How do I get myself into these situations?

Posted by ZombieJack

May 28, 2008

So last Tuesday I am sitting in a bar waiting for a business contact to show up. The idea was that we meet at the bar and discuss doing business together. Afterwards we would take part in the free poker game that the bar offers. To be clear the person I am supposed to be meeting with owns the bar that I am sitting in. As the hours go by I order a little dinner and I play in the first poker tournament of the evening. I lose as I go all in with pocket 10s and I get called by pocket 8s. After I get busted out I decided that the owner is not going to show and I get ready to pay my tab and leave. Reaching into my pocket I realize that I have no cash on me. The next logical step was to use my check card to pay the bill. As luck would have it using my check card was impossible.

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One week before this happened I got a call from Bank of America saying that there is fraudulent activity on my checking account. They ask me a few questions and since I have no idea where the charges came from they decide that the best thing to do is cancel my check card while they investigate. A new check card will be sent to me but I will take 5 to 7 business days for it to get to me. Without really thinking about it I say “sure”. If I had thought about I would have realized that I have no cash on me or in my apartment and I should probably get some before they cancel the card. Right after BOA hangs up the phone I get another call, this time from Sprint. They say that I am late paying my bill and I will not be able to make any calls on my cell until my account is made current. Making said payment without my check card will prove to be difficult. I could pay by regular check, but, I left my bag/man-purse at my friend’s house. Inside the bag I keep my checkbook and some other stuff and of course I can’t call my friends because my phone isn’t working.

****

Back to the bar. There I am with no cash, no check card, no checkbook, and oops no way to call for help. The only person in the bar I know would have been the owner who would have been more than happy to let me pay another time, but he isn’t there. On top of that I can’t call him to find out if he is going to show up. I quickly come up with two plans to solve my problem.

Plan A: There is a second poker game at 10:00 and the prize is $30 cash. This would be enough to pay my tab and I would have a little extra to help get me through the week. This also means that I would have to get first place in a four table tourney. Beating many drunken players that are known for their ability to suck out on good players.

Plan B: this is a simple plan but it has its flaws. Start an argument with the staff over the food/décor and get so pissed off that I storm out of the bar. This of course will make it harder to do business with the bar owner in the future.

I started with Plan A. I sit at a table with a few players that I understood to be the better players in the room. On top of that, two of them are high as kites, which gives me a small advantage. I figure if I am going to run over a table it’s going to be this one. Three hours fly by and I play my ass off. I build a good chip lead, I pick my spots, I win my races and before I know it we are down to heads up play. My opponent has a 5 to 1 chip lead but he is drunk off his ass. At this point the blinds are too high for me to really play a good game. I have maybe three hands before I am forced all in. So I use a poker skill that is rarely talked about, Diplomacy. There is a second place prize in the tourney but it’s a gift card for the bar and it’s barely enough to cover my tab. I really want the cash so I can use on something else during the week in case something else goes wrong. I convince this guy that he is a great player and I would like to chop the prizes rather than attempt to play him. He smiles and reaches for his beer. It’s obvious that he is not really sure what I am suggesting, but he is agreeing so far. So I tell him that he can take the second prize and he can take all the players points for first place (they have a league in which the top point winners get entered into a free role tourney at the end of three months) and I would get the cash for first place. This gives him two prizes and gives me only one prize. Which is fair because of his chip lead. Its take a little convincing but eventually he agrees to the worst deal in poker history and I am very happy.

I pay my bill and walk out to my car. I get in the car and the first thing I notice is that my gas gage says EMPTY. I use the extra cash on gas. Had I not won the money I would not have been able to get to work the next day.

I am a little upset that I didn’t get to use Plan B. Maybe another day.

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