Hand After Hand

After we got home from that 6 week Commerce trip last July, I just laid low at home for over a week, catching up on all that self-imposed sleep deprivation.

Then I finally hit Lil's, and also hit my worst losing streak in 7 years playing there.  Played quite a lot, through August and September, and Lady Luck kicked me square in the nuts, every chance she got. 

Here I could whine some about card dead, suckout beats, missed flops, etc., but you don't want to hear that crap any more than I want to tell it.  Finally got the bleeding stopped early in October, but let me tell you, a tourniquet is damned uncomfortable, and really painful.  Especially around your neck.

Now things are back to normal, meaning wacky but manageable.  Great games at DL most days.  Here are some of the hands I've played and misplayed lately.  Funny how so many of them were Aces.

Strong Laydown, but . . .

Pocket Aces under the gun, so I open raise.  Doh.  "A" and some other guy in the middle, and Captain Nemo, in the big blind, all call.

So four way, the flop comes 944 rainbow, and Nemo smacks the table with a handful of chips.  It's an uncharacteristic way for him to check, and I say to myself that he hates that flop, or else he loves it.  No in-between, I'm thinking.

I bet out, and "A" raises.  No problem.  Gonna raise his ass right back.  Guy behind "A" folds, but then Nemo calls.

Wait, what?  Calling two cold?  WTF?  I hesitate a couple seconds, and muck.

Yeah, I know.  Who folds Aces in that spot?  Not me, hell no, strong impulse to re-raise, 9 days out of 10.  

But after doing so badly, for weeks on end, I was trying to apply my DELTA Principle, and trying to do the opposite of what most players would do when they run that bad.

That means trying extra hard to play extra good.  You know, just like we should all do, every day.  The A game.  There's even this Mantra I use:

   Don't get stupid.
   Don't get stupid.

   Don't get stupid.

This time I just knew Nemo flopped trip fours, and later it turned out that he had indeed.  I silently congratulated myself for making such a good laydown.  Some players might even show their Aces when they muck it.  Me?  Never happen.

And it's a damn good thing that I'm Performance Oriented, a True Believer.  If I were Results Oriented, then I would have had to scream when that Ace hit the turn.  As it was I just whimpered, and bit my lip, and it only bled a little.

Dumb and Dumber

Ten Nine of Spades in the small blind, and I call a raise for five way action.  Two Spades and two bets on the the flop, four way.

Two bets on the turn, looks like Bill Hagen, original open-raiser on my left, made his straight. Then Deuce of Spades on the river makes my flush, ka-ching. 

But then before I can even do anything, Bill bets, out of turn, and Ducky raises.  Yeow.  36 bets in the pot, Bill mucks, out of turn, I make the crying-call, and Ducky actually turns over a smaller flush.  Hot Dog.  Ship It!

So I triumphantly and victoriously spread my Ten Nine of ... wait, WTF ... Diamonds?  How could I possibly have Diamonds in the hole and think they're Spades?  

Well, if you only peel up a corner, and only see the tops of the pips, they're both pointy, right?  And if you somehow went color blind for a moment, well . . .  OK, I know that's awfully flakey, but it's also the best explanation I can muster, so that's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

Everyone expressed great surprise when I tabled that hand with such a flourish, but none more than me.  Ducky thanked me most sincerely for the action.

Rocket 88

Little Richard raises from the middle, and I three-bet in the cutoff, with 8h8c.  But then Big Richard, on the button, caps it.  Help!

Flop comes A K T, all Hearts.  Looks pretty intimidating.  Little checks, and I decide— and this is NOT typical for me— that I should "bet, to see where I'm at." 

Big raises, and Little folds.  Ok, fine, so that's where I'm at.  Blank on the turn, I check and call, then bet, when the river comes a small Heart, and makes me a mediocre flush.  He calls, I win, and he asks "Did you really think 8 of Hearts was a good draw?"

"Well, yes, I was confident enough you flopped either top two, or more likely a big set, that Deuce of Hearts might have been a good draw," I wanted to tell him.  But I didn't.  I just gave a polite nod, as if to say "Yeah, you right; I'm a dummy, and got lucky." 


