It turns out I am not genuinely good at poker like I had first imagined. I am not quite sure exactly where I got that idea from looking back on it now. But whew, I have a looong way to go. This isn't the end, not by any means, but this is also the point where a weaker man would quit and a stupider man would take out more money and try his "luck" again. That's all I was playing on, sheer luck. I was shaking like a leaf. I was futzing up literally every table rule, I think I put down $6 as the small blind at one point desite my stack of $1 chips ... also I wasn't the small blind, I was UTG. The action is so hard to follow at a live table! It moves so fast between the players and somehow I still manage to muck my hand at the wrong time and get the dealer looking at me like "take that back :\" but with her disappointed eyes. I did manage to win one pot. The guy folded to me and I definitely think it was still while he thought I was putting on an act. By the time I was down $125 from my starting $300 I am certain he could tell it was no act. The first hand I ever play at live poker and it's QQ by the way, in a bomb pot - which if I understand correctly is why all 9 players put in $10 to begin with. I had QQ for crying out loud! Then the flop comes 7-6-2 off suit which like ... that's a pretty dry board in my opinion, so I raise the guy with the big stack who checked around to me and wouldn't you know it he shoves all in. It's my first hand ever come on!! I sit there, thinking, shaking, and finally lay down my queens. He turns over 76, he had two pair. I still had the turn and river to go but there was no bluffing him out of the pot as he was already all-in so it was based on sheer luck that another queen would come down or that the board would get paired somehow, I had no other outs as I understand it. It all fell apart after that. I played a several hands (A8, A4, that I can remember) that were a waste, chasing Aces ... amateur ... I did still fold some hands like I was supposed to, 62 offsuit, 94 offsuit, right in the trash. But I could have sat there for muuuuch longer. I had no right to be pushing a bluff on that old guy two seats over from me, nor to the guy on my right ... I was a fish in the caribbean, without a doubt, and I was torn apart by what could have been fish or sharks or who knows what I was so out of sorts.
I drove home in a daze. $300 down the tubes. At least after writing everything I just did above I do feel like I absorbed ... something. Was it $300 worth of something? Well ... you know what, maybe it is, especially if I'm going to be betting in $250/$500 high limit games someday in the far off future. It's pennies. That doesn't mean I'm going to go buy another penny lesson for fish any time soon, no ... the plan now is muuuuch lower stakes games, around tables with friends, with people I meet who know how to play or, even better, love to play poker. I need to learn from a master, I need a mentor. My blinds should look something like a quarter or two and my pots should look like a new video game, not a new car. I'm reeling in my expectations instead of tossing this plan in the trash along with my money and time.
It put me in the dumps still, to a certain extent, wallowing in a gummy variety pack and regret was getting me nowhere, which is what brought me here to writing another journal. Scribbling this all out would have taken forever and plus, I don't know, maybe someone reads this and is like "Hm, yes, interesting, carry on then" or something like that. It's free to keep typing my rambles, I remind myself yet again.
I told myself a bunch of times that I was where I need to be, that life and karma and fate and destiny and whatever it is that runs the show was going to put me where I needed to be to see what I needed to see and that however it turned out I was going to be fine. Well ... Upon checking in with myself, I can confirm the presence of fine. I'm not going to think on gambling and poker so much for a little while. I think the next step in the journey lies in the hands of a teacher in my future, I need to let them show up however they show up I think. Patience, practice patience.
My group and I started to run an adventure I was putting together. None of them are aware of this website, and it'll be a long time til I share it with how jank it is, so I don't fear spoiling things here - still, for the sake of writing, I'll not just stat dump everything into my journals. I can remember stuff, I think. The adventure is taking place in The Valley of Victory, a sprawling, fertile location set between the Golden Plains and Silvermoon Mountains. The story began in a tavern as all good D&D adventures tend to do, several tasks and rumors were tossed at the party made up of a surface-dwelling Drow bard, a reformed-criminal Human fighter, and three goblins, one of which is actually a kobold (Ranger, Socerer, and Rogue, respectively) but it was the task from the mysterious old man that they pursued first. He asked them to meet him on a hill overlooking Lake Lazuli at midnight. While it was a suspicious request, being level one adventurers they went for it.
...
Continued on May 25th Journal - I got distracted.
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