We started the 20 and I won a little. Then we started the 40 and I ran preposterously well in terms of staying in my seat; it literally felt like for the entire 4.5 hours I should have been about to pick up, but each time it was as if the other players were conspiring to keep me in. Someone would show up, someone would go broke. Someone else would show up, the 5/T NL would start and Annie would get up. It was just bizarre. Finally, 15 minutes before the end of my shift I had to relinquish my seat. Generally speaking I'd consider this a horrible beat, as the game was just fantastic, but with the way I was feeling I was happy to just be done. So I took my 20/40 seat and played a couple hands then lobbied an orbit trying to decide what to do, and...the 40 opened back up.
I thought about it briefly and decided the game was too good to pass up; I had to play, even in my compromised state. By making this decision I was not only committing to play the 40 as long as I thought it wise, but also to stay until at least 7 or so to wait out traffic. Three more hours seemed plausible, and as I said the 40 game was fantastic and well....what a horrible fucking decision. I was completely spent, firing maybe half my cylinders, just in general making a mess of everything. Earlier in the day I'd already botched a hand against Wayne (laying down a winner when he just decided to donk AQ on a K64 board into a raiser and 3 bettor), and in my second stint in the game I quickly botched another one (right now I can't remember any details, just that I did something dumb). According to my sheet I played for 20 minutes before licking my wounds and running back to the 20, hoping to play out now 2.5 more hours of unpaid overtime just to be helpful.
And it just got worse. I could hardly think, I needed to leave, but the 20 was just so soft I was confident I couldn't do any real damage and traffic was now at it's peak and well I could just man up and do it, right? Boy was it awful. I ordered some food, got another coffee, and just tried to soldier on, and 45 minutes into it at about 5:15 Mike came over and for the first time in 5 months asked if I could come help them out in the 40 even though I was off shift. I couldn't say no; they obviously needed me badly and I'd just gotten my raise and well...I reached way down, grabbed all the energy and focus I could, took my sweet sweet time buying chips and moving into the game, and made one last push.
Normally when I do something like this, make a concerted effort to do the right thing and play super duper good and focused, I get obliterated. Not Thursday. I was up and down the first 45 minutes, all the while watching our silent prop go through his phone (which is, and I quote mike, a compendum (fake word perhaps?) of Commerce fishes, past present and future) trying to rally support. It's on the way, we're told, and almost as soon as it's confirmed, it happens. I start to win. I turn sets. I river full houses. I flop straights. I make flushes. I make pairs. I even misplay a hand and it just doesn't matter; I simply cannot lose. By the time the dust settles about an hour later (or maybe 75 minutes), I've been at the table for a total of 1:45 and won $4700. For the last 20 minutes both Mike and my boss are encouraging me to leave. I'm winning all this money from them, and BJ, and sorta from Cyclops (a super duper fishy guy whose nickname is, well, Cyclops) and it's just beyond devastating for the rest of the table.
At 7:15 I waddle to the cage with almost 8 racks of chips, content with the fact that for once my hard work feels as though it was directly rewarded.
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