It's been a very long six days. I may elaborate at a later date, but for now suffice it to say, I've been on non-poker tilt for the better part of the last week. Last night around 8:30, my wife told me to shut off my computer. She didn't care what I did with my time, as long as I wasn't staring at a computer screen.
Half an hour later, I was in my car, drinking an energy drink, and calling BadBlood to see if he wanted to meet G-Rob at the Spring Hotel. Blood was otherwise busy and declined.
This morning, Blood sent an e-mail that led me to believe he was jonesing for a game last night and wanted a detailed recounting of last night's events.
All in all, it was a typical night. I walked away with no real stories. Still, I did my best to give Blood a vicarious romp through last night's session. What you'll find below the cut is not good writing, a good story, or even all that interesting. However, it is poker. So, I offer it in the spirit of letting everyone know I'm still alive, still on life-tilt, and sorry I'm not writing anything worth reading.
That is, I'm still playing, just not living a particularly interesting life right now.
Badblood wrote:Spare no details
(names changed to protect...well...me)
Alright then...
I got there late. Made a late decision to go and then got caught in I-765 traffic. Construction had closed down every southbound lane. It ended up taking me an hour to get there. When I walked in, the game was full (with Tallahassee sitting and Dominoes in line ahead of me). Tallahassee gave Dominoes his seat. I was already on tilt from the traffic and a bunch of other stupid shit. I didn't want to wait, but stood patiently while Tallahassee and A-Rod made the decision to make the game 11-handed and let me sit.
The line-up:
Seat 1: Tom-Tom (now sporting a full beard)
Seat 2: Unknown (missing one tooth, likely late 40s, dark hair, sorta fat, with a piece of gold bling around his neck)
Seat 3: Unknown (talkative guy, likely 50 with white hair and a weight problem)
Seat 4: Christy Snow (pretty MILF)
Seat 5: Dominoes The Pizza Guy
Seat 6: Twirly the Cable Guy (not sure if he is really a cable guy, but I get the impression he is. Thought I saw a cable work shirt on the back of his chair. Brown visor, cheap sunglasses)
Seat 7: Otis
Seat 8: Snow's husband
Seat 9: For the life of me, I can't remember
Seat 10: T (aka Leaf Guard)
Seat 11: G-Rob
G-Rob was wearing his i-Pod when I walked in, which usually indicates to me that he is on tilt. As he was sitting next to the world's most talkative dealer, I figured G-Rob was either stuck or the dealer was talking again about his lack of a belief in mystical powers. The dealer was wearing a shirt that said Hustler on it.
I squeezed into my seat and grabbed a beer from the fridge. This was an odd moment, because I usually sit down at the same time as G-Rob, or you, or somebody else I know in the game. We learn the dynamics together. This time, though, Rob was already two hours into the game. I caught a look in his eye. It's become very familiar. I was wrong. G-Rob wasn't on tilt. He was excited.
I stole a look at his stack. I don't know how much he was into the game for, but he had at least three buy-ins front of him. Again, it all felt very odd. It appeared that Rob had been running over the table. I learned (much later, and after Rob had left) that Rob had stacked one of the older guys after flopping a set of deuces and turning a full house. However, at the time, I had no idea what kind of game Rob was playing. One thing was clear, though. It was power poker. At one point, Dominoes bet into him on a three-heart board and Rob pushed every one of his chips in the middle. Dominoes eventually folded and Rob sighed in relief. "Did you have the flush?" Dominoes asked.
"I just wanted you to fold," Rob said, stacking chips.
Bullshit, I say.
I made a quick decision to not mix it up with anybody for a while. I was still on traffic tilt and Rob seemed to be running the game himself. His eyes seem to be imploring me to get into the action, at one point even saying out loud, "Otis!" when I folded my button to five limpers.
To be fair, I'd been getting dealt trash for the first hour and the table was proving it couldn't be bluffed. I didn't see any reason to further tilt myself by stacking off and re-buying so early.
I was paying less attention than I should. My entire point of going in the first place was to take my mind off other shit and just dissolve into a game. For the first hour, I wasn't having much success. G-Rob had control of the table and the last thing I wanted to was to fund his Vegas lost summer (any more than I do on any normal night).
My lack of attention caused me to miss most of the action on the hand that finally woke me up. The board read J96K. The king had just fallen on the turn and Leaf Guard had just check-raised Rob. Rob called and the pot was huge (maybe 2.5 buyins).
When another king came on the river, Leaf Guard made the worst mistake of the night. It's the worst mistake anyone can make against G-Rob. Leaf Guard checked the J96KK board. With maybe only the slightest moment hesistation, Rob dropped about the amount of a full buy-in in the pot.
I almost felt bad for Leaf Guard. He was going to have to call off almost his entire stack to see Rob's hand. Guard's mistake wasn't the check-raise on the turn. It was the check on the river. It screamed "I don't have the king." Rob could have rags and win the pot now.
Guard thought for a long time. Too long, I discovered. Somewhere in the tank, Guard found a way to convince himself that Rob had sixes full of kings. He said it out loud as he mucked.
I almost stood up and made the following offer: If G-Rob has two sixes in his hand, I will tattoo his name on my penis.
That is, I knew Rob didn't have sixes.
