Dutch Letters & Brutal Honesty

"There's only two things I hate in this world. People who are intolerant of other people's cultures, and the Dutch."

~Nigel Powers (Michael Caine), in Austin Powers: Goldmember

So as my Twitter followers may be aware, I recently caved to my sig other's requests for new furniture for our living room, even though we already have perfectly good furniture. Apparently the fact I picked out the furniture before we met coupled with the opinion that my taste in furniture "sucks" and runs toward "ugly, old grandma stuff" means we need new furniture. Well, it's cheaper than a new house (another recurring theme also commonly worked into casual conversation).

In any event, today we drove an hour to the historic and picturesque town of Pella, Iowa, famous for its Dutch heritage. Pella has a beautifully preserved downtown area with gorgeous old brick buildings, windmills, a canal, and an historic opera house. Each May a tulip festival is held, drawing hordes of tourists. The locals are so into the Dutch theme that even modern fast food restaurants and convenience stores must be built in faux-Dutch manner, heavy on the brick and steep-sloped roofs. My favorite Pella attraction is the old country Jaarsma Bakery on the town square, with its wide array of pastries, most notably strudel and Dutch letters.

After looking at three living room sets the sig other had scouted a week or two ago—including a set identical to a set we had looked at here in the Des Moines area but at $500 more—the sig other headed on the road with Berkeley to his hometown for Mother's Day with his family, and I headed back to Des Moines after popping into Jaarsma Bakery for a coffee cake and a dozen Dutch Letters. The road home took me right past the Meadows ATM, and my car guided me into a prime parking spot late in the afternoon. So something productive was salvaged for the day.

The Meadows poker room was strangely dead with one $3/$6 LHE game and one $1/$2 NLHE game running. After waiting 15 minutes or so, a new $1/$2 NLHE game was opened, but it was hard to tell the difference as my cards were colder than an iceberg. Eventually I hit a couple of hands and cashed out with a $200 profit—or as I prefer to view it, 10% of a leather sofa.

One amusing moment occurred late in the session. A young college kid joined the game, and was clearly new to live casino poker. His first hand he posted in, then accidentally pulled back his post, resulting in the dealer mucking his hand preflop—he of course claimed he had a pocket pair and would have flopped a set. Then when his blinds hit, he would put out his blinds, then fiddle with them and accidentally put the chips back in his stack before the action got to him, resulting in an embarrassing lecture from the dealer and some teasing from the table. His play was pretty ABC weak-tight, and he was a tell-spewing fish most hands.

Late in my session, an older regular known for his blunt talk joined the game. Young Fish was visibly uncomfortable at our table. Eventually a seat opened up at the other $1/$2 NLHE table, and Old Regular was first up for a table change; he declined. Young Fish then asked if he could change tables, leading Old Regular to spout, "You can't move! You're the reason I'm staying at this table!" Everyone laughed, but it was clear Old Regular was being completely honest. Young Fish began racking up to leave, and Old Regular says, "Can I at least have your phone number? We have a home game you should play in."

For some reason, he never got that number.

Windmill near Pella town square.

IMOP-VII: Official Preview

"You're making a huge misstep."

~Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis), There Will Be Blood (2007)

The holidays have come and gone. Football is over for another season. Winter lingers. Our attention returns to college basketball. The old itch returns.

Tilted tourists. Five team parlays. Insane prop bets. Goosing and juicing. Fourball rampages. Ugly suckouts. Uglier jackets.

Yes, it's time for the Ironman of Poker. Consider this your ten-day warning.

Our fearless leader, Santa Claus, returns in his role as Cruise Director and Chief Cat Herder. Santa has just released the official invite for this year's festivities.  Here are some of the highlights.

Official Theme:  "There Will Be Blood"

"I drink your Caipirinha. I drink it all up."

Seems a rather fitting theme. Considering the number of folks who have been tilted by the IMOP crew's hijinks, it's rather astonishing that we've made it six years without a physical altercation (other than a certain dunk Brit tackling me at Bally's). Frankly, it's a miracle that one of the "Killer Bs" (Barbie, Bonnie, and Mr. Chow) hasn't been taken for a one-way desert joyride. Perhaps that will be one of the official prop bets this year ...

Bonnie fosters some international goodwill

with a random Canadian on IMOP-V.

Official Signature Hand:  "The Honey Badger"

Each year, the Ironmen are required to play a particular "signature hand" that has been generally overlooked or even disparaged by most poker "experts". Last year, in honor of the sixth IMOP, the signature hand was "the Grump" (deuce-four). This year, Santa has cleverly extrapolated and come up with the signature hand of ...

Deuce-Five. Henceforth known as "The Honey Badger".

In a new twist, to score points, not only must the signature hand be shown, but the player must give a "Honey Badger" quote.

Official Catchphrase:  "Ta Da!"

This year, Santa has added a twist on a classic category, the official tilt-inducing catchphrase. This particular catchphrase originated in the IMOP home game this winter. Barbie, as he is wont to do, made two preposterous calls with air against River Joe, then rivered a gutterball straight for a monsterpotten. When Barbie rolled over his hand, River Joe was livid and the rest of the Ironmen were stunned. Figuring he needed to break the tension, Barbie spread his hands palms up like a magician and cheerfully said,

"Ta da!"

River Joe was not amused. The rest of the Ironmen were. A classic tilt-inducing catchphrase was born.

Official Miscellanea & Etceteria: 

Many traditional events return, including daily tournaments which cannot be revealed publicly, as one of the tasks for the new pledges will be to find the Ironmen for each tournament (private message me on Twitter if you want to join us for a tourney*; or follow the IMOP Twitter list to avoid our crew entirely). Also returning are the Ugly Jacket Dinner (wherein the Ironmen descend on a fine eating establishment and class up the joint with vintage-for-a-reason sports coats), the Third World Poker Tour (wherein the Ironmen do charity work in some of the less fortunate Vegas poker rooms), and the FuKaaw! Golf Classic (wherein some of the Ironmen play a round of nighttime combat golf).

