Hunting fish, the book.....

I met my wife for dinner tonight at our local Chevy’s Mexican restaurant

She had been near here for an afternoon business meeting. One of the reasons I like this Chevy’s is because it is right next to a Border’s Bookstore.

Border’s is one of those places that have a coffee shop inside and you can order coffee and read books there. Because I am an incredibly fast reader, (I read about 3500 words a minute)I can usually read books, (at one sitting), over a 3-5 hour span. I have purchased about 5 poker books, but I have read another 25 or so there. (grin) I sometimes, even slip a business card in a book I am reading when I don’t have time to finish it and put it back on the shelf to keep my place until I can get back to finish it.

Some of my friends think, I am one of the cheapest people they know. I ask them to tell me who the others are so I can pick up some “pointers or tips” from them. (grin)

Tonight, I read the new book “Hunting Fish, A cross country hunt for America’s worst poker players”. I really enjoyed it for a number of reasons. It was light & entertaining reading about poker and traveling. He even came to San Diego, and played at the Village Club. He does not have very flattering things to say about the Village Club. (LOL, he is right....)

Those are my two favorite things in life;Poker & Traveling. I am planning on my own Poker trip starting next Thursday.

I am hoping to make the trip last about 6-7 weeks and cover much of the country west of the Rockies, playing poker everywhere I go to pay for my trip and make a little profit. I will do my best to stop at libraries and other places so I can upload and post to this blog, so anybody reading this blog will be able to “virtually” travel with me.

So after dinner, my iced coffee, and finishing that book by 9:00 p.m., I felt I was ready for a little poker. I stopped in at the Palomar club, on my way home, and bought in for $200 to the 2/4 No Limit game. I was going to play, until one of three events occurred: I tripled up, lost my $200, or the club closed at 2 A.M.

After about an hour of play I was down to about $85. I had called 3 or 4 times to see flops with AJ, AQ, 10,J, I completely missed the flop each time and folded to good sized bets on the flop. I did play a K,10, suited and the flop came K,A,J and I bet out $25 to see where I was and had two people call all-in behind me. I quickly gave up that hand. The person who flopped the straight took it all.

Finally, on my blind I looked down and realized I had a pair of 9's. Two people just called a blind straddle, I raised all-in for my remaining $85 hoping to take down the pot of $30. I got two callers! I had the best hand until the river. An Ace hit on the river making a pair of Aces for my first caller and I left, having fulfilled one of my conditions of leaving.

I guess I should take solace in the fact that I am often getting “bad beats” or outdrawn recently. According to what I read, that means I am playing good poker, to put my money in, when I have the best hand at the table. My reads were accurate. I knew neither had a pocket pair, and when the A hit I knew I was beaten by an AK caller. I was indeed.

My daughter just called me from Fresno to discuss a poker hand. She is playing with some friends in a home game tournament. She went out 7th out of 17 and is now ready to start one more. I told her to call me tomorrow if she had any hands that she wanted to discuss in that game, because I am going to watch a little poker on TV and then hit the sack.