On Saturday night I felt a little frisky and decided to take a trip over to my old stomping grounds: the Green Valley Ranch poker room. Looking at my poker log (a spreadsheet I use to track all my sessions) I was not surprised to find that I hadn’t played poker in a casino since last July. The game itself wasn’t terribly blog-worthy, but since it has been more than eight months since I last did something that I previously did pretty much every day, I figure I should throw out a few words.
Having been away from the game for so long I spent the first hour playing super snug while talking to a few people at the table about the best party colleges in the country. The high point of my night came when a cranky woman was complaining to the dealer (and cruel universe) about how she hated her current table position. “I want to sit over there!” she whined. “I hate this seat. I love that seat over there.”
On reflex I retorted, altogether way too loudly, “if you love it so much then why don’t you marry it?”
One person laughed, but the rest of the table looked at me with the exact expression that my third-grade wit deserved.
Anyways, I stayed even for about an hour until I was eventually dealt pocket kings. After a standard raise I went heads-up to a 6-high flop, and then got all-in against a guy with pocket aces.
Welcome back to poker. I forgot how much fun it is.
The very next hand I had pocket aces myself and won a small pot. The very next hand after that I had pocket kings again (three in a row!) and three of us ended up in a giant all-in pot on a board that read J-10-5. I had my kings, another guy had queens, and the third player had ace-ten (wtf, i dont know). The turn brought a queen and I was broke again.
Ugh.
If it hadn’t been so long since my last (or possibly next) time at the casino I probably would have just gone home. Instead, I pulled out some more cash and kept playing. Maybe twenty minutes later I found myself in another weird/dumb hand. Honestly, it’s not even super interesting as poker hands go, but I suppose there is something to take from it.
I was dealt pocket jacks and raised from middle position to my standard $10. Four people called and we saw a flop of 3-6-8 rainbow. I led for $20 and was called by one person, a young thuggish-looking black kid (being maybe around 25 years old) just off of the button. The turn came a 9, putting two clubs on the board. I checked for pot control, and the guy bet $25. I thought a few seconds and called. The river brought the king of spades and I checked again. Without much hesitation the guy went all-in for about $140, only slightly less than I had left. I stared at the guy for about 45 seconds and watched as he stared back at me, chewing a piece of gum with an open mouth.
Eventually I told the dealer, “I guess that I will just pay him, then…” and then pushed my chips towards the pot. The guy didn’t say anything at first, and then showed me the ace of diamonds. I waited. Sheepishly he then turned over his other card, the ten of spades. I flipped up my pair and won the pot, stacking the chips as the guy left the table. The other players all started congratulating me on an amazing call and talking amongst themselves about how great it was.
Honestly, I don’t think it was. I mumbled a few polite thank you’s, but I didn’t feel all that good about the hand.
There are times when I pick off a big bluff and feel really proud of myself. This wasn’t one of those times. I was happy with the result, but it really felt like I had just gotten away with a big mistake. If I had watched that hand take place online, or simply read it on paper (as you are now) I would probably estimate that calling the river all-in is the wrong move somewhere around 90% of the time. In fact, in the moment I struggled with the decision for so long (45 seconds being a very long time for me to make up my mind) because my brain kept telling me to fold. Meanwhile my gut kept telling me to call. That happens a lot, and usually you need to find a way to reconcile one with the other.
I wanted to call because, for no particular reason that I could possibly point to, I really didn’t think the guy had anything. His table presence pointed to a bluff: his chewing, his posture, the way he stared back at me, the way he had pushed in his chips… whatever. The kid’s betting line was also very suspect (call, call, bet, shove), but not completely unreasonable. Worse, my brain was telling me that there was not really any hand I could beat, but a TON of perfectly reasonable hands that had me crushed. The flush draw didn’t appear until the turn so he probably hadn’t called the flop and then bluffed the missed flush on the river. Meanwhile the obvious flopped straight draw had come in with the 9 on the turn, and worst case he could have missed his draw but ended up with a random two pair. All those middle cards are prime candidates for sets too… all perfectly normal hands for me to be up against, and all of which could have conceivably been played exactly as the kid was proposing.
I just didn’t believe him, though, so I called. And this time I was right. Still, it was probably a bad call. I was happy to win the pot, but didn’t feel much like high-fiving anyone either. Just the same, that hand got me back into the game a little bit. I stuck around until the game broke at 1am, playing short-handed for the majority. It wasn’t terribly exciting or even terribly fun, but after six hours I not only completely erased my disastrous start but managed to walk away with a solid win.
Learn how to win with kings, n00b. I can give you some lessons if you would like. Maybe next time you can borrow my credentials. worked
Don’t you remember, you play the player, not just the cards. That’s why it worked. Listen to your gut more….