Money Hater

I have been getting butchered of late at the poker table, but I went back to the scene of the crime tonight anyway for a little more gambooooool. Much to my surprise, there was no 30/60 game going, so I decided I’d play some 6/12 with a few friends of mine. The MoneyHater of the Week for July 30, 2007 happened to be in this game, although I did not know it at the time. He proceeds to make a series of really stupid plays (one of which you can read about in the MHOTW section), and I decide that I am not gonna leave until he goes bust.  He busts.

We play a pot where something happens preflop (I think it was raised, but I’m not sure), and I call on the button with 22 after a bunch of other callers. The flop comes down 334r and for some reason it checked to me so I bet and 3 guys call, including the MoneyHater. As the dealer is burning I say “I sure hope you put the 8 of hearts out there.” BOOM. The 8h hits the turn. Now the first 2 guys check, but the MoneyHater comes to life and bets and I can’t raise his dumb ass fast enough because I know (a) he doesn’t have a damn thing and (b) the other two guys might. The other 2 guys fold and the MoneyHater calls. The river is a 6. He checks, and I check. He says “I got nothing”, to which I immediately respond, “I know”. This got a good laugh from several of the other players in the game. I didn’t mean for it to be funny, I guess it just was to them. Well, that statement combined with the fact that I called for the 8h, it came, and this moron bet his air anyway only to find himself raised, struck them as rather funny. Now that I think about it, I guess I find that kinda funny, too.  He sheepishly shows A9o and I proudly table my 22 and stack his chips. One of the guys who folded the turn said he folded 66. I play good.

So, I have enough of the 6/12 and decide it is time to go home. On the way I stop at Jimmy Johns for a sandwich. If you have never heard of Jimmy Johns, just imagine a place where you can get a fresh sandwich made by one of several really stoned guys in their very early 20s.

The place is empty, except for 3-4 employees, two of whom are having a discussion that seems rather intense. It is not a heated or aggressive exchange, but it clearly has both of them quite engaged. One of them looks like he could be about 24. He has a beard and a tattoo on his right forearm that looks like a spin-off of the Green Lantern’s symbol. He appears to be in charge of the cash register, and takes my order. The other guy can’t be a day over 21, and has no distinguishing characteristics that I can see. He makes my sandwich.

As I stand waiting for my food, I get to listen to their interaction. It becomes apparent that they have a mutual acquaintance who is so daft that he cannot see the ocean of difference that separates the guitar stylings of Slash and Joe Perry.

“I mean, they both play Les Pauls, but that is it.”

“Yeah.”

“That part in November Rain where Slash rips that solo. That is amazing.”

“Yeah.”

I am shocked that these guys are making sandwiches for some poker-playing schlep at 2am.

I really hate that hand. I wouldn’t have given it a second thought, but one of my friends thinks 99 is the best hand in lhe. He always wins with it. Well, I never win with it. Ever. And now I NOTICE how much I don’t win with it because it’s his favorite fucking hand and I think it sucks.

Tonight I got 99 at least 7 times in the 5 hours I played. I blew 44bb in the first 90 minutes that I was there. It was a complete nightmare, and 99 made it even worse. If I wasn’t losing with it, I was losing to it.

Some tight guy raises UTG and I get 99 a few spots later. I think about folding for an instant but then decide to 3bone this clown, folds back to him and he calls. Flop comes KJ4r and he donks right into me and I fold. Then he tells the guy next to him that he had AQ, but wanted to win the pot right there. That makes sense. There are very few better hands that fold and a boatload that raise your ass and you can’t fold. I had one of the only better hand that folds. Wonderful.

I raise A8 of spades and the same guy from the hand above 3bones me from the SB, BB folds, I call. Flop J84 with two spades. He bets, I raise, he calls. Turn is a red 3. He check/calls. River is a big dumb K and now I don’t beat the AK that I am sure he has, and he can’t call with the AQ he may have. He checks, and I check gladly. He has two fucking 9s. Kill me.

I get the dumb 99 again OTB after 74 limpers and I raise that shit. The SB 3balls, BB calls, we all call, including several morons who call 2 cold with the turds they originally limped with. Flop comes 976 with two hearts. SB checks, BB bets, 1 limper calls, I raise, sb folds, BB 3towns, trapped limper cold-calls, I 4bone, BB now caps, limper burns another $60, I call. The turn brings a black T. BB checks what I earlier thought was 77, but it is clear he has some gay flush draw, limper checks, I bet because I have to and why the fuck would either of them play an 8 that way, BB calls, limper now check/raises whatever piece of crap he has which somehow contains a fucking 8, I call, BB calls. The river brings a jack and the flush misses. BB now donks this 976TJ board. The limper brilliantly raises, allowing me to fold whatever hand I have which clearly could never contain an 8, I fold, BB 3balls, limper calls. BB has KQhh and scoops the whole thing.

