Online Poker... A World Series of Disappointments part four

Yes... so back to my tale. Instead of a quiet evening of online poker, I'm playing a gut-wrenching and ear-splittingly loud night of online poker. Yeah, ferberizing your baby is like voluntarily scratching the chalkboard with your fingernails and then peeling them off your fingers.

Weird but in Japan they encourage their babies to wail and wail loudly. It's said to generate good health. Uh... excuse me? This 400 year ritual involves mothers giving their babies to... Sumo Wrestlers and high priests. There the babies are encouraged to wail long and loud. The babies that cry longest and loudest are recognized as the winners of the Naki Sumo. I'm not making this up. Talk about starting life with a bad beat.

So, I guess if my wife and I knew this we would have invited a Sumo Wrestler over as we ignored the cries of our infant to coax him to cry even louder. I'm new to the parenting thing but I thought part of it was keeping your children from crying. Granted my wife was praying for the baby's good health, as mothers do in Japan, and we were both praying for the baby to stop crying but we didn't have the high priests or the man-thongs to guide us.

So, the bad beat I bitched about last time was tilting, the crying baby even more so, and I still had some tables going. I was alive in the big event despite my hasty exit in the other. 72? Really?

"How's it going?" My wife asks above the din.

"Umm, just great dear," I say and then think to myself, "I didn't just lose with pocket aces again. I certainly just didn't lose to 7 effing Deuce that's for sure. My unhinged mental health made me wish my mother had let a sumo hold me as a priest exhorted me to wail as a baby.

I move in with queens in one of the smaller events I'm in. Yeah, snapped off again, underpair that made a set on the flop. Did I mention the screaming baby? I want to join in the ruckus.

Still, later the only table that is open is the big buy-in event I satellited into. I was still going to reclaim my evening with a solid win there. I have double the chip average, we are about 30 away from the money. Any cash, considering the cost of the satellite, is a big win so I'm feeling good.

I got a good feel for my entire table. One player we'll call Briiick is on my right and has abandoned my big blind any time it has been folded to him. He's got two thirds of my stack. Suddenly, I look up from a sit 'n go I got on another screen and the guy open shoves after everybody folded. What?

I look at my cards KK.

I'm so confused. Is this a level? He folds all day to me and then he open shoves? I know he's going to think i'm slow rolling him but I'm confused by the situation. Finally, as I have to do I call.

He's just making a move with 95. You know how this goes. 9 ball on the flop. Turn it's a five. I felt the punch to the stomach before it hit. Ca-chunk.

I'm short-stacked and then the break hits. I return and double up. I remind myself it's never over. Then I look at AQ a guy opened from mid-position, I decided to take it all and shove. He's got AK. Sometimes it is over.

O-fer on he night.

Oh yeah, did I mention the baby was crying? No? Well, the baby was crying. I get up from my computer exasperated but kind of laughing thinking of all the big pairs and repeated the word variance like it's "Serenity Now." Then the baby stopped crying and all was quiet.

I want to shout "Really? You stop crying now? Really?"

*Footnotes...

-Don't believe me about the Japanese wanting their babies to scream? Go here.

-The Feberizing process guy is a genius. The next night our kid cried for five minutes and then went out like a light. The next night no crying and he just went down. Read more on him here.