Aces Calling Dark

AA, I raise from the middle, and only Smilin' John calls, from the blind.

Flop comes KK9, I bet, John calls, and I'm thinking I *may* be in big trouble.  But with John, you never know.

So I'm either way ahead or way behind, sense it's the latter, and check behind him on the turn.

John exclaims loud disappointment that his check raise failed, and bets the river dark.  And for the second time in my life, I act dark too, and push out an 8 chip stack, right alongside his.

Then the river comes, but I'm watching him, not the board, and he turns over his King Rag.  Ok John, you got me with trip Kings.   

But he didn't.  I got my dumbass self.  Ace on the river, and I blew my chance to raise him. 


Crimes and Misdemeanors

This was months ago, way before the LA trip.  Real late Friday night, like after 3:00 a.m., and I'm Small Blind, in seat 7,  with Mr. Contemptible in the Cutoff, seat 5.

Actually they just call him Mister C, but I'm sure that's what it stands for.  It is so incredibly ironic that this guy wants to be addressed with respect, as Mister, after being 86'd for a year for throwing his cards in the dealer's face.  (To her extreme credit, she then threw the entire deck right back at him.)

Mrs. Rock and I were discussing the word "contempt" one night —— it actually came up in conversation —— and after we had the exact meaning pinned down, I asked if she felt contempt for any of the DL players.  She allowed as how she does have her own short Atlanta Braves roster, and could admit to some moderate dislike for a couple particular guys, but contempt?  "No," she said. 

But then after a few minutes she remembered this one guy: "Almost forgot because I haven't seen him lately.  Thankfully," she says.  Then she named C, explaining that this comes from the two times that she watched him twist around in his seat and spit onto the carpeted cardroom floor. 

Then we have Roman Fingers, on the Button in seat 6, between C and me.  Here's an ethically-challenged poker player presumably trained and named in Atlantic City, and also a highly experienced dealer, so should know better, who likes to put his hands into the the pot, the muck, or another player's cards.
  
Say a player bets, on any betting round, gets no callers, and wins.  Dealer pushes the pot, player releases his cards.  But then before the dealer can take those cards, Roman might reach out and help himself to a peek.  Or grab and look at cards even after they're in the muck.

If you let slip the F word, or break the English Only rule, or throw your cards off the table, well, those are hardly capital offenses.  Not even felonies.  In my experience at DL,  you'd just get a warning the first few thousand times.

At the other end of the spectrum, if you got caught holding out cards, or stealing chips from the pot, there surely would be no warnings involved.  You would be sent away, probably barred for life.

So I ask you:  Where should this unfortunate offense of stealing a look at another player's hand fall on that spectrum of crime severities?  Minor?  Major?

Roman doesn't have a monopoly on it.  There's another unscrupulous reprobate or two at DL doing the same thing, and the act has sadly become so common, and in my view degrades integrity of the game so egregiously, that I just can't tolerate it any more.  But that's not the crime in question here.  Sorry I digressed.  Back to the hand in question.

Contemptible's chips are racked, this is his last hand, in the cutoff, and he mucks.  Yes, he paid the blinds, and is walking away from the 5 more hands he paid for and is entitled to.  I never said the guy was a genius.

So he folds, and stands up, Fingers raises on the button, and before I can look at my hand, C and Fingers start a non-English conversation.  These guys come from two different Pacific Rim nations, and speak two different languages, so I'm not quite sure how that works.  But in any case, C says a few words to Fingers, then Fingers says a couple words in reply, then another back-and-forth exchange, none of it English, and all the while I'm looking back and forth between them and the dealer, hoping she might get the hint, and say something.  Nope.  Nothing.

Last year, my Conflict of Interest post about Non-English said . . .

I personally am not too worried about non-English conversation during play at DL. [Most] of the time, they're not talking about the hand in progress anyway.  They're just talking about ... something [else] completely innocent.

And I said that just because it's what I sensed from the context, and the players' demeanor, most times it happens.  

