It’s your day off and you haven’t purchased chips and taken a seat at the green felt for over 2 weeks. But today you’ve decided it’s time to go back. You stopped 2 weeks ago with a winning streak and you’ve been playing pretty strong – now your head is telling you it’s time to get back into the thick of it. Get involved and try to pick up a few stray dollars here and there because you have bills and the extra money would come in handy. Besides . . . you know that you’re the favorite in a lot of the lower limit games. ‘Nuff said.

You cruise into the room you used to work in and put your name on a $6-12 holdem game. Seven names on the list and you ask the brush if they’ll be starting a game soon. Several people drift by and chat for a moment, including the floor man. The decision is made to start the game but it will take a few moments to find a dealer, so you take a seat in a $3-6 holdem game while you’re waiting.

You play for 45 minutes or so and manage to pick up the A-4H in a max raised pot with 3 other players besides yourself. The flop is 10H-7H-4c. The bet is capped off. The turn is a blank. The river card is an A which makes you Aces up. Everyone checks except the player behind you that put the last raise in on all streets. You’re sure he’s either got AA or KK so you check . . . hoping that it’s KK. He bets and as everyone else folds, you’re forced to call for the size of the pot, plus you have a hand. He shows pocket A’s. He’s seen your hand but he can’t figure out why you called him with a pair of 4’s all the way. Now you have to explain that you flopped the nut flush draw – AGHHHHHH, I hate that part!! Explanation poker.

Before you know it, you’ve lost over $60 and you hate the game and the cards your getting so you jump up to ask the brush if they are going to start the $6-12 game.

“We only have 6 people that are actually here.” is the reply.

You say, “Well, start it. More people will play if it’s going.” Like if you build it, they will come.

The brush replies, “I know you’ll play short handed, but a lot of people won’t!” Guess that meant “NO!!”

You sit for one more round of the table and pick up the remainder of your chips to hit the window. Now the brush wants to confront you to ask if you aren’t going to help them start the $6-12. Excuse you while you leave the poker room talking to yourself and head down the street to another game.

Now you jump into a $6-12 game with a kill. The kill is winning 2 pots in a row with $20 or more and the winner becomes the “killer” in a $10-20 limit round. Well, Hallelujah!

You never win a pot. You sit and wait for almost 3 hours without ever playing a hand or dragging a chip and your keen mind and strong spirit is beginning to slide down into a bottomless abyss. The walls of the abyss keep getting steeper and steeper and now they are sprayed and polished so you can’t hang on to anything, you’re just picking up speed as you slide faster and faster and FASTER into the blackness below.

Players keep leaving your game and new ones are coming in. Finally you pick up A-K and raise it. You dump it on the flop. The next hand you pick up . . . don’t even guess! A-K again. Raise it. You get one caller, (who is a new player), and the flop is all little and 2 spades. Caller checks, you bet and get check raised. Something in the back of your head is telling you this guy is on a flush draw and you have the best hand . . . so you call. The turn is a blank and your opponent fires. You call again. A lonely little 5 pops off on the river and your opponent checks, so do you. He shows you Ks-5s for a flush draw that turned into a pair of fives on the river. Yippee!

You’re really picking up speed now into the abyss. Next hand is A-J H. Raise it. Get 2 callers and the flop is a rainbow, all unrelated. They check, you bet, finally dragging a small pot and feeling as if you’ve just stuck your fingernails in the wall and can begin climbing up and out. Suddenly there’s a ledge up above your head in the abyss. It’s just out of reach but if you stretch . . .

Next hand is 9-10D and 5 players come into the pot. Flop is K-Q-J with the Q of diamonds. Same player that called your raise with K-5S bets right out. You raise and the button re-raises. The first bettor thinks for a moment and then calls. The turn is a little diamond. It’s checked to you and you bet, get called by the button and the first player. Another small diamond pops off on the river making you a back door flush. The first player bets, you’ve now improved your hand and really hate to call . . . but you do. The button folds and the first player shows you Kd-7d. You were right, darling, he faded the heat with a pair of kings and a bad kicker. Being right is a drag! You just can’t seem to stop the death spiral into the abyss.

Another player comments to the winner of the pot about how lucky he is and he starts laughing and explaining about how he’d been reading books as he stacks all of your chips. You’re numb by now and you calmly pick up the remainder of your buy in and say, “Well, it must’ve paid off!”

You feel like screaming, “Medic, table 12!” Because you’re either going to kill this little idiot or yourself, or maybe everyone in the room. Poker is hell at times.

That’s the beginning of your weekend and you swear you’re never going to play poker again, as long as you live, and as long as your great grandchildren live.

You go back to work, dealing of course, and sit down to an unhappy little group of players. Hello Monday morning at the zoo!! They want to peg cards into the rack and snarl and whine because they can’t drag a chip . . . and there you are . . . the up and coming winner of the next Academy Award . . . cheerfully putting out the next hand as you’re thinking how much you want to drop kick them into the pit.

You just sat on that side of the table and took a lot of beats and never lost your cool or gave way the fact that you needed a tourniquet for the leak in your gray matter. So what’s their problem? That’s what keeps us all coming back to the table.

See you there!