All Work and No Omaha

To those loyal readers who have been starved for a poker story--today I accommodate you. Everyone else--move along, there is nothing to see here. (For the non-poker players, who read on, simultaneous translation is available on the Jargon Channel)

I have made it as far as Arizona on the final quarter of my trip and I am hunkered down for a couple of days in Scottsdale near Casino Arizona. So, yes there is some poker playin' goin' on Lucy. It's been nearly three weeks since the Boyz were in Mississippi. Amy, Randy & I sorely missed an Omaha fix in Biloxi, but I was determined to play some four card poker before the trip was over.

This is not a bad beat story, although there was one terrible decision on my part. Early saturday afternoon the poker room had over 30 tables in action with two Omaha8's going. But the list was long, so long that I was sure they would open a third table. I hopped on the O8 list and, just in case, the even longer 4/8 hold'em as well.

Sure enough, they called the Omaha interest list but couldn't get nine takers, shortly they did open a new hold'em table and I took a seat. This was a typical no-fold'em table with 3 to 7 players seeing the flop. The elderly gentleman two to my left saw the first nine flops and all nine rivers as well; then he rebought for his second $100. This had all the signs of a juicy table with a monster fish and several dull toothed carp chasing him.

For a full hour I played only one hand, my un-raised big blind in the first round. I won nothing but was only down the $12 for the blinds. Our fish was bleeding chips and had just taking out his 4th c-note, when they called my Omaha table. I was torn, he was down three hundred in an hour, but he said as he pulled out his cash: "This is my last chance today." So I moved to the O8 table, which was immediately behind the 4/8 table and I happened to take a seat where I could see the generous gentleman who immediately runner-runnered a big pot, which meant he would be around longer. Hmm, maybe I should have stayed. Remember, I got exactly none of his first $300 and was card dead and just not having any fun.

The Omaha table was lively, way more fun than getting rotten cards in the hold'em game. Over on my abandoned first table, the "last chance today" gentleman proceeded to lose all chips he had won in that one suck-out pot and then went on to pull a grand total of $1200 out of his wallet in a little under four and a half hours. The player who took my seat, bought in for a single rack of whites and was up nearly five hundred bucks when Old Faithful finally left the table.

Oh, I had a lot of fun at the Omaha table and managed just over a one big blind an hour profit. Sometimes it's not about how you play your cards or how you play your opponents but simply where you sit down and when you stand up.

I would just like to say: Doh!

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promotional photo of me and Mikey at '09 WSOP

photo credit to MeanGene

Whence Westerly Weather

I have run before the weather several times on my current journey. I ducked ahead of a Rockies early fall storm in October, hunkered down during a three day inundation in Indiana, raced south before DC was hit with a pre-holiday snow storm. But this morning I faced a due westerly course into the massive east-moving storm that is drenching the entire southwest U.S.

My early morning start from Fort Stockton, Texas found a deceptive 50 degree sunny day blossoming. But the weather channel had warned and re-warned me of what lay ahead. After only an hour on the road, 40 mile-an-hour winds were huffing and gusting to 60 and were pushing hard at a perfect right angle to I-10. The big rigs were actually slowing down and I am not one to ignore road veterans, even when the posted speed limit is a tantalizing 80 mph. Out there in west Texas the tumbleweed gets a real workout in such weather, for about an hour the interstate resembled Tim Burton directed game of Frogger.

Road hour three began with a lite grey horizon and the steady advance of the moisture. Whether it was my 70ish mph western progress or the 30+ mph crawl of the storm, a confrontation was coming. I pondered just how my personal the "two trains leave the station" thought problem was effected by the 800+ mile an hour rotation of the earth in these latitudes. Physics wizs may weigh in with comments below.

When the rain finally hit around Sierra Blanca; there was no need for intermediate speed wipers. For the next four hours it rained, drizzled, poured, sprinkled and then as I crossed the continental divide and the temperature lowered to 35°, it nearly sleeted. The raindrops got viscous and nearly lumpy on the windshield but the downward altitude slide into western New Mexico brought only more liquid and no white stuff.

Tonight I rest in Willcox, Arizona before heading into Phoenix for the weekend. Here's hoping the predicted snow stays above 4,000 feet for one more night.