing dead cards even if the person to whom they are being flashed is also out of the hand.
 
There are open-information games—like chess or checkers or go—where all players have equal access to the current circumstances of the game. All you have to do is look at the board. Then there are limited-information games—like Battleship or Stratego (I used to be awesome at Stratego) —where not all of the information is shared equally. Poker is a closed-info game, so Cletus inadvertently showing his cards to other players gives them free information to which other players don’t have access. It makes the game unfair, and I’m all about fairness.

The dude continued with the half-yelling (he comes, I think, from the loudest-person-wins school of debate), but I calmly kept explaining how he had been in the wrong. I don’t know why I do this to myself; nobody ever acknowledges when they’ve screwed up. You can’t get most people to listen to the facts or to logic. This dude just wasn’t going to get it, so I was wasting my time.

Eventually, after our intellectually invigorating discussion had been over for a while, he went for a smoke. When he came back, he surprised me. He actually acknowledged that what he had done was not okay, and then he apologized. I also acknowledged that, perhaps, I had been a little too blunt in my assessment of his actions. Then we chatted. It was pleasant.

Which leads us back to the Automator. He arrived semi-loaded and got to fully loaded in no time at all. This would have been a little more tolerable if he hadn't sat directly to my left.

I’m kind of a stickler for etiquette and efficiency in general, but especially at a poker table. Any deviations from poker etiquette can lead to slow play and/or confusion, so it’s just best if players act and things progress as they should. Needless to say a loaded dude is going to slow down game play.

I had to keep helping the Automator when it was his turn to act or to deal, which just made me more and more frustrated. Check it out, though: usually, the Automator leaves most of his money at the game and walks away with much lighter pockets. It turns out, however, that a drunk Automator is better at poker than a sober Automator. He actually made money.

One Dollar: That's how much I lost after five hours of knife fighting with my homies. I had been down about seventy and I had just gone to pull the second $100 out of my man bag because I was involved in a hand that was either going to get me started toward some kind of comeback or that was going to take my last chip. Improbably, I won that hand, and that started me on a bit of a rush. Next thing I know, I'm almost even. Then I take a nice pot from Jesse...only to give nearly all of it to Bert on the next hand.

I was actually up as the last hand of the night was being dealt by Bert, a massive $9. Not a lot, we can all agree, but up is up, amen. Can I get a witness?

Then, like the nitwit that I am, I go right back into the loss column. I had some possibilities in my four cards, so I stayed in for the flop. The flop gave me both straight and flush draws, but no made hand. I chase it to the end, only to end up where I started: with nothing. In fact, if I had made the spade flush to my "10," I would have paid out to Bert because he was on the same spade flush draw, but his draw was to his ace.

Overall, I had a losing record in April, 2-3, but I still managed to win $58, taking my YTD Total to +$362.50. We played five times in April, so I averaged $11.60 a game, and my won loss record ended up at 11-6. I hope that May is better. We’ll see.