Dens of Probability

“Subrata’s Den of Probability” was what my friend Lee once called Subrata‘s Wednesday gaming night. I still chuckle about that.

As if New Year’s Eve wasn’t enough gaming, yesterday was another day full of games. I took the rest of this week off to finish resting up from my busy fall, and I’ve been glad that I did. It’s hard to believe my vacation is almost over, though!

After having lunch with Debbi yesterday I went over to Lucky Chances and played in a 3/6 Hold ‘Em game. The first hour I was getting slowly bleeded off with mostly-crappy cards. Other than QJo, most of my best hands were things like K4 and A3 (and more of the former than the latter). I won one small pot in my big blind, but that was about it. Having whittled my $100 buy-in down to about $30 I bought another rack of chips, since I didn’t want to leave after only an hour.

My day turned around, though. I drew pocket Queens and raised to see a T-9-3 flop. I kept betting as the turn and river were both 3s and I won the pot against a guy with a 9. Later on I played QT and hit top pair and got called down to the river – by two people both playing Q9, so my kicker won it for me. I had a repeat of this pot later on when I flopped 2 pair with JT, and beat a player who had 2 pair with J9. I also managed to river my flush with AKs (in a pot that was big enough for me to keep chasing). Overall I won back my buy-in and won a last pot before I left to finish up $65.

Overall I’m slowly crawling back to even for my poker-playing “career”. But since my total losses at my lowest point were less than the cost of a Playstation 3, it’s not like I’m betting the farm here. Mostly it feels good to think that I’m at least figuring out low-limit Hold ‘Em. (I could still stand to be more aggressive, though.)

I also spent some time watching a 7-Card Stud table while waiting for a seat, and I’m curious about learning how to play that variety of poker. But maybe I should stay away. 🙂

In the evening it was off to the Den of Probability where I played a game of Russian Rails against Subrata and Susan. My game stalled out mid-way through thanks to a horrifying run of being hit by disasters, and Subrata ended up crushing the both of us. But that’s the way it goes. I suspect RR is better with 4 or more people – not uncommon for the Empire Builder series of games.

We had a large number of people there last night, and the rest of the folks played Munchkin and then a logic game called Zendo. Zendo seemed pretty neat at first glance, but as it went on it seemed that it was too easy to come up with puzzles which were very difficult to solve. Arguably some of us perhaps outsmarted ourselves by trying to come up with solutions that were more clever than what the puzzlemaster intended. So the jury’s still out on that one. It is a pretty simple and clever game, though.

I’m feeling a little gamed out now, though, and will probably skip a friendly poker game being suggested for tonight. Plus, I feel like I’m coming down with a cold. So taking it a little easy is probably for the best.

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