By Jay Lovinger
Page 2
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- Harman, who has made a very successful living concealing her emotions at the poker table, revealed quite a bit of herself when she and three other poker pros participated in a special ESPN.
LEDYARD, Conn. -- Remember when you finally left home for good as a kid, perhaps to go to college, and you realized your mother wasn't there .. so you could stay up as late as you wanted to? Remember what a great feeling that was?
Well, I decided to try to recapture that feeling -- 40-plus years later -- at Foxwoods last week by playing poker for at least 24 straight hours, just like we used to do in the good old days.
I don't want to give away too much this early in the column, folks, but I'll drop a hint here:
When the good old days are over, they are over.
Thanks to the usual construction fiasco on the Connecticut Turnpike, I arrived a few minutes too late to play in the Monday night limit hold 'em tournament. So I immediately went scouting for a game that looked like it might last through the night. I settled on a $5-5 no-limit hold 'em game -- my usual side game -- because it had a must-move table with an open seat, and there were at least three players at the must-move table who I knew liked to play into the wee hours.
(A must-move table is a feeder for the main game -- like the NCAA is for the NBA, or the Royals are for the Yankees. As soon as there is an opening at the main table, the person who has been sitting the longest at the must-move table must move to the main game. No options to stay at the must-move table, no matter how lucrative. So, the fact that there was a must-move table assured that the main game would not be breaking up anytime soon.)
I sat down at the must-move table at 9:30, and by midnight I was in the main game. That was a bit alarming, since it meant that nine players had dropped out in less than three hours. A further discordant note was hit when Dennis, one of the guys I was counting on to make it till breakfast, said, 'I'm worn out. I'll think I'll take a couple days off and not play till Thursday.'
It was a pretty congenial group. After Al, an eightysomething from New York City, was raised $100 pre-flop, he said to the raiser, 'Can you make it $60 -- you know, a senior citizen discount?'
At about 1:45 a.m., a couple of guys moved over to the main game together and began talking Russian to each other. 'Hey, where you guys from?' one of the locals asked.
'Eastern Europe,' said Russian Guy One.
'Where?'
'You don't know where Eastern Europe is?' Russian Guy One asked.
Long, long ago, I had taken a couple of semesters of Russian in college. I told Russian Guy One that the only phrases I could remember were ya nee znai-you and ya nee pon-ee-mai-you ('I don't know' and 'I don't understand'), which, by some strange coincidence, were the two phrases I had most frequently used in class way back then.
'Got a C, right?' he said.
I nodded.
'Must have been the accent,' he said.
Meanwhile, we had a situation developing that would render moot all thoughts about how long the game would last -- namely, I was in the process of losing all my cash at a personal record rate. I had started with $1,200 -- more than twice as much as I had ever lost in a single session -- and had access, through my ATM card, to another $400. By 3:45, I was already making that long walk across the poker room to the ATM machine near the front entrance.
Re-armed with $400, I was determined to nurse my tiny bankroll back to health and through the night, when, as luck would have it, I was dealt an A-K suited on the button on my very first hand back. Russian Guy Two, sitting across the table, raised the blinds $25, and I re-raised to $100. Only Russian Guy Two called.
The flop came A-9-7 rainbow, Russian Guy Two bet $100, and, like a stealth bomber, I just called.
The turn was an ace, and Russian Guy Two bet $100. Suffused with the joy of blissful ignorance, I went all-in for my last $100, figuring Russian Guy Two for an ace with a good kicker, though not as good as my king, of course. I was wrong. He was holding 7-7, which meant only a nine or the case ace on the river could save me. The river card was the last seven, giving me aces full -- a monster, but no match for his quads.
Espn Poker Table With Lights
As regular readers of this column know, my 'philosophy,' following a painful loss, is to get up and walk around away from the table until I have regained control of my emotions. Of course, sometimes that philosophy is honored in the breach. In this case, however, it was easy to follow through, since I was totally tapped with no access to more money till the morning.
So, only six hours in, my 24-hour marathon experiment came to an ignoble conclusion, and I slunk back to my room for a few hours of fitful ZZZs.
