No AC for me

Alas, my ride to AC bagged out, and circumstances generally conspired to make it impracticable for me to get to the Ladies Tournament. Oh well.

Actually, there's a bit of a story there. What really happened is that some of my A League people who had originally indicated they might come along decided that it was too rushed, and the Monday morning work day would be too daunting after a late night of driving. So that left me, S., and her husband M.

They were actually talking about leaving their two relatively young children unsupervised for an entire day in order to make this trip. I have to say, the idea of that made me pretty uncomfortable. Then, S. took me aside and said she was worried about M. on his own at the blackjack tables. It would have been okay, she said, if some of his buddies were along to moderate his behavior, but she was afraid he'd get in over his head if he was on his own for hours while we were playing in the tournament.

So I quickly assured her that I was okay with not making the trip at all. Which, although a disappointment, was also (for the above reasons) something of a relief. Honestly, I didn't want to be the occasion for utter degeneracy.

Of course the end of result of this decision was that a bunch of us ended up playing all night at S. & M.'s place. My hot streak died down a bit, as my best result of four games was a second.

It is much easier to spot and disapprove of degeneracy in others than in oneself. I am, I hope, at least aware of THAT fact. One challenge created by immersion in the subterranean but intense poker-playing subculture is that one is generally surrounded by people who are at least as addicted as oneself. Self-monitoring is hard. My non-poker-playing friends become even more precious to me by virtue of being able to hold up a less distorted mirror on my behavior. I am striving to give serious attention when they voice concerns about the choices I make.