Money Hater

Lately a friend and I have been playing quite a bit together, and in such time have begun playing the “that guy doesn’t get to leave with any money” game. The game is very simple. After watching an awful player win pot after pot after pot, one of is so moved to turn to the other and say, in a typically disgusted and irritated tone while pointing for emphasis, “that guy doesn’t get to leave with any money”. Invoking TGDGTLWAM doesn’t change the way we play or the karma in the room or anything at all like that. It merely gives us something to root for; this guy’s demise.

Every pot becomes interesting, because this guy plays super bad and is in every single one of them. We start rooting for certain cards to come, knowing they likely ruin the hand for the guy who doesn’t get to leave with any money. If he loses the pot, we get to giggle. If he wins, we get to fuel our loathing of him. It’s a win/win.

Tonight there were two gentlemen upon whom the yoke that is TGDGTLWAM was thrust. The first is often TGDGTLWAMed by one or both of us. He is random and terrible and really just super bad. Yesterday we played a pot where I check/raised a K62r flop with KT, he 3bet with 64, bet a Q on the turn and rivered a 6. Needless to say, I hate his guts. For whatever reason, he thought it would be good to start 3betting me with lots of junk that would always get there. (This got annoying when I was opening 54s.) So, I had to TGDGTLWAM him. I then went on a tear where I ruined his life in many pots and procured many of his chips. He got all-in with 77 in a multiway capped pot and somehow a 7 rattled off on the river. This proved a very disheartening hand, but mercifully and to our sheer delight, he busted soon thereafter.

This evening’s other TGDGTLWAM victim also plays very, very bad. He looks like he could be related to the most annoying player in the history of poker, a gentleman we refer to as the greasefire. How offensively bad he is surely draws my ire, but his resemblance to the greasefire undoubtedly hurts his chances of ever getting on my Christmas list. He is the kind of guy who will coldcall with A9o, find a flop peel when it comes QJ4, turn some more stupid outs when an 8 comes, and then river an ace to beat two kings. He manages to win in the dumbest possible ways. I can’t stand it.

After a few hours he managed to bust, and then to our sheer delight was later spotted in the back room setting fire to even more money at the Caribbean Stud table. I suppose this is a wise move, as his win rate in Caribbean Stud, blackjack, 3-card poker or any other game that cannot be beat has to be significantly less negative than it is at the poker table.

In poker, as in any form of gambling, there are streaks. A streak where one wins a lot is often referred to as a ‘rush’ or a ‘heater’. Many players feel that they can play more hands when they are in the midst of such an event, and will play hands they would fold when not on a heater. Often to verify they are indeed on a ‘heater’, they will use a diagnostic tool known as the ‘heater check’. The player will announce ‘heater check’ while entering the pot with some random dungheap. If they manage to win this pot, a heater is confirmed, and they can play any hand they want. If they fail to win the pot, they may perform several more tests, apparently because sometimes the ‘heater check’ is inaccurate. They almost always will give commentary as they are stacking the chips. “Had to play my heater”, is often heard after some poor bastard’s top set loses to a running guttershot.

Recently I was playing at my local card room with a gentleman who subscribes to the ‘heater’ theory. He doesn’t play all that much at this room, as he fancies himself a no-limit player. (He is not all that fond of the archaic limit form of texas hold’em that has allowed me to be jobless for several years.) For whatever reason, he chose to grace us with his presence on this particular evening, and he ran into a ‘heater’. He won pot after pot, in spite of him butchering many, many hands. It was like watching a monkey try to make love to a football, but the monkey actually finds a way to do it. Very disturbing.

This fella likes to talk a lot at the table, and much of his blathering is about poker theory. I often have to resort to the ipod. On this evening I was tolerating his idiocy and just giggling inside. He won a huge pot when, while rushing, he 3bet with 86o, I cold 4bet from one of the blinds with AK and got to check/fold the river on a board of A84KJ that somehow saw fit to come running spades, allowing him to make an 8-high flush that he managed to value bet on the river and get paid by a guy with two black sevens. I watched him call 2-cold with 72s. This was 1 hand after he called 2-cold with 74s. He was moving down the ladder, perhaps to test the depths of his ‘rush’. He likes to play his rushes, he informs us after the 72 hand. “I’ve folded better before”, he says. At this point I can take no more and reply, “Well, it’s pretty tough to fold worse.” He laughs at this and agrees. I want to ask him that if, for his next trick, he would play a hand with only 1 card, but instead I sit mute and wonder if they are ever going to let me win again.