communication breakdown

All In

Well, it was a pretty standard week, up until tonight, which was a lot of fun. We skipped out of work early and headed over to a work-buddy's house for a quick grill-out and some bocce ball. I had never played the game before, much less heard of it before moving to Minnesota. But it's actually pretty fun and is kind of like horseshoes for yankees. Anyways, after graduating from being a bocce virgin, we headed out and it was on to the main event: the poker tournament...

About 12 guys from work decided we needed a new way to blow some spare cash, so we figured we'd get together and have a No Limit Texas Hold'Em Tourney. Stakes were low ($20 buy-in), but there was still enough to make a modest pot for the victor. I was familiar with Hold'Em, and poker in general, but had never played in a halfway serious tournament before, so it was learn-as-you-go for me.

We split the group into two tables, with the idea of merging back into one once the field was pared down somewhat. Well, I got smoked on the main table after about an hour and a half. After winning the occasional early pot and then getting bled for about an hour, my stack was slim and I decided it was time to go balls-out and make a move. The guy next to me is betting hard for the first time all night with a nice set of community cards. I had a modest hand worth keeping, but the way he's betting, I'm pretty sure he's bluffing and trying to bully me over. Long story short - I end up going all-in to call his bluff... which wasn't a bluff at all. Thanks for playing moron, go sit in the corner.

I was the 6th person out, last to go before they combined the tables. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise. The 6 of us who went out early started up another table with a $10 buy-in. We just played dealer's choice and actually made for a nice 2 hour game. I pulled down a couple of monster pots, and in the end, wound up making money on the whole. I recuperated the $20 from the first game, the $10 from the second, and made a few bucks profit on top of it. Not a bad comeback, given the way the first game went down. The cool thing about the second game, which ended up having about 8 people by the end of the night, was that it was mostly some of the big-wigs from our software department. At least 5 or 6 of the guys were in some form of upper management, and then there's my scrubby self, right in the midst of things. It was fun to get to schmooze with the guys, and take their money at the same time. Win-win scenario for yours truly...

So yeah, I'm tired now. For the rest of the weekend, it's TaeKwon-Do early Saturday, and then I'm getting a visit from Adam who's travelling up here from Georgia on his way out to California (yes, I know, it's all out of the way - good friend, isn't he?) We'll be hanging out Saturday night and Sunday before he heads out Monday morning. More to report after the weekend's over, I'm sure...

Note: A few days after I wrote this weblog, a new episode of "The Shield" on FX aired, and the title to the show was also "All In". The show wasn't at all about gambling, but I can't help but thinking, is someone in Hollywood checking out my blog? I mean, let's be honest: wouldn't the world be a better place if people listened to me more often? (don't answer that...)