Oct 30
So much for that perfect season. To the great delight of the other nine members I am now 7-1 in our fantasy football league. I made one major tactical blunder that cost me the win, but there is really no way that I could have seen it coming and therefore can’t feel too bad. For scheduling reasons this was always going to be my worst week of the season, and I predicted last week that this would be the most likely opportunity for my team to lose. With nearly half of my roster on Bye I was forced to pin all of my hopes on the offensive prowess of the New York Giants and the Chicago Bears. Well, suffice to say that while I was projected to win by 40 points I instead lost by double digits. Brian Griese (Bears) threw four interceptions to go with his fumble and Eli Manning (Giants) threw for a whopping total of 59 yards.
Thanks guys.
I almost got into a fist fight with a senior citizen on Friday night. Matt and I went over to Green Valley Ranch and fucked around with a few hours of $3-$6 limit holdem. The game slides right in between $2-$4 and $4-$8 making the game almost big enough to justify my time but still small enough to be mostly bullshit. Throughout the night I couldn’t manage to decide how to play it. As I told Matt (aloud for the table to hear), “I just can’t decide if I should be here to play or here to earn.” As a consequence my chipstack fluctuated wildly; I would lock down my game and run my stack way up, but then realize that I had a lot of money and start throwing it away.
Some of you might disagree but I feel like I can be a pretty fun guy to play poker with… at least, and maybe especially, limit poker. I don’t take the game all that seriously and as a consequence make it a point to both drink and talk a lot while playing. Moreover, I like to screw around with people by doing things that I might not do in a more serious game. For instance, I will occasionally play a hand without looking at my cards. I might straddle a few blinds. I might raise someone for no reason other than being bored and then show a bad hand. It is all in good fun and I am careful not to cross the line with someone who doesn’t look like they can take a joke. But occasionally I rub people the wrong way.
In Friday’s game I took up residence in Seat 8, my favorite seat at the table. (Side note: seats at a poker table are numbered by going clockwise from the dealer’s left. At a 10-seat table Seat 8 puts me on the end of the oval, essentially at the “head” of the table. It lets me see all the action and all of the players, and as a consequence it lets them all see me.) Matt took Seat 10, two seats to my left and immediately to the right of the dealer. That left one open seat between us: a seat that you would have to be a bit unlucky to take. At any rate, some really old man took the chair and as always I tried to strike up a friendly rapport with the dude. He seemed like a nice enough guy… which is what made our confrontation all the more confusing. I wish I could walk you through what happened, but for me the transformation was essentially as extreme and sudden as flipping on a light switch. Obviously Matt and I talk a lot at the table, and it seemed a courtesy when the man repeatedly asked if I wanted to switch seats with him. I declined every offer. Eventually the man lost his cool and started making mean-spirited comments to the basic effect of telling me to shut the fuck up. Now, I had not been talking excessively (for a poker table, at least) and aside from the occasional private discussion with Matt over how one of us had (mis) played a hand, I made an effort to include the table in the conversation. Nobody else had said anything, but this guy was super pissed off at me for some reason. Well… it might have had something to do with my talking also coinciding with my constant winning (and his constant losing). I didn’t want to deal with his shit so I finally just offered to switch seats with him.
I won’t lie; there was a short window of mean-spirited pleasure when he picked up all of his remaining chips with two hands while I had to cut and slide nearly $300 in $1 blue chips across the felt in front of him.
The old man was still complaining like a bitch while I was moving (which I only did out of courtesy and in an effort to be a nice guy) so instead of fighting I did the first reasonable thing that came to mind. If he wanted to sit on my immediate right then so be it. When he limped into the next pot I made it a point to leave my cards face down where they had been dealt and threw out a raise. Someone else at the table saw that I hadn’t looked at my cards and re-raised me. So I raised again (still blind). The flop came out and I continued to bet. After the river I flipped over what turned out to be 2-6 offsuit which was good enough for a full house and the entire pot. Quite shocked, a lady at the table asked if I had even looked at my cards.
“Of course not,” I replied. “If you guys want me to shut up and play… then let’s play.”
And then just to make a point that I was the better man in this bullshit disagreement I grabbed a handful of chips from the pot I just won and gave them all to the dealer.
So I had another… let’s just call it a “Wyvern Moment.”
Last night I ordered pizza and had it delivered to our apartment. The total came out to $20.40 (m.o.e. plus or minus ten cents). I figured that including tip the correct amount to pay the delivery guy was $23 – there is a stupid $2 delivery charge built into the order total, but we decided that since that money didn’t go to the guy at our door we should still add something extra.
So now the dilemma: inside my wallet I had a $20 bill, a $5 bill, and TWO $1 bills.
This is a two part question…
1) How do you make $23 from that?
2) Why would any sane person not think the answer to question #1 is obvious?
I came up with two possible solutions, and unable to decide between them I described my thinking to Matt.
1) Give the delivery guy $25 (a twenty and a five) and then ask for two dollars back.
2) Give the guy $22 in cash and then one dollar in change from my bowl of random coins.
The question that I asked him – and now ask you – is this: Which choice is the less bitch move?
I finally decided to go with option #2. My reasoning was as simple as it was brilliant.
If I go with option #1 it appears to the delivery guy that I am just an asshole who is going to make him dig into his pockets for two dollars.
But…
If I go with option #2 it appears to the delivery guy that I really want to make things right by him but I just can’t manage it. The change is seen as an extra effort to tip someone when it is obviously beyond my means. I want to do the right thing, even though it’s clearly a little bit embarrassing for me.
Simple and brilliant, right?
My favorite part of it all was that when I paid him I said, “I’m sorry that I have to give you some of this in change…” while turning my head away in shame. “Oh no… it’s alright…” he said with sincerity while accepting the coins with cupped hands. “I really appreciate it.”
Simple. Brilliant.