A BAD RUN
Tuesday was more of the same. I got up at about 9, and, in a futile attempt to win something, quickly dropped $60 playing an Act I. Then, in rapid succession, came a $180 beating in a side game of Omaha high-low, quick bombouts in a couple of Act IIs ($300 more down the drain), and $330 gone forever in a no-limit hold 'em rebuy tournament.
Espn Poker Table Sam's Club
| Poker Central |
|---|
| Have you become obsessed with poker too? Well, no worries -- Page 2 has launched its very own poker section. Check it out. |
I like to think of myself as a good loser -- that is, someone who can keep playing his best game even after a long string of disheartening results -- but I'm probably kidding myself. Reality check: I tend to go into a defensive crouch, playing ultra-carefully, which prevents nuclear losses, but sometimes makes it hard to break bad streaks.
As I wandered around, dazed, after the tournament -- I had busted out on a huge toss-up hand (Grant: a small pair; me: two overcards) -- I made a good decision:
Tomorrow is another day.
Espn Poker Table With Lights
FORTUNATELY, THE NEXT 'DAY' ALSO CONTAINS 24 HOURS
When I finally awoke the next afternoon, at about 4, I realized I had slept for 14 hours straight, the longest stretch of sleep I've had in years, if not decades.
And there must be something to being well-rested for poker, because right off the bat I won $295 in a couple of hours in the $1-2 no-limit hold 'em game (known at Foxwoods as 'the low no-limit game,' because there's a maximum buy-in of $100). At 8, I entered the Wednesday night $100 buy-in seven-stud tournament. By 9:30, I was playing in a $10-20 seven-stud side game, and, when the game broke up at 3:30 in the morning, I was up a little over $300.
At this point, I resurrected my plan to play for 24 hours straight -- or longer -- only not all 24 in a single game.
Next up, another $1-2 no-limit side game -- which consisted of me, an old guy named Gene and eight kids (between the ages of barely legal and 25) who, among them, had virtually no impulse control.
And by 'no impulse control,' I mean they would call all-in bets after the flop to pull for inside straights where they were getting 2-1 on their investments .. and where they couldn't be sure they were not already drawing dead.
Seemed like easy money to me.
Oops. What was that the Scottish poet Robert Burns once said about the best-laid plans of mice and men? Well, mine went about as astray as Evel Knievel at Snake River Canyon.
On the very first hand, I held 10-10, raised the $2 big blind to $12, and got three callers. The flop came 10-9-3 rainbow, and I went all-in, since I didn't want anybody chasing me with Q-J in the hole unless they paid dearly for the privilege. Mr. Big Stack called .. with J-8 offsuit .and proceeded to find a queen on the river.
| Ask Jackpot Jay! |
|---|
| Got a poker problem or want more details about Jay's Vegas adventure? Send in your questions and comments. |
A couple of hands later, I found J-J in the hole, which readers of this column will recognize as the hand I most dread. There just doesn't seem to be any right way to play it. This time, I tried a medium-sized raise of $25, and got two callers -- Gene and another kid with a large stack. For a change, the flop looked fortuitous to me, 8-3-3 rainbow, and I went all-in for my last $58. The kid called, and Gene went all-in for his last $40. Gene had a pair of fives, a rather loose call, and the kid had an A-Q unsuited, a truly astoundingly bad call, since he was only getting about 2-1 on his call -- Gene called after he did -- and could easily have been drawing virtually dead. At best, he was hoping for a miracle ace or queen, about a 4-1 shot.
Needless to say, an ace came on the river.
I went into my wallet for another $100.
Later, in an unraised pot in the big blind, my 8-5 turned into a set when the flop came 5-5-4. I raised Gene's $25 bet to $50, then put him all in for another $50 when a blank came on the turn. Gene showed an 8-7 suited, giving him only a gutshot six for a straight -- so he was investing $50 to win a little over $100 on an 11-1 shot. 'Gene, you're over 70, you're supposed to know better,' I was thinking, when . you guessed it .. a six arrived on the river.
By the time I left this game at 8 a.m. to grab a llttle breakfast, I had managed to cut my losses to less than $200, but I felt like the Yankees' starting lineup after an evening chasing Tim Wakefield's knuckleball -- I'd need at least a couple of days to get my timing back.
