Motivation

I haven't been to motivated to play poker lately. Been busy with buttons. Who would have thought?

It seems the last game of poker I played was at a friends house a couple of weeks back. It was poker as much as it was playing cards. Those fun games like Black Mariah, Guts, In between the Sheets and other games where it seems 2 cards are wild and you can buy an extra card with a 4. Games where 5 of a kind would win even though it isn't truly possible to attain such a hand.

I felt a bit guilty going into this game. I knew how the flow of it would be. These junk games are all the same. People throwing in quarters every round hoping they get a wild card and get lucky. These are the games where you get ridiculed if you fold. They are also the games where you can jack the pot up pretty high and keep the suckers throwing their money in.

I guess that is why I felt guilty. I knew the crowd I was playing. I knew they wouldn't fold and they wouldn't complain if I kept betting with a nut hand. I knew there might be some whining at the end when I walked away up $20 on a dime/quarter game.

It amazes me how these so called friendly games are anything but. There was one hand in particular that amazed me. The game was 221. A split game where anyone close to 2 gets half the pot while the person(s) closest to 21 gets the other half. All numerical cards carried that value while face cards were good for 1/2. I recall getting dealt an 8 and a 5. With 13 I stayed in one round to get a card. It was only a quarter so I thought I would take one and fold as needed. I hit the jackpot when I was dealt the case 8. Yeah I was drawing terribly thing but it is a junk game and I had to give some money back. With the cards on the board, you could tell two people were going low and me and another girl where going high. I thought she might have hit 21 as well but her body language gave it all away. She was confident in her betting. I knew right away she had either 20 or 22. Thus I kept raising everyone and betting just a bit more with each card that was dealt. The fifth person in the hand was trying for a 21 but kept getting low cards. She kept tossing money in hoping to get lucky. She didn't realize it was hopeless and all she was doing was handing the cash over to me. She finally got a 9 and folded knowing her 27 wasn't going to win.

Best thing was the two going for a low had no concept of being quartered. My 21 beat the 22 and they both showed 1.5 to tie for the low. It was like taking candy from a baby. Maybe I should organize a game over there before the next UFC PPV...