Monday, June 30, 2008
This is not a Poker Blog
If you are pot committed before you look at your cards, should you even bother taking a peek?
--MRF
I have no idea where the BigMan lives. For the purposes of this recap, that is a good thing. TheHost doesn’t know either and that’s a bad thing, he’s driving. Good thing MarkyMark navigates, although my faith in him is waning. He seems a little sketchy on the details.
“Yeah, this turn, take a left…I think.”
And so it goes. The return of the Colonie Three. Totally clueless and ready to tilt.
The BigMan has a lovely home, lovely wife, lovely kids. Unfortunately, my story isn’t about them. I could cobble seven hundred and fifty words together about domestic bliss but it wouldn’t ring true. I mean, for the moment, this here space is a poker blog.
Shall we get to it?
Deciding whether or not to call Mr. Vegas’ push on your big blind while your humble correspondent is the short stack doesn’t even rate as a bibliographical reference to the index of a footnote in the big book of human history. Unfortunately for you, dear reader, that is what this post is about. After putting up my blind, about two thirds of my stack, I mistakenly looked at my cards. Looking was incorrect because it took Vegas’ all of about two heartbeats to bet the rest of my stack. Immediately I saw the idiocy of my action but I went into the tank anyways, trying to think my way through. When Vegas got called, I stopped thinking.
My cards are irrelevant. It doesn’t matter. I could be holding 7-2 offsuit and it would pay (in the sense that statistics and probability make sense) to play. I could play the board, I could play the hammer, it didn’t matter. I am getting over 5 to 1 for the rest of my chips. The clarity of pot odds chased out my trepidation. The apprehension from knowing what I held in my hand and the implicit probability (near 0) of a win, simply disappeared. Sometimes though, it makes sense to chip up irrespective of your cards. Ask the FlyingDane, he knows all things about sucking out and imputed, imperfect, improbable pot odds. I go all in, baby. What do I hold? The most fearsome cards in hold ‘em, the lauded hammer, 7-2 offsuit.
I am out in a flash. But I did the right thing. The problem with my game was that I got caught in the bind in the first place. That is today’s lesson kids: Don’t let the blinds get you or rather, don’t get bent because the structure of the tournament caused your downfall. That is the way cookie crumbles.
Big fun at the table anyways. The twenty man tourney split into two tables. My table consisted of the following ten people: theHost, WallyBall, me, Foley, and 5 people I never saw in my life. Host, Wally, and I are seated at one end; the end where the yakking never stops. To my tablemates from game one, if you want us to shut up, deal us hole cards that might stand up to a suited 9-6. Otherwise, your auditory bombardment continues unabated. I must confess that I was the worst perpetrator. Sorry, it’s hard to see 4-2, 8-3, A-2, K-5, 10-7,…and not get disgusted with poker and people. Now hobbling me with stoicism will not stand.
Someone has to speak truth to power.
Anyways, where was I? Oh yeah, Vegas bounced me from Game 1. That’s when the BigMan flayed my dignity by making me the banker for Game 2.
I’ll try to get to that story shortly. It has a very, very happy ending. ¶ 1:13 PM
--MRF
I have no idea where the BigMan lives. For the purposes of this recap, that is a good thing. TheHost doesn’t know either and that’s a bad thing, he’s driving. Good thing MarkyMark navigates, although my faith in him is waning. He seems a little sketchy on the details.
“Yeah, this turn, take a left…I think.”
And so it goes. The return of the Colonie Three. Totally clueless and ready to tilt.
The BigMan has a lovely home, lovely wife, lovely kids. Unfortunately, my story isn’t about them. I could cobble seven hundred and fifty words together about domestic bliss but it wouldn’t ring true. I mean, for the moment, this here space is a poker blog.
Shall we get to it?
Deciding whether or not to call Mr. Vegas’ push on your big blind while your humble correspondent is the short stack doesn’t even rate as a bibliographical reference to the index of a footnote in the big book of human history. Unfortunately for you, dear reader, that is what this post is about. After putting up my blind, about two thirds of my stack, I mistakenly looked at my cards. Looking was incorrect because it took Vegas’ all of about two heartbeats to bet the rest of my stack. Immediately I saw the idiocy of my action but I went into the tank anyways, trying to think my way through. When Vegas got called, I stopped thinking.
My cards are irrelevant. It doesn’t matter. I could be holding 7-2 offsuit and it would pay (in the sense that statistics and probability make sense) to play. I could play the board, I could play the hammer, it didn’t matter. I am getting over 5 to 1 for the rest of my chips. The clarity of pot odds chased out my trepidation. The apprehension from knowing what I held in my hand and the implicit probability (near 0) of a win, simply disappeared. Sometimes though, it makes sense to chip up irrespective of your cards. Ask the FlyingDane, he knows all things about sucking out and imputed, imperfect, improbable pot odds. I go all in, baby. What do I hold? The most fearsome cards in hold ‘em, the lauded hammer, 7-2 offsuit.
I am out in a flash. But I did the right thing. The problem with my game was that I got caught in the bind in the first place. That is today’s lesson kids: Don’t let the blinds get you or rather, don’t get bent because the structure of the tournament caused your downfall. That is the way cookie crumbles.
Big fun at the table anyways. The twenty man tourney split into two tables. My table consisted of the following ten people: theHost, WallyBall, me, Foley, and 5 people I never saw in my life. Host, Wally, and I are seated at one end; the end where the yakking never stops. To my tablemates from game one, if you want us to shut up, deal us hole cards that might stand up to a suited 9-6. Otherwise, your auditory bombardment continues unabated. I must confess that I was the worst perpetrator. Sorry, it’s hard to see 4-2, 8-3, A-2, K-5, 10-7,…and not get disgusted with poker and people. Now hobbling me with stoicism will not stand.
Someone has to speak truth to power.
Anyways, where was I? Oh yeah, Vegas bounced me from Game 1. That’s when the BigMan flayed my dignity by making me the banker for Game 2.
I’ll try to get to that story shortly. It has a very, very happy ending. ¶ 1:13 PM
