Money Hater

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.