Kids. What are you gonna do with 'em?
By 8:30, I was on a long line for the Thursday morning $100 buy-in limit hold 'em tournament, a game I rarely play. But I figured I needed a change of pace after four hours of Gene and The Kids.
During the first couple of rounds of the tourney, I actually nodded off between hands a couple of times. As if in a dream, I'd hear a voice coming through the haze: 'Uh, sir, your action.' And I'd pop awake, like the dormouse in 'Alice in Wonderland,' only to apologize before folding. But by the time we got down to the final 30 from a field of 200, I was my usual alert self -- which is to say, dazed but actually awake.
With 26 players left -- they were paying 25 -- I had a single chip left (worth $500), when the average holding was about $15,000. So I was hanging on for dear life -- I didn't even have enough for a full big blind -- when one guy who could have waited for me to be blinded off foolishly went all-in with a marginal holding and busted out.
| Jackpot Jay's Poker Glossary |
|---|
| Confused by some of the terms Jay uses in his poker columns? Get their definitions right here. |
When I first signed up for the limit tourney, which started at 10 a.m., I figured I'd be out in a couple of hours -- partially because my limit skills are, well, limited, and partially because I was having trouble keeping my eyes open -- and I'd be able to grab a few hours of sleep before the Act III at 8 that evening. But, since I played until 4 in the afternoon, thereby fulfilling my goal of playing poker for 24 hours straight, more or less, it seemed to make more sense to have dinner instead and maybe a shower that would be a mercy to my opponents' olfactory sensibilities before the Act III.
The Act III was an anti-climax, though I did manage to stay awake until I was eliminated. Feeling a bit on the wired-up end of the spectrum, I decided to play 'just one more' Act II -- I finished second, earning myself a free replay -- and then collapsed after 32 hours of poker without sleep.
Real money slots are for players that want a more intense or electrifying experience. They'll also require more time investment in creating an account, making a deposit, and potentially downloading software. Real money slots also feature much more significant bonuses for deposits and play. Slots Kingdom is fairly new, having just been established in 2018. They are moving their way up to being the best online casino real money. Play is available in both instant and mobile versions, and is powered by multiple software platforms. They offer an extensive array of video slots such as Great Rhino, Legend of Cleopatra, and Bonanza slot. Best Real Money Slots USA Slots are the most popular casino games in the US – in fact, nearly half of all gambling in US casinos is done on slot machines. As a result, land-based casinos are increasingly offering real money slots games online to gamblers. Even if you have played slot games before, playing slots online is a different experience. You can play the best real money slots in minutes with any of the shortlisted casinos on this page. With hundreds of slot machines and progressives from. Playing slots online for real money is basically the same as playing at land-based casinos, but there are a few differences. The first being that online slots have a return to players percentage (RTP) between 95-97% while land-based machines have RTPs as low as 75%.
For an old man, I felt damn righteous.
Of course, it took me a few days of constant napping to get back to 'normal.' And, upon reflection, I realized that I had busted myself out of both the Act III and the 'just one more' Act II because of uncharacteristic impatience, thanks to my lack of sleep.
So, though I managed to recapture a little of that 21-year-old magic of yesteryear, it was painfully clear that I was now stuck with the recuperative powers of the 60-year-old I actually am.
Bottom line: As we used to say back in the day about our misadventure in Vietnam, 'Never again.'
ATTENTION, IRS: HOW JAY IS DOING IN HIS NEW CAREER
Last week: Lost $831
CTD (career-to-date): plus $27,996
Jay Lovinger, a former managing editor of Life and a founding editor of Page 2, is writing on his poker adventures for ESPN.com and also writing a book for HarperCollins. You can watch the 2004 World Series of Poker Tuesday nights at 9 p.m. ET on ESPN.
The turn was an ace, and Russian Guy Two bet $100. Suffused with the joy of blissful ignorance, I went all-in for my last $100, figuring Russian Guy Two for an ace with a good kicker, though not as good as my king, of course. I was wrong. He was holding 7-7, which meant only a nine or the case ace on the river could save me. The river card was the last seven, giving me aces full -- a monster, but no match for his quads.
