Poker Face

I just got back from a Becks bday weekend, where the focus was on three key activities – cooking, surfing and poker. Being generally acknowledged as pretty crap at the first two, I spent a lot of energy throwing myself into the high stakes game of poker – the No Limit Texas Hold’em kind.

There is just something about beating your friends into oblivion that brings me great joy. To see the disappointment on HT’s face when we go head to head, and I win for once makes my heart beat double time. In poker, no one is your friend – they are just a pile of casino grade chips waiting to be colour sorted into my own stash.

This is totally contrary to my normal behaviour where I usually try to make sure everyone remains happy until I myself get pissed off. And I am usually pretty submissive too, so you would think that I succumb to the poker face during the game. But actually, I live for the moments when I can say “ALL IN” and not worry about losing… And also drawing people in to a pot when I know I’ve got the best possible hand (so I can let out a relieved sigh and laugh off my nerves, while I carefully integrate the pot into my own colour coded pile).

My poker tactics are being refined by the continual advice from Chad, Wayne, Shar and Marissa, who I acknowledge as being the real pro’s from a strategic/tactical point of view. Due to this, I am not succumbing to my curiosity during the game – meaning much less aimless betting just so I can see the other person’s hand. This is paying off too, as my win rate jumps from 0% to 50% in a matter of weeks.

I’ll be the first to say that I definitely don’t want to encourage my deviant sinful behaviour by buying my own poker chips, especially as Shar has such a great set! However, tax deductable 6 person texas hold’em on tap, via the O2 mini is sound more and more like a great idea.