Victims of Fun

Excitement mounts as I start this lovely Friday, the 2nd of such in this month of June that should prove to ROCK! \m/

Last Friday started out glum with nobody except a few diehards willing to play live poker at my house. Alas, the game crumbled and my house was empty. G-Rob called (one of the diehards) and mentioned the 7:15pm tourney on Stars, a $10+1 with 1 rebuy and 1 add-on. I signed up so I could play virtual cards with my home town fellow blogger.

He busted in 20 minutes.

I did not.

Like I mentioned last post, the key hand was avoiding getting coolered. I'm pretty sure we were not in the money, however we may have been close. I had about 70k in chips and I think the blinds were 600/1200 with an ante. I had pocket Jacks in middle position and re-raised an UTG raiser 4x his bet. One guy on the button then pushed all-in over the top for 50k and it was folded back to me. It was a dilemma. I really thought about folding.

Especially when the phone rang.

It was my cooler of a wife, who while I love dearly, simply cannot help herself from unwittingly destroying any chance of me winning at poker while she's around. She was an 8-hour drive away up in Virginia beach and yet she found the perfect time to call me, right in the middle of a decision for 2/3rd's of my chips in this tournament wherein I've lasted longer than I imagined.

"Hello?" I said.

"Hey. How's it goin'?"

"Honey, I'm RIGHT in the middle of a huge hand right now, I have Jacks and just got re-raised. Can I call you back?"

"Alright." But you see, it wasn't "alright." It was that exact tone that 12 years of marriage allowed me to translate thusly: "It's not alright. I miss you, I want to talk to you, the kids are in bed, I have time to chat. CHAT WITH ME!"

She hung up.

I had clicked my time bank and it was ticking down. Then I had this thought: "Hey, she hung up. She's in another state, another area code, another ZIP CODE even. I have to call."

I clicked call. Push-monkey had 66 and didn't suck out. Tough call, but in the end it still was a $10 MTT.

I called my wife back, a 3rd place chip stack fueling my ability to "chat." She was mollified.

****

FYI to Jordan: Once it got heads up, we were both pretty even in chips and my opponent typed "DEAL" into the chat box. We both agreed to sit out (got to fold KK once, yay!) and I fired off an email to Pokerstars support. Within perhaps 2 minutes, an online host was at the table and stopped the tournament to discuss a deal. I offered an even chop $2600 each, with the remainder to go to the winner. The host confirmed the deal and we both had to type "I agree" into the chat box to formalize it. Then the host re-started the tournament and off we went.

****

I leave work tonight as soon as humanly possible to go hit up Total Wine for some alcomahol. Grey Goose, and for a very special guest, Captain Morgan rum are on my list. We'll be raising a toast and/or dial-a-shotting some other local bloggers who couldn't make it.

SpecialK is kicking special ass over in Iraq, uncorrupting databases that were either attacked by nasty terrorists or Microsoft Vista. Not sure which.

And TripJax couldn't make it due to in-law health concerns, so hopefully all turns out well for he and his family. We have your number and hopefully can remember how to dial a phone.

Hell, even Shep's playing tonight. Fun indeed.