I hate that fucking hand.

• Hey, Chris “Jesus” Ferguson, you had a few years to convince us that your look isn’t really stupid. Well, you failed. It is. It’s time to cut your hair and take off that ridiculous hat.
• I am really tired of getting fagged. I do not have anything against homosexuals, I just like using the word “fag” as a verb, even though I know I shouldn’t. If you want to suck a dick, then suck a dick. Suck 50 of ‘em for all I care. I know if I was gay I’d suck as much dick as I could. None of this changes the fact that I am tired of getting fagged, like tonight when I lost to K5o with KQ on a flop of QJTr.
• This movie called The Lookout is really stupid, yet I continue to watch it.
• I think an altercation with that douchebag floor guy at Canterbury is inevitable. He is such a prick that I fear I will no longer be able to quell my utter disdain for the way he does his job.
• Tonight we got both a new set-up and a new shufflemaster. The set-up took at least 3 times as long. Since both are equally retarded requests, set-ups should be disallowed and replaced with the shufflemaster change. Like set-ups, however, one should only be able to request a new shufflemaster once every 2 hours.
• Phil Helmuth sure is a big fucker.
• How big of an idiot was that moron who busted Alex Jacob with 77? I can’t decide if his play was expert or asinine. I’m leaning toward the latter.
• You think Gus Hansen can hear the ocean with those ears?
• A complete moron (we like to refer to him as “the greasefire”) who for 3-4 months completely terrorized the Canterbury 30/60 game by (a) playing horribly but never losing and (b) being an arrogant, yet ignorant jackass, has not been seen there for quite some time. I want him to come back and play, as it was only a matter of time before the world of statistics gave him a rectal exam.
• I just drove home at 5am. There was no one on the road except for a cop stopped at a light ahead of me. He proceeds to drive through the red light. He did not have his lights on. He did not appear to be in a hurry to get somewhere in the interest of public safety. He just seemed like he didn’t feel like waiting and there was no traffic so he just went. This bugs me.

I am typically rather pleasant when I make the gambooooool, or so I’d like to believe. Some would argue, probably convincingly, that I am annoying, but it would likely be tough to argue that I am an asshole. I talk too much and mess with my friends, but am typically good-natured. Lately, however, I sense that the adhesive is not holding as well as it once did, and I fear I may eventually come unglued. Let me elaborate.

If you read the post below this, you know there tends to be some extremely moronic things said at the table. For whatever reason, these are annoying me more of late. (I think that is why I was able to handle being a teacher, because when a kid does/says something phenomenally moronic, you can just say “well, he’s just a kid.” When an adult does it, there is no excuse. The guy is just a stone-moron, and I guess that is tough for me to deal with. I mean, what do you say to this person after they say/do something that is completely retarded? It’s like watching a TV show with a really weird/uncomfortable situation. Even though you are not involved, you still feel kind of weird/embarrassed for them watching it unfold. It is almost painful to witness.) But I digress.

Anyway, the other night (the same night as the post below), this guy sits down in the game. He is awful at poker, which makes him good for the game, but he is arguably the most hated/annoying guy in that room. And he knows it. He almost wears it as a badge of honor. He never, ever, ever shuts up, and will say anything to anyone. He cannot control himself. He has to talk about every hand. It’s a disease he has. He is seated to my immediate right.

One hand I was involved in went check/check on the river, and I had (a) position and (b) my headphones on. The other guy in the hand is saying something after the river checks through, but I cannot hear him and don’t really care what he is saying. I am just waiting for him to table his hand or muck. It is obvious that I cannot hear him, and he tables his hand. I win. In my peripheral vision, I can see that the jackass to my right is looking at me and running his mouth. I am listening to the Archers of Loaf and do not want to be disturbed, so I ignore him assuming that he will be smart enough to figure out that I cannot hear him or am ignoring him. Wrong. We get to the point in the exchange where enough time has passed that it is clear he expects a response from me, so I turn to face him and free one ear from the music. He says “I bet you were happy when he said ‘Any pair is good, since you had the nut-no pair.”, which I assume is what he said initially when I couldn’t hear his dumb ass. “Well, I may have been happy had I been able to hear a word he said.” The moron just sits there expressionless.

Later on the following hand comes up. Moron to my right has been taking what he views as bad beats, even though he is misplaying every pot he gets involved in and is losing his dollars. He has QQ and raises in EP and gets called by the blinds. The flop comes JJ4 with two spades. He bets and they both call. The turn pairs the 4. The blinds check and now this guy checks. The river comes a red Ace. SB checks, BB bets, this guy puts on a production and shows me his hand and flings 6 chips into the pot in utter disgust, SB folds. BB tables A5o. Moron whines and talks and is generally annoying. SB says he also folded an ace. Moron loves this and says “Great. You guys hit a collective 2-outer on me. Perfect.”