Espn Poker Table With Lights
As regular readers of this column know, my 'philosophy,' following a painful loss, is to get up and walk around away from the table until I have regained control of my emotions. Of course, sometimes that philosophy is honored in the breach. In this case, however, it was easy to follow through, since I was totally tapped with no access to more money till the morning.
So, only six hours in, my 24-hour marathon experiment came to an ignoble conclusion, and I slunk back to my room for a few hours of fitful ZZZs.
A BAD RUN
Tuesday was more of the same. I got up at about 9, and, in a futile attempt to win something, quickly dropped $60 playing an Act I. Then, in rapid succession, came a $180 beating in a side game of Omaha high-low, quick bombouts in a couple of Act IIs ($300 more down the drain), and $330 gone forever in a no-limit hold 'em rebuy tournament.
Espn Poker Table Sam's Club
| Poker Central |
|---|
| Have you become obsessed with poker too? Well, no worries -- Page 2 has launched its very own poker section. Check it out. |
I like to think of myself as a good loser -- that is, someone who can keep playing his best game even after a long string of disheartening results -- but I'm probably kidding myself. Reality check: I tend to go into a defensive crouch, playing ultra-carefully, which prevents nuclear losses, but sometimes makes it hard to break bad streaks.
As I wandered around, dazed, after the tournament -- I had busted out on a huge toss-up hand (Grant: a small pair; me: two overcards) -- I made a good decision:
Tomorrow is another day.
Espn Poker Table With Lights
FORTUNATELY, THE NEXT 'DAY' ALSO CONTAINS 24 HOURS
When I finally awoke the next afternoon, at about 4, I realized I had slept for 14 hours straight, the longest stretch of sleep I've had in years, if not decades.
And there must be something to being well-rested for poker, because right off the bat I won $295 in a couple of hours in the $1-2 no-limit hold 'em game (known at Foxwoods as 'the low no-limit game,' because there's a maximum buy-in of $100). At 8, I entered the Wednesday night $100 buy-in seven-stud tournament. By 9:30, I was playing in a $10-20 seven-stud side game, and, when the game broke up at 3:30 in the morning, I was up a little over $300.
At this point, I resurrected my plan to play for 24 hours straight -- or longer -- only not all 24 in a single game.
Next up, another $1-2 no-limit side game -- which consisted of me, an old guy named Gene and eight kids (between the ages of barely legal and 25) who, among them, had virtually no impulse control.
And by 'no impulse control,' I mean they would call all-in bets after the flop to pull for inside straights where they were getting 2-1 on their investments .. and where they couldn't be sure they were not already drawing dead.
Seemed like easy money to me.
Oops. What was that the Scottish poet Robert Burns once said about the best-laid plans of mice and men? Well, mine went about as astray as Evel Knievel at Snake River Canyon.
On the very first hand, I held 10-10, raised the $2 big blind to $12, and got three callers. The flop came 10-9-3 rainbow, and I went all-in, since I didn't want anybody chasing me with Q-J in the hole unless they paid dearly for the privilege. Mr. Big Stack called .. with J-8 offsuit .and proceeded to find a queen on the river.
| Ask Jackpot Jay! |
|---|
| Got a poker problem or want more details about Jay's Vegas adventure? Send in your questions and comments. |
A couple of hands later, I found J-J in the hole, which readers of this column will recognize as the hand I most dread. There just doesn't seem to be any right way to play it. This time, I tried a medium-sized raise of $25, and got two callers -- Gene and another kid with a large stack. For a change, the flop looked fortuitous to me, 8-3-3 rainbow, and I went all-in for my last $58. The kid called, and Gene went all-in for his last $40. Gene had a pair of fives, a rather loose call, and the kid had an A-Q unsuited, a truly astoundingly bad call, since he was only getting about 2-1 on his call -- Gene called after he did -- and could easily have been drawing virtually dead. At best, he was hoping for a miracle ace or queen, about a 4-1 shot.
Needless to say, an ace came on the river.
I went into my wallet for another $100.
Later, in an unraised pot in the big blind, my 8-5 turned into a set when the flop came 5-5-4. I raised Gene's $25 bet to $50, then put him all in for another $50 when a blank came on the turn. Gene showed an 8-7 suited, giving him only a gutshot six for a straight -- so he was investing $50 to win a little over $100 on an 11-1 shot. 'Gene, you're over 70, you're supposed to know better,' I was thinking, when . you guessed it .. a six arrived on the river.
