Monday, January 17, 2005
Poke 'Er In The Rear
I'm sort of addicted to gambling, I've found. On a subtle level, this is sort of interesting, because I don't tend to gamble much with my real life. And while I do like to gamble, I don't like to gamble big money. Thus, $5 Poker Night is my new favorite weekend activity. (Ass Comment: Even Blackjack with the $5 chips can be a bit much. I don't like the pressure...but I'm not entirely sure that the pressure was from the money. It might also be because apparently there's a Right Way to bet in Blackjack and it doesn't appear to overlap much with The Way I Want To Bet Blackjack - sometimes, I just don't want to play based on the way a color-coded table tells me to play. So then I get yelled at, I feel stupid, stress out about betting the Right Way, and whoops, I've lost $100 and I didn't even enjoy it. Anyway. I digress.) With a $5 total buy-in, it's hard to stress out. It's hard to back away from calling someone's bet when you're pretty sure you can find that amount of money in the couch. So even in the worst case scenario, overall, it's cheap, which is good in my current life. I have yet to win any money, which is perhaps good because then I would probably explode.
Poker does take more skill than Blackjack, I've found after losing my first $5 in an hour and a half last weekend. Unlike Blackjack, I can win with shitty cards, if my shitty cards are less shitty than everyone elses, or if I make them think that my shitty cards are awesom. Amazing. Plus, I watched some Celebrity Poker on E! this week while doing my cover letters, and I'm a smart girl. Yay learning curve. Tonight, I'm only down ten cents, I lasted four hours, I successfully bluffed, and I won really big a couple of times. I should be in bed now, but I can't sleep because I'm still so worked up over my last (first, only) successful flush draw. (Because it worked. I was so excited. I went "all-in" with my $2.50, and I won. I had a horrible poker face, but that's okay. My bet got called only because my housemates wanted to make me show my hand because I was shaking and my face was bright red, i.e. the antithesis of a poker face. It was awesome.) I kind of wish I had stopped when I was up two dollars, but I can't help that my straight was beaten by a full house. And you can't not play a straight.
So I'm down a total of ten cents, and I had a great time. I love gambling small increments of money that don't overall impact the quality of my life. I plan to definitely do this more often.
Poker does take more skill than Blackjack, I've found after losing my first $5 in an hour and a half last weekend. Unlike Blackjack, I can win with shitty cards, if my shitty cards are less shitty than everyone elses, or if I make them think that my shitty cards are awesom. Amazing. Plus, I watched some Celebrity Poker on E! this week while doing my cover letters, and I'm a smart girl. Yay learning curve. Tonight, I'm only down ten cents, I lasted four hours, I successfully bluffed, and I won really big a couple of times. I should be in bed now, but I can't sleep because I'm still so worked up over my last (first, only) successful flush draw. (Because it worked. I was so excited. I went "all-in" with my $2.50, and I won. I had a horrible poker face, but that's okay. My bet got called only because my housemates wanted to make me show my hand because I was shaking and my face was bright red, i.e. the antithesis of a poker face. It was awesome.) I kind of wish I had stopped when I was up two dollars, but I can't help that my straight was beaten by a full house. And you can't not play a straight.
So I'm down a total of ten cents, and I had a great time. I love gambling small increments of money that don't overall impact the quality of my life. I plan to definitely do this more often.
