{"id":2540659,"date":"2025-02-25T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-02-25T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pokercoaching.com\/blog\/?p=2540659"},"modified":"2025-12-08T09:23:17","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T09:23:17","slug":"poker-nirvana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pokercoaching.com\/blog\/poker-nirvana\/","title":{"rendered":"Poker Nirvana"},"content":{"rendered":"\"tournament<\/a>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

Was it the killer kale salad? Or maybe it was the nap. Why was tonight\u2019s poker session extra awesome? Three times I found myself basking in the bliss of poker nirvana. The third event was so profound that I rushed home to type about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tTable Of Contents\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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  1. Topping off at Oaks<\/a>
  2. Nirvana Story #1<\/a>
  3. The Exact Moment of Loss<\/a>
  4. Nirvana Story #2<\/a>
  5. Nirvana Story #3<\/a><\/ol>\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\n\n

    Topping off at Oaks<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

    After Covid, when poker players were once again huddling up to love and kill each other, I got the call. It was my bestest local poker buddy, Lee Jones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u201cDo you know what\u2019s going on at Oaks these days?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u201cDo tell!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u201cIt\u2019s the $2\/$3\/$5 game. You can straddle<\/a> from any seat, and now everybody is agreeing to play winner straddles pretty much all the time. The $2\/$3\/$5 is now $2\/$3\/$5\/$10.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \"Oaks<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    \u201cYou\u2019re telling me the hive-mind moved in unison to double the stakes?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u201cExactly that,\u201d Lee said. \u201cMaybe Covid spooked people into thinking they should get all the action they can, while they can.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Oaks Card Room is minutes from my house and has been since I moved to Oakland ten years ago. But I hadn\u2019t played there yet because my sweet spot is $5\/$10 to $10\/$25. Lee knew that a loose $5\/$10 game might lure me from my lair, and he was right. After a few dips into the Oaks pool, I decided to be a reg again. This time it would be part-time, and party time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    I like it that the game plays like a $5\/$10, but the max buy-in is only $1,000. It incites reckless all-ins. Like many players, I stay topped off with no fuss by keeping a stash of $100 chips on hand, and adding on when my stack falls below $900.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Nirvana Story #1<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

    New game. Erwin bought in for $500 as usual. Then he limped in half the time as usual. Erwin is a fun-loving old white guy who likes to get it in there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The first hand I played was heads-up with Erwin after he limped, I made it $60, and everybody else got out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The flop was J-9-2 rainbow. I had pocket nines. Erwin and I performed the old bet-raise-raise-shove-call dance step, to the tempo of Comfortably Numb.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    On the flop, when I called Erwin\u2019s shove, I courtesy-rolled my set of nines. Erwin eyed my cards, then he turned over one of his hole cards: a jack. He was wearing a smirk that said, \u201cI got one measly pair and you got me crushed, so I\u2019ll go ahead and show my pair, just to let everybody sweat the runout, because if I somehow hit runner-runner to win this pot it\u2019ll be wild and wonderful!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    You already know what happened, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The dealer dealt the turn card. A ten.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The dealer dealt the river card. It, too, was a ten.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The final board was J-9-2, 10, 10.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Erwin\u2019s face was one big grin. He rolled his other card, a ten. His tens-full bad beat<\/a> my nines-full.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The Exact Moment of Loss<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

    Loose-passive players have what Lee calls a see-the-flop poker range<\/a>. Erwin has a see-the-flop range, and jack-ten was well within it. When the turn and river came ten-ten, I was unthinkingly aware that if Erwin\u2019s other hole card was a ten, I\u2019d lose. This was not dread or fear. It\u2019s just poker. When you have the best hand, your opponents are either drawing dead or not. And if they\u2019re not, then you might lose. Next hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \"Hivemind\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    Anyone who has played lots of live poker can tell if their opponent is going to muck or show, just by how they approach the cards. Erwin\u2019s hand took the low and slow approach. I knew right then I was beat. With elbow flourish, he rolled his wild and wonderful ten. By the time it was over, I was already over it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The hive made sympathy sounds. Before the groans faded, I snap-paid $500 to the pot from my stack and topped off to $1,000 using chips from my pocket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Actually, I didn\u2019t \u201cget over\u201d that hand. There was nothing to get over. This was one of those tilt cycles that didn\u2019t happen, where I bypass the need for recovery. Watching Erwin\u2019s story unfold, it was like I wasn\u2019t in the hand. He was so gleeful that I couldn\u2019t help but smile along, inside and out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    When my first big swing is down, sometimes my mood will sour, my body will twist, and my best mindset becomes inaccessible for a while. But just as often, I can lose my first big pot of the session and it\u2019s so painless that I can still have a fun exchange with the winner. That\u2019s usually followed by a joy surge when I realize that I just got punched and it didn\u2019t hurt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Poker-nirvana symptom #1: painless losing.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n


    Nirvana Story #2<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

    We\u2019ve all seen this scene before. Somebody loses a big pot, and the very next hand they come out firing. We have to ask ourselves: Is this a cosmic inflation? Like the early universe? Did this player\u2019s raising range suddenly expand?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The next hand, I got AK in the cutoff.  Five players limped<\/a> for $10 because California. With the smell of suckout still in the air, I got animated and goofy and said, \u201cLet\u2019s play for a hundred! And this is not<\/em> a tilt raise!\u201d Chuckles were heard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    One guy said, \u201cYou got every right to tilt after that brutal beat.\u201d Others nodded. And he was right. According to The Book of Sanctioned Poker Emotions<\/em>, I was supposed to be unhappy right now, but instead I was giddy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Poker-nirvana symptom #2: unsanctioned jocularity.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Nirvana Story #3<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

    My stack gathered dust for half an hour and then I lost a couple hundred when Ned opened for $40, I made it $200 with pocket jacks, and Ned called $200 all-in with six-five suited because we were sitting on the Hayward Fault, so why not?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    That hand left me with $750 on the table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \"Nirvana<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

    I reached into my pocket to pull out two $100 chips and\u2026 Uh oh, something\u2019s wrong. There should be ten chips in here. My fingers are feeling far fewer than that.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Then I remembered that I\u2019d reloaded for $500 after the Erwin hand, and that\u2019s why I had only five chips in my pocket. And then\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    ::: WOOSH :::<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    That was the sound of my mind witnessing its own nirvana: I just lost a cooler and then went half an hour without it coming to mind. And I wasn\u2019t even aware that I was stuck.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    And I have proof.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    During that half hour, if I had recalled the 99 vs JT hand against Erwin even one time, then I\u2019d have been forced into remembering that I was stuck $500. Which means I would not have been surprised to find only five chips in my pocket when I went to reload after losing the JJ vs 65 hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    This was two simultaneous symptoms of nirvana. One was forgetting about the cooler. The other was not knowing that I was stuck. Maybe my omnipresent cash game strategy<\/a> of always having a $1,000 stack had put a spell on me, or maybe it really was the kale salad. For whatever reason, for those thirty timeless minutes, it was as if the hand against Erwin never happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Poker-nirvana symptom #3: severe memory loss.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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Or maybe it was the nap. Why was tonight\u2019s poker session extra awesome? Three times I found myself basking in the bliss of poker nirvana. 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