It's not that every game I've played
at Planet Hollywood is a wild, crazy, roller-coaster ride of a poker game. It's just that if I'm in one of those insane
games, I'm more often than not at Planet Hollywood.
The variance can be alarming. Usually I seek out places to play where the games are more likely to be saner. But everyone once in a while a poker player—even a nit like me—needs to take a walk on the wild side.
The variance can be alarming. Usually I seek out places to play where the games are more likely to be saner. But everyone once in a while a poker player—even a nit like me—needs to take a walk on the wild side.
This was a late Sunday afternoon,
third day into my recent trip. And as
soon as I sat down in my 1/2 seat with my $200 buy-in, I realized I was sitting
next to an absolute maniac.
Fortunately, he was on my right, not
my left. But he made the game so nuts it
didn't much matter. I think he shoved
either preflop or on the flop on the first four hands I witnessed. After that, he went for a good 20 minutes where
he raised every single hand preflop, or, if someone raised first, he three-bet
them. He had to rebuy once or twice and
didn't seem fazed by that at all. The
guy on his right was also a bit wild--or at least wild enough to give him
plenty of action.
Me?
I just wanted to play some cards.
The Designated Maniac to my right was making it difficult to play a lot
of hands, but I wasn't getting much to play anyway. I knew I had to wait for a hand and try to
get him to pay me off for it. In a game
like this, you don't have to have an awesome hand either. The trouble is, you don't want to be calling
a huge preflop raise with something like 9-3 offsuit hoping to catch two pair
(although winning with 9-high wasn't out of the question).
I did find a few hands to play without
much success. My stack was thus down to
$120 or so when I finally got what most people would could consider a good
hand—pocket Aces. And it happened that I
was in the small blind at the time.
Now, PH offers what I guess is called
"the Mississippi Straddle," meaning you can straddle from any
position, not just under-the-gun or the button.
Mr. DM straddled a few times from other positions, but what he always
loved to do—every damn time—was button straddle. Which meant that my small blind was
button-straddled every time from the moment I took my seat.
The button straddle is $10 in the 1-2
game (it's $5 UTG, and it has to be $20 from any other position). When they have the button straddle on, the
rules for play are ones I believe to be incorrect. That is, the action begins with the small
blind, not the UTG. I've discussed why
this wrong before. Basically, it
punishes the blinds way too much, and changes the basic nature of the game—why
all of a sudden make the blinds play first when they normally act last?
Anyway. that meant that I'd be the
first one to act with my Aces, knowing that the DM had blindly made it at least
$10 to play.
Since I'd been at this game, he had
raised every single time from his button straddle. I suppose there may have been one or two times
when it was raised first and he just called--or maybe shoved--but if it got to
him without a raise you could be fairly certain he'd raise. Really, I was 99.76% certain he would raise
if no one raised in front of him. Let's
put it this way: I would have fainted
from shock if he just checked his option.
So I resisted the temptation to
raise. For one of the few times in my
poker life, I just called with Aces. Now
if I had raised, I think there was actually a chance he would have folded. You see, I had played so few hands he had to
notice. While I assumed that if it was
just limped to him he would raise with pretty much any two cards, I also
thought his calling/raising range if I was the one raising was a little
narrower. Not much, but a little. I'm
thinking he might have actually folded half of his hands if I raised. But if I just called, he's raising 7-2 and
up.
I was a little surprised that no one
else came along, and so when it got to him, we were just heads up. He didn't
disappoint me. He made it $35. Hmm.
With my $120 stack, I couldn't see any bet I could have reasonably made
other than an all-in. So I shoved.
His reaction made absolutely no
sense. Without a second's thought, he
said "All-in." Then he turned
to me and said, "Good call....I concede." Huh?
First of all, I didn't call, he did.
I re-raised. Second...what the
hell does "I concede" mean? The
dealer hadn't even put out the flop yet, so whatever garbage hand he had, he
still had a chance to win, of course.
Also, he put his cards face down, slid
them ever so slightly towards the dealer--but not nearly far enough so it was
an obvious fold--and put a $1 chip on top of them (to protect his hand--the one
he had just "conceded" with!)
Well, the dealer dealt out a board--all
fairly low cards--and then I showed my Aces.
He looked at them, looked at the board for a bit, then slid his cards
the rest of the way forward and said to me, "Nice hand."
And although he had some chips
remaining, he took out a couple of hundred and bought some more chips. And I had a nice double-up.
And I'm afraid I'll stop there for
now. I had no intention of making this a
two-parter, but it turns out I spent the weekend geeking it up, spending pretty
much all my time trying to bring my desktop PC back from the near-dead by reformatting the
hard drive and reinstalling everything.
I'll let you know how it worked next time, but trust me, it's not nearly
as much fun as it sounds.
