Poker karma

Here's the thing. You're going to win, and you're going to lose. Expect either one. Expect that if you win, you're increasing the odds that next time you'll lose. Expect that if you lose, you're increasing the odds that next time you'll win. Expect that with experience, you'll win more times than you lose. And expect that, with a simple stop loss rule (which I should try to patent :-), on average you'll lose less when you lose than you'll win when you win.

Poker definitely has karma. When you've played long enough, you come to realize that. If you die by the hidden two pair, some time later ("maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, ..." -- bonus trivia quiz question: identify that movie quotation) you'll rise like a phoenix from the ashes with a hidden two pair. If you die by holding out for a gut-shot, some time later you'll soar like an eagle on the wings of a gut-shot (how's that for a mixed metaphor?).

Other than imputing it to stupidity and stubbornness (and just possibly to an awesome hunch), I can't explain why I held out for a gut-shot for the second night in a row. But let's back up a hair. Like last night, I won a healthy sized pot early -- putting me up about $700 on the night. But (also like last night) I couldn't find it in me to take the small gain and run; I hadn't had enough of a poker fix yet.

So I kept playing, quite conservatively. There was a wild player two places to my left who raised big almost every hand. I tried to stay out of her way. After folding a bunch of hands, I was dealt an ace five offsuit, and saw a flop of 2c 3c 3h. I knew it was unlikely the gut-shot would come out, but no one else was betting big enough to make me come to my senses. Wouldn't you know, the turn was a four, completing my gut-shot. I ended up going all in, and won every pot (there were two side ones in addition to the main one) for a total haul of $6,520. Who says you have to play at the expensive tables to win some really excellent play dough?

My oldest friend in the world (i.e. the friend I've had the longest, not the oldest person I know who's a friend) is reading this blog faithfully, and gently chided me in an email for being stuck in the $260K range so long. He wondered aloud when I'll hit $300K. I hereby make it my short term goal to hit that plateau by the end of next month.

delta: $4,500
balance: $279,698