Bubble Boy Blues

Yesterday I started very optomistically, but soon things went wrong as they usually do. I came 40/263 in the $15fo on VC with 30 paid after losing a race w AQo vs TT. Then I bubbled the $6fo 31/263 with 30 paid, it´s folded to me in SB and I have A3o and shove, bb calls w KQo and hits 2 Q´s. Next up is the $5 rebuy on Full Tilt and I dont get near the money coming 29/88 after shoving A7s on the button and running it into BB´s AJo. Next is the $5fo on FT, i come 23/187 with 18 paid after reshoving a button raise w 99 and then losing the subsequent race to the guys KTo. Bah! i´m thinking, and start to get really annoyed. I feel really fed up and no longer in the mood to play so I start shoving every hand of the only tournament i´m left in, the $2rb on FT and it was only a matter of time before one of my constant all ins got called and I´m sitting staring at the space on the table where I was just sitting before donking off. So I decide that it would be stupid to play any more and head off out to the pub.

The Republican is about 2 metro stops from where I live. It´s a nice little bar, I get on really well with the owners, they have good beer, the music is good and the clientel is mostly Catalans and Spanish with a nice mix of other Europeans and the odd kiwi. Kieran, the owner, puts on some classic Pearl Jam and we get talking about poker, what else! He tells me he´s been meaning to deposit and play a bit online and then procedes to download and deposit on VC, lol. I sit and watch him play 1/2c limit for a while, drinking a nice German white beer they have there called Franziskeiner or something like that. Then he logs off and I get talking to a Spanish bloke about the History of Spain, languages and various other stuff. A few FranzFerdinands later and I´m eyeing up the computer on the bar and thinking I should show these guys how great I am at poker. Within minutes I´m multi-tabling five 25/50c tables, I make a big laydown of KK on a QT7 flop with loads of action from the 2 preflop callers in front of me on the flop, one flips QT and the other 77. Moments later I lose with KK again on a different table to a guy that called the flop with bottom pair, turned a flush draw and nails it on the river. A buy in and a half later I realise that 5 tabling after several pints probably wasn´t the genius idea that I had thought it was and concede that I am an utter donkey.

I pop outside for a quick oneskin and return bleary eyed. I quickly get speaking to a guy who says he worked for the government, something to do with intelligence. He is very strongly Nationalist and declared himself to be very conservative. Soon we are having a discussion about what it means to be Catalan and identity. They have a very strong regional identity here and most Catalans would like Cataluña to be seperate from the rest of Spain, to have full autonomy. Politics and History in Spain are very complicated, it is a very new democracy, up until the mid 70´s there was a dictator in charge and history is not something many people like to talk about here. It seems as though after being suppressed for such a long time people now just go all out to have a good time, the Spanish sure know how to do that. After several more Ferdinands I stumble home with another oneskin and sit down in the living room to contemplate the nights discussions, get really paranoid that the guy I was chatting to was still working for intelligence and was on an undercover op staking me out and that all my doings here are under close scrutiny. I wake up on the settee 8 hours later, well played me.