*Caution:  Some Tebowing required.


Let the hijinks begin, and may hilarity ensue!

"Why are you acting insane and threatening to cut my throat?"

~H.M. Tilford (David Warshofsky), There Will Be Blood (2007)

Crazy Vegas Poker Players

Last weekend, I journeyed to Poker Mecca with good buddy Santa Claus. Santa was knocking an item off his before-40 bucket list: Play in the World Series of Poker. I was using Santa's plans as a cover for a spouse-free Vegas poker trip (fair's fair, since the sig other didn't invite me to the Vegas bachelorette party he attended in early June).  As usual, we ran into a fun cast of characters.

Santa smuggled Templeton Rye for our brief

layover at the Denver airport. Classy!

Santa in action, at Aria (top) & Planet Hollywood (bottom).

Met two new friends, Jason (left) (a/k/a @jasonsimon) and

Matt (a/k/a @LOLfolding) at Aria. Matt's "buddy" @weizel 

put a bounty on Matt as he played in a cash game with us

at Aria, if we felted him with "the Crabbler" (King-Trey).

The infamous "Belgian Chef" from IMOP-VI

returned to Planet Hollywood to donk off

another couple thousand dollars in maniac style.

This young lady joined my NLHE table at Planet Hollywood,

and promptly had every other guy at the table distracted.

Being gay is an important poker strategy!

The nice lady later jumped into the PLG game,

confirming my read that she is a solid player.

Her boyfriend (right, also a nice fellow) had 

been playing NLHE, and after his game broke, 

had come over to suggest "going back to the room".

Like any good poker player on a solid run, 

she instead asked her boyfriend to join the game.

After he dropped three buy-ins, there was this fun exchange:

Dealer:  "Are you coming back in?"

Guy:  "No, I've dumped enough money into this game."

Me:  "I'd disagree."

These two guys were part of a crew of six Canadians

all wearing identical "Cat Got Your Tongue?" t-shirts.

The one at my table was a good guy, and it sounded

like they were on their own Canadian IMOP.

International hilarity ensues!

Managed to sneak in a session of PLG at Venetian

with buddy and poker industry insider Katkin.

I hit nut vs. second nut against him twice to send

him home early, but it was still good to see him.

(I'm keeping his cash, thanks!)

Look who pulled himself off his sick bed to

give us a ride to the airport. Poker Grump!

(I think we got long-hauled.)

The legendary Pediatric Unabomber, missing

in action since IMOP-I, was spotted at Aria.

Printing Money at the 'Shoe

"Flopping a set is like printing money."

—Ironman Santa Claus

The Horseshoe Casino in Council Bluffs is the nicest poker room in the state, and conveniently located off I-80 on my trips back home to Nebraska.  Pardon me, since the Kansas St. game kicks off in a few hours, we must digress for an obligatory ...

Gooooooo  Biiiiiigggg  Reeeeedddd!   GO! BIG! RED!

(Fellow Husker fans and fans of teams we regularly stomp will understand.)

Where were we?  Oh yeah, the 'Shoe.  Well, although I like the room a lot (despite the usurious $5.50+$1 rake), my last session there ended about as well the denouement of Old Yeller.  But, on Monday, I found myself in Omaha for a court hearing, and as I headed back to Des Moines, I found my car taking the 'Shoe exit.  Well, what could a couple of hours at the tables hurt?

I had a short wait before a second $1/3 NLHE table opened, but it was worth the wait.  Now, the buy-in is capped at $200, and many of the players (old nits and young kids) were buying in for less and nursing their stacks.  Not exactly an ideal money-making situation, and definitely not an environment for my typical crAAKKer-style play, but it was my only option.  So I settled in and channeled my inner rock, then began impersonating Johannes Gutenberg.  After about two hours, I had more than tripled up, mostly off of two flopped sets of 10s, and one hand of turned trip 10s; each time, one or two opponents had top pair or an overpair and simply paid me off in full. 

After I built a decent stack, the seat to my left opened up, and a new player who looks like Greg Raymer's younger brother came over to join the game.  However, the regular to my right (let's call him "Andy") had requested a seat change to the open seat.  The Raymer doppleganger happened to be a 'Shoe poker dealer (Brian) on his day off, and he teased Andy about making him wait to play a hand (the open seat would be the next big blind).  Andy told Brian to go ahead and take the seat.  At this point, the on-duty dealer (Mike) says, "What if he hits a jackpot hand?"  Brian laughs and promises to pay half to Andy.  As if ...

Well, the very next hand, Brian and Andy both limp into the pot.  The flop is Ks-Qc-7h.  Checks around.  Turn is the 8h.  Checks to Andy on the button, who bets, and Brian is the only caller.  River is the 9h.  Brian checks, Andy bets out small, and Brian pushes all-in!  Andy thinks a moment, then calls.  Andy shows Ah3h for the nut flush, but Brian rolls over ... 5h6h for the straight flush!  Turns out, there was a progressive high hand jackpot of $746 as well ('Shoe jackpots are progressive by individual hand and suit).  So, Brian won a little over $200 profit from the pot, plus half of the jackpot, while Andy lost $200 in the pot but got $373 back on the HHJ.  Of course, if Andy had changed seats, he would have coolered Brian for his $200 plus kept the entire $746 HHJ.  Hmmm, it does suck to be the nice guy.

I ended up cashing out for a profit of seven buy-ins, my best #rungood in ages.  It was mostly a matter of waiting for good cards (including folding every hand preflop for four straight orbits, which has to be a first), then playing ABC/TAG.  Not the most thoughtful or exciting game, but stacking and counting chips is a good boredom reliever.  Not to mention I got caught up on my Google Reader mega-backlog.

