Jacks Are NOT OK...

Bad news: I got fucking STACKED by jjok last night.

Good news: It was a blogger extravaganza on Stars last night. At the table: your humble narrator, slb159, Waffles, Iggy, Mookie, Duggle Bogey, Scott McDreamy, and Weak Player.

It was late, I was drinking really bad light beer, and I started out playing tighter than a sphincter in a prison shower.

I sat down with $15, quickly doubled up through Duggle, and won a few small pots to get myself up to $33 or so. I was feeling good (thank you beer!) and was folding more than a Gap employee, concentrating instead on the mucho hawesome table banter going on.

Then jjok sat down. After a rousing greeting, he posted his big blind and began kicking my donkey ass.

I get dealt AK off and pop it up 3 times the big blind. He smooth calls. The flop looks semi-harmless, coming down x99. I figured there was no way that he hit that flop, and since he didn’t reraise me preflop, I figured I was good here and didn’t put him on anything but AK or AQ. I raised, he re-raised, and for some stupid reason (thanks beer!) I pushed. He flips aces and takes about $25 from me in one hand.

Waffles made a comment that I’ve thought a lot about, and that I’ve realized is a big hole in my game. In short, Waffles point basically was that I was playing the cash game like it was an MTT. There was NO reason for me to push into jjok post flop. If I really thought that I had him, I should have called his re-raise and waited for the turn card to come and then waited to see what happened. Sure, if an ace or a king comes down, I’m probably going to stay aggressive, but if another rag comes down and he still bets into me, I can fold. Thanks for the tip, Waffles.

Instead, though, I doubled him up due to pure stupidity (thanks beer!).

My buzz escalated a bit, and after some more folding, I pushed my last $6 into jjok on a hand that I can’t even remotely remember (thanks beer!). Poof! I’m stacked.

The funny thing was that I didn’t tilt. Not at all. Normally getting myself up to $33 only to lose it ALL would keep me up at night replaying hands and cursing the day I ever started playing poker online.

Knowing that my money went to a poker blogger (and someone I respect) instead of some random sardine made the bitter pill a little easier to swallow. But, I think that the main reason I was tilt-free (now with beer!), was that I couldn’t think of a better way to spend $33 than sitting at a table with a bunch of bloggers, slinging chips, hurling insults, and laughing my ass off.

Plus, I WILL get that money back. Watch out, jjok. You’ll get your Back Alley Mugging someday. It may not be today. It may not be tomorrow. Or the next day. Or the day after that. Or a week and two days after that. Or a fortnight from then. But it’s coming, yo. It’s coming.