I netted about $750, and just might have played the best poker I've played in sometime because I could have easily lost $1500. I think the poker gods were testing me.

For 4 hours I had absolute zippo to play. I mean like 93o type crap. I finally come into a pot and a guy actually says, "holy cow, seat #2 is in the hand."

After 4 hours, the poker gods decided to test just how patient I was. For those who play online and multitable, a strange thing happens to you live. You are seeing 1/3 or maybe even 1/10 of the cards you see playing online especially if you multitable. Pretty soon J8o starts looking pretty good after 4 hours of crap. This is why almost nobody folds TPTK live.

After 4 hours of that I wanted to tie myself to a mast like Odysseus and plug my ears because J8o was singing a siren song that was tempting.

Test Hands:

1) I finally get JJ, and I get it twice in about 10 minutes. I raise it both times. Once action man CRAI on the flop, the other time I was limp reraised huge UTG from a TAG. Both times they had AA, and I escaped. Tough.
2) I have KJ and raise late and action man calls. Flop K37. I bet, he "caughs." Turn a J, he goes nuts and changes his mannerism in some way that alarms me. I fold top two and he shows 33. Tough.
3) A nice but very young hip-hop black guy sits to my left. It's obvious that he's way underolled for this game, and probably couldn't fold a good hand. I have KJ and call his $20 raise. He has QQ. Flop K73r. He makes a decent CB and I CR pretty big, he hesitates awhile, asks me a question or two and reluctantly calls. He's not folding no matter what now, and I can milk his full stack with two medium size bets. However, the turn's a Q. I don't lose another penny as he leads strong, and the way he bet told me I was beat for sure. Tough.

At this point I'm starting to wonder if live play is really just not my gig. The last time I played with Ice, I was raised and reraised on every CB. Every one. It screws with your head. During this 4 hour stretch, I won exactly 1 pot.

Poker gods... why do thou hate me so? Then this conversation takes place.

Ice: "Why are your chips all stacked in a mess. You know the poker gods hate that." (Ice then points to his 6 buyin stack he's built while I've been dodging bullets like a 15 point buck who decided to drink from the stream across from that strange looking box on stilts ).

T-Rod: "Blah... poker gods, smoker gods."

Hmm but could Iceman be correct? I looked at his chips which were organized in such a way as to make my 8th grade geometry teacher have an orgasm. Perfectly symmetrical. Could he be a unknowing messenger from the poker gods? Your chips are your sacrifical monument to the poker gods. Did my sloppy stack offend them?

Fuggit. I decide to straighten my stack. Why not.

A few minutes later, I get JJ again. Oh great . I'm in the BB and just call the insanity from action man and another guy. I'm way OOP. Flop is 665 with a FD, lose pfr makes a CB, action man "caughs", and I decide with my nicely arranged stack to CR huge. PFR folds and action man calls. Turn a non-flush Q, action man "checks his sexxes," and I fire $200 basically committing me. He folds. Hmmm.

Then not too long after that I raise AJ later and action man calls with QJ, we get it all in on a AJJ flop and I double up a 800 stack.

So I managed to survive the rough waters and not succumb to the harpee song of J8o. All in all, I guess it pays to appease the poker gods.

Something else of interest to note from the trip.

We get a new dealer that looks like Baby Huey. In the middle of a decent sized hand that i wasnt involved in he sets the deck down on the table. I dodnt know that was a big deal but he has to stop play and call the floor to get permission to pick it back up and deal. Floor gives him the go ahead.

3 mins later....dickweed does it again and has to call the floor again. Floor says deal it and he does.

5 mins later. UTG limps, another guy limps and I raise to $30 with KT on the button. Its 6 handed. UTG calls and other guy folds.

Baby Huey now sets the deck down on the table and shoves the muck pile into the deck scrambling everything. He says he thought everyone folded. He calls the floor and floor decides that we should take our $30 back and split the $12 thats in the pot.

I grumble a bit and say OK. UTG says he had AK and thinks it was good. I say AK "no good" and told him I had KK. I had KT but AK is no good there. Hes gonna flop a pair like 25% of the time or whatever it is (when I have a K). I win the pot almost all of the other times.