Editor's note: This is an incomplete post. I was just getting into the meat of it when I decided it was too much of a ripoff of another poker blogger. Nonetheless, since I started this, I'm going to post it. That's the way I feel about blogging. It turns my game and my mind into a fishbowl. Sunshine makes us all better. If you know I was on the way to a blatant rip-off, maybe I won't do it again. --Otis
In the cutoff, I looked down and saw it. Deuce-Deuce. Damned ducks never do anything but quack. If they had a little appeal, like that crazy, wacky Aflack duck, then maybe I'd get excited. Instead, I call, only to be raised by the SB.
I should fold deuces every time. A two-outer with not much of anywhere to go.
But I called. Then, as I was preparing for a quick hour of self-flaggelation (not to mention a little deprecation and loathing), the flop made my set, beating out the SB's bigger pair for a sizeable pot.
In the chatbar I offered, "The double douche. Damned that hurts, don't it?"
The SB didn't respond. I waited for anyone to pick up the reference. No one did. These folks don't know Wade Garrett. And if they don't know Wade Garrett, they likely don't know Dalton.
Before you laugh (alright, as you laugh), you should know, the movie "Road House" serves as a late 80s oracle to the poker playing community.
Please, step inside The Double Deuce.
Before we begin, I should point out this post is a blatant (if not fully intentional) ripoff of a series of posts written by poker blogger, Hdouble over at The Cards Speak. His oracle is The Dude from "The Big Lebowski." Admittedly, The Dude has a lot to offer. Admittedly, "The Big Lebowski" is a better film. But for pure, unintentionally funny dialogue, "Road House" takes the cake.
The film begins as Dalton, uber-Cooler, makes his way into a Kansas City-area juke joint known as the Double Deuce. He's the calm guy with a dark past that can turn a sleazy, violence-ridden den of inequity into a happenin' place. He hates violence, but will use it when necessary. He's into eastern philosophy and lakeside tai chi. Or Chai Tea. Or something.
His transformation of the dive into a happy bar would just add to his resume if it weren't for his falling in love with the town doctor and battling the evil land baron, Brad Wesley.
Complete with bar brawls, sexy sex, and monster trucks, "Road House" has a lot to offer the late 80s movie watcher.
And if not that, at least it's got some great quotes that can be applied to 21st century poker (here's where I really start ripping off HDouble).
***
As Dalton starts to take over the bar's security staff, he instructs them on how to react to an angry customer.
Dalton: If somebody gets in your face and calls you a cocksucker, I want you to be nice. Ask him to walk. Be nice. If he won't walk, walk him. But be nice. If you can't walk him, one of the others will help you, and you'll both be nice. I want you to remember that it's a job. It's nothing personal.
So, you've just laid a massive beat on a player across the table. You're watching the chat bar and there it is. A vitriolic stream of profanity and insults that wouldn't only make a sailor blush, it'd make him abandon ship.
You have a few choices.
*Spew forth in like fashion. Give it right back to him.
*Instruct him on why you played the hand correctly, or how he could've played the hand better.
*Say thank you (aka, be nice).
Spewing forth only take you to the level of the bar brawlers who may get off a good punch or two, but inevitably end up writhing, drunk on the floor. Plus, it takes time away from the next hand. That's where you're focus should be. As you soon as you focus on one player, you start ignoring the other eight. They're the players who will jack you when you're trying to lay a profanity-laden beat down on the guy in the one seat.
Instructing him on how to fight you better is little more than, as others have put it, "tapping on the glass." Don't teach your opponent how to fight. This is my biggest problem. If I'm betting a middle pair and a guy gives me a free card on the turn, allowing me to make my set on the river, I'm prone to say, "if you'd bet the turn, I would've folded." I shouldn't tell him that. Because next time he will and the pot will be his.
Instead, we should just be nice. Say, "Thank you," rake your pot, post your blind and keep playing.
***
As Dalton's instruction continues, an incredulous employee speaks up.
Steve: Being called a cocksucker isn't personal?
Dalton: No. It's two nouns combined to elicit a prescribed response.
Steve: What if somebody callas my mama a whore?
Dalton: Is she?
So, say you just said, "thank you" to the guy who is still spewing vitriol and he keeps going. Perhaps he says, "I can't believe you f'n called three bets with 77. That's the worst call I've ever seen. You f'n suck."
In short, he just called your mama a whore. You need to ask yourself, "is she?"
You probably shouldn't have called three bets with 77, just like I shouldn't have called a raise from the small blind while I was only holding 22.
Bad calls that result in big wins can hurt our game as much or more than playing good cards and losing. More often than not, I'm not going to make my set with 22. A good player knows that. However, even when a moderately good player rakes a major pot with a moderate hand, he might be more encouraged to play it again next time the same way. In the long run, it's not going to pay off and you'll find yourself thinking, "maybe my mama really is a whore."
***
Editor's note: Before I decided to prematurely end this piece, I had a few more quotes lined up. I leave them here for you to translate...or better yet, for Hdouble to translate when he gets back from Vegas.
1) Dalton: People who really want to have a good time won't come to a slaughterhouse. And we've got entirely too many troublemakers here. Too many 40-year-old adolescents, felons, power drinkers and trustees of modern chemistry.
2) Dalton: Take the biggest guy in the world, shatter his knee and he'll drop like a stone.
3) Doc: Do you always carry your medical record around with you?
Dalton: Saves time.