Where was this horseshoe when I needed it?

Well, I FINALLY won a game in my home league. This season has been an unmitigated disaster for me: only one previous cash in two months.

Tonight, I got lucky over and over on the river. My hands held up or I sucked out, sometimes spectacularly. It was the polar opposite of my experience in Vegas.

It'll be quite a while before the Poker Karma actually evens out, but this was a good start. In any case, I'll take it!

[Update: I also won a pub poker tourney the next night. The reign of terror has begun. Fear me!]

Vegas Kicked My Ass

Made good decisions. Had fun. Definitely did not profit.

In fact, I lost a lot of money.

Played well in tournaments, only cashed in one small one. Got my money in good every time I went out, but got outdrawn to the two- and three-outers. What can you do?

Played mediocre in cash games but got extra-hammered by variance there too. My last hand was typical of the whole trip: I was felted by top set over middle set. Should I have been able to get away from it? Maybe. Maybe.

It'll be interesting to see how my poker enthusiasm weathers this fairly major body blow.

Vegas, Baby!

Just about 24 hours 'til I get in a big silver bird and fly west to poker mecca.

My game plan is as follows:

1. budget of $X per day;


2. enter one major tournament daily;


3. win or cash in tournament;


4. take tournament winnings or remainder of budget and play cash games (probably 1/2 NL);


5. lather, rinse, repeat;


6. ????


7. Profit!

I also expect to hang out with the Poker Academy folks, catching up with old friends and, I hope, making some new ones.

Of course my goal is to not NEED my budget after the first day or two, but rather to be ahead. Nevertheless, having a stop-loss seems like a good idea. I know it's possible to run extremely bad (viz. some of my previous trips to AC).

Actually, my game plan really goes like this:

1. Make good decisions.


2. Have fun.


3. Profit!

Proud of Myself

I played in a cash game tonight. A couple of hours in, I was up 6x my buy-in.

And then I was brutally coolered, when my set of Queens was crushed by a set of Kings, both of us all-in on the 9KQ flop.

Why proud?

Because I didn't steam. I didn't tilt. I shrugged it off and managed to finish the evening with a profit of 2x my buy-in. I played well and maintained my discipline despite a serious setback.

I am prouder of that than I am of the actual monetary gain.

Lebensraum

There I am in the ladies' locker room in my gym.

It's divided up into bays and alcoves, and my preferred section has twenty full-length lockers in it.

TWENTY. That's 2 x 10 for those of you keeping score at home. Twenty. As many as most people have fingers and toes.

So why ~ for the love of all that is holy, sacred, and worthy ~ must women with many garments and tote bags pick the two lockers on either side of mine to use? There are somewhere between 14 AND 19 UNUSED LOCKERS, and they feel they must select the ones directly adjacent to mine why? For maximum crowding and inconvenience?

WTF LADIES?
Are you utterly dimwitted or do you just like to flock together like sheep?
Or both?

One Possible Explanation

I have long since traced my attraction to youthful men back to my childhood adoration of my brother.

At the gym, a further thought crossed my mind, and this thought made frightening amounts of sense to me. What if, say, as a child I perceived my father as a threat of some sort ~ whether accurately or not doesn't really matter for the sake of this discussion. Let's say I perceived him as somehow emotionally (and sexually?) unsafe. And let's say also that I perceived my brother as emotionally nurturing (which he was) and entirely safe (ditto).

Why wouldn't I adore him? Why wouldn't my little psychological bird-brain imprint on him as an appropriate type to become attached to? From my childhood to my adolescence my brother, who is ten years older than me, was my model of a good guy. My image of a good guy was formed around a young man of no more than about 28 years of age.

And wouldn't it then make sense that I would rarely, if ever, be attracted to older, or older-looking or -acting men? They remind me of my father. The only man I've ever dated who was older than I (by all of five years) was 25 at the time.

It's not at all clear what, if anything, I can do with the additional insight. But there it is.

Teh Cuteness: What is to be done about it?

A lovely evening's game in the company of Mr. UC. He greeted me with a warm hug and kiss on the cheek. We took turns sharing tunes via iPod/iPhone. (Apparently I play even more aggressively when listening to rap. Imagine that.)

