Only four days into the new job, the company I work for decide to have “a poker night,” which really would be more appropriately labelled “a drinking night where there are playing cards in the vicinity.” But I must not get ahead of myself.

We left the office at 5pm and drove out to the CEO’s house, where he had prepared pea soup and beer. To go with the traditional Swedish pea soup is a very sweet kind of liquor called “punch” (not to be confused with the mixed American drink “punch”). This is more like a schnaps, really, and you drink it much the same way: In small glasses and in shots.

So we eat the soup and drink the punch, much according to tradition (that is to say, we’re singing before drinking) and we drink beer. Lots and lots of beer.

——–

Let me take a minute and interject a brief psychological profile on myself

Two things that are psychologically noteworthy about me are

1. I want people to like me, and
2. I really like attention.

Alright, back to Poker Night.

——–

So there I was, at my boss’s house, with booze and beer flowing and I’m struggling not to do what I do pretty well: Be the party guy. The guy who sings songs, tells stories and entertains people around me. I know that this is appreciated - years of experience has shown that people indeed seem to like me this way - but it also sort of requires me to be the booze hare. Okay, that’s going to need an explanation as well:

“The booze hare” is an expression borrowed from Greyhound Racing, possibly coined by a friend of mine, possibly taken from somewhere else. I’ve never heard it outside of our little circle, though. The idea is that the booze hare is always the guy who’s having the most to drink and also goes around wildly encouraging everyone else to drink more. Kinda like the effect the hare has in the greyhound race; he’s always in front of all the others, but he’s also the one who makes all the dogs run faster.

Get it? The booze hare. There’s often one around at every party, I’m sure you can think of someone you know who willingly takes on this role.

So, this is one of the things I do when I want attention and people to like me: I drink a lot, and I run around making sure everyone else drinks a lot. The problem with this is that my alcohol tolerance isn’t that great. It’s not awful or anything, I’m probably average. I’m not a very big guy (about 155 pounds, I guess, but I have a strong will when it comes to liquor. I also know from experience that I usually don’t make a very big fool of myself even when I get pretty drunk, so I feel pretty secure in getting really drunk, even when I’m around people who I really want to make a good impression on, like - say - my new coworkers as of four days.

So there I was. The new guy. Getting boozed up, and making sure everyone else drinks their fair share. And it was poker night - my specialty! None of the other guys play a lot of poker (at least so they claim) and the games this night ought to be super soft, especially with everyone drinking.

Let’s talk poker for awhile, then. We started out with a small tournament, with 13 people, two tables. First hand I’m dealt AKo and decide to overlimp. Perhaps a bit of a weird move on my part, but I was still relatively sober and I had absolutely no idea what the others were like. I wanted a read, any read. Also, in the offchance that this hand went to showdown and there were poker-savy people at the table, I wouldn’t mind them getting the first impression that I’m weak preflop by noticing that I’m limping AK. Also, and most importantly, raising preflop is the single most telling move of a non-novice player. People who have no notion of how to play poker won’t raise preflop. They want to “see what happens” because they’re unsure of how the game is played. If I come out raising the first hand, other potentially decent players around the table are going to notice me. And while I’m happy to get attention, I’m also a poker player and I know what kind of attention I want. That’s not the kind.

Two guys fold, button - the CEO - calls, both blinds are in and we see a flop five-handed. It’s a K-high flop, and I like it. It’s checked to me, I bet, everyone folds.

I make a mental note that at least they know how to fold. I’ve yet to see if they know how to bet or raise.

I fold 92o UTG in the next hand. Then I’m dealt AK again. This time, two players including the button limp, the small blind calls and I raise the pot. One limper folds, button calls, small blind calls.

The flop comes K-J-9 rainbow, and I’m happy. Small blind checks to me, and I bet a little more than half the pot. Button calls and the small blind folds. Turn is a trey. I consider pot control versus value and decide that while I don’t know my new boss very well, chances are he’s a soft poker player and more likely loose/passive than tight/aggressive. Betting takes home the cash.

I bet half the pot.

He min-raises me.

