2/13/05 Oaks Club $3-6 Hold em

1:15-2:00

In $80 Out $0 -$80

$2-4 Hold em

2:15-4:00

In $63 Out $44 -$19

Hours Played 2005:44.75 YTD -$392

Drizzly Sunday in Emeryville. The parking lot is full. I park across the street in front of a high turnover boarding house with a long note about appplication procedures and move-in requirements in the front window. The stucco of the place is the same color as the sky. For some reason, I have chosen to wear a gold v-neck sweaer and black jeans and look like an extra from STAR TREK.

Passing a stand of succulents at the corner, I notice a tiny guy in a bright blue jumpsuit and a rakishly tilted ELDORADO gimme cap pissing into the big hedge with the little pink blossoms. He gives me the chin wave acknowledgement and I give back a confused "hey" and push into the crosswalk.

The dump is indeed crowded but I don't have to wait too long for a seat. There are lots of after-churchers in the hof brau, several older women in very elaborate hats sitting in booths around plates of mashed potato ruins and fat scraps and crumpled napkins.

The beautiful Ethiopian chip runner has new cornrows and long extensions. She looks very cool, like Iman or a LIVE & LET DIE era Bond girl. Boomer was walking around singing MAHOGANY (Diana Ross, not Brecht/Weill).

! ! !

I should probably just have signed up for the $2-4 table. The aggressivenenss of the $3-6 game has been costing me a lot; the stiffer competition and bad cards have been killing me. Plus, my oil pan gasket sprung a leak, and while it was not hemorrhaging, it was leaking bad enough that it leaves a big stain wherever I park. Tranh at Gurrero Shell wants several days losses to pacth it up. So i should have waited for a $2-4 seatt, but there was no board for the $3-6 game so I sat down there.

The player to my right, a white guy, older than me, was doing a lot of talking. Guys at the other end of the table kept betting or folding out of turn. He would admonish them, which the dealer would second and they would apoogize, and then do it again on the next hand. The guy was right, but he was being a superior prick about it finally asking pointedly if they were internet players and doesn.t anybody learn how to play in person anymore.

The game was very aggressive. Lots of raises and lots of big hands.none of which belonged to me. Lost s few big hands: a flopped open ended straight that I be hard hoping to scare the others away from, but which didn't come through in the end; a straight beaten by a flush wen the nine of clubs came on the river; pocket kings beaten by jacks & tens. Bet my last $3 on a pair of sevens, and the flop came queen, king, ten, making one of the interenet/out of turn players a straight.

I had only played for 45 minutes when I lost all my cheese, but I had been reading about Doyle and the days Texas road gambling days in the new SUPER SYSTEM all week and I wanted to play more. I got on the $2-4 list and dashed over to Arizmendi for a slice of pizze. Red onions and sun-dried tomato pesto anong other things. I finished it just as I was called for a seat.

Lost a little slower at the new table, still, the only hand I hit was when I was on the button, which means I was last to act. Everybody called the big blind and I was looking at the 8 and 10 of clubs, so I called, loosely, because I was getting good odds from the pot and the flop came 9, jack, deuce, giving me a straight. I got my last chips into the pot, betting and raising at every opportunity. I won the pot, the forty odd dollars I cashed out, and got up a few hands later.

The hookers still have not returned to San Pablo Ave, even though the drizzle has stopped and the evening is warm. I checked my oil before I left the club's parking lot (and a dinner-plate sized oilspot), and the dipstick indicated that it was past full, but I am still afraid of the thing seizing up on the bridge. I killed a Toyota Corrolla in my youth by ignoring an oil situation. And the way my luck is running I probably should not press this issue.