So, I went to the Crescent Lounge’s new location in Waltham on Friday or Saturday night. I forget. On the very first hand I got pocket tens on the button, and it’s limped to me, so I make it $3 I think. Yeah, it was $3 now that I think about it. Everybody folds except Jeremy, who was in middle position. He three bets me to $10. I start wondering, if he has such a good hand, why isn’t he raising originally? I found it hard to believe that somebody could just originally limp with a better holding than tens. I know it happens, and that people do it, and yes, I’ve been a victim of it before, but I don’t think it happens often. Plus, this kid always wants to teach me a lesson. I know he’d love to turn over a shitty hand after I folded as a way to say, gotcha. He three bet me all in with Jack 4 the first hand I ever played with him. I convinced myself he was going for the 72 offsuit $2 from everybody at the table and so I made it $30. That’s half of my stack. He goes all in, and I call figuring I am probably beat.
That was how the night started. I basically ran even from there on out. The new place is great, Andy has all of his crazy campy Vegas poker-chic on the walls. You really could not expect more from a home game in terms of style. With the neon pink glowing lucite rail glowing off the deer head wearing a green tinted dealer’s visor, on the wall, you’re almost at, not so much a poker game, but a poker carnival.
And isn’t that what you want out of poker, out of life? The chance to roam off of, out of, the quotidian grind and graze on the carnival grounds. Heck, I remember what it was like when the carnival came to my town back in the day. I won a poster of Muhammed Ali punching Ken Norton in the face, causing Norton’s spit to splatter all over the place, and another one of some bikini clad vixen, who I only remember as not being Heather Thomas. Anyhow, due to the half life of Scotch tape, or the advice of my mother, neither poster lasted very long on my bedroom wall, but my point is, that via the carnival, there was this idea that you could get something for nothing, and not only that, but you could get something for nothing while in the arena of flashing lights. Your something for nothing would be celebrated.
That’s kind of what casinos want you to believe, I guess. That the glamor and glitz are there to highlight your new found ability to make money without working for it. You sit around idling pulling a lever, and there’s this possibility, a slim one, but still, that a few thousand dollars in coins, you heard me right, coins, could come spurting out of that glimmering box. Like vomit, am I right?
But you see what I am getting at, right?
I don’t think I do either, to be honest. I think it has something to do with the glamorization of labor, and the degree to which a preoccupation with luxury thwarts or subverts the ability to become what some brave philosopher once referred to as a species being.
Obviously, to answer your question, yes, I am still unemployed! But, I had a job interview at 1pm today. And, yes, that meant that, smarting from my $55 loss from Andy’s this weekend, I went to Twin River this morning thinking, well, since the interview is a phoner, I’ll just do it in the casino parking lot, and catch up on my losses. In case you’re wondering, I won about $100, bringing me up to +$69 on the year so far.
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While I appreciate your drooling envy, please do everybody a favor and wipe your saliva from the above box.
I think the interview went ok. I left the game about 15 minutes too early, probably because I was nervous about it, so I started driving part of the way back, before finding an off the beaten path spot to talk on the phone right before it was supposed to begin. I ended up in a nice spot. There was a pasture with horses in the distance, and the sun was resplendent through the clouds and all that Spring nonsense you get out here in late March. The conversation was somewhat confusing and cut with the sound of passing cars, which took the luster a bit off my new Ben Franklin. Oh well. Maybe 7-7-7 tomorrow.