my house was busy today with a bunch of people singing karoke and playing mahjong that i couldnt be bothered to play poker at home. i find having a noisy environment makes it difficult to concentrate. usually i play with music on, but within 10 minus of starting my session the music fades into the background and is almost non-existent. i kinda use that to gauge when i have gotten into the zone and with a lot of noise around me i didnt want to chance being put on tilt by that. i have a win streak to maintain obviously.

after playing some halo, my friends decide they want to play at the casino. i have made pretty good with my intentions of not ever going to live casinos so far this year but figured what the heck, theres nothing to do, nothing on tv, no need to study, lets go out with the guys.

we get into a 2/5 game, which was the biggest game in the room. *sad face* theres 3 of us at the table to start, so we do the standard stuff, such as offer a bounty on each other, setup props and start flipping to drinks. the bounty for the night was if anyone else at the table could stack one of us, they would get 2 free drinks.

being live poker and all, im super rusty but really felt good about my game. i made a dreadful fold about 6h into the session and that hand is probably going to haunt me for the rest of the year, if not longer. im sure my friends wont let it die. i'll repost the details below. i butchered it too, so please dont flame the comments section, i have low self esteem and cant take harsh criticism.

effective stack is 850.

UTG who is a pretty tight, but blah type of player opens to 20. folds to the button who is your typical live pro. good enough to beat the live donkeys but definitely a huge dog in any half decent line up flats on the button. SB who was your typical spaz donk degenerate gambler calls. Hero wakes up to Ad Ac and after a short pause sticks in a 3 bet to 95.

UTG is not happy. my image is pretty solid, im up about 2 racks playing good, running good and jsut picking my spots but not getting overly out of line. this had to do with UTG+1 being a good friend and a high stakes player who loves raping me when we play live, therefore with im behind me i had to play pretty conservatively as he was 3 betting me with a good frequency. after some thought, UTG flats and button who probably has a range of any two suited/connected cards also calls. the SB fishie goes away.

flop rolls out Qc8s2s. the pot is 300. i elect to bet this dry flop for 135. its less than half pot, but i dont really think it matters so much cause live donkeys probably couldnt figure out how much was in the pot anyways. UTG thinks for a bit, and raises me to 335. Btn folds and im faced with a tough decision. it really felt preflop that he had a big hand and this wasnt exactly the type of board to be making a move on. my thought process is all messed up and after some thought, i decide i was going to call and see what happens on the turn. i didnt want to shove cause i felt he'd fold his bluffs obviously.

the turn bricks with a 6h and i take some time and check. he goes all in and i keep thinking god damnit, if this was online i'd just snap call and be too busy to worry about it as i'd have several other decisions to make. however this being live made me super uncomfortable as i felt my hand was kinda face up and he would be stupid to bluff this board and his value range was soooooo thin. his bet was 360 into a pot of 970 and i was thinking god i hate having 3 friends at this table cause if i get call and get owned it is going to suck.

i end up folding.

he tables AK.

my friends go nuts. the dealers head explodes. i proceed to go on a 15 minute walk outside wondering why the hell he would ever raise me on the flop with QQ with a deepstack still left to act. i also forget to weigh how if i fold and get owned it is probably worse than calling and getting owned.

**** my life.

i cool down, get back to the table where i have 3 friends seated now and they just go hard on me about the hand. im just utterly disgusted.

i do end the session winning a 4 way omaha flip for 100 a head and book a +980 win but it just sucks that the session should have been 2000+ easily. sigh. im so disappointed right now i dont know if i can force myself to play online tomorrow. i've logged a pretty short month so far but i just feel this hand gnawing away at my soul cause im very critical of my play these days.

pretty sure i finished up in props and got 2 rounds of drinks paid for so i guess the night was alright. i had fun so to speak and its good to know that i can still crush live donkeys. even though im never ever happy to sit at a live poker table, i should be grateful even in a period of recession people still feel the need to gamble.

oh yeah, battlestar galatica had its series finale yesterday. im going to miss that show a lot. while i didnt watch it from the get go, i did start watching it religiously from the 3rd season onwards. it is quite possibly one of the best all round shows i have ever seen and it was sad knowing that the show was over. i felt the finale was pretty good also, there have been a lot of series finales where it was just another episode and the show was over. i cant say enough good things about BSG so i'll just go with "so say we all"

so say we all