Like the Wicked Witch...

I’m melting. And so are you, probably, if you live anywhere east of the Rockies and don’t, uh, have air conditioning. Granted it’s only going to be in the low 90s here, not the 100-plus degrees it’ll be out west. Throw in the 1,000% relative humidity though and it’s still going to be a long couple of days.

Not a whole lot going on the poker front, but a couple of little things. I played in a golf tournament on Saturday. I know that’s not poker. Shut up. It was a memorial event remembering one of the members – a good guy who passed away last winter unexpectedly. He was about my age. The tournament had a golf portion and a poker portion. The golf portion went well – as a fundraiser they sold mulligans (do-overs, for the non-golfer). You could buy up to five. I figure four of the five saved me a shot and despite a double bogey on the last hole, I still shot 72.

Good times.

The poker portion was a little silly. It was NLHE, T200 stacks, no blinds, just antes which started at $1. Whoever had the most chips left at the end was declared the winner. I chipped up playing seriously and then decided that it was too ridiculous. Switch on donkey mode. Wheee!

Didn’t win. That’s okay.

Afterward, some unofficial games got going, and a total of six players were successfully convinced to play … Omaha! No limit Omaha (pot limit games and drinking do not mix), to be exact. Tournament style. Did I mention it was Omaha? Nobody plays Omaha.

Good times.

Play was surprisingly somewhat tight. I didn’t really keep track, but I think it took about an hour and a half to get it down to heads up, where we chopped (I took 2nd).

Sunday morning we had some vicious thunderstorms roll through just before noon. I have a bunch of large trees surrounding my house, and they tend to drop a lot of branches. I’m standing in my carport, watching the storm blow in after mowing the lawn. I'm thinking about retrieving the car from the street in case it hails when the wind brings down a huge limb right in front of me.

Good timing.

No damage done, but the rain meant an afternoon playing online instead of at the golf course. (Say it with me... awwww). I putzed around at a couple of PLO cash games and ended up about even. I also hit a $5 PLO tournament and made a whopping $4.25 profit for my three and a half hour investment (finished 13th) – the finish was a decided letdown. I was 3rd in chips after the rebuy period – I didn’t have to rebuy, and this is Titan so you know the quality of play. I had my stack up to almost 19,000 chips at 300/600 blinds, and then I got owned.

I’m in a hand with the big stack (T30,000 or so). I’ve just been moved to his table and have no read. I have AAxx double suited. I flop top set and get called down. The river puts a three flush on the board, and the big stack gets aggressive. I’ve already got almost a third of my stack in the pot, but I decide I can’t risk the rest of it. I muck and he flashes two pair, nothing of the flush suit. Two freaking pair.

Bad times.

It didn’t take long to determine that Mr. Big Stack was in fact just some euro-Omatard who presumably got lucky a few times. He loved to min-bet. I did get a few chips back making a donkey call, just because it was him. Sheesh.

I went completely and utterly card dead and folded pretty much every hand for an hour as the blinds started escalating. I couldn’t get anything even remotely worth playing. KJ63 three suited? Q832 rainbow? Ugh. I finally pushed with AKQ4 single suited and got called by an even junkier hand – also a suited ace, but with weaker, unconnected supporting cards. The board completely misses both of us, but my ace king high falls when he pairs some non-face card on the river. So rigged.

Bad timing.

And now it’s lunch.

Time.