Right In The Mouth

Ah PokerStars, how you tease and torment me.

Clearly you've been following my blog, and watching as I experiment with a variety of poker games. So you send along the apparent answer to my prayers, HORSE cash games.

Furthermore you send multiple dispatches from the front, telling tales of uberdonkitude, and bankroll padding.

Then you send me a table with a juicy mix of Scandinavian raising machines, and 'what game are we playing now?' buffoons.

Only to torment me with the worst starting cards I have ever seen and, on the few hands I actually took to showdown, some of the cruelest river cards imaginable.

There's no doubt for a tight player like me, Stars is the best site for playing stud games. On Full Tilt the ante is 20% of the small bet; on Party it's a silly 25%; on Stars it's a frugal 10%.

Sitting around waiting for hands doesn't cost a lot of money. Unless you do it for about four hours.

Four hours, that is, punctuated with tiny bursts of activity which inevitably ended with a frenzied rush to the hand history for an instant post-mortem of the McEnroe-esque 'how could you call four bets with that?', 'what did you think you were drawing to?' variety.

Chalk flew up, I swear. Actually I swore a lot!

Of course I also misplayed a couple of hands. I've played a lot of PLO8, but hadn't bothered with LO8 before. Initial reaction, not a fan. Maybe I'll change my mind after I actually win a hand!

I was also playing some NLHE simultaneously, which was clearly a stupid idea.

Most significantly, having recently purchased Setanta Sports - including North American Sports Network - I'd made the mistake of asking Joe Speaker for an explanation of a couple of baseball terms.

Within minutes I was perusing a document of such complexity, I'm almost certain it proved beyond doubt the existence of the Bermuda Triangle, life on Mars, as well as providing an irrefutable solution to the Poincare conjecture.

My head swimming from that missive, it's no wonder I was fish food for the night.