Party Poker - Sick as Hell - Poker Party

I played on Party Poker last night for the first time in months. Literally.

I am not sure why I stopped playing but it I know it was sparked by the whole bonus that I still feel like I was cheated out of. Then I had shoulder surgery and my right arm was consequently in a sling for 4 weeks AND I was on drugs that prevented me from thinking like a human being. Then, I got sick - big time sick. Like 2002, "sorry Mr. Shier, but we have to remove your colon" kind of sick.

Warning - Gross personal medical stuff ahead.... You have been warned.

For those of you not in the know, I had my colon removed in 2002 because I have Ulcerative Colitis. As a result they made a "pouch" out of my small intestines, known in the medical community as an Ileoanal anastomosis yes, very yummy indeed. Anyway, because of this miracle surgery I am able to function pretty much normally without the use of an external pouch or what is known in the medical community as an illeostomy.

Anyway, the last month has been just awful, and apparently it was related to my shoulder surgery. I never put 2+2 together until I went and saw my doctor and he asked when the problem started. It was about a week after my shoulder surgery. I was in the bathroom 18-25 times a day all through the night, without relief for 3 weeks straight. You think I am exaggerating, I know - but I kept a log to make sure I wasn't losing it. Those numbers are real. Here, I was thinking I had pouchitis which is like having really REALLY bad diarrhea. My symptoms were the same and I used the Internet as a resource to diagnose myself while I waited to get in at the doctors office. Turns out the antibiotics that they gave me after my shoulder surgery completely wiped out all of the bacteria in my body, including the good ones that used to live in my digestive system.

Lucky for me the cure for pouchitis and the antibiotic problem are the same. You take antibiotics. What? You say "Antibiotics CAUSED the problem and you fix it by taking antibiotics?" Yes. And no, I don't know why.

I had "leftover" antibiotics from when my doctor thought I might have strep through and it turned out to be a false alarm so I started taking it and WOW what a difference. I went and saw my doctor on Monday, he confirmed the whole thing - told me to keep taking the antibiotics I was on and now I have been on Amoxicillan for about 2 weeks now and I feel like a million $.
He did give me a warning though, he said that these kinds of things tend to relapse so about a week after I stop the antibiotics it could come back. At least I will know what it is and will be able to treat it quicker.

end gross personal medical stuff

So Poker, yeah. I was going to write some more poker stuff but I got caught up in that other stuff. Maybe later. For a quick fix, see the Wookie's rendition of the surprise poker party my wife threw for me last weekend.

it was indeed a crazy game of poker.

Now that I’ve actually QUOTED them, I feel the need to scald
my blasphemous fingertips with acid. Ahhhhh..the blinding pain of
reconciliation.

Anyway - Saturday night we all (Ying & wife, ABM &
wife, Me and Lil’ Wookie) met up to play some cards in a surprise game for
Oban-Wan, who we refer to in this context as Poker Sponge. The whole this was
orchestrated by Mrs. Sponge, who surprised even this guy with her spontanious
arrangements.

We decided - or rather the Sponge decided - that rather the
normal tournament game where a $10 buy-in gets you some made up purse of chips,
we’d play a cash game. For those NOT in the poker know a cash game is where the
chips represent actual quantities of cash in their most true form. Just short of
actually breaking open the piggy bank and raiding the change tray of your car
this is as ‘real’ as poker gets. The practice creates a kind of economy which I
find irresistable. People are so eager to part with multi-colored discs of clay
without realizing the cash value. Alchohol helps to lubricate this
parting.

We each (all 11 or 12 of us) bought into $10 in chips and we
set the blinds to $0.05 and $0.10. Since it’s a cash game you never have to
worry about the blinds going up, which means people are more liberal with
raises. No-limit game of course - pot limit is only fun when someone else is
counting the chips.