By the time I left this game at 8 a.m. to grab a llttle breakfast, I had managed to cut my losses to less than $200, but I felt like the Yankees' starting lineup after an evening chasing Tim Wakefield's knuckleball -- I'd need at least a couple of days to get my timing back.
Kids. What are you gonna do with 'em?
By 8:30, I was on a long line for the Thursday morning $100 buy-in limit hold 'em tournament, a game I rarely play. But I figured I needed a change of pace after four hours of Gene and The Kids.
During the first couple of rounds of the tourney, I actually nodded off between hands a couple of times. As if in a dream, I'd hear a voice coming through the haze: 'Uh, sir, your action.' And I'd pop awake, like the dormouse in 'Alice in Wonderland,' only to apologize before folding. But by the time we got down to the final 30 from a field of 200, I was my usual alert self -- which is to say, dazed but actually awake.
With 26 players left -- they were paying 25 -- I had a single chip left (worth $500), when the average holding was about $15,000. So I was hanging on for dear life -- I didn't even have enough for a full big blind -- when one guy who could have waited for me to be blinded off foolishly went all-in with a marginal holding and busted out.
| Jackpot Jay's Poker Glossary |
|---|
| Confused by some of the terms Jay uses in his poker columns? Get their definitions right here. |
When I first signed up for the limit tourney, which started at 10 a.m., I figured I'd be out in a couple of hours -- partially because my limit skills are, well, limited, and partially because I was having trouble keeping my eyes open -- and I'd be able to grab a few hours of sleep before the Act III at 8 that evening. But, since I played until 4 in the afternoon, thereby fulfilling my goal of playing poker for 24 hours straight, more or less, it seemed to make more sense to have dinner instead and maybe a shower that would be a mercy to my opponents' olfactory sensibilities before the Act III.
The Act III was an anti-climax, though I did manage to stay awake until I was eliminated. Feeling a bit on the wired-up end of the spectrum, I decided to play 'just one more' Act II -- I finished second, earning myself a free replay -- and then collapsed after 32 hours of poker without sleep.
Real money slots are for players that want a more intense or electrifying experience. They'll also require more time investment in creating an account, making a deposit, and potentially downloading software. Real money slots also feature much more significant bonuses for deposits and play. Slots Kingdom is fairly new, having just been established in 2018. They are moving their way up to being the best online casino real money. Play is available in both instant and mobile versions, and is powered by multiple software platforms. They offer an extensive array of video slots such as Great Rhino, Legend of Cleopatra, and Bonanza slot. Best Real Money Slots USA Slots are the most popular casino games in the US – in fact, nearly half of all gambling in US casinos is done on slot machines. As a result, land-based casinos are increasingly offering real money slots games online to gamblers. Even if you have played slot games before, playing slots online is a different experience. You can play the best real money slots in minutes with any of the shortlisted casinos on this page. With hundreds of slot machines and progressives from. Playing slots online for real money is basically the same as playing at land-based casinos, but there are a few differences. The first being that online slots have a return to players percentage (RTP) between 95-97% while land-based machines have RTPs as low as 75%.
For an old man, I felt damn righteous.
Of course, it took me a few days of constant napping to get back to 'normal.' And, upon reflection, I realized that I had busted myself out of both the Act III and the 'just one more' Act II because of uncharacteristic impatience, thanks to my lack of sleep.
So, though I managed to recapture a little of that 21-year-old magic of yesteryear, it was painfully clear that I was now stuck with the recuperative powers of the 60-year-old I actually am.
Bottom line: As we used to say back in the day about our misadventure in Vietnam, 'Never again.'
ATTENTION, IRS: HOW JAY IS DOING IN HIS NEW CAREER
Last week: Lost $831
CTD (career-to-date): plus $27,996
Jay Lovinger, a former managing editor of Life and a founding editor of Page 2, is writing on his poker adventures for ESPN.com and also writing a book for HarperCollins. You can watch the 2004 World Series of Poker Tuesday nights at 9 p.m. ET on ESPN.
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