When Life Hands You Lemons, Make Lemonade, But When Life Hands You a Load of Crap, Don't Make Anything (Trust Me)

Headachy day yesterday, highlighted by unusually bad traffic coming home from work. Rather than the usual 45 minutes the trip normally takes, it was about two hours before I finally made it to my doorstep. Spending nearly three hours of one’s day behind the wheel is no way to live (unless one drives a taxi or truck, I guess).

Problem is, I live in close proximity to a largish lake, which means unless I want to swim home there are only two possible routes, the interstate or the state road. A wreck or some other snafu on one tends to back up both, in which case the choice one makes really doesn’t matter all that much. Yr stuck following the path you chose. And you get a lot of time to brood about your choice, too.

Once I did finally make it home, I probably should have just gone for my run rather than hop on the computer to try to squeeze in a few hands of 6-max LHE. After getting off to a hot start here in March, yesterday’s session was cold, cold, cold. Made a poor decision or two here and there, but felt mostly that circumstances were conspiring against me to ensure a losing day.

Had a very loose guy on my left, yet somehow when it folded to me and I’d raise with pocket kings from the small blind he’d know to fold. Got A-A a little later in the cutoff, open-raised, and all folded. Meanwhile, when I’d open-raise with Q-10 or the like, I’d get three-bet.

Then came hand where I was dealt 10-6 in the big blind, the table folded to the button who limped (typical for him; he was not a very savvy player), and the SB folded. Flop came J-10-3, I bet, he called. He’d not really shown much in the way of cleverness, so I doubted he had the jack (he would raise), and most likely he either had a better ten or maybe A-3. Turn was a six, giving me two pair. I bet, and he raised. I was sure I had him, and so three-bet. He just called. The river was a king, I decided just to check-call, and he showed pocket treys for the set.

Good hands, bad hands -- either way it seemed I was screwed. Kind of like my drive home. By the time I logged off it was too dark to run, so I hit the gym and rode the stationary bike for a half-hour.

Dominated that friggin’ bike, by the way. Although it felt a bit like my drive home -- a lot of pedaling without getting anywheres.

All that time in the car does allow me to catch up on podcasts, though, and yesterday I listened to a new one. Following cmitch’s tip (over on O-Poker), I had downloaded a couple of episodes of a show called Mediocre Poker, a relatively new one out of Washington, DC that started up last fall.

The hosts, Bret and EB, sound like a couple of fairly serious non-pros who play a lot of NLHE online. I listened to their two-part interview with Cole South, the high-stakes online pro who was on Poker After Dark a week or two ago. South is also the co-author of that $1,850 e-book titled Let There Be Range that I wrote about back in December.

Have to say, unlike happens with Bart Hanson’s Deuces Cracked show where I can usually get into the conversations about high-stakes happenings and strategy, I couldn’t really identify much with anything South had to say about the management of his multimillion-dollar bankroll. Still was a fun listen, with the hosts asking a number of questions we micro/low limit guys might well have asked, too.

And I like the show’s title -- both humble and euphonious.

Scanning back through the Mediocre Poker archives, I’m seeing a number of shows with other interesting guests, including Taylor Caby, Eugene Todd (bro), Dusty “leatherass” Schmidt, Jason Rosenkrantz, Gavin Griffin, Tiffany Michelle, Brad Booth, and some other online phenom types. Most recently they’ve had Mori Eskandani (producer of High Stakes Poker, Poker After Dark, and a bunch of other poker shows) and Greg Raymer as guests. And next week they’re having Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond.

I believe the show originally airs on a DC radio station, then gets posted as a podcast. In any event, sounds like a decent one to add to the line-up, so I thought I’d echo cmitch’s recommendation and let you know about it, if you hadn’t heard of it already.

Hey, if I’m gonna be stuck in the car like this, I might as well be useful to someone. Here’s hoping our timing is much better today.

(By the way, that post title ain’t my invention, although I don’t know who originated it. Thought it more fun than my first title idea: “Goin’ Down the Road, Feelin’ Mediocre.”)