ONLINE GAMBLING AND CASINO GUIDE

I went to the Excalibur Poker Room yesterday for two reasons.

First, I wanted to play very low-stakes poker so that I wouldn’t have to spend my own money for lunch.

Second, I wanted to speak with the room manager to arrange for a private table next weekend.

I succeeded on the private table front, but I failed on the lunch money front.

Why?

Because I was an idiot.

I wish I could look for someone or something else to blame, but in the end, it all comes back to me.

You see, I have something to admit. I’m an addict.

I wish it were something as easy to kick as crack, meth, or herion … but it’s far worse.

The fact is, I’m a CrackBerry addict.

I am never without a BlackBerry or similar device. My phone beeps every 90 seconds, and I dutifully check it every time.

It doesn’t matter if I am standing in the middle of railroad tracks, and a train is headed straight toward me … if my Crackberry vibrates, I will stop where I am and check the message … even if that means being run over.

I think it’s only reasonable to check my texts as they come in. What if someone finds a picture of a smoking hot naked chick on a website and they are sending me the URL? If I were to wait for an appropriate time and place to check my messages, I may click the link 15 seconds later, wasting valuable boner time. That would be the travesty.

But on this day, text messages weren’t my only distraction.

While I was involved in a hand, I was also working to maneuver my CrackBerry into place so that I could capture the screen of the electronic poker table. People are interested in the electronic tables, so I always do my best to get a shot or two while playing.

Therefore, I had text messages hitting my phone, while I was taking photos, while I was actively involved in a Texas Hold’Em hand.

It was the perfect storm for a boneheaded play … and play boneheadly is Exactly what I did.

While in the “big” blind (if you call $1 “big”) I was dealt Ad 3d in the pocket.

There was a guy a couple seats to my left who had raised every hand. He busted out twice while I was there, so he wasn’t a great player,  just extremely aggressive with any two cards.

That being the case, imagine my shock when on this hand, he simply called, and allowed the remaining players to limp in.

Since there was about $8.50 in the pot, I was pretty sure this guy was going to re-raise anything I threw out there, so I checked my A-3 just to see the flop.

A bunch of unsuited numbers came on the board. I think there was one diamond out there, but three to a flush isn’t exciting. I had Ace high.

I checked the hand again, replied to a text message, and waited to fold.

But I didn’t have to fold, as yet again, the hand was checked around the table.

The turn was a non-diamond ten. The flush possibility was gone, I had no pair, and someone had sent me a photo text that I wanted to see.

I checked the hand again … whatever … I was just looking to get out of the hand so that I could concentrate on my witty reply to the CrackBerry message.

Yet, I didn’t have to fold, because the hand had been checked around again.

Wow. Really? This loose cannon table just checked two straight rounds of betting.

These guys were not finesse players. I didn’t see any traps, or creative play. If they had anything, they fired away.

Maybe Ace high really was the best thing out there?

The river bought a black 4.

This time I figured that I would decide the issue of whether Ace high was good, so I threw a measly $2 into the pot.

Well, loose boy on the left would have none of it. Nobody steals a pot from loose boy without a premium hand.

He fired $11 into the pot in an attempt to take it down.

To my surprise, another player called, so I was sure that there was a hand out there somewhere.

I, of course, mucked.

Who is going to pay $11 for Ace high with two other people in the hand?

Certainly not me.

So I threw my hand away, just as I hit “send” on my phone, and then I actually looked at the board to see if loose boy was going to win.

The player’s cards were shown.

Loose boy had a Jack high, and the guy to his left had a pair of 4’s.

A pair of 4’s were good.

Good hand. I guess.

But, wait …

Oh dear god please no …

Remember that black 4 on the river?

The one that gave the winning player his miniscule hand that was a winner?

Yeah, well, that same card also went really well with the 2 and 5 on the flop.

It went even better with the A-3 I had mucked.

Now, before you get all judgmental, we have all had moments like this. Maybe the cocktail waitress had a really nice ass, maybe you were steaming from a bad beat from the previous hand, maybe you were tired, maybe you had money on the football game and were watching it on the plasma hanging from the wall … if you say it hasn’t happened to you, then you are lying.

That’s no excuse, though.

I don’t drink booze when I gamble simply because I want to make good decisions, yet here I am, hammering away on a BlackBerry instead of reading the board when I am actively in a hand.

I was sitting there with a straight, yet assumed that I had nothing better than an Ace high.

Is there a moral to all of this?

There is to me.

Alcohol is not the only thing that will kill you when gambling. ANY distraction will kill you when gambling. If you are not paying attention, don’t play. You are just going to end up hurting yourself.

I used to be great at multi-tasking, but I’m getting old. I can’t take pictures, reply to text messages, and play poker at the same time anymore. I need to accept this fact, and focus.

That being said, I probably didn’t lose much. If I had fired a larger bet into the pot, would loose boy have called with Jack high? Maybe, but even he probably wouldn’t have gone more than $10.

Would pair of 4’s guy have called? I doubt it. I think he only called loose boy because he was aware that loose boy would have been firing earlier if he had made a higher pair.

If I had made a real bet, I think I would have just taken down the $10-ish pot. Which would have bought lunch, but not much more.

It did, however, wake me up a bit. One of these days I am going to leave more money on the table, or outright lose money out of my pocket if I don’t start watching what is going on around me.

From here on out, I am going to follow my own advice, which is:

When you are gambling, PAY ATTENTION.

And I fully intend to follow this advice.

Until the first cocktail waitress with a nice ass walks by …

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