Returning the Favor and other Slices of Life

Returning the Favor
Returning the Favor
Now Available on Smashwords for Kindle and other ebook readers!

Thursday, March 27, 2008

If you really, really wanted to call it poker

I suppose you could, but it would be a stretch only allowed by the fact that the game was played with chips representing fictional dollars, cards, and by the end of seven cards, the best five-card hand won. In any other sense what I played last night was not poker.

On the up side, I did very well at bingo last night. I may have played as poorly as I have in my life in a winning session, catching ridiculous cards and issuing bad beats to my friends at such a furious pace that it stopped being funny after a while. It's hard going on a rush 5-handed in a home game, because it probably means that someone you like is getting kicked in the balls by the deck. Over and over again.

But I'm not complaining, I booked a win on nothing but pure luck, so I'll take it. I started off on a horrible slide, playing way too loose and bleeding away, as no one seemed interested in playing big pots early. If I'm gonna play 5-handed, I'm probably gonna play exceptionally loose preflop, and tighten up (i.e. look at my cards) only after the flop, and usually only after some aggressive action is taken. It's not like I have any fold equity preflop anyway, since half my opponents assume I have the hammer every hand, whether I've raised preflop or not. So I limped in a bunch, and called some stupid preflop raises, and then issued some sick beats.

I think the worst was probably what I did to BG. I called his preflop raise with 4-2 off suit, thinking that if I called, everyone else would call. Yeah, I forgot that Nate and Jim weren't with us, so that was a bit of a misread. The flop came down crappy cards, with a 4. At this point I called his overbet of the pot because I had a pair. And because 8 out of 10 hands he'd c-bet the flop if he raised preflop, and 6 out of those 8 I'd folded, so I figured he could be firing with almost any holding, and there was about a 20% chance my pair of 4s was actually ahead.

No, I didn't take time to think about the fact that there was probably only a 10% chance that my pair of 4s would hold up if in fact they were ahead. I'm not really very bright.

The turn brought another 4, and I called one more time, because this time I was pretty sure I was not only good, but was going to stay there. The river was inconsequential, and I think he checked and I bet. Or he bet and I raised. Either way, he called and I showed my stupid hand, and took a bunch of chips. I don't have any idea what he had, but given the level of disgust he evidenced, it must have been decent. I actually issued a worse beat later, but he admitted that even against a donkey like me he should have realized he wasn't good there. I called a preflop raise with 4-5 off suit, because that's how I was rolling. Flop came down A-2-x and I raised BG with my gutty. Yeah, not a long-term +EV move, but if you're gonna play crap, you may as well play it strong. I picked up my 3 on the turn, and fired again. On the river BG led out, I said "raise" and before I counted out my whole raise (which was going to be 3x his bet, which would have left him pretty committed) he said "All-in." I called, he turned over A-2 for flopped two pair. I tabled my wheel, and he reloaded, saying "He did everything but tell me he had a set or a straight." Which was what I was thinking, but I didn't really want to rub salt in the wound right then.

Today is a different day, so I'll rub salt on the interwebs for the whole world to see. It's not like I did anything particularly well, I played like crap. This time I just got rewarded for it. Last weekend I actually played pretty well and got rewarded for it. We've got another game coming up Saturday night, so I wonder what the mix will be? It's not like I intended to play like the world's biggest donkey, it just kinda ended up that way. Glad I decided to put off "create a tight table image" until my 2009 Resolutions.

No comments: