Last weekend, while Miss Ann slaved away at restoring my blog (which I owe her BIG TIME for), I was in Atlantic City with The Steff, The Donkey, The Terrorist, and Beaner.  This was actually a trip we had planned for July… but things just weren’t right so we postponed it as long as we could without losing the deposit for the rooms.

I don’t go to Atlantic City for the lights, the noise, or the people.  I go for the food, the entertainment, and the poker tables where the House really doesn’t have an upper hand and it is you against another player.  I’ve been playing poker for a good 8 years off and on, and I do it for the enjoyment.  I like sitting down at the felt with my stack of chips, my Zippo lighter card holder, my MP3 player on my poker playlist, and the world around me dissolves away.  Literally.  I become lost in the cards, the sound of the music, and the looks on the faces of those sitting around me.  This visit was really no different in my approach to play, but the experience was different.

I could not get a read on anyone’s tells.  A “tell” is usually a subconscious action or habit that will signal if a player is bluffing or if they truly have the hand they are trying to represent.  Normally I can get tells on three or four players and read them really well throughout the game.  It didn’t come to me like it normally would.  Then I found myself being read.  The third pot I folded on after I raised and two seats down came over the top told me so.  It’s not uncommon for someone to figure me out… but I felt he had done so very quickly.  Three hands later and I then knew he wasn’t the only one.  So after a short stay at the tables (well, 6 hours which for me is a short stay) I walked away a little befuddled.

I can chalk up the inability to get tells to the fact I haven’t sat at an actual table in a little more than a year.  The fact that I gave them off, to me, is more worrisome.  I’ve always been able to maintain my existence by keeping my emotions and feelings hidden beneath the surface.  It has been my saving grace in sanity as well as keeping civility in certain situations.  If I am giving off tells as badly as I think I am… relationships I have with people will in all likelihood be irrevocably changed… and not necessarily for the better.

Of course, on another note, my mother today has once again brought up the idea of a bereavement group and some couch time.  Her reasoning is, “Your not talking about it.”

I came damn close to giving her the URL to the blog to prove that I am dealing with it in my own way… but then I would need to teach her how to use the Internet.  I don’t think there is enough time before the apocalypse for all of that.