This time, I sensed exactly the opposite.  This time I sensed that Mr. Despicable was talking about the hand in progress, and probably telling Fingers what he had folded.  Can I be sure, or prove it?  No. 


But I stopped the action anyway, called for the floorman, described the prolonged non-English conversation we had just heard, and  demandded  politely requested that he declare Fingers' hand dead!

Fat chance, right?  But I was trying to make a point, so also  demanded  politely requested that he record my complaint in his events log, so management would see it.

Unfortunately, the least competent (most clueless) floorman ever was on duty, so neither of those things happened.  Nothing happened.  But stay tuned; my next post will dish up some new dirt on Mr. Contemptible.

Don't Talk to Me !

I love the DL 20/40, and don't usually sit in the smaller game while waiting.   Most times I just surf the web with my Sony P688E mini-laptop.  But the other day I was doing that when the floorman came over and asked if I'd like to play $8/16 while I wait.

"Do you recommend it?" I ask him, jokingly.

"Well, you could help me out," he says.

"Oh, I see. In that case, OK, sure."  He wants to start a game, and wants me be an unpaid prop. :-)

So I take seat 8 in this new 8/16, and within ten minutes, manage, without even trying, to make the guy next to me in seat 7 tell me, angrily, "Don't talk to me!"  Ouch.  I'll call this guy Grouchy Joe.

HAND 1:   Joe's the button and I'm small blind, with 97 suited. 3 or 4 limpers, including Joe, I call, and flop comes 983 rainbow. I check, expecting to probably raise or fold when it gets back to me, depending. Checked to Joe, he bets, I raise, he 3 bets, and I cap. Heads up.

In my pocket notebook there's one page where I wrote: "Note to self - DO NOT Try to Run Over These Guys !!"  but on this flop I failed to heed my own advice.  My weak hand and weak position probably made my play here, well, over-aggressive.  Ya think?

Turn is a blank, bet and call. River is a 9, making me trips, bet and call.  He had pocket tens, and didn't protect his hand as well as he might have (Delta!) and was pretty unhappy when I showed down and he saw the suckout.  I didn't say anything to rub it in.

HAND 2: I raise from late position with QJ suited, after a few limpers. Flop is Jack high, with two of my suit, and is capped! Awesome. 

Make my flush on the turn, then an offsuit Queen on the river, and while betting, I say "Two pair."  

I guess in some rooms there's a rule about losing any claim to the pot if you lie about your hand AT THE SHOWDOWN.  Like say you turn over, and say "Straight!" but it isn't really a straight.  And say your opponents hears and believes you, and doesn't look closely enough, and mucks his two pair.  Some older house rules would say that your lie on the end "disqualifies" you, and you forfeit any claim to that pot. 

I don't think such a rule is in effect much these days, even if maybe it should be.  Certainly not at Diamond Lil's; I see guys lie about their hand at the showdown all the time.

And anyway, I jokingly said "Two Pair" while betting, not at the showdown, and actually held a BETTER hand than I announced, not a busted draw.  So I was surprised when Joe, who wasn't involved in the hand anyway, complained that my announcement had somehow been unethical.  I didn't respond.

HAND 3:  This time Joe open raises, and I three bet with JJ.  Heads up, he's first, and he check-calls my flop and turn bets.  On the river, the board is scary enough that I check behind him.

So now it's showdown time, but Joe doesn't table his cards.  He picks them up, holds them like a draw hand, and shows them just to me.  99.  "I can beat that," I tell him, but it's still his turn to show down, and he hasn't done that yet, so I wait.  Yes, I'm that much an asshole.  My policy:  Act in turn.  And the guys at the other end of the table are entitled to see his hand, just like I'll want to see it when I'm at the other end.

Finally, the dealer tells him to table his hand, he does, I show, and win, and stack the chips.  Even though I had told him "I can beat that" right away, he starts whining about being slowrolled. I try to explain, politely, but he's having none of it, and says "Don't talk to me!"  

OK, fine.  So I STFU and said not another word until they called me for the 20 game, half an hour later.