Money Hater

Whenever I fly, I try to get an aisle seat. I like the aisle for all the reasons that other people like the aisle, but there is an additional reason that I prefer the aisle seat; the idiot factor.

The window seat provides about the same level of comfort as the aisle seat, but sitting by the window means that you may have to deal with the idiot factor. When dealing with other human beings the idiot factor is simply unavoidable, but there are ways to minimize it and sitting in the aisle seat is one of them.

At some point during the flight (my flight on Friday was 4 hours) someone is going to get up and want to get out, and the person sitting in the aisle seat is going to be inconvenienced in some fashion. They will likely have to get up, and may have to shuffle some items (laptop, work papers, etc.) or even be woken up. People getting up is part of air travel, and having to move is part of being in the aisle seat. I understand this and recognize the right of those next to me to get up whenever they damn well please. Unfortunately, my years on this planet have taught me that many people are not as enlightened.

I do not have any hard data, but there is definitely a portion of the population that does not understand the responsibilities and requisite etiquette that come with sitting in the aisle seat. They get miffed when they have to move, and may even express their miffedness with a facial expression or a sigh or other form of disapproving body language. I do not want to have to see this, for it will cause me to (correctly) loathe and wish ill upon them and theirs.

I have no interest in seeing yet more evidence of how insufferable many humans are. I see enough of that at the poker table. I would much rather give a genuine smile that says, “It’s OK. No problem. I understand what is required of me in this aisle seat and have no problem getting up to accommodate you” to the person who sheepishly asks if they can sneak by me, than to have to wish that the plane goes down in a fiery wreck just to spite the asshole who doesn’t want to stop watching the Scrubs marathon that he downloaded onto his ipod.

I see all kinds of people playing poker. I find that most people tend to “make sense” to me. By “make sense” I mean that their behaviors tend to follow certain stereotypes. For example, if I see an Asian guy ask the dealer for scrambooool and then later he asks for set up, I think, “Well, that makes sense. This guy clearly is irrational given that he asked the dealer to mix up the cards by hand before they go into the machine that is going to then mix them again. The next logical step in that psychosis is to ask for set up.” You don’t see white guys who play good asking for set ups. (I have always wanted to go somewhere no one knows me like Bay101 and play for 3-4 days. I’d play well enough that the other good players in the game would notice, and then on the 4th day I’d ask for a set up after taking a beat. I’d love to see the reaction of people.)

The other day I played with someone who didn’t make sense.

He was a white guy who was 22-26 years old. Usually guys like this either (a) play quite well or (b) are just terrible. I need to see a few hands before I can render judgement, but before he even played a hand I was presented with a strong piece of evidence; the ace of spades. On his right middle finger, he wore a gold ring with a flat face that had the ace of spades etched in it. He apparently wants me to understand that, of all the cards that he could have gotten etched onto that stupid ring, he chose the ace of spades. He’s not fooling around with the jack of hearts or the king of clubs. No sir, he prefers the best. Whatever his logic may have been it clearly was grossly flawed, for it resulted in him wearing this thing.

I planted him squarely in the (b) camp. 25 year old white kids who are actually good players (not merely good enough to eek out $35/hr beating up on the genetic mistakes that populate the Bellagio $30/$60 game) don’t wear ridiculous stuff like that. This guy had to be just terrible, and the smart money’s on him being a large to massive tilter as well.

I also noticed that this guy was a cowboy. He didn’t have a hat or chaps on, but he was wearing cowboy boots. Everyone knows that the only people who would ever be caught dead wearing cowboy boots are (a) cowboys, (b) women and (c) Mexicans. This guy was not a woman or a Mexican, so he had to be a cowboy.

I’ve got a cowboy with an ace of spades ring on. And he is wearing sunglasses. This guy is going to be just horrible and I cannot wait to watch him go on tilt and blow the $4,500 he has in front of him.

He does not win a pot for at least an hour, and blows half his money. I am waiting for the fireworks, and begin to wonder if he is going to torture me like most other awful players do. I thought for sure he was gonna blow at any minute, but he never did. He played like a big dumb spazz in a few spots with overpairs, but they were the same kind of spots that other winning players screw up. For the most part, he remained calm and collected.

He never tilted.

He never did anything that indicated he was on tilt.

He did not make sense.

A “set up” refers to the two decks of cards that are used at a poker table. One deck is in the auto-shuffler while the other deck is being used. Players are allowed to ask for a new set up during the 10 minute window between 5 before and 5 after the hour. If a player wants a set up at any other time, they usually just damage a card. These people are absolute savages.

Usually a player asks for a set up when they lose with AA or some other big hand. They typically get unlucky on the river and thus must blame the cards. As irrational as that is, it is understandable on some level. “I was winning but then on the last card I lost. I was supposed to win. I got unlucky. It must be the cards. We need new cards. Set up!!!!”

Today I saw a guy ask for a set up after the following hand….

A player raises in early position, Mr. SetUp calls in the SB, I fold the BB. The flop is QQ5 with 3 different suits. Mr. SetUp bets out, the raiser calls. The turn is a 6. He bets again, she calls again. The river is an 8. He bets again and she calls. He turns his hand over. He has KT, for king high. Nothing. He bet nothing on all 3 streets. She sees this and turns her hand over. She has AJ, for ace high. She also has nothing, but her nothing is better than his nothing. He got completely owned in this pot. He was not the victim of horrible luck, but rather was completely tortured by a better player who gave him the rope to hang himself. He was never winning, and bluffed 3 streets into a player who knew he was bluffing. He then immediately called for a set up. I was tempted to ask why he called for a set up. “Sir, I understand that you (and the many nutjobs like you who frequent the Commerce Casino) think a set up will change your luck, but you didn’t get unlucky there, you simply got wrecked. Do you think that a set up will not only change your luck, but will also make you stop being horrible at poker? I suspect it won’t.” I (thankfully) have a large dose of my mother in me, so I instead just sat there and giggled to myself.