At this point I envision myself turning to moron and calmly, placidly saying, “You know, I have an idea.” He undoubtedly would say something like, “Yeah, what’s that?”, at which point I would scream at the top of my lungs “BET THE TURN!!!”, and then calmly turn away as I put my headphones back on.

Typically in this spot I just giggle to myself and thank my lucky stars that this guy has a job which allows him to come and give some of his wages to me, but of late I fear I am going to make my little fantasy above a reality.

There is a special section here at MoneyHater dedicated to the dumbest things ever said. Tonight, however, I heard something so gargantually stupid that I feel it deserves its own post.

I was playing in the 30/60 game at my local poker hole when the following situation arose. I am a little sketchy about the preflop action, but it doesn’t really matter.

The BB in this hand is some local rich guy who seems like a nice guy. He rarely plays in the game (few times each month), but when he does he makes it very clear that the money he came with he has no intention of leaving with. He is akin to someone who goes in to the doctor to get a boil lanced; once he exits the premises, he expects it to be gone.

UTG in this hand plays semi-regularly. He also is no fan of cash. There is something off about him. It would not surprise me in the least if he had a Vietnam flashback at the sound of a tray dropping and instinctively whipped out a knife as he dove under the table. He also likes to wear his sunglasses indoors, which pleases me to no end.

MP is a regular player in the game and an all around great guy.

UTG raises or limps, but it really doesn’t matter. MP (re)raises, BB calls. The flop is QJ4 all hearts. Checks to MP who bets, BB check/raises, UTG coldcalls 2 bets, MP 3bets, both call. The turn pairs the J. Checks to MP who bets, BB calls, UTG now check/raises. MP tanks and then folds, BB calls. The river is a small black card, and BB check/folds to UTG’s bet.

To anyone who knows anything about poker (which admittedly is very few people), MP clearly had a hand like black AQ and BB (who is awful) had the naked K of hearts or some weak Q. UTG, however, does not know anything about poker. He comments how he would like to see MP’s hand as well as BB’s, as he feels that they may be colluding. (This of course, is preposterous for reasons that have nothing to do with the story, but the guys simply aren’t.) Then UTG creates a hypothetical situation and states that if someone bets the river, and everyone folds, that he should have the right to see the bettor’s hand. All of us at the table explain that, no, he shouldn’t have that right. He is adamant that he should and actually thinks that he DOES have that right, and wants the floor to be called. Let me repeat this, as I am sure that as you just read this you are assuming that you misunderstood what this guy was saying as no one ever could be so colossally moronic: This guy is saying that if Mike and Bill are in a pot and Mike bets the river and Bill folds, that Bill should be able to request that Mike show his hand and that Mike should have to. This is a guy who has been playing there FOR YEARS, and he doesn’t even see how galactically retarded his statement is. This is why I don’t have to work for a living.

I have lost 3 days in a row in the game, and now I have to listen to this guy say probably the dumbest thing I have ever heard as he stacks up the chips from the pot he won. To make matters worse, he is seated to my immediate right and leans over to me and says “I flopped the nuts and they try to bet me out…blahblahblah.” I am ready to blow a gasket and am on the verge of saying, “Oh, so you flopped the nuts but then decided to wait until you might be beat to put in a raise? Why not just tie your money to a rock and throw it over a cliff you twitchy fuck?” But instead I nod and smile and blast off another 900 bucks.

Fire Away

Wow does it feel good to be back in Minnesota. As much as I enjoyed them, I don’t need to eat another room service meal or bag of peanut M&Ms again for a long, long time.

I was not going to play any poker for a few days, but then a friend invited me to play some 6/12 with him, so I went.

I played about as bad as a guy could play. I raised UTG with 32 THREE times. Once it was even sooooted. I did not win any of those pots. Although I did LOSE to a guy who called a raise with 32s. He was very good.

The guy to my right kept whiffing on his check/raise attempts. I found this to be hysterical. I even turned to him once after one of his failed efforts and said, “Big swing and a miss on the turn there, eh?” He looked at me like I was speaking Greek.

There was one gentleman in the game who liked to use poker terminology, and identify it as such. I raised once and he called. He proceeded to explain that he what he was doing was referred to as “smooth calling.” I didn’t have the heart (or lack thereof) to tell him that what he actually was doing was setting his money to flame.

Later the same guy raised 4 limpers from the small blind and said “I am going to raise the field.” More poker-speak. I immediately apologized for what was about to transpire, as i KNEW the T6 of clubs that I limped on the button was gonna come home.