After he busted out, he sat behind me until I went out sixth at the final table, half an hour later... playing DJ for me from his iPod. There's something very hot about someone's musical selections being piped directly into your head.

I now know how old he is, as he volunteered this information unprompted. Oy. So it appears I have collected yet another inappropriately-aged male friend of great attractiveness. Why, Lord, why?

I do enjoy the hugs though. (There are generally two per evening. Now my challenge is to come up with a way to increase that number. And the kisses, what about the kisses? I do feel there ought to be kisses.)

In His Head

I confess I did something a little bit evil the other night.

Mr. WPY is off on a cruise of Baja California with his girlfriend this week. Which, as I've previously indicated, I have come to terms with just fine. He continues to be friendly and nice to me, and I enjoy that, but I no longer am investing any emotional weight in the relationship.

Still, I couldn't resist this.

As I was getting ready to leave, I took him aside and said, "I have a suggestion for you."

"What's that?" he asked.

"If, on this cruise, you should find yourself wanting to ask a Big Question..."

"Okay."

"Two words: Moonlit Deck."

"What?"

"Moonlit Deck!" I watched him try to wrestle with formulating some kind of response to this. It was actually pretty entertaining. "Have a great time!" I added cheerily, and headed for the door. "I'll see you when I get back from Vegas."

Do you see the perfidy of it? If it does turn out that he plans to turn his girlfriend into a fiancée on this voyage, no matter how he goes about it, there will be at some point a little Pascale voice whispering in his head, saying: "Moonlit Deck!" And even if he doesn't pop the question, but he ends up on a moonlit deck anyhow (and frankly, I think this is inevitable on such a cruise), well... there I'll be, too.

I can't say I planned this in any coherent way. But I have to admit that I'm secretly rather pleased with the whole thing. (Hell is probably too good for me.)

Bubble Girl

I should just have that tattooed on my forehead. It is sooooo aggravating.

Turmoil

My parish is going through an internal struggle right now. I can't even bear to think about it, never mind participate in the debate.

I feel that, as a member of a church community, it is my obligation to contribute somehow to the resolution of this matter, but I just don't have the wherewithal at present. All I can do is pray that my fellow parishioners have the collective wisdom to be guided by the Holy Spirit, to treat one another with lovingkindness rather than rancor, and to do what is good and right for the Body of Christ.

Change is hard. Not all change is good, but some change is both good and necessary. I hope there will be peace, eventually.

Cash

Here's a new and interesting phenomenon. (Well, interesting to me anyway, probably not so much to the rest of you.)

All of a sudden, I'm doing extremely well in cash games, while my tournament win rate is going down the tubes. I don't really know why; it may just be the luck of the cards. But cash games are so totally unpressurized compared to tournaments, and suddenly I have a "feel" for the game that seems to have deserted me in tourney play.

I'm positively minting money in the home ring games I've played recently. And hemorrhaging it in tournaments.

It's the cycle of life (poker style)!

When Worlds Collide

I played in a game tonight with both Mr. Forearms and Mr. WPY. That was fun, as they make an entertaining exercise in "compare and contrast" along pretty much every axis you'd care to measure (except height of course...). I didn't cash, but Mr. WPY and I had traded pieces of each other's action before the game, so I got my buy-in back. It was great watching him make his way to second from having been the shortstack most the time. Oh, and we had a nice and essentially entirely pokery dinner. Whatever undercurrents there may or may not be between us, I think we're now firmly on track for hobby-related friendship, which ~ in the end ~ is a nice enough outcome.

I think I may be regaining my sanity, although the fact that I haven't seen Mr. UC since last weekend may account for my current state of relative levelheadedness vis a vis the Inappropriate Persons. We'll see how my fragile grasp on reality holds up to the next encounter.

I would just like to state, for the record, that I don't think it's so unreasonable to request of the universe the provision of an occasional hug and some kisses. Really, is that asking so much? I don't think so.

It would also be nice if people wouldn't always manage to catch their 3-outers. I'm just saying.