… crap…

So what does it mean when an unknown player makes a minimum (but given the stacks, sizeable) raise on the turn early in a tournament? It means that one pair probably doesn’t cut it. I look at the board again. Semibluffing is a pretty advanced move. I just can’t put him on a hand that I beat. Sure, he may be doing this with air (I’ve gotten the idea that he’s sort of tricky) but that’s a weird board to be bluffing at with air. So after tanking for about a minute, I muck my top-pair, top-kicker and decide to move on. He verbally claims that it was a good laydown because he had two pair, but he won’t show me his hand. Still, I feel pretty good about it.

Nothing very exciting happens for awhile, except that the blinds go up and my stack starts to dwindle. I see a flop with JTs in the big blind, but most fold when I miss. Finally, my stack is down to an M of 8, and I push all-in one off the button with KJs and get called by the BB who has QQ. No miracle for me, and I’m out and move to the loser’s table - where a NL cash game is shaping up.

Now, again, I must remind you that I’ve been drinking heavily this entire time. I’m the booze hare, after all. And while I like playing poker, I’m there to have fun first and foremost. I played the tournament according to my best judgement, but now it’s time for some small-stakes cash action and I’m going to gamble, baby.

Long story short, after my first night I hold the company’s poker night record loss, and I’m proud of it. This includes memorable hands such as calling a raise preflop with 52s, flopping two pair and getting paid off - except that the river counterfeited my bottom pair and I lost my stack (that went in on the turn, in my defense) to the guy with K5. Oh well!

The guy who won that hand woke up the next morning with, as he put it, “a surprising amount of money in his wallet that he wasn’t sure when they got there.” He had, he admitted, “a lot of black chips, but who knew they were worth that much!” All-in-all, it was a lot of fun and even though my ego hurts a bit from losing, the money in question is really not a big deal since even the record loss that night is well within what normal swings during a brief session can be like.

The night ended with a visit to the outdoor jacuzzi, which is quite a nice feature in Sweden in February. I imagine it’s a little bit like the hot springs in Iceland, where the air is really cold and the water really warm. Awesome experience, although in my by now very drunk state, I was actually a bit worried about falling asleep and drowning because it was so relaxing. I convinced myself that someone would probably wake me up if I fell asleep and went under, but I still had one eye half-open as I lay there relaxing.

What felt like just a few moments later, I’m informed that the taxi is here to take us home. I ask the time, and am informed that it’s 3am. In my mind, it ought to have been about midnight, but alright then. I shower quickly, get dressed, get in the cab and promptly fall asleep. Nicely enough, my coworkers do indeed wake me up when something important is about to happen, like the fact that we’re at my house. I make a mental note that that probably means that they’d wake me up if I ever risk drowning as well and feel pretty good about it. I get out of the cab, wave good-night, and stumble to my front door, get in, stumble in to the kitchen, drink some water, and head-up to go to bed.

But I didn’t take the magical No-Hangover-Pills.

Why-oh-why didn’t I take the magical No-Hangover-Pills? WHY?!

Saturday, I was useless. Completely useless. I got out of bed at 11:30, ate breakfast, promptly returned to bed. Lori knows full-well what I’m like when I’m hungover and trying to cover it up pretending that it’s some weird virus I must have contracted never worked and never will. I apologize for being uesless, she smirks and starts cleaning the house in preparation for the guests we’re having over. She cleans, I lie alternatingly on the bed and on the couch, usually in fetal position cursing myself for not taking my magical No-Hangover-Pills.

I noticed at one point that if I touched my stomach, I started feeling sick. I took my hand off and felt better. Then I stood up and tried again. Yup, I feel really sick when I touch my stomach. And that’s when it happened: the chain reaction. Because what do people who feel sick do? They sort of slump a little and hold their stomachs, which was precisely what was causing my now rapidly escalating feeling of nausea.

You don’t want to know how it went. But suffice it to say I had my second meal (or first, depending on how long a meal has to stay in the body to count as a meal) at 4pm.

I really must remember to use my magical pills. And perhaps next time there’s a company party, I’ll let someone else be the hare.

Phew.