PEACHFRONT SPEAKS

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if you can keep your head while those all around you are having the screaming meanies, you probably don't grok the entire reality of the situation 2010-10-16 - 12:16 p.m. I know it isn't a full moon, but holy hopping one-legged Jesus. Friday seemed to be a day when nobody could do anything right. When we got to the V, IMOM and I were placed on a must move table -- side by side. Then he immediately started to scribble little notes and text messages about my play. Argh. Talk about cramping the good old Peachfront style. I couldn't get creative. Hell, I didn't much feel like doing anything at all except laying low and staying out of trouble to escape the constant stream of brickbats and criticisms. Nothing good ever comes of friends playing at the same table. Nothing. The worst consequence of the situation came when some random middle-aged dude open-raises for $20 in the cut-off, D. smooth-calls on the button as he would do in a wide range of situations, and I pick up A ♥ Q ♣ in the small blind. I would normally go for a squeeze-play here, but I didn't feel like squeezing D. so I just quietly folded. There was an AK flop and the final board held A K K two rags, three diamonds. This is simply not a board where I can lose my whole stack with just top pair. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, D. did manage to lose his whole stack, and it was bigger. You see, he picked up a flush draw on the turn, got there on the river, and the other guy holds quad kings the whole time. Arghhhhh. After an interminable age, the must move was off and D. was free to transfer to another table. I could finally breathe a sigh and start to play my game. Alas and alack, the fates found a way to even screw that up. I picked up 6♦ 5♦ in an early position. As a variation play, I open-raised the hand from under the gun. Several people called. There's an A♦ 4♦ 6♥ flop, so I have picked up the diamond flush draw plus a pair. I also know for a moral certainty that no one called my pre-flop raise with an Ace-high diamond flush draw, since the Ace is on board. The pot is already large relative to my stack, with is around $400. I bet two-thirds pot, and it folds to a guy who is never folding any Ace on the flop. He calls. Heads up. The turn is a blank. I bet, he calls again. The river is another blank. I go all in, and now he struggles for awhile and finally puts out a hundred dollar stack of chips. He is just screwing around, as I've already seen him do several times, without anyone saying anything. But now this dealer squeaks up and says, "Sir, that's a call." This is a heads-up pot now. I'm inclined to say that she should just STFU and deal unless one of the two players in the pot has an objection. He sputters and claims that he didn't know that I was all-in, which is bullshit, but who cares. The trouble is, there is nothing good or helpful I can say -- although I finally do say, "Look, he can just keep the hundred bucks, it's fine with me." "No, I have to call the floor." Well, hell, we all know what the floor is going to say. The proper ruling is that he crossed the line with the chips and they have to stay in the pot, and once he's tossed in one stack, he's going to go ahead and call, since it's only around $100 more. So I'm out $400 instead of keeping my stack and winning $200 -- a $600 swing. If not for her big mouth, grumble and mumble, I would have been a winner for the day. Yet you can't really stay mad at someone for enforcing the rules. It's not particularly her fault if other dealers weren't enforcing the rules on the guy and letting him horse around. Sigh. The sad thing is the guy then just turns around and loses my money to the tightest black hole at the table, so there is no chance of ever seeing those chips again. Needless to say, it was quite a challenge to keep my composure at that point. But, it was just a star-crossed day, as I was later involved in not one, but two, more disputes. On the second occasion, I again held a diamond flush draw plus a small pair, a pair of fours in this case, on a very similar Ace high board. My opponent was quite a different player from the first guy. In fact, I'd call him a TAG with some very nitty pre-flop entry standards. When he's still around after I bet the turn, I have to ask myself what he holds. In this case, we had one of those limpfests, with maybe 7 or 8 of us limping in to see the flop. The way the action goes, with the guy just calling down, I'm debating with myself whether or not he holds an Ace or a diamond draw. I'm thinking the Ace might have raised me on the non-diamond turn, to make me pay to draw or to fold without seeing the river. The river is another blank, and I'm still pondering. I guess I'm pondering a little too long, because I hear someone say "check." "Wait, time, I haven't acted yet," I say. "I know you haven't acted yet, but your opponent checked out of turn," says the dealer. My opponent checked out of turn. Huh. What does