Distractions

Last Friday was payday, and a coworker wanted to go play some cards to get his mind off the busy week. Gee, twist my arm, why dontcha! We went down to the Silver Dollar at lunchtime and made the wait list long enough to warrant opening a second table. Bought in for $60 each and ordered some lunch as well.

My buddy took some beats - his pocket Qs flopped a set and lost to a flush, and KT ended up with trip Tens, but someone had flopped a set of 4s and the paired tens gave the villain the boat. He was busted out with 20 minutes left to go in the lunch hour, so he just turned around to enjoy his Kung Pao chicken. I was down to about 1/3 of my stack and was resigned to strike up this lunch hour as a loss. About 10 minutes left before heading back to the office, I get 56c in the BB. Flash the cards to my buddy and when it goes unraised, I tap the table and tell the dealer to flop me a BB special.

Flop is AhJc8c. "That's it!" I yell, "But I'll check 'it'..." MP bets and myself and one other call. Turn is the 9c. I check again, MP bets and I pull the good ol' checkraise. Other caller folds, and MP looks sickened as he calls so I know he doesn't have a higher flush (yet). My buddy's worried he has a big club so he says quietly, "No more clubs..." I double check the board and whisper back, "Well, the 7 of clubs would be nice..."

BAM!

I shake my head in disbelief. I say out loud to the dealer, "Winnie, why another club? I had him on the Turn!" MP checks his cards... and yes, he has the Ace of Clubs... so he bets his $6 and I checkraise him all-in for $10. I start reaching in my pocket for my wallet because you need your ID to get paid on the Monte Carlo jackpots. The guy gives me another $4 but he knows he's beat, and the dealer asks me, "Jackpot???" I toss my ID onto the table as I turn over my cards. That pot got me back to even, and I got an extra $140 ($20 of which went to Winnie) from the jackpot.

It was back to the cubicle after that. I wonder now and then if I shouldn't just take another hour off work because my payrate at the tables some days is so much better.... Anyways, thinking back about that hand, the Ten of Clubs would have clobbered me, but I still would have gotten paid for the jackpot because both of my cards played for the lower Straight Flush. Now, if someone had QTc, would we have split the jackpot? I guess I should find out about these things before I hit my next one! I do know though, that if the board had come out 789Tc, only my 6 would have played and I wouldn't have made the extra $120. Anyways, it was a good day and I was happy for the distraction.

Newsbreak!
Horrible times for Seattle! City Council approves tougher strip-club rules: "The council voted 5-4 to approve an ordinance that will require clubs to keep dancers and patrons at least four feet apart, install a 3-foot railing between the stage and audience, ban direct tipping and install brighter lighting."

Ugg... wish this wasn't such a sissy city. Guess I'll have to go back to just getting my jollies online. Speaking of playing online... [segue] I ended up at the final table at the Poker Blue WPT Freeroll!

I took an early lead, as I always do, and then I tightened up too much and let everyone else surpass me. There was one point where a guy took a bad beat and then just went all-in for the next 6 hands or so. The three times he got called - he won. The last of those times, I had KJs but I let it go, knowing he was going to push and he had built up enough chips to hurt me if I lost. I would have won. :(

Then I got a lucky double-up when no one raised my T3o in the BB and I flopped two-pair. MP had AT so he reraised me all in and I caught another 3 on the River to seal the deal. He didn't see that there was a 3 on the flop and started berating my play. "What a river! How could you call with a 3 kicker, you didn't think you were beat???" "Umm, dude, you didn't raise and I hit two pair... I wasn't going to let it go." "Oh, didn't see that. Nice hand, then."

I continued playing smart and survived the field of 200 to make it down to the final table. I was still kind of short-stacked, sitting at 7th place or so. Unfortunately, it was about 6pm and there were a couple other things going on. I'm taking an online database management class, and we had a group project working on some SQL scripts. I had just gotten off the phone with one of the group members who was telling me he had a family emergency and couldn't get his part of the code done. Being the group leader, as well as needing his section of code to be able to get mine done, I was all of a sudden dumped with a double load of work and it was due in about 4 hours.

HDouble recently wrote about focus and concentration on your game. It was a very inspiring post, but due to the circumstances my game time was split... ALT+TAB'bing between folding and coding database queries. Then it happened. JJ in late position, UTG min-raise and I pushed. He called with A9 (sooooted!), caught his Ace and I was out in eighth.

I just sat and stared at the screen in shock. How could he call an all-in with A9??? After a few minutes, the realization of what happened sunk in. It was a horrible move on my part. I should have considered the position and the chip stacks. I should have just called the raise, and after seeing an Ace and a King on the flop I could have let the Jacks go and played on. Turns out the guy who beat me was the next to bust out.

I was distracted, plain and simple, worried about getting my assignment done (which is a completely valid worry) and not being able to focus on the game. A friend told me he would have rather went out 150th than 8th. Yeah, I guess I would have felt even crummier if I went out in 3rd or 2nd as I usually do in tournaments, but it would have been nice to have had a shot at the grand prize.

At least I know I can get there. I'll be out of town this weekend, but I'll definitely be back for Blue's final Freeroll on the 16th, not to mention PokerStars Blogger Freeroll on the 23rd. And you can be sure that I'll have my work done by Saturday so that nothing... not even the Seahawks pulling out a win... will take my focus off the game.