Rob slowly rolled over T8 for the busted open-ender. Power poker, bitches.
I am loathe to admit this, but for the first time ever, I developed a small man-crush on G-Rob.
Guard went into a slow burn after that and started working to try to get his money back from Rob. The last straw was calling a big raise from Rob and flopping a flush with with Q7 of spades. By the time the river came, Rob had made a king-high flush with his pocket kings.
Guard cashed out as did a couple of others.
The game started changing after that and settled into the second line-up of the night.
Seat 1: Unknown (talkative guy, likely 50 with white hair and a weight problem)
Seat 2: Unknown (missing one tooth, likely late 40s, dark hair, sorta fat, with a piece of gold bling around his neck)
Seat 3: Christy Snow (pretty MILF)
Seat 4: Dominoes The Pizza Guy
Seat 5: Twirly the Cable Guy (not sure if he is really a cable guy, but I get the impression he is. Thought I saw a cable work shirt on the back of his chair. Brown visor, cheap sunglasses)
Seat 6: Otis
Seat 7: Snow's husband
Seat 8: Muhammad's brother
Seat 9: Muhammad
Seat 10: G-Rob
An hour had passed and I hadn't opened a pot. As often happens, I started to get bored and put in a live straddle.
"Otis..."
G-Rob seemed to sense my state of mind. He's seen it before and likely (and rightly) feared I was about to start playing badly.
Muhammad (note: not a reference to his ethnicity or religion) raised it up to 3x my straddle. Three people called before it got to me. I looked down at 5s7s and muttered, "What the fuck."
I called to see a flop of 25T, two spades. I put out a bet that was maybe 1/3 of the pot and only Muhammad called. My plan to thin the field had worked, but now I feared Muhammad was on two big spades. Even if my pair of fives was still good, the flush I wanted may not be.
And then the most beautiful thing happenend. The five of hearts fell on the turn. I bet out, hoping Muhammad would give up on his flush.
And then something changed. Muhammad raised me all but about $70 of my stack. My flush draw read, I decided, was way off. Buddha had to be sitting on a pair. I thought for about thirty seconds before saying, "Well, I guess it is going all-in on the river anyway." I pushed in all my money.
Now, Muhammad went in the tank. No flush draw, no five, for sure. I almost started kicking myself for driving him out of the pot. And then, thank you Muhammad, he called.
He never showed, but he said he had pocket nines. He had two outs and missed. I doubled up and started to get happy-happy.
About ten minutes later, Twirly came in for a raise. He's a tight guy and I made a decision early on to not play many pots with him. But then I looked down to find pocket kings.
You'll remember this moment from a game a few weeks ago...
----
As the game started to get short-handed (G-Rob and BadBlood had left), I picked up pocket kings in the cutoff. With two limpers to me, I made a standard raise. The button called. Sitting in the big blind, one of the house players re-raised. While the guys has a fairly wide range of starting hands, he's more of a calling station than re-raiser, so I put him on something big (AA,KK,QQ). His stack was fairly short (only $64 behind). I raised enough to put him all in and was fairly surprised to see the button call. As expected, the house player called. When the flop came down Qxx with two clubs, I knew I had no chance of winning the main pot. The house player certainly had either outflopped me or was ahead the entire time. I pushed in my stack and got the button to call with his AJ of clubs. He missed, which was good, because his missed draw almost made up for the money I lost to the house player. Oh, I didn't mention? The house player, indeed, held pocket aces to my pocket kings.
----
Twirly, obviously, is not a house player. Nor had I seen any evidence of anything nefarious going on. What's more, I'm not laying down pocket kings. I re-raised and the big white-haired guy in the one-seat called. The guy had been doing a lot of calling, then pushing after hitting top pair all night. Twirly then announced he was re-raising all-in. He'd been chatting with Dominoes while I was playing with my chips and I already knew Twirly held aces. I mean, I didn't KNOW, but I basically knew.
That's when I made a mistake. I don't think I was letting my read get to my hands, because the next thing I knew, I was doing what I would do if I thought Twirly held queens (still a possible holding, obviously). I was pushing all in (about two buy-ins) to isolate myself with him.
Long story short, my little "plan" worked. The big guy folded and Twirly showed me his aces.
"Surprise," I muttered.
The board opened up a lot of outs for me, but none of them came. I was back where I started the night.
I looked at G-Rob and said, "Statistics are funny."
He understood.
Then Dominoes said something that made me laugh and it was all better.
"Statistics, funny? Well, nine out of ten times they are."
That's gold, bitches.
------
As the midnight hour passed, Rob began making his move to leave. We'd only played two pots together all night. The first one, I called with top pair weak, kicker to his second pair. The second one, he made a flush at the same time I made aces up (with a better second pair than was on the board). I paid him off on that one. I think he came out a few bucks ahead of me on the two hands. No big surprise there. He's always betting. I'm always calling.
As Rob cashed out, something occured to me.
He is killing the local poker economy.
You know the kind of heater he has been on recently. Add to that, last night he cashed out for more than five buy-ins. Again.
This kind of carnage may not be sustainable. If Rob (or anybody) continues to rape the tables like this on a consistent basis, the fish beds are going to dry up. There will be no more honey in that honey hole.