There were a handful of fun moments.  An uber-aggressive young gun ("Blondie") sat down to my right.  He would straddle to $10, then re-pop it every time.  So, I limped with a LeDawn of hearts (King-rag for the uninitiated), intending to steal if a chance arose.  Sure enough, Blondie repopped to $30, so I called.  Flop was K-high.  I just cold-called the flop, turn, and river, as Blondie fired out $40, $60, and $80.  After I called the river, he sighed and said, "Good call."  I said, "I know."  Blondie waited for me to show, and I contemplated universal heat death until he finally showed AQo for Ace-high.  When I rolled over my monster hand, hilarity ensued.  Blondie said, "You called me with that?", then commenced to muttering about how terrible a player I was for the next orbit, before finally donking off his last $50 and storming out of the room.  Thank you, come again!

There were two other entertaining pots where I gave youngsters a good reason to go home and waste their lives away playing video games.  In one, I decide to play J7 of crubs for a button raise, because, well, why not?  There were at least 14 callers, and the flop comes down a rather amusing 7-7-4.  It checks to me, so I bet half the pot, and get two callers.  The turn is a Yak, natch.  Checks to me, I bet again, and this baby-faced nit check-raises me all-in.  Poor kid thinks he's making a big trap play; how cute.  I snap-call and say, "You must have Ace-seven, eh?"  Kid grins for about 171 nanoseconds before he sees my catamaran.  Kid suddenly seemed sad.  Or maybe poor.  Hard to tell.  He definitely was poorer once the river blanked out.

In the second "kicking poker puppies" hand, a young whippersnapper thought pretty highly of his abilities.  Whiz Kid loved to run the squeeze play.  So, when I find KK under the gun, I decide to let the boy show off a little.  I raise to $17, knowing there would be several callers to invite the constrictor move.  Right on cue, Whiz Kid raises to $45.  I hesitate a bit, then slam out a $100 stack with a little extra English, hoping to use the ol' reverse weak/strong tell.  Folds to Whiz Kid who can't ship his $300 stack fast enough.  Well, if Poker Baby Einstein has Aces, so be it.  Whiz Kid sees my Kings and is suitably deflated as he shows 77.  But, the flop gives him reason to let out a primal scream when it shows a 7.  Mon Dieu!, caveat emptor, res ipsa loquitor, c'est la vie.  But, the poker gods correctly taser Whiz Kid in the face when I turn a King.  In the face!

Regrettably, I had to head for home after only a few hours of play, but it felt kind of cool to be racking up roughly 40% of the chips on the table when it was time to cash out.  Oh, and I made about $2.50 in comps on my Harrah's Total Reward card, so I've got that going for me, which is nice.

In any event, to return to our opening thoughts about sets and money, I also played a very short session last week at the Meadows ATM.  I ended up cashing out for almost two buy-ins profit, mostly based off two hands.  In the first, I had pocket 9s, flopped set over set against 44, and turned quads.  In the second, I had AA and several preflop callers.  I flopped a set and stacked two infidels.

Praise the poker gods and pass the chips!

Set, Egyptian god of darkness and chaos,

and poker god of monsterpotten.

(Image from here).

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, "MadBrooklyn" World / "Dawn Summers" Does Des Moines

If you ever find yourself in Des Moines, Iowa in a dim-lit, near-vacant 70s-retro dive bar at 1:30 in the morning on a weekday, drinking Schlitz and Tangermeisters* with two Brooklyn gals you picked up at a seedy hotel eight hours earlier, debating whether pet chickens will eat mice while a one-legged grungy neo-hippie reads your aura, it's safe to conclude you have made some poor life choices.


















My poor life choices—at least those relevant to this story—began last year when I joined the Twitter Borg.  A couple of the poker bloggers I follow—BWoP and F-Train—would occasionally engage in Tweet warfare (Tweetfare?) with a mysterious "RealDawnSummers", a lady smart enough to be a bigshot NYC corporate attorney, dumb enough to be a Patriots fan, witty enough to unleash a good zinger, clumsy enough to blunder into a better zinger, goofy enough to wear Liberace shoes, and nitty enough to uber-tilt.  In other words, "Dawn Summers" was eminently qualified to be a friend, foe, foil, and crAAKKer victim, all rolled into a sharp-tongued, angry-fisted package.  A few football and poker tweets later, and we were cyber-friends and life-enemies ("cyferlenemies"?).

Dawn breaks out the famous Liberace shoes at the Meadows ATM. 

For the past week, Dawn (a/k/a Stephane "Vanna" Clare) and her friend Mary (a/k/a MadBrooklyn) have been enjoying a whirlwind vacation in the Midwest.  Between seeing all the usual sites—Devil's Tower, the Big Rock Heads, the Grotto, the Arch, and the inside of various police cars—Dawn and Mary made an overnight stop in good ol' Des Moines, mostly to see cows and tractors, but also to calm their poker withdrawal shakes.  I directed them to "Living History Farms" for a little afternoon farm culture, then picked them up at the murder motel for a night of poker hijinks.

First off was dinner at Jethro's BBQ, in their newly opened location across the street from the Meadows ATM.  Of course Dawn (a/k/a "Wilma") made a scene when ordering dinner, complaining that there was no corn on the cob.  Now, there was a perfectly tasty jalapeño cream corn side dish, but no, Dawn wanted her corn on the cob!  Get used to disappointment.  Dawn ended up with BBQ babyback ribs that were, in her own words, "the best ever!", and somehow managed to leave a happy camper.

Dawn, in a rare happy place.