that mean? I think it means that he holds a middle-sized busted diamond draw, and he wants me to check so he can bluff at it. Therefore my pair of fours is good, and I am the winner. We can check it down, and I take the pot without any further risk, or (if the dealer allows him to change his action) he can bluff at it and I call and I win a bit more. So after some pondering, I do check, and the dealer now tells the other guy, "Sir, since you checked out of turn I have to hold you to that action." He blustered and fussed and cussed, especially after I flipped over my hand and took down the pot. He held something like 7♦ 8♦ for the busted flush draw. "That is unfortunate," he said. "If I had bet, she would have folded." Well, dude, that's what you get for being a player and checking out of turn, I guess. Actually, once again, a dealer enforcing the rules probably cost me money, since if he really intended to bet, I could pick off his bluff. But I really can't tell if he ever intended to bet or if he was just blowing off steam. It seems like, with that hand, he almost has to bet to try to move Kx♦ off a hand. Why then, the bullshit move of checking out of turn? Makes no sense... And the final screwed-up pot is the best, not because I won it -- I was destined to win it in any case -- but because it peeved off a guy I truly can't stand. We'll call him the Nit in Love with Himself (NILWH). He is the hero of every story. Just ask him. His only saving grace is that he walks a lot, scouting the other tables, so that we have long blissful periods when we don't have to listen to him bloviate. But, finally, he has to actually sit down and take a hand. I've been making a come-back and now I have about $650 in front. Nit/TAG Asian man is UTG, and he opens for $20. NILWH smooth-calls, which is already suspicious, since NILWH mostly just walks and folds. You have to be pretty bold to want to get involved in a pot with these two nits, who almost certainly hold very strong hands, but I'm the button, and when it folds around to me, I look down to see 8♣ 6♣ -- and I have to call even though I'm currently the underdog, since there's a real good chance these guys actually hold hands that might pay off if I hit. Flop: T♠ 7♣ 4♣ I've flopped two well-disguised straight draws and the more obvious club flush draw. Go, me. As I'm pondering what I'll do, a huge argument breaks out. Apparently, if your knuckle hits the felt before your chips do, it's a check. For the love of all the little green fishes in the sea! Asian guy bets $25, and now NILWH claims it's a check because of this obscure rule that I for one never heard of. There's all kinds of yelling and screaming, and the dealer didn't see anything because someone asked him to make change, and I sure didn't take note of whether somebody's knuckles happened to hit the felt when (as far as I'm concerned) he clearly intended a bet, and I personally think the whole thing's a ridiculous angle-shoot, but eventually the floor comes over and says it's a bet. Then NILWH wants to get surveillance to roll back the camera, and he demands that they call security, and blah de blah de blah. Oh for crying out loud. Do you see why I totally hate this guy? And I even feel a little guilty because I didn't happen to observe the action for myself, so I can't even completely say that he's inventing the whole episode, although I kinda sorta think he is... Anyway, in the spirit of moving the game along, the Asian guy finally says, fuck it, he'll check. And now they have to call the floor again to say is it OK for him to just give up and check? The poor harried floor guy is tired too and says, "Yes, give him the option to do whichever he chooses." So Asian guy checks, NILWH checks, and now I have to re-consider. Since he's so bound and determined to get that check, I can't assume any more than NILWH has enough to pay me off if I hit. And I'm also pretty sure that all the Asian man holds here is an overpair. Plus, a semi-bluff bet can't be correct, when I know that there is zero fold equity. I know that the Asian man will call my flop bet. So I, too, check. The turn is the 9♥ I have hit one of my multiple of outs, and one of the good ones, a nicely-hidden out. Asian man now finally bets his $25, NILWH calls $25, and there's $115 in the pot, so I raise to $115. NILWH screams even though the action is not on him: "You are making one of your moves. You are totally making one of your moves!" Maybe so, but both men fold. "They blew me off my pocket Jacks yesterday," screams NILWH. "That's the second time." By "they," he means D., since poker is not a team event, and I wasn't even at the table with the jerk. "Now they've done it again. But don't worry. I'm going to get it back." He then went and got a table change. Interesting way to get it back... Anyway, I was only a little bit down at dinner time, so I decided to order the frosty Pomegranate Martini and meet IMOM at the Mexican place. back - next All Rights Reserved, Copyright 2002-2017 by Elaine Radford