An early, early morning this morning. Poker last night, and it continued until the wee hours. I'm nearly broke until Tina gets paid Friday, and I knew that the kids were going to be out of town this evening, so I thought I'd better look into securing some money. There was a poker game going, so I headed that way, after leaving a voice mail for Tina explaining where I was (not usually a good idea). I hate to walk into a poker game short on cash, and knowing that a loss means a pissed-off wife (because why should she be happy to be without me for the evening with no associated financial gain?), and leftovers at mom's, if I'm lucky, for lunch, not that that is so awful. There's also the problem of playing scared, which no one will tell you is a good idea, at least no one who ever won much money playing poker. It's not that these problems are insurmountable; they just tend to complicate things. To further complicate things, when I walked in I was looking at two much larger stacks. We have a table stakes game with a limited buy-in, so I couldn't immediately put all my money into play, so that increased my risk. Suffice it to say that I played conservative for about two hours, and had gone through almost my entire bankroll, before I started getting a few hands. My upswing began when there were only four players left, which is dangerous because some players will simply quit because they don't think there are enough players to play. Eventually, Player #3 got all his chips in and faced up to a hand that was just a little better. I still wasn't close to even, but Player #1 was a newbie, and a rube, so Player #2 wanted to forge ahead, seeing my short stack,and the possibility of taking all the new guy's considerable stack (built entirely by luck). Of course Player #3, being a close relative of Player #1, advised him he probably didn't want to continue to swim in that particular shark tank, but new money never listens. Since I was still some distance from even, I was happy to continue to play, especially since my cards had started turning for the better. Twenty or thirty hands later, and Player #2 was knocked back to an even amount that he felt was only going to keep decreasing, so he bowed out, leaving only myself and Player #1. I developed a slight lead, playing my super-agressive heads-up game but I kept running into walls when Player #1 would draw out on me, or just plain have me beat from the beginning. I was looking to use my lead to push him around, as is the standard strategy in No-Limit Holdem (even Matt Damon knows that), but finally I ran into the rather large setback of his trips against my two pair. That cost me nearly all my chips. I realized I was making an error in strategy. It's only possible to push around a player who has an interest and a knowledge in the game. I just couldn't make him believe anything about my hand. He was strictly playing his own hand. Reading me was the farthest thing from his mind. I immediately fell back on kiddie poker myself, only playing my own hands. I figured out that it was best to use his own game against him, as immature and predictable as it was. The advantages that I had were a willingness to risk everything and a nose for blood. I doubled up twice in a row, slowed down on a bad run, and finally took him down about two in the morning. It was exhausting, and bad practice for playing against better opponents, but at least I have a little kicking around money for tonight. I got a return voice mail on the way home. It was Tina, and she sounded not unhappy at all that I was out playing poker, requesting only a bag of chips and a pop if I won. I turned around and back-tracked a couple miles and picked those up for her. She apprently had napped and played Sims all evening, and was apparently just glad to be left alone.