We then made the arduous three-minute trek to the Meadows ATM for some gamboooling.  Because it was Wednesday, the weekly Ladies Night Tournament was under way, with a majority of the players being, well, not ladies.  Dawn and Mary passed on my $20 prop bet for entering and final-tabling the tourney, so we had a ten minute wait until a tournament table broke and a new $1/2 NLHE cash game was opened.  We passed the time chatting with a nice regular player, Michelle (@chelmc23) who came up and introduced herself as the president of Dawn's Des Moines fan club; yup, Dawn is famous even in Iowa!  Apparently, Michelle was searching for online advice on playing Omaha Hi/Lo, and was somehow misdirected to Dawn's blog (well, one of her many, many, blogs).  See, Google has flaws.

Once the game started, it was hilarious to watch Mary and Dawn develop whiplash and TMJ disorder from reacting to the incredibly bizarre play at the table.  Overbets, underbets, bad bluffs, curious calls, our table had it all.  Dawn had a rollercoaster session, making some money when her AA held up, but then stacking off to Mary in a weird hand.  It had limped around to me in the big blind, so I made it $17 to go with 77.  At least seven of us saw a flop of K-J-T rainbow.  I checked, someone bet, Dawn went all-in for ~$125, someone called, Mary pushed (having the table covered), and some other short stack pushed as well.  I was shocked—shocked!—when Mary rolled over AQ, possibly her weakest starting hand of the session.  Dawn rebought, and I gave her a courtesy double-up when we both flopped flushes, only hers was the nuts.  I should've known she had a big hand, since she pulled a reverse-Meat Tank, keeping a leftover rib in the fingers of both hands, while calling my initial flop bet with her palms.  I'm such a bad player.  Le sigh.

Mary, however, gave a clinic in tight-aggressive play, somehow averaging one hand per hour, yet always having the nuts and getting paid off when she hit, while getting everyone to fold to c-bets even when she missed.  Clearly she knows that Jedi mind-trick thing.  Early on, she drug a big pot when the flop came out K-8-4 rainbow.  When Mary four-bet all-in, the only question in my mind was whether she had a set of 8s or a set of 4s.  Her opponent apparently wanted to know as well, calling with AK.  It was 88, obv.  A couple of orbits later, Mary collected another monsterpotten when she got it all-in preflop with—well, you really don't need me to tell you she had the pocket rockets, do you? 

Mary's tower o' chips (background).

"This is not the flop you were looking for!"

"Call my bet.  Now go about your business."

As for me, well, I had an up and down and down session, losing a little by missing a couple of combo-draw semi-bluffs, botching a couple of big hands with bad reads, and generally missing flops with good starting hands (AK, AQ, small pocket pairs, suited connectors ... whiff, whiff, whiff, whiff).  I did raise with KQ once, and flopped Broadway, only to chop with Michelle who had made the ridiculous play of calling me with ... KQ.  But I did pull out a crAAKKer command performance for Dawn.  A guy in between Dawn and Mary opened in middle position for $22.  A couple of callers to me in the big blind, and I find the lovely 84 of crubs.  Now, I only had a little over $100 behind, so I thought about folding, until I remembered our dinner conversation about Julius Goat and his brilliant poker insights in his Stupid/System.  As Mr. Goat notes:  "The key of poker is to be the one to call, and thus according to that math guy, to have the hand of greatest strength."  That's right, by calling, I could dramatically improve the strength of my hand.  Plus, it was crubs, and I clearly had a lot of outs.  I was actually a favorite!  So, I called, and five of us went to the flop:  8s7c4s.  Donkey Kong!  It checked to the preflop raiser, who bet $50.  Folded to me, and I pushed.  Another guy called.  Turn was:  4d.  Yahtzee!  There was irrelevant sidepot action.  River was ... who cares, some irrelevant baby card.  Preflop raiser bets, other guy folds (spade draw, combo draw ... don't know, don't care, he'd already paid me in full).  Preflop raiser shows Kings, like they're any good.  I roll over my canoe, and Dawn stares at me, then giggles.  She kept on giggling so much, she had to wrap up her head in her hoodie for a few minutes so as not to laugh in the face of the guy I just crAAKKed. Though, in hindsight, I think that would've been pretty sweet.

At some point in the evening's festivities, Dawn mentioned a friend had told her about the "world-famous 80s dance club in Des Moines".  Although my days of going out are well behind me, I do hear about hot bars and clubs, and I certainly wasn't aware of any 80s dance clubs.  The Dawn says, "It's called the 'High Life' or something like that."  I immediately laughed, because the High Life Lounge is about as far from 80s dance club as can be imagined.  The High Life Lounge is a retro-60s/70s themed place, looking like someone's old basement brought to life.  Dark wood paneling is on the walls, covered with old poorly framed photos and beer paraphenalia from Hamm's, Schlitz, and Miller High Life, natch.  Faux-wood Formica on the bar, small black and white TVs behind the bar, and old diner booths, tables, and chairs complete the "look".  They also serve lunch and dinner consisting primarily of old school diner food, but with some fun stuff like Velveeta grilled cheese sandwiches, fried chicken gizzards, and Spam and egg sandwiches thrown into the mix.  It's actually a fun, inexpensive, and popular local joint.  But "world famous"?  As I told Dawn, "I don't think 'world famous' means what you think it means."

Inside the High Life Lounge.  Classy, eh?

In any event, Dawn decided she wanted to check out the High Life Lounge, so we racked up around midnight and headed to downtown Des Moines.  Now the downtown bar and restaurant district has finally recovered after the flood of 1993, but even so, Wednesday is not exactly a major party night.  We arrived at the High Life and found it basically empty, except for a couple of guys at the bar, and the bartender.  Since Dawn had never enjoyed a Schlitz—never even heard of it!—I ordered one for her (Mary, as the big winner, actually paid).  So, we were peacefully debating the merits of using chickens for rodent control (Dawn does tend to warp conversations in weird directions), when Mary decided to take a picture of Dawn and me.  Somehow, the camera kept making my pale skin even more pale, to the point that my face was pretty much just a bright white blob.  Here is her best result:

Actual photo by MadBrooklyn, no photo-shopping.

