Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Chasing pavements

I like to listen to songs I've downloaded from iTunes while I play poker. Many of my favorites I first became aware of by hearing them played on my favorite radio station, WXRV. Funnily enough, I didn't notice the coincidental connection of WXRV to poker until just now -- the nickname of the station is "The River" :-)

There's a great young British singer named Adele who wrote a wonderful song called "Chasing Pavements". It's about a relationship which has gone bad and the conflicted feelings that gives rise to. Since poker is made up of "streets", I naturally think of poker when I hear this song. Here's the first part of the chorus:

Should I give up,
Or should I just keep chasin' pavements?
Even if it leads nowhere

This is the central dilemma of the poker player in any given hand -- should he give up (fold the hand) or keep chasing pavements (pay to see more streets (cards))? Last night, the first half of the session, I paid too much to see more streets, and it led me nowhere but down. I eventually had to go all in with a pair of jacks; that's where my session turned around. I won that pot, which was worth $30,900. I hung around, and finally got a premium hand. I flopped a straight, slow played it, and raked in another big pot. I don't know exactly how big, since I can't find the history; I must have forgotten to save it in my excitement at having a winning session!

delta: $21,000
balance: $365,486

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