John B is the best player in Roslindale. Or at least I think he is, and since this is my platform… But no, the guy is really good. He’s been hosting games at his house on Thursday nights. It’s few blocks away, but I almost always have to work that night. That plus the fact that he’s better than me, left me neglecting his game for a while. It’s a .25/.5 no limit game with a $100 max buy in.  Two weeks ago though, he had a Sunday game when my wife was out of town. I bought the kids a couple of Little Ceasars Pizzas and told them to get their homework done while daddy was away for a few hours playing cards. Of course, they eventually ratted me out to mom, but that’s a whole other story. The game was pretty decent. Lots more action than your average 50NL game. I am not going to say it plays like a 1/2 game. More like a .82/1.64 game. There are pre-flop raises as high as $12. If you can manage to just avoid getting in monster hands with John, you can have a pretty good run.  So, since that Sunday game, I’ve been texting to see if there’s an available seat after I get done with work around 9 pm on Thursdays.

Last night I was shut out initially, the table at John’s was full, so I logged into Global Poker where I now spend way too much of my time and psychic energy at that 20NL tables. I’ve been playing there so much that I’ve become friends with some of the other regulars. The thing about Global that I really like is that it caters more to recreational players. HUDs aren’t allowed, or even available, I don’t think. There’s no rake back where break-even players can make money playing 20 tables at a time. Don’t get me wrong, there are definitely a lot of people, myself included, multi-tabling, but unlike other places I’ve played online in the past, you can generally find somebody to shoot the shit with in the chatbox.

After like an hour or so of Global poker, I was pretty beat, and signed off thinking I’d watch some TV or something. Within fifteen minutes though I got a text from John saying that a seat had opened up, and so I was out the door in a heartbeat. Like I said, it’s only a few blocks away, but with the ice and wind last night, driving someplace in a warm car wouldn’t have been that big of a deal.

With the game being pretty loose, and with visions of implied odds dancing in my head, I started down after missing out on an open ender and set mining a few times without success. Then this hand happened. I get kings in middle position and make it 7.50. There are complaints about the bet sizing, and I initially worried I scared everybody away, but alas, despite the complaints I get two callers, I think I had position on both of them, but I can’t be 100% sure of that. The flop comes down ten two two. Checks to me, so I make it 15 more. I get two calls.  I feel kind of good here. Both guys are pretty loose, I don’t think loose enough to have a two, but one of them could easily have something like queen ten, which complicates things because the turn is another ten. One of the players goes all in for 34 or 38 dollars, or nearly all in, he had fifty cents left over. The pot was something like 80 bucks now, and obviously, he could be bluffing here, but I was damn near certain he wasn’t. I made what I thought was a crying call. He showed sixes, which to be honest shocked the hell out of me. I really thought I was doomed. After that, I ran about even.

I didn’t drink last night. The game seemed very quiet. I guess I tend to gab a lot at the table when I’m drinking. Sometimes even when I am drinking though I notice that at a quiet table people are very intent on the game, hunting for that lucky card that will have them piling up a massive pile of chips. My favorite gambling quote, that I haven’t really memorized, but it’s a translation anyways, so who cares, is Walter Benjamin’s “gambling converts time into a narcotic.” When it’s 1 am, and you’re sitting in your neighbor’s basement jonesing to make fifty bucks, when all of the social conventions, the flowing conversation, the interest in the life of the person next to you has been ceded to that desire, it’s not hard to recognize, even if you are a winning player, that there is a pretty profound addictive element to gambling. Pulling oneself from an active table can be very difficult, even when you don’t want to play anymore, but somehow I did it last night. Not after spilling $15 to John though on my last hand.