A Very Strange Week

Poker is a funny game. Though luck plays a major factor in the short-term, it plays almost no role in the long-term. We’ve all gone through streaks where we play poorly and win money, and also when we make all the right moves at all the wrong times. Some weeks it seems like you hit every draw, and some weeks the other guy does. Normally the money follows along with the luck. You get hit by the deck, you win money. You get cold-decked, you lose money.

This past week was a very strange one for me. Overall, I had some of the worst luck I’ve ever had over the course of the week, yet I had a great week money-wise (almost $7K profit). Go figure. In our Friday Omaha 8 game I was quartered four times, twice with the high and twice with the low. Two of these pots were nice-sized, and the other two were very large. I didn’t quarter anyone.

In the Saturday tournament, I was the victim of a classic cold-deck. I call a raise with A-J, and two of us see a flop of K-J-J. We get all the chips in by the river, and my opponent eventually (yet another slow-roll, but that’s another post…) turns up K-J. That left me with almost no chips, which I threw in the very next hand with 6-6. I was trying to get out the door, but it took five minutes to get the cards turned up, as everyone was trying to separate all the side-pots from the 47 people that were all-in. Sheesh!

Tuesday and Thursday were similar to Friday. Though I caught one or two river cards for smallish pots, I just couldn’t catch a break drawing to any big pots. Most of my good hands got drawn out on, though luckily a couple times they held up in large pots. If you had told me before the week started how the luck would go, I would have thought I’d be doing well to break even.

Yep, poker is a funny game. Like most players, normally I’m happy when I win money. Instead, I went home frustrated after almost every session. Maybe I just need to take a week off from poker and lay on the beach in Aruba. I wonder if there are any casinos there…

See ya at the tables…
Rick