Last night was the Ante Up ambassadors
mixed game. See here for some background on the game and how I feel about mixed games.
The game was a mix of Ante Up folks
and old-timers from the AVP forums, including a couple of us who have both in
common. I’m going to call the organizer
of this event “Clark.” I could probably
use his real name, but since I have to give the star of this blog post a pseudonym,
I will be consistent and give Clark a blog name too. Clark is one of those folks who is connected
with both Ante Up and AVP, that’s why he made sure that the old-time AVP’ers
were invited.
The table quickly filled up, and I saw
a few others come by to say hi and wanting to join the game. It looked for awhile that there might be enough
to start a second table but that never happened.
Suddenly a woman came over to me and
patted me on the shoulder, and said hi to me by name. I totally blanked out on who she was. She saw
the look of puzzlement in my eyes and said, “Rob, it’s me, Pat.” Duh. Pat is someone I’ve known through the
magic of the internet for years. We
follow each other on Twitter. I know she
is familiar with my blog. I met her once
in person a couple of years ago (at the WSOP) and I even knew that she was in
town for the early part of this year’s WSOP. I apologized for blanking out,
said hello, and she went to play in a NL game.
Hours later, at our full table, Clark
decided to read me a text he had gotten from Pat. We were on the opposite sides of the table,
about as far away as we could be. And so
everyone at the table heard him read off from his phone. “Hey Rob, Pat wants to know if you want to
see boobies?”
Everyone at the table heard this, everyone
cracked up—including the publisher of Ante Up, who was seating directly to my
left.
Most of the people didn’t understand
the reference, I’m sure. I’m not even
sure that Clark did. But after I
finished laughing, I responded, “Well of course I do. Do you even have to ask? Who doesn’t want to see boobies? Duh.”
Clark then asked me if I was going to
tell Pat that and I said I didn’t have her number. So Clark responded for me, texting Pat that
yes, I wanted to see some boobies.
Clark later reported back that Pat
said she didn’t want to get arrested. I
said I guess I had misunderstood. I didn’t
take it to mean that Pat would be providing the boobies to be seen. I was thinking she was going to point me in a
direction where boobies were being displayed, perhaps even as we were playing.
We progressed with the game. Later I saw Pat at her game and again
apologized for not recognizing her immediately.
Then I thanked for making my night with her question and asked if, when
I tell this story on my blog, she wanted me to use a pseudonym instead of her
real name, as is my custom here. She said she would prefer an alias. So that’s how Pat became Pat.
When the game broke, I was talking to a
common friend of Pat’s & mine. She
was cashing out of her game. She said hi
and bye to our friend, who I’ll call Don.
She gave Don a farewell hug. I
was next. As we ended our hug, she said
to me, "I'll show you my tits some other time. They're actually
pretty nice."
I don’t think Don, who had merely
railed our game and hadn’t played, had even been around when Pat’s text was
read to the table. But he enjoyed the
comment, none-the-less.
She was already on her way to the cage
when I stopped laughing, and so I shouted to her, "I have a witness!"
Don shouted after her, “Yes, I heard
that, I can testify to it.”
I mean, we’re all poker players,
right. And of course, we all know that verbal is binding.
As for the game itself, we played
fewer of the really oddball games that I’ve come to dread at these things. Still, I lost $175 at a 3/6 limit game where
I had no real chance of winning any money.
But I will say, the table we had was really a fun group and I certainly
had a good time with all the joking back and forth and the great conversation.
I will only mention one hand, from Big
O. That’s five card Omaha hi/lo in case
you thought I was saying something salacious.
This is actually a game I pretty much understand the rules for, even
though I have no clue about the proper strategy, as you will see.
Two of my five cards were Kings. If I have two Kings along with three other
cards, can I still call them dreaded? I don’t remember the other three cards. Because I am clueless about this game, I just
routinely stay in for the flop with any two paired cards, hoping for quads, and
I suspect that is not the right way to play.
I say hoping for quads because I know a set is never going to win this
game, and even a full house is barely even money to hold up.
There was a King on the flop. I only called a bet. I was not slow playing it. As I said, I didn’t expect a set of Kings to
be good at the end, so that’s why I didn’t raise. But the turn was another King. Bingo!
Even I can’t blow it with quad Kings.
This time the player who bet the flop checked, as did everyone until it
came to me. There was only one person
left, and thinking the action was on him, he checked too. But no, the dealer pointed out that I hadn’t
acted yet.
Now knowing that if I checked it would
be checked around, I thought I had no choice but to put out $6. And sure enough, every damn player
folded. I got no action for my quad Kings. I of course showed my hand. It was a pretty small pot. But I suppose I should be happy that no one
stayed around with a winning low hand, so I didn’t have to split the pot.
Tonight I play in the Colossus event
at WSOP. They’ve already changed the
starting time of my flight from 6PM to 7PM because they don’t think players
will bust out fast enough. I sure hope I
am still playing poker at 3:30AM Saturday morning.
GL in the Colossus. A deep run, Rob, a deep run.
ReplyDeleteThanks, MOJO!
Delete"Verbal is binding..." Damn right, it is!
ReplyDeleteHey, it's a basic rule of poker.....
Deletehmmmmmm so Pat is McGrindinLife and Don is the Trooper and A+++++++++ on the blog BOOBIESand a short post #perfection
ReplyDeleteWrong on both guesses but nice try, sir.
DeleteMix games can be a lot of fun - have you ever tried playing 2-7 triple draw? If not, check it out online sometime!
ReplyDelete2-7 Triple Draw is always one of the games in the mix when I've played. It is also one of the games where I invariably throw away money because at least once an orbit I forget that Ace is always high.
DeleteThat said, it isn't a bad game. However, one time I played a version of the same game which was HIGH, not low (basically 5-card draw, triple draw) which I liked a lot more.
Rob - hate to call you on it, but the name is "2-7" - NOT "A-6" triple draw!!!! You can't forget that Ace is high when the name dictates otherwise!!!
DeleteOh shit, so THAT's why it's called Deuce to 7....I had no idea.
DeleteSeriously, mixed games confuse me so much I never remember the name of the game we're playing while we're playing it. :)