Running Bad: The Pop Culture Edition

For about a month now, I’ve been searching in vain for some results at the poker tables. My play? Comes and goes. Good and not so good. But the results?

 Universally horrible.

There are plenty of times on the felt when things just don’t go your way. We’ve all been there. And with few exceptions, it seems the poker planets have been aligned against me this summer. My bankroll has been assaulted from all sides, kinda like the media treatment of wayward Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, following allegations the had an affair with a TV reporter, except His Honor, unlike my bankroll, apprently gets some late-night satisfaction.

I’ve been playing the Fifty-Fifty on Full Tilt with some frequency and each time I think I’m about to make a run, or turn things around, something comes up to bite me. It might be those short-stack open-pushes on the button when one of the blinds wakes up with a monster. That’s seemed to happen more frequently lately than a Lindsay Lohan coke binge. I have A5o…SB has ATo. I have KTs…BB has QQ.

The good thing about the Fifty-Fifty is the amount of play you get, so one is able to exercise some skills beyond ABC poker, which still remains effective at this level. I played a hand the other night that I thought was masterfully woven. Yet, the results did not support it.

There’s a lot of limping in the first hour and being the LAG that I am, I’ll raise ‘em with a lot of hands, especially in position. So I did in this hand, which was at the 40/80 blind level, the last of the first hour. With AdJc in the CO, I raised two limpers to 280. One called. The flop came Qd9d8x. It was checked to me and I c-bet, 500 into 760. He called. My thinking here is that he caught some of it and I’m likely done with the hand. The turn card is 7d, putting a flush out there and giving me more outs. He checks again and I check it as well. The river is 6x and again he checks. Well now. That’s a scary board. He’s obviously weak. I’ll take a shot.

He has just over 2K left, so I bet 1100 into 1760, a bet which will really hurt him. There are so many hands out there that have him beat now and some of ‘em make sense in the context of the hand. He takes his full time before calling with A9, seeing my bluff as flimsy and transparent as a Michael Vick alibi.

That, or he’s just an inveterate calling station (which he was, as he’d prove several times later on).

Despite dropping chips there, I think that play works more often than not, and I wasn’t bummed. If I’d already knew he was a calling station, that would have been my bad, but I made a solid read and put on some pressure. Agree or disagree? Did I lose the chance by not betting the turn? Should I have put him all-in on the river?

The last week, I’ve played better. Got close to cashing last Thursday where I felt like David Beckham, entering unknown territory but guided by star power. I was dropped into a table with JohnnyBax on my immediate left and Michael Craig on my immediate right. I got moved too soon and then ran into that blind thing again. Sometimes I think Tim Donaghy is dealing the damn cards.

Other times, I’m just not sure what to do. Plays seem odd, bets don’t make sense. I just stare blankly at the screen like I’m Mark Philippoussis and a woman is asking me a question.  ”John From Cincinnati” is less bewildering than some of the hands and beats. I’ve tried tightening up, playing a range of hands more limiting than Caleb Followill’s pants. I’ve tried gambling a little, opening up wider than the gap between Victoria Beckham’s boobs. Nothing has worked.

So I’m gonna take a little break from the online. Couple of weeks. Come back and play some blogger events (yeah, ’cause THOSE are profitable for me). Bring back the Fun.

Not that I can totally abstain. I’m like Scott Weiland that way. I have some low-limit donkey action planned for Friday out at Morongo, where I’m gonna get Paul Abdul-level drunk. I think I’m going to play a preliminary event at the Legends of Poker tournament series that starts next week at The Bike. And the occassional Omaha game with AJ is always on tap.

One of these days, I’m gonna beat him, too.