Just Another...

Not a good weekend, for a variety of reasons.

I think my restlessness at work has translated to my poker play, as I digressed from my usual steady, tight aggressive game to try to rumble it up a bit at the NLH tables. Raising with a wider range of hands, over valuing medium pairs, a few bluffs and, to be perfectly frank, some pretty donkeyish play from myself.

Some of the play might have been valid in a tournament, but for a cash game it was a bit too wild.

As Dave 'El Blondie' Colclough said on Sporting Life recently, the key to being a good poker player - 'patience, patience, patience'. Shame I didn't read that before the weekend!

I dropped a couple of buyins on Saturday. Won part of it back on Sunday. Won another chunk on Monday to get back within sight of a break even weekend - before events took an unexpected turn.

The table I'd won back a chunk on broke up soon after I'd made a nice profit from betting the nut flush draw on the flop, hitting it on the turn and having a guy instantly go all in with his lower flush.

I joined a new table and soon had the guy directly to my right throwing a lot of chips around: betting ten times the BB pre-flop, all in on uncoordinated flops, etc. He was taking down a lot of pots without showing cards, though on the few times cards were shown he did have the goods.

We hadn't gone head to head until I found K3 in the BB and several limpers. The flop came K52 and was checked by Big Bet Guy. I made a pot size bet, hoping to take it down, and it was folded back to BBG, who raises it up by double the pot.

At this point I figure him for a bluff, so I reraise, expecting him to fold. He goes all in. Hmmm. There's zillions of hands that could have me beat, but I'm still suspicious of him.

At EXACTLY that moment, Mrs Div appears in the room looking quite teary. The baby has been really active for the last few weeks, except today she apparently hasn't felt it move for fourteen hours. Usually a cup of tea after dinner is enough to trigger some foetal gymnastics, but today there was nothing.

Beep, beep....fifteen seconds to act.

Screw the poker. There's more important stuff to deal with. I should really fold, but the pointer is over the call button so I just click then drop the laptop, and pick up the phone to the hospital.

Half an hour later, Mrs Div is hooked up to a monitor in the maternity ward and there's big sighs of relief as the baby's heartbeat pounds out through the speakers. Racing like an express train, just the way a foetal heartbeat is supposed to sound.

More tears from Mrs Div, of course. It seems the little one was just having a duvet day.

An hour later we were tucked up in bed fast asleep too. It's amazing how draining that sort of stress can be.

As for Big Bet Guy - he had flopped a set of fives. More cash blown on another mongtastic call. Which concerned me not a jot. I'll learn from the mistake and win the money back later.

That I can handle. The thought of something going wrong with the pregnancy is just too awful to contemplate.