June Poker Recap

This month has been hectic from a poker perspective. I didn't play the first 10 days of the month, then was on restricted hours for the next 4 while my father was still in town. I played a lot of 40/80 and 30/60 (5 hours for every 7 I played of 20/40, a high ratio for me) and I ran bad. I posted the worst day of my life, had several other multi-rack losses on $10 chip games, and all this on top of the fact that I lost about $2500 at the Bellagio on the last two days of May. I've started playing small mixed games online (some buddies and I are going to start a weekly HORSE game on Fulltilt, the idea being that we should learn how to play those games, and I've decided I want to learn 2-7 Triple Draw), and I've back burnered my claim of firing up Sit 'N Gos again once some actual research led me to believe that until the UIGEA is repealed I'm just too far behind to make much money (not to mention that claim was based on cutting back my live hours, which isn't something one should really do after losing a bunch of money).

The net result: My first losing month as a pro. The loss wasn't really very big (eliminating just that one worst day of my life would have actually had me close to covering expenses this month), but it still stings. My hope is that I can come out of this more tilt-resistant and with a clearer view of what exactly the long-run is. I'm also thinking about cutting back on the 40/80 hours in July, as that really was the root of my problems (I won handily at 20/40, but you just can't really post good numbers when you go on a 6 rack downer in a game that's double your usual stakes).

I will leave you golden nuggets shared with me by Jose, the resident 30/60 lag at the Oaks. He's a great guy who is always fun to have in your game. First, another regular was offering a story about how he was playing in this game and made a loose call with Five-Four off. Jose was nodding patiently, listening to the story, when the guy added "You see, this guy was kind of an asshole" and he had to interrupt.

"Oh. If he was asshole, you have no choice. You must call."

We had fun with that one for the rest of the day, saying "He is asshole. You must call" almost every time Jose bet. The second nugget was perhaps even better. Jose's ethnicity is a mystery to me, but I have it narrowed down to either Spanish (as in, from Spain), or Middle Eastern. I can't really tell...I'd guess the latter if it weren't for his name. Anyway, apparently someone asked him what was going on with Iran and he responded in rhythm "Well they killed Michael Jackson so they wouldn't be on the news anymore."