Drinking and Poker

Saturday night Ashley and I had sushi with Will and his wife Tracy. I hadn't intended to drink that night, but somewhere over the course of the night, I stared doing a few shots of sake, and that is where my night started to spiral.

After dinner we all went to The Brig to grab some drinks and Anthony met up with us. I started on the scotch and I found myself in that happy place where you are pretty intoxicated but can still hold it together well enough to function without creating a scene.

After dropping off Tracy at their home, we ventured out to Sycuan to mess around for a bit. Despite my state, I played decent, despite the fact that nobody seemed willing to fold hands to me. Example being, I raise 2 limpers from the button with Q9o, and both call. Flop comes 832 and I lead for 3/4 pot, and both call. Turn is a 5 and we all check. River is an off suited ace, and it checks to me and I bet $25. One calls the other raises to $50. I fold, the other guy calls, and one rolls 24s, the other turns over 34. My head nearly exploded.

I picked off Anthony one time, which was fun because I got to hold it over his head for the rest of the night. In the end, when we left I was stuck about $125 or $150, so not exactly a great night, but not exactly terrible either.

When I got home I was feeling sick so I passed out right away, but sleep was elusive, and it was a pretty restless night.

The next morning, I woke up pumped for the Charger game. Ashley was cool and went out to pick up breakfast which made my day start off that much better. I caught the last half of the Giants/Eagles game, and as the afternoon passed, suffered through the Chargers agonizing defeat at the hands of the Steelers. I think it was more frustrating for me because we looked so good through the first half, and the second half we were completely dominated. It was like watching 2 different games. The fact that we were making lots of mental mistakes didnt help, but nobody can really be blamed but our own team. We could have won that game, and after this Cinderella season, I thought that we could. Sigh...

After the game, Ashley and I got ready and headed out to Sycuan to play in a qualifier for their Super Bowl of Poker tournament series. Basically it is a $54 tourny where first place wins entries into the weeks worth of tournaments. In a weird coincidence we were seated at the same table, and both made it down to the final 2 tables. I had alot of trouble finding spots throughout the tournament to get my money in. I kept having spots where I couldnt pick up a hand to jam with, or when I would pick up a marginal hand to open, someone would beat me to it, and I wouldnt have enough chips to shake them off.

It came down to me picking up 88 in the BB and getting it in against Ashley and another player who had woken up with KK. Ashley had TT, and that was all she wrote for both of us. We went and grabbed some dinner at Chili's and talked about the hands we had played and what we thought we did well and things we could be working on. Im probably going to be taking most of this week off, with the exception of the Wed night game (assuming my friend Tyler is dealing it). With the tourny series coming up and playing 7 nights that week, Im going to want to rest up for it.

I plan on studying a bit more poker too. I have been really lax on hitting the books, posting on forums and watching training videos in the last few months. I need to get on that because I feel like when I really live and breath poker, that is when I am going to be playing my best. Given that I am on a skid right now, it is hard to motivate myself to surround myself with poker, but I just need to force myself and the results will come.