Given the short notice and chaos that was my Saturday before
the event I didn’t have time to stop at the store and get something and I,
despite the fact that yes I brought my 2-year old daughter to a poker game, am
not neglectful enough to drag her into an ABC store or grocery store to pick up
scotch and/or beer to bring. So I grabbed the case of Sam’s Winter Ale I had in
the basement staying cool, some chips from the cupboard, and the remaning bottle
of Yamazaki. Figured since reading my review was grossly misleading I would let
him try it and see. As you may have guessed he will no longer be trusting my
judgement in the arena of Scotch tasting. It’s subjective and to each his own -
bygones. Ying had one-upped me and brought a very nice randomly-selected bottle
of Single malt - the 15 year Glenlivet. Smooth, sweet, little smoke, all around
great scotch.

Flash ahead 2 hours. Chips have shifted, amassed in front of
some only to be reclaimed by others and back and forth we went. The unopened
bottle of Glenlivet we started with was now a half-empty shadow of it’s former
self (or half full, depending on how high your stacks were). Only a couple
people had lost out or rebought (including our hosts). The kids were still
romping about the house and my daughter was still screaming like Jurassic Park’s
Ariana Richards at the site of the T-Rex. Wow - that pun was completely
unintentional but it worked really really well. I was just trying to parlay the
high-pitched terrored scream but the fact that the dog who prompted such a
reaction’s name is Rex - man. That was good stuff. To sum up my daughter did not
care to have her face licked by a behemoth of a 4-month old Lab pup.

Pan ahead again a couple hours and the original table of 10
players is down to me, Sponge, and Hammond. Sponge is now drinking the final
remnants of the once-proud bottle of ‘Livet. He smiles and laughs every time he
bluffs. It’s about 1 AM and the kids are winding down, and with the condensed
pool of players everyone is doing the arithmatic in their heads and stacking up
their chips into ordered pillars of $10 or $5 increments. You can cash out at
any time I tell myself.

Rex stops by, we talk about how huge he is before he
saunters away leaving behind the awful stench only possible from the digestion
of processed horse meat and whatever else they put in Puppy Chow. We all gag and
cough - the entire time laughing. The stench lingers. We start to blame Hammond,
citing previous office evacuations and social functions as reference points to
only you can make that kinda smell. It isn’t for 5 minutes until we notice Rex
deposited what can best be described as a small brown clone of himself not 10
feet from us on the Dining Room carpet. OMG it was HUGE. Had to be 40 pounds if
it was an ounce. No doubt if we had coaxed it with a milk-bone or pig ear it
could have been trained to do tricks and rescue avalanche victims in the Swiss
Alps. Instead Sponge hoisted it up in a mass of paper towels, unleashing it’s
core scent - and chucked it into the back yard. It is beyond speculation that it
still wanders the yards of his neighborhood preying on small rodents and birds
until it is strong enough to take down larger game like Elk and Bison.

Finally after a few minutes of hanging our heads out of the
front door and returning our dizziness and nausea to the desired alcohol-induced
form we resumed play. I sectioned off $50 as my winnings - what I would walk out
of their with no matter what and resumed play with the smaller stack in front of
me - between $9 and $10. Through the act of keeping up with the drunk Sponge
raises - Check? you’re checking? wtf dude - no - no not in ma house.$3? We don’t
even have a flop and your cards are upside-down - I can see your 3-5 off I said
THREE DOLLARS! I dropped down to $4.90. I had high pair after the flop so I went
for it. $4.90? I said pushing my stack into the middle. He calls. Neat. I may
get back up to $10 and walk away with $60. The turn. Something silly - but it
appears to have made his hand. I warn him: If you raise I’m folding. I’m not
dipping into my stack. A lesson I’ve learned in Vegas more than once - you never
touch the kitty. WTF Dude - what about all that? That’s my going home money. He
raised - I folded. I would have won the hand but that’s not the issue. The issue
is that Sponge will probably never forgive me for my punk move that night and
now that I’ve chronicled the whole event in impeccably mundane detail - his not
remembering ANYTHING is not a factor.

All in all it was a great night for all

- must thank Mr. and Mrs. Sponge for hosting and everyone who came out for their
kindly donations. We’ll have to do it again sometime so I can lose it all back.