As I posted on Twitter, Mary's camera made me look like a ghost, and made Dawn look like Whoopi Goldberg in Ghost.  However, the sig other saw my pictures of Dawn and proclaimed, "She looks like she'd be a hoot!"  High praise indeed.  And yes, Dawn is a hoot.  However, I'll lay even odds Mary murders her in a cornfield if they ever travel together again outside the East Coast.

What about the one-legged grungy neo-hippie?  Oh yes, I almost forgot.  So, as Mary takes a half dozen pictures, trying to get my face to appear on film (a very difficult task when photographing the soulless), a random guy—about mid-20s, scruffy, shaggy hair rubber-banded in back, flannel shirt—wanders over from the bar to offer some friendly assistance.  Turns out, he's not helpful.  But, he is entertaining, so I order Dawn a house specialty Tangermeister and we settle in to chat a bit more as the bartender starts putting chairs up on tables and generally uses a great degree of un-subtlety to indicate it's closing time and he resents our presence.  Now, when you see someone with a prosthetic leg, you generally have two reactions:  a) curiosity as to how they lost their leg, and b) a realization you shouldn't ask.  Dawn had only one of those reactions:

One-legged guy:  [trying to take picture] "Wow, you really do look like a ghost, dude!"

Dawn:  "So, how'd you lose your leg?"

One-legged guy:  [sitting down in our booth]  "Well, it's kind of funny.  I mean, you go out to a bunch of bars.  You wake up the next day, and you can't remember where you put stuff.  I mean, you think, 'I know I had it at that one bar, and I think I had it at the next bar, but then it gets kind of hazy.' "

So, as we finished our Tangermeisters, the one-legged guy had me place my hand palm up over the table, and he held his hand palm down above but not touching my hand, in an attempt to "drain my aura" to enable Mary to take my picture.  This was uncomfortably close to an exorcism, which would really destroy my poker ability, so I was happy when Mary distracted him with something shiny.  Alas, no successful pictures were taken, and we hurriedly finished our drinks and made our escape.

From their Twitter updates, it appears Dawn and Mary successfully navigated onward to Kansas City and their final destination, St. Louis (pronounced "Saahn Loo-ee"—trust me!).  But I am quite happy they stopped by to liven up Des Moines for one evening.  And I'm quite pleased they departed before permanently sucking me into their maelstrom of crazy!  I'm definitely looking forward to seeing them again in Vegas in December (note to self—bring extra bail money).

--------------------------------------------------------------
* Tangermeisters are comprised of Tang mixed with Jägermeister.

Santa Claus Steals Candy from Babies

Last night, Ironman of Poker (IMOP) cruise director and Templeton Rye hunter Santa Claus was in town for business, so we met up for an after work session of $1/$2 NLHE at the Meadows ATM.  Now Thursday evening action is usually excellent, as there is a tournament at 7:00 p.m. that is generally well-attended, along with a regular $5/$5 mix "big game" that brings out all the degenerates.  The room was busy when we arrived around 5:00 p.m., but we got into a game after a short wait.  Management, however, gets an "F" in logistics for failing to schedule enough dealers.  The big mix game was full with a list, the $2/$5 list was 20 deep, and the $1/$2 list was 10 deep, but no tables could be opened because the dealers were already "locked in" and no additional dealers were scheduled to arrive to open new tables until 6:00 p.m.  Oh well, not my problem!

The game was initially rather uneventful, other than Santa and I needling each other.  Most of the players were fairly tight, and short-stacked, making the game unsuitable for my usual crAAKKer tactics.  I started having flashbacks to the horrors of my last session at the 'Shoe, where I proved the old adage about blood and rocks.  To make matters worse, we had two obnoxious players in the game—one was a crazy looking dude who tried to bully the table and complained every time he got slapped down, and a "poker professor" who had to deeply analyze each and every hand like a skinny and non-funny version of John Madden. 

Crazy dude bullied his way to a $1,000 stack, then promptly gacked it all back and left the table whining about how badly we all played.  For all his self-proclaimed poker smarts, the professor found himself rebuying after spewing chips making a number of rather questionable plays.  By 10:00 p.m., our table had dropped to nitty five-handed play.  Santa and I had each taken a decent chunk of chips off of crazy dude during his supernova, so we were debating racking up our profits (about a buy-in each) and heading to my place to enjoy some pizza and Templeton Rye when we heard the best sound in the poker universe—loud, drunken laughter.

Three guys in golf attire were sent to our table.  Turns out they had been golfing in a charity event all day, and had been "boozing it up since noon".  Excellent.  Two of them ("Andy" and "Billy") were regulars, and the third ("Chip") I have seen on occasion.  A guy already at the table ("Eddie") was also a friend of the crew.  As soon as the crew sat down, the game became a "strap on your seatbelts, keep your hands in the car" roller coaster ride.  The usual hand went down something like this:

• Andy or Billy would raise to $30, often blind.
• Other players would call.
• Occasionally, Andy or Billy would reraise to $100 to steal the pot preflop.
• If the hand made it to the flop, Andy or Billy would bet $100-$200 to try to take it down right there.
• If a non-crew member made it to the flop and seemed interested in the flop, Andy or Billy would call them down to the river to try to knock the player out.

Now, at this point, the game becomes quite easy.  In fact, it was so easy Santa went to the bar to get a drink, realizing there would be no more tough decisions the rest of the night.  Essentially, Santa and I had position on the entire crew, and we simply sat back and waited for premium hands.  Then, we would limp-reraise preflop, and bet big on flops we hit, knowing we were going to be way ahead of the crew's range.  No need for a degree in astrophysics to play this game!

