The Down Side

Lloyd Christmas: When I met Mary, I got that old fashioned romantic feeling, where I'd do anything to bone her.
Harry Dunne: That's a special feeling.

”Dumb & Dumber”

Feeling a bit down today, as I dropped about $100 at the tables last night and I have nobody to blame but me.

Mistake number 1: I was extremely tired all day, and thought it would be best if I didn’t play tonight and had an early one. But then I thought that tomorrow night would be my Distraction’s 25th birthday, and then I’ve got no chance of playing then. Just out of interest, this would be her very last birthday with her current name, as next year she will have my surname. Interesting thought for me anyway.

Mistake number 2: I was playing a form of game I am not experienced in – Pot Limit Omaha. I have only had one session in the game before, and I posted about that last time where I tripled my starting stack in two hands. I do not know enough about pot limit to make this game profitable just yet.

Mistake number 3: I was distracted; I mean Distracted. My usual rule is to play before she gets home or after she goes to bed. I decided to keep playing because I wanted to clear the raked hand requirements and make a small profit too of course.

Mistake number 4: I busted my buy-in once when I was absolutely card dead and then went all-in with second best hand. I knew I wasn’t playing anywhere near my best, and then thought I should re-buy and not make anymore stupid mistakes. I knew I was playing badly, I knew I was making the most simple of mistakes, but I kept playing.

I think that last mistake was the biggest one – I knew I should not have been playing, yet I continued to do so. I tried 2 SNG’s as well, finishing 4th and 7th. The bubble finish was disappointing, as I raised it to $400 (4x BB) when I was 3rd in chips, and 2nd in chips called from the small blind (he had me covered by $200). I had AKs, and the flop was 9T6 rainbow, one spade. I raised it $600, and he went all-in in what I thought was a pure bluff, but I really had no reason to call. Naturally, I did and he showed Q9o for middle pair, which was good enough. I could criticise him for calling ¼ of his stack pre-flop with Q9o, but in the end winners are grinners and I deserved what I got.

Yeah, I believe I deserved what I got. It was a $100 lesson to be smart about my game. Don’t play just because the games are there, if I know I am not going to play at 100% then I don’t play from now on.

I’m going to introduce a new feature here at Poker On Film – I call it “Know Your Australians”. Each Wednesday (ish) I will attempt to educate the public about differences in language and culture between our North American friends and the land down under. I’m not just talking about “G’Day”, “Dinkum” and the other crappy Australian terms that get stereotyped with our language. Truth be known, we hardly use any of them. “Slap another shrimp on the barbie” for instance. I can prove that this term has never been uttered by an Australian in the history of the world, because we don’t call them “shrimp”, we call them “prawns”, and 99.95% of the population wouldn’t cook them at all. Those that do would rarely use a barbeque to do it. See, we’re learning already.

But that was just a prelude. My first lesson in “Know Your Australian” is the word “pissed”. In the American version of English, being “pissed” usually means the person is very angry with someone or something. In The land I call home, being "pissed" is a rather joyous occasion. The act of being “pissed” refers to a certain level of inebriation. Here are some practical examples:

“Mate, I was so pissed last night I don’t even remember where this damn letterbox came from. I mean, I know it’s number 47, but what street?”

This was an example from my university days, which illustrates that “pissed” doesn’t just mean drunk, it means drunk enough to do silly things like start a mailbox collection. Heres hoping that when you next encounter an Australian in the wild, you can understand the strange words coming out of their mouth.

You know, I can’t think of a derogatory name for an Australian. Every other nation and race has at least one, what do we have? What is there for the average caucasian Australian male that could be considered a derogatory term? I know some people call us “skippy’s” after Skippy the Bush Kangaroo, but that is hardly mean enough when compared to other names for another nationalities. Can any of you Sepo’s help your antipodeans friends?