Poker Weekend #1 Part 1

With the WSOP not far away the Poker Dynasty apartment has been in full blown poker mode for the last few weeks. Everyone is trying to fine tune their games while building up enough money to have sizable online, live, and tournament bankrolls. Jared suggested that we take it up a notch and devote this past weekend to nothing but playing poker and discussing poker theory. We decided that if we were going to do this we had to do it in style. So we made reservations at a nice hotel in Orlando for a distraction free poker weekend, with some room service and relaxation thrown in.

We head out to Orlando Thursday evening (it’s only about an hour from Tampa) trying to make it there before Jared’s coaching session at 10. We pull up to the Grand Bohemian Hotel and Jared’s battle worn Honda Civic fits in perfectly with the shiny Bentley and pearl white Rolls Royce that are also waiting for the valet. The hotel is pretty pimp, as it has tons of modern art at every turn. There are some interesting pieces, but some of the more “modern” art looks like something you expect from any preschool finger painter.

The first thing we do after checking in is bust out our laptops (the internet is the crack of our generation). After our computers boot up we give each other the “OH FUCK” look when we realize that the hotel doesn’t have wireless internet in the rooms. Apparently the rest of the hotel has wireless, but they are still working on integrating it into the guest rooms. These days I really expect every building in the country to have wireless, so it’s a pretty big shock when they don’t. The room has 2 ether net jacks, but only has one 8 inch long cable. Jared does his lesson and we decide to go find some cables in the morning, and just get some room service and watch sports center that night.

In the morning the concierge (aka old guy using Google) tells us that Radio Shack is only half a mile down the road turning left out of the hotel. It’s a pretty nice day so we go on foot instead of grabbing a taxi. I’m a bit skeptical about this info as the hotel is at the very edge of the downtown area, and left means going away from all the buildings. My scientism turns out to be right as after walking for about a mile we don’t find anything besides a bum fishing in a little man made lake.

We head back to the downtown area and search for something there until we decide to grab a bite to eat and head back to the hotel for better directions. Downtown Orlando is a pretty nice place, I will have to visit it again sometime that I’m not going to be playing poker for 4 days straight.

We get an address this time and take a cab to the Radio Shack that was a 15 minute drive instead of a half mile walk. We make quick work of purchasing the cables and get back to the hotel at about 5pm ready to hit the tables. We got off to a late start, but still plenty of time to play a ton of hands.

Over the past two weeks I’ve been running horrible. It started when I took a great calculated shot at Bodog 5/10. I played incredibly well, but a few massive beats forced me back down to the $300 and $600 tables. That stung a bit as I was dominating those players and if I had been a bit luckier I’d be well rolled for the game, even after taking out WSOP money. It didn’t get much better after dropping back down but I was able fight through and break even the last few weeks, when I should have probably lost a nice chunk of change.

I felt like I was going to break out of the slump this weekend as it’s pretty hard to lose when you’re able to fully concentrate on your game while playing a massive amount of hands. There first session almost crushed my optimism, as I got owned for about 5 buyins during the first 4 hours. I was really frustrated at this point, closed my computer, flopped face first into the bed, and buried my head in the pillows. I could feel the tilt coursing through my veins, but after about 15 minutes of stewing it went away. I simply decided that I wasn’t going to let it bother me anymore and all I could do was go back out, play good poker, and play a ton of hands. It’s going to come back eventually and if I put in the hours during the weekend it would come back very fast.

After that I was once again pumped to own the shit out of some fish and play better poker than I have before.

In part 2 we’ll find out if I was able to make a comeback or if poker decided I would look great in a straight jacket and sent me off the deep ending with some more monster beats.