My strategy started off rather poorly, when I ran my 99 into Billy's TT, helping him build up a $1,500 stack.  Then, a weird hand happened that gave Santa and me an IMOP flashback.  Billy was in seat 1, next to the dealer.  He was involved in a big pot, and was facing a big river bet when he slid his cards forward.  The dealer mucked the hand, and started to push the pot.  Suddenly, Billy went absolutely nuts, screaming, "I had King-Ten of spades!  I f--king had King-Ten of f--king spades!"  If true, he would've turned the nut straight and rivered the second nut flush (and I fully believe he in fact had the King-Ten of f--ing spades).  But it looked to me and even his friends that Billy had mucked his hand.  The floor came over, ruled his hand dead, and Billy kept pacing around, screaming about his "King-Ten of f--king spades!" and even tried to dig his hand out of the muck.  The floor, Brandon, did a great job of keeping things calm while standing his ground.  Billy kept arguing, then suddenly blurted out, "Awww, how can I be mad when Brandon is smiling at me so cute?"  His buddy Chip dryly observed, "Billy gets a little gay when he's drunk."  Kudos to Brandon for not only not kicking Billy out, but also getting Billy to calm down, then running interference with the gaggle of security guards who had come into the room to investigate "the disturbance".  Trust me, if Billy had gone home, his buddies—and their cash—would have gone with him.  Instead, the house, the dealers, and the players all kept making money, which is a wonderful thing.

Billy was drunk enough he sometimes had trouble keeping focused on the action, and since he was near me, I would help keep the action flowing by reminding him when it was his turn to act, which led to this exchange that had me laughing:

Me:  "It's $30."

Billy:  "Who raised it?"  [ummm, the same guy who's raised it the past 30 hands?]

Me:  [pointing to Andy]  "Your best buddy down there."

Billy:  "Oh no, he's not my best friend!"  [points at Eddie]  "He's my best friend, ever!  I was even best man in his wedding!"

[pause]

Billy:  "Well, it was his first wedding, before the divorce." 

Billy:  [turns to Eddie]  "Sorry dude!"

Now many players fear or are annoyed by maniacs, who admittedly do upset the game.  But they serve a very useful purpose—they pry chips away from rocks and redistribute them to the table.  Case in point was an old guy in seat 10 who had bought in for $100, played one hand every hour, and always had a top five hand when he played.  Old Guy had built up a $600 stack, but in the course of two hands, Billy and Andy took it all.  The big hand was when Andy raised to $30 preflop, Old Guy reraised to $100, Andy shrugged and called.  Flop was all low rags.  Old Guy bet $100, Andy called.  Turn was a low blank, Old Guy shoved for about $200, Andy snap called, having turned two pair with 74o.  Old Guy rolls Aces, natch, and fails to catch up.  God bless the maniacs!

Billy quickly demonstrated the life cycle of the drunk maniac—build a big stack with improbable junk hands, get slapped upside the head by math, bleed all the chips back, rebuy, gack those chips off, hit the ATM, lather, rinse, repeat.  Billy probably pumped four buy-ins into the game, then borrowed another two buy-ins from Andy and Chip.  Andy put four buy-ins on the table before starting to build a monster stack, mostly at the expense of Billy and Chip.  By the end of the session, the action at our table was easily heavier than the $2/$5 NLHE or the $5/$5 "big game", with many pots running over $500, and multi-player all-ins occurring a couple of times per orbit.  As for Santa and me, we simply collected our share of the maniac tax, picking big hands to play, waiting for favorable flops, then punishing the maniacs with check-calls and value bets.  Taking down a limped pot with a huge limp-reraise squeeze play would generally net $100+ in profit, which was merely an appetizer for the big pots where Andy or Billy would see a flop.  I won three monsterpotten with flopped trips, while Santa was a little more conventional, using Kings, Yaks, and a couple of AK hands for the bulk of his profit.  Speaking of profit, while the drunk crew provided plenty of entertainment, the real fun in poker is in stacking chips from monster pots.  As you can tell, we had a blast!

My stack about an hour before leaving.  By the time I cashed out,

I had added three black chips to the mix.  Note the lucky

"Godfather" chips in the lower left; it was a full stack by cash out!

Santa's stack about an hour before cash out.  Santa parlayed Kings

into an additional four pillars of the pyramid before cashing out.

(That's my arm on the right side of the picture, guarding my stack

against Santa's patented stack stealing swoop maneuver.)

--------------------------------------------------------------

ADDENDUM (21 August 2010):  I forgot one of the sickest beats of the night.  Andy blind raised preflop to $30, Billy reraised to $100, and Andy called.  Flop was A-A-2.  Andy checked, Billy bet, Andy raised, Billy pushed, and Andy called.  Andy asks Billy, "Do you have an Ace?"  Billy nods "yes" and rolls AK.  Board runs out, and Andy finally rolls over ... pocket ducks for the flopped boat!  Hilarity ensued ...

A Trip to Pleasure Island

Have you ever had one of those sessions where you are playing bad and know it, yet you find yourself continuing to play, and play poorly? Well, last night I played the starring role in Donkeys at the Meadows.

I played for about four hours at the Meadows ATM (where I also encountered one of their idiosnycratic house rules), after a nice dinner at the Raccoon River Brew Pub with the sig other and some of his gal pals who were visiting from out of town.  The room was pretty quiet for a Saturday night during race season: there was no $2/5 NLHE or $5/5 PL mix game, so I'm not certain where the "big game" degenerates were playing.  At 8:00 pm, there were only two $1/2 NLHE games and two short-handed $3/6 LHE games running, though another table or two opened up as the racing wound down. 

