Boviosity!

Tasha & I managed to make it to Poker Night on Friday, and it's a good thing we did. Otherwise we might have freaked out when we drove by the place and found it closed this week. They're moving shop and the only notification we got was a poster on the door as we entered Friday.

Nevertheless, Poker Night was in full swing and we took out some good times. Didn't take out any cash, though, because I only made it to 4th place (money starts at 3rd place). Still, that's pretty good.

My demise was a textbook slow roll, which is ironic because I had slow rolled several people, one of them into bankruptcy, throughout the evening. There's also a lesson in Not Betting Your Ass On A Weak Hand, Especially From Behind The Short Stack. I had a weak 4 and 8 off suit in the Big Blind, and found myself playing when nobody raised. Then I flopped a pair of 4's (with a King and another low card keeping "my" second 4 company - this will become crucial later on), which would not normally have tempted me to bet. However, since nobody at this short table had raised before the flop, I guessed there weren't going to be any high cards lurking. How wrong I was.

4th Street was another low card, putting me in what I thought was a great scare card position - that is, I thought that if I showed straight I might steal the pot before the River came around. So I went all in. Only one person followed me all in - that would be the lady with the King. Needless to say (since I'm not talking about how much money I won), her Kings held up and I went home.

Still, it was a great night, and I had some really good hands. Classic poker moment was moving to a new table after the table I had started at had been whittled down, and finding my old friend David from New London there. We greeted each other in a friendly way and joshed a little, then it was down to business. Two hands later I had all his chips - slow rolled him with an A-K offsuit pocket to his suited K-low card. That's poker, man!

By the way, I'd hate to see him across the table - he's obviously a far more cerebral player than I am - but my old usenet "friend" and fine movie reviewer Mike D'Angelo has some interesting poker blogging at his weblog. The Phil Hellmuth story at the top of the weblog today is enough to scare me away from any thought that I'll ever be anything other than the lucky guy at Rockford's poker night from time to time.