A hand out
Our handsome and modern office building sits apart from downtown in a neighborhood where renovation means covering first-floor windows with iron bars. One of the more successful ventures in the neighborhood is a large homeless shelter. The office, located along the main flyway to and from the shelter, provides a front-row seat for viewing the humanity passing back and forth.
One character stands out. He's an older guy, maybe in his 50s. He travels with a large number of plastic bags which, from what I can see, contain many more plastic bags. There are so many bundles of plastic bags, in fact, that he cannot carry them all at one time. His back slightly bent, he takes some of the bags, moves them ahead 100 feet or so along the sidewalk, and returns to the pile for the next load. It takes him three or four trips to traverse from Point A to Point B.
While these bags are clearly important to him, their intrinsic value remains unknown to this middle-class observer of the human condition. I've not yet worked up the courage to ask why he chooses to burden himself with so much baggage. Perhaps he's some kind of plasticine penitent looking for redeeming grace in the undiscovered beauty of a Giant Eagle bag?
Make mine paper, please.
But the sisyphean work this man does does seem emblematic of my path of Poker Progress. Instead of upwardly arcing curves, I have craggy peaks and valleys. I'm higher than I when I started, but did it have to be so freakin' hard getting here? Slow learner, me.
A hand review from Friday's Group tournament that is noteworthy primarily for its freakish nature.
We're 7-handed, waiting to combine to two tables. I get aces UTG. We're at the 5th level (150/300) and I've been pretty active to this point. I make it 900T and get three callers. Jason, in the BB, ponders. I casually mention that it looks like he wants to take a stab at the pot. He raises to 4,000T. I push my remaining 14K to get everyone else out of the hand. They all fold, including Jason, who could not help but put me on aces or kings. Fine with me. I'd won a nice-sized pot at that point.
Here's the Ripley's Believe It Or Not portion of the program. The other hands were, in this order, pocket 10s, pocket jacks, pocket 6s and pocket queens. It shouldn't take much guessing to figure out which pair would have won had the hand played out to the river.
One character stands out. He's an older guy, maybe in his 50s. He travels with a large number of plastic bags which, from what I can see, contain many more plastic bags. There are so many bundles of plastic bags, in fact, that he cannot carry them all at one time. His back slightly bent, he takes some of the bags, moves them ahead 100 feet or so along the sidewalk, and returns to the pile for the next load. It takes him three or four trips to traverse from Point A to Point B.
While these bags are clearly important to him, their intrinsic value remains unknown to this middle-class observer of the human condition. I've not yet worked up the courage to ask why he chooses to burden himself with so much baggage. Perhaps he's some kind of plasticine penitent looking for redeeming grace in the undiscovered beauty of a Giant Eagle bag?
Make mine paper, please.
But the sisyphean work this man does does seem emblematic of my path of Poker Progress. Instead of upwardly arcing curves, I have craggy peaks and valleys. I'm higher than I when I started, but did it have to be so freakin' hard getting here? Slow learner, me.
A hand review from Friday's Group tournament that is noteworthy primarily for its freakish nature.
We're 7-handed, waiting to combine to two tables. I get aces UTG. We're at the 5th level (150/300) and I've been pretty active to this point. I make it 900T and get three callers. Jason, in the BB, ponders. I casually mention that it looks like he wants to take a stab at the pot. He raises to 4,000T. I push my remaining 14K to get everyone else out of the hand. They all fold, including Jason, who could not help but put me on aces or kings. Fine with me. I'd won a nice-sized pot at that point.
Here's the Ripley's Believe It Or Not portion of the program. The other hands were, in this order, pocket 10s, pocket jacks, pocket 6s and pocket queens. It shouldn't take much guessing to figure out which pair would have won had the hand played out to the river.
posted by Poker Jones at 3:34 PM
2 Comments:
I was in a cash game hand online once that was actually AA, KK, QQ, JJ. I had the aces, Q's had the presence of mind to fold in the midst of preflop action, the rest of us got it all in preflop, and wanted to kill myself when a J fell on the turn.
Man that hand was insane if the TT or JJ raise before me I push all in and you crush me. I am really interested in knowing why the man with bags think they have so much value.
Post a Comment
<< Home