The table had a pretty fun vibe, and there were weird hands galore.  The strangest run of variance was for one guy who laid down quads on back-to-back hands.  Well, he laid down hands that would have become quads had he stayed in.  The first hand he held 88 on a 7-7-5 board, but gave it up after a raise and reraise, only to see the board roll out 8-8.   The very next hand, he folded A4s to a big preflop raise and reraise, only to see the board run out 4-A-4-4-x.  I took a big hit on my second hand when my AKo ran into Q3 soooted on a board of K-Q-3-A-3.  Blech.  But I built my stack back up on the fifth hand, when my sooooted Spanish Inquisition (6-3, a much stronger hand than Q3, obviously), outran AhKh on a board of 6h-4h-2d-3x-6x.   Hilarity ensued!  I also helped the cause with a couple of good reads to pick off bluffs, but got stacked when my QQ ran into AK and the A flopped.  Le sigh.

At that point, I began my Pleasure Island conversion into a total donkey.  For those of you who aren't old enough to remember the Disney version of Pinocchio, there is a part of the film where boys are lured to a place called "Pleasure Island" where rules didn't apply to them, and they could drink, smoke, gamble, and generally "make jackasses of themselves".  Of course, as in all good morality tales, these boys became cursed, by literally transforming into donkeys who are sold off by the evil lord of the Island to work in salt mines. 

My problems began with an inability to figure out the right approach to the table.  There was a weird mix of short and deep stacks, and differences in styles of play.  For some reason, I ended up shifting into a too-passive mode of play, finding myself getting into pots with decent starting hands, then having to abandon ship when either a tight player made a big bet/raise, or a deep player showed too much interest in a pot.  I did manage to pull off one nice bluff by check-calling the flop and turn with AQ unimproved, then value-bet bluffing the river based solely on a correct read of an unimproved overpair to the flop that got scared of two overs hitting the turn and river.  Of course, I lied and told the guy I had called with overs and paired my Yak on the turn, which seemed to annoy him (which pleased me).

Unfortunately, that play was the exception for my skillz.  In addition to letting myself get bled to death by not tightening up in early position—Position? We don't need no stinking position!—I ended up gacking off my stack with a semi-bluff on the turn with KJs, having picked up a gutshot straight draw to go with my flopped flush draw.  I got called by a turned set of Queens (ouch!), and bricked the river.  Doh!  Apparently, my instinct to check-raise the flop was correct.  Aggression?  We don't need no stinking aggression!  My next stack-off was even more brainlocked, shoving with AQ on a Q-high flop ... into bottom set and a flopped straight.  Error!  Big pot?  We don't need no stinking big hand!  At that point, I knew I was mentally not on my game, so I called it a night.

I still had an hour or so to kill before picking up the gals from the bars, so I wandered down to the casino floor to see if my buddy Brian was playing craps.  Brian wasn't around, but I was bored, so I sat down at the $25 blackjack table, something I hadn't played in months.*  I ended up getting blessed by the blackjack gods, and was able to win my poker buy-ins back plus a nice buy-in profit on top!  My biggest hand was a $100 bet where I was dealt 88 against the dealer's 5.  I split it out, and my first hand found a 3, which I doubled, and hit a 10!  Yahtzee!  My next 8 found another brother 8, so I split again.  The second 8 drew a 10.  The third 8 found another 3, I doubled again, and again drew a 10!  Donkey Kong!  The dealer showed 15 total, and busted on one card, bringing cosmic balance to the Force.  As I told the very attractive female dealer, "If I weren't gay and married, I would totally kiss you."  Since I was sober, I cashed out before I became like the drunk wedding party guy at my table, who was "riding the wave" and blew through his $500 buy-in, the $5,000 in profits he had amassed while surfing with variance, and $2,000 more from his wallet before going under for good.

So, the moral of the story is, "It's OK to gamble if you're already a donkey."

----------------------------------------------------------

 *  I probably play blackjack or craps 4-5 times a year.  Two waitresses and the cage gal, who all work some shifts in the poker room, each asked me, "What are you doing down here?"  So, I figure I'll know I have a gambling problem as soon as I'm on a first name basis with any of the folks on the casino floor!

Wine & Whine O' the Week (v. 1.10)

While on IMOP-V last month, I played several sessions of 1/2 PLG at the Venetian.  During one late night session, a guy dressed in Cardinals gear was playing an uber-aggressive style and running over the table.  In a two hour period, I flopped two sets of 4s and a set of 6s against Cards.  Now, small sets can spell doom in PLG, but since Cards was uber-aggro, I stuck around all three times, and all three times I rivered quads!  Even better, it turns out Cards actually had big hands all three times as well, and paid me off.  The first two times, he did some standard whining, but the third time, Cards stood up and started shouting about the injustice of it all, putting on a real Phil Hellmuth temper tantrum before storming out.  The next evening, when I told the PLG players about the prior night, they told me Cards had played earlier that evening and was still bitching about it.  Hilarity certainly did ensue!

In honor of Cards' temper tantrum, I must highly recommend a new line of wines I recently discovered—Tempra Tantrum.  The Tempra Tantrum wines are from Spain, home of the Tempranillo grape, one of the few wine grapes that performs well in hot, dry climates (most of the traditional well-known wine grapes—e.g., Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir—perform best in cooler climates, or areas with cool, foggy mornings to offset hot summer days).  All of the Tempra Tantrum wines are a blend of Tempranillo and one of the "noble" red wine grapes—Merlot, Syrah/Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon, or Grenache.  Although Tempranillo historically was used for Riojas which are aged before release, in the past decade more Spanish winemakers are turning to a younger, fresher style of Tempranillo that emphasizes the grape's soft, juicy blackberry and plum flavors.  The Tempra Tantrum line is a good example of these modern, easy drinking wines that are also easy on the wallet ($8-$10 retail).  My personal favorite is the Tempranillo-Grenache blend.  Grenache is another grape that performs well in hot climates, and adds red fruit (cherry and raspberry) flavors to the blend; it goes very well with pizza, pasta with red sauce, and cheese.  For those who like a spicy note to their red wine, I highly recommend the Tempranillo-Shiraz blend.

