Poker archeology

I'm pretty sure this is the longest period of radio silence between blog posts since I started this blog. I've been missing the blog, and missing playing poker also. The proximal reason is that I've been really busy at work; an ancillary reason is that it's winter, and people in general (and me in particular) have less energy in the winter.

I actually played poker last Saturday night, but went to bed without posting. There were several reasons for that, the most prominent ones being that it was late and I was tired. But as you might suspect, it was also a losing session for me. I also have to confess that my decision-making skills were impaired by the fact that I was drinking beer throughout the session.

As I've probably already mentioned, it's my practice to save the big hands I'm involved in, whether I win them or lose them. So my task of reconstructing last Saturday's debacle is not impossible, despite the beer-induced haziness of my memories of the session. The two prominent things I remember:

1. I was really enjoying listening to a new song I recently downloaded from iTunes, "Heaven" by Brett Dennen. So much so, in fact, that I kept cycling through the last three songs I downloaded, so I could keep hearing it. On iTunes, I couldn't find the version of it I'd heard on the radio which introduced me to it, which is a duet with Natalie Merchant, but the solo version is awesome as well.

2. I went up $800 on my starting stake after about an hour, kept playing, and eventually lost it all.

Pardon me while I go on an archeological dig of the poker variety ...

...

- first notable hand of the night, I won a pot worth $310 with three of a kind, nines
- next notable hand, I folded on the flop
- next notable, I won $1,600 with a pair of aces. I'm pretty sure that was the hand that got me up $800; clearly (in hindsight) I should have quit right there
- next, I won $420 without a showdown
- next, I won $550 without a showdown

Sacre bleu! The archives go dark after that. Apparently I was so discouraged and/or trashed when I lost it all, I didn't even bother to save the final hand.

I promise my faithful reader(s?) that'll be the last of my shoddy record-keeping.

delta: -$,2000
balance: $275,698