The flop came down QJ4 with just one club. I found a flop peel, as I didn’t limp T6 on the button to fold for one bet on a flop that missed me. The turn brought a red 9 on the board and me and some 76 year old Asian dude called SB’s turn bet. Before the river hit, the SB announced that he was going to “Dark Bet”, meaning that he would bet before he even saw the card. I said, “Why would you ever bet in the dark there?” And he replied, “Why not?” as an 8 rolled off. To which I replied, “Because that card might come”, as I cut out 12 chips with sheer delight.  I procured his dollars.

It is now early AM on Saturday, and I have been here for nearly 2 weeks.  CMO busted from the main event in 199th today (which is a great accomplishment, but I am sure he is disappointed), so we are getting out of here.  We have had enough.  I am out of clean clothes, and cannot stand the thought of eating another meal in this building.  I need to get home ASAP and try to get somewhat healthy.  I think I am as fat as I have ever been.

I have been in Vegas now for 11 days.  I have sent out some clothes to get washed, as I only packed enough for 4-5 days.  I am out of clothes again.  Today, however, I had clean clothes on.  Granted, it was one of my favorite white Tshirts that I frequently don, but it was indeed clean.  As was my underwear.

I sit down in a game and play for a little while, when a gal sits down in the 3 seat.  I have played with her before and have had some friendly chats with her, but she does not even know my name.  She looks at me and says, “Wow.  You look wrecked.”  How am I to interpret this?   Regardless of this overwhelming evidence to the contrary, I choose to assume that she is simply uncomfortable with her animalistic attraction for me.  Yes.  That is clearly it.

One of our friends has made it through Day 3 of the main event, and we are not leaving before he does.  So, it looks like I am here indefinitely.

I have played poker every day, but was going to take today off.  I did not, and managed to have my second losing day in a row.  Which I suppose isn’t all bad, since I won all 9 days before yesterday.

I am good at poker.

I arrived last Monday July 2nd, and am still here a week later. I do not know when I’m going to leave, although I am out of clean underwear. It’s probably cheaper to buy new ones, but I guess I’ll have the hotel do some of my laundry instead.

Only played about 30 hours of poker since I have been here. Two days ago the 100/200 games were fantastic. Last night they were horrible. I’ll head down later today and see how they are.

There is a little Asian gambooooooler from Commerce here who hates me and I hate him and we like to play each other super hard. It all started with this hand:

I open AQo in the SB, and he 3bets the BB with J9s.  He needs to learn not to 3bet me with j-high, so we play this hand…….

I raise T8s in the hijack, he 3bets me from the CO, I 4barrel his ass, he calls. Flop comes 852r, I bet, he raises, I 3bone, he calls. Turn is a 3. I bet he calls. River is a K and we both check and I win the dollars.  I thought he had been disciplined, but then this hand comes up……..

The next day it folds to me in the SB and I raise 86s, he calls from the BB. Flop comes 532 with 2 hearts. I have clubs. I bet, he raises, I call. Turn is a black J. I check, and now he checks. River pairs the J and brings home the heart flush. I check, he checks. I table my hand with pride. He pauses. Looks at his hand. Mucks. He cannot beat 8-high. Jackass.

I saw Nelly playing 10/20 NL the last couple of days on the table next to me. He had 2 large, menacing black dudes with him, whose job is obviously to keep suburban white kids from approaching him. They succeeded.

Two of my friends are playing in the main event today. I have 10% of one of them (well, actually 9% as I sold 1% of it to another friend.) I need him to win, so I can profit $700K and never ever work again.

Also in the main event today is Ms. Brandi Hawbaker. I approached Brandi in a drunken stupor a few nights ago (the same night as the John Esposito incident) and talked with her for half an hour. It was really bizarre. The first thing she told me was how she has a crush on some guy and has had this crush for over 6 months. She would not tell me who it is, obviously. She also told me that……

I am sure she told me some other stuff, but I can’t recall what it was. I tried to be nice to her and ask genuine questions to see if I could get genuine responses, but I couldn’t get her to open up (shocking.) She kept feeding me canned responses.

The most interesting part of our chat came when the bartender walked over and asked to see her ID. There had been a shift change, and he had no idea who she was. Brandi snottily asked why he needed her ID. He replied “Because you’re touching my bar.”
“Don’t you know who I am? I have been at this bar all night with the owner of this place, Bobby Baldwin.”

“I don’t know that, miss. For all I know you could work for security.”

She fires the ID at him and asks him to stop being so rude. It was surreal. She was such a stone cold bitch to this guy who was simply doing his job.

This incident, combined with the fact that her lipstick went beyond the perimeter of her lips and actually onto her face, leads me to believe that she is indeed severely damaged, if not totally insane.

Our conversation ended with the following exchange.
“Brandi, a lot of people want to see you fall flat on your face. What do you think about that?”

“It was really nice talking to you.” [Walks away.]