2/6/05 Oaks Club $3-6 Hold’em

2:15-6:00 PM

In $100 Out $8 -$92

2/7/05 Oaks Club $3-6 Hold’em

1:30-3:00 PM

In $100 Out $18 -$82

2/8/05 Oaks Club $3-6 Hold’em

1:15-2:00 PM

In $73 Out $0 -$73

Hours Played 2005: 42.2 YTD -293

Made myself a long weekend in celebration of mardi Gras, planning a three day poker binge, perhaps making a little progress on my goals of seeing the Oaks Club at every hour and in staying up later more often, because things happen late at night like that, and I want to see those things. It didn’t really work out that way.

So Sunday was the the Superbowl. I don’t really care much about football, even from a gambling perspective. I sort of regard it like presidential politics, somewhat distateful, but unavoidable, and knowing something about it can sometimes be beneficial and give you something to talk about with people you might not otherwise have a lot to talk about with, especially dudes. So anyway, I thought it might fill the place up, make it even more crowded than a regular Sunday. On Sundays the place gets an after-church crowd. There is a high incidence of old school dookie ropes and pastel suits and felt hats in matching colors throughout the week, but on Sunday afternoon it goes way up. So does the number of women in the place. At any rate, I thought the place would be even more crowded than usual because of the big game, but it wasn’t. In fact, I got a better parking place than I ever have before an there was no wait for a seat. Even after the game started the club never filled up.

The game was on all the televeisions (there are 6 or 8 of them around the big main room, and another in each of the smaller salons they call the Oak Room and the Gold Room), but the sound was turned down, so it was difficult to pay attention to. I was sort of hoping to be able to get into a pool on the game, but there wasn’t one, at least a public one. I did see a floor explaining one to a chipgirl about halfway through the first quarter. On a regular NFL Sunday, it is not uncommon for a floorman to walk over to the table and slide currence into a player’s shirt pocket with little to no comment.

I played poorly early, folding more than one winner, including an open ended straight which I folded for a measly $6 that cost me a $100+ pot. This was a very poor play. I came to my senses and played better, holding my own for a few houre before losing a big pot and desciding to cross the bridge. The game was in the fourth quarter when I left.

Monday I got over about one thirty, Played too many hands, I guess, but I lost $82 in an hour and a half. I don’t remember what happened exaxtly, except to lode it I must have been playing it, that is, betting it. If I was playing well, it means I was getting a lot of marginal cars and none of my draws were hitting. If I was playing badly it really just means I was playing badly. I think I won one pot with pocket kings, but by 3 o’clock I had less than $20 left, so I came home, cleaned my house and finished THE BROOM OF THE SYSTEM, which ended sort of disappointingly. I am going to try to make it through INFINITE JEST agian, prompted by, among other things, THE BROOM. THE BROOM feels like a tentative stab at INFINITE JEST.

Speaking of big fat books, Doyle “Texas Dolly” Bruson’s SUPER SYSTEM 2 was released to bookstore a couple of weeks ago, after decades of rumors and then limited availability through Dolly’s website. It is as thick as INFINITE JEST, as is the original. I remember my grandmother giving my father a copy of the original book when it was titled HOW I MADE $1,000,000 PLAYING TEXAS HOLD’EM. She had paid $100 for it in 1977 dollars. The name changed to SUPER SYSTEM in the early eighties (at first it was SUPER/SYSTEM, with the inexplicable slash). It was a summit of the greatest poker minds of the day, headlined by Brunson, at that point the only two-time winner of the Main Event at the World Series of Poker and the king of the old-time Texas road gamblers, who includes a rambling introductory biography and contributes the final, indispensible chapter on no limit hold’em. This book was and is theBible of poker instruction, and for years Brunson affected a sort of humorous regret for having given all his secrets away, but the fact is that the man universally recognized as the greatest player of our time made much more money from his self-publishing venture than he ever did at the tables.

Tuesday I got fucking murdered. My body was discovered in a shallow grave on the PIXAR campus which sits behind the Oaks Club on the lot of the long-gone Oakland Oaks ballpark. I got to the table around one, after indulging in some steam table macaroni and cheese from the hof brau. Very shortly after I sat down I was dealt the ace and king of clubs. Suited ace/king is the third best starting hand, and as I am trying to be more aggressive lately, I got in two raises, capping the betting. About 5 of us were in the pot for $12 each. The flop comes 3 of diamonds, 4 of hearts, 6 hearts. That many players staying in for all those raises means that lots of high cards are likely to be in people’s hands. Figuring this flop probably wouldn’t help anybody. I bet at it and a FIlipino kid at the other end of the table raised, so I figured he had a low pair in his hand and had flopped a set, that is, made 3 of a kind on the flop. I called, because the pot was so big already, and so did all the other pre-flop callers. On the turn, a black 9 came up and I was in bad shape so I folded. The hand is played out and the raising Filipino kid turns over a deuce and a five of diamonds. He had called three raises with these shitty cards and flopped a miracle straight. The pot was close to $200. I was dealt ace/king three more times in next half hour, all of which I played strongly and none of which held up.

I decided to eat my losses and try to recoup later. I drove home across the stingingly trafficless bridge. Later, I went to the Jasmine Tea House for dinner, and after years of looking at the Basil Ostrich and making jokes about Sir Basil Ostrich and his career on the English stage and the infant British film industry, I ordered it. The sauce was delicious (as is nearly everything else I have had at the JTH), and the ostrich itself was ok in the smaller pieces, maybe a little too tender, but in the bigger pieces it was nearly impossible to chew into a swallowable state.