You can follow Tempra Tantrum on Twitter.

IMOP Memories: The Beatdown at Bally's

IMOP-V begins today, and I've been on the ground in Vegas since yesterday for pregame training and festivities. Last night included an In & Out Burger run, as well as some poker at MGM and Aria. My fun hand of note was cracking Ironman Rookie River Joe's Aces with a rivered bajos dos pairs while playing Ironman Barbie's signature hand, the Spanish Inquisition (6-3, because nobody expects it). Hilarity ensued (Joe: "You called $50 on the turn with a pair of 3s?!?!"; Me: "I put you on Aces.").

As with yesterday's post, today is another trip down IMOP memory lane as we continue to celebrate "Ironman Week" here at crAAKKer. For the uninitiated, check out the page links under the header above for background information.

Tomorrow, I will post my personal IMOP-V prop bet picks, along with a look back at some classic IMOP props.

*******************************

One of my most bizarre poker experiences occurred on IMOP-II. Santa and I were Strip surfing, looking for good drunken late night game. We stopped in a Paris (remember when Paris had a poker room?) but the room was dark. So we headed up the Strip and stumbled across a short-handed game at Bally's.

Now this was my first time in the Bally's poker room, so I wasn't prepared for the unique mix of drunken play and weird characters that epitomize the Bally's poker experience. For those who have never enjoyed the Bally's poker room, two key factors come into play--being open and immediately adjacent to the pits, and being literally next to a bar. Drink service to the poker room is as fast and as frequent as a puppy begging for treats, though with marginally less drool.

As we settled in at our table, two friendly guys in their early 20s introduced themselves as Mark and Simon (alas, no Theodore or Alvin joined the fun). We quickly learned two things about our new friends: a) they were English, and b) they were utterly trashed. The second fun fact was soon explained as they proceeded to order round after round of kamikaze shots for the table.

As their intoxication increased, so did our English friends' propensity to spew chips. They were also spewing the F-bomb nearly every other sentence. One dealer resorted to "fining" them $1 tip for every F-bomb, but that hardly slowed them down.

Although the Brits were drunken yahoos, most of the table didn't mind, partially because they were friendly and amusing, but mostly because they were terrible poker players. It was a classic example of not tapping the clown fish tank. Their friendliness may have crossed some boundaries, like when Mark rubbed my head and said, "I like your skull, Darrell.". (FYI, my name is not in the same ballpark as "Darrell"). A little later, Mark hugged a new arrival to the table, who was apparently too serious a player to play nicely with the table donkeys; angry words were exchanged, and I thought a fight might ensue.

Against this backdrop, ensuing events seem inevitable. I was sitting in the 9 seat, and Mark was on my right in the 8 seat. I noticed he was "going south" rather literally, taking a few chips every hand and dropping them into his lap or onto the floor, apparently to preserve some cash to buy booze and a cab ride. Now, I didn't really mind, because Simon kept asking Mark for chips, and Mark kept giving him chips from his lap stash. They both were hemorrhaging chips, so who was I to rat them out?

Around this point, Mark starts getting really friendly, high-fiving and hitting me in the shoulder every pot I won, or every joke I made, or just whenever some imaginary ball of yarn amused him. I folded a hand, turned away from the table, then turned back just in time to see a blur as Mark jumped into me and tackled me to the floor! I have no idea what he was thinking, but apparently he had decided we were good friends who needed to wrestle. The poker manager came rushing over, but I waved him off, telling him Mark was just messing around (he and Simon still had chips to lose!). The floor appeared skeptical, but issued a "final warning" and let things drop. Oh, and my supposed best bud Santa didn't even so much as say, "No, stop, don't do that" to defend me. I hope he gets attacked by a drunk Euro sometime, then we'll see how funny he finds it!

The Mark & Simon Show came to its inevitable yet amusing conclusion in short order. Despite the "final warning", the F-Bombs continued to fly freely. Eventually, a pit boss from the casino floor came over:

Pit Boss: "I can hear you way over in the pits. If you don't stop using the F-Word, I'll have to ask you to leave."

Simon: "How about the C-Word? Can we use the C-Word?"

Pit Boss: "No, you can't."

Mark: "What if we're talking about your mum?"

Pit Boss: "Security!"

Mark and Simon left on a friendly note, shaking hands all around and nearly starting a fight with an rather overly familiar hug to the player who had made it clear earlier he liked personal boundaries. I've always wondered what happened to these lovable English poker hooligans ...


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

IMOP Memories: The Sherminator

NOTE: A detailed description of the Ironman of Poker (IMOP) can be found in the pages linked under the blog header.

One of my favorite IMOP moments occurred on my first trip, IMOP-II. I had been invited by college roomie Santa Claus to the inaugural IMOP, but I had declined because I was not yet a full-fledged poker degenerate. After reading Santa's trip report, however, I realized how empty my life would be without some official poker hijinks. And mojitos.

We were based out of the Venetian, which was still a brand new room looking for its niche on the Vegas poker scene. It seemed like their goal was to fill 30+ tables with drunk trust fund d-bags. Looks like they have succeeded. Probably the last successful poker marketing scheme that didn't rely on Tiffany Michele's ta-tas (or ta-tas in general).

Early in the trip, Santa had run into a d-bag who looked just like the nerd from "American Pie". In a moment of inspiration, Santa nicknamed him "The Sherminator". Brilliant.

The Sherminator was an early 20s d-bag who thought he was cooler than he was, better looking than he was, and a better poker player than he was. Which put him in the same category as 75% of the after-Tao poker crowd. The Sherminator loved to chatter non-stop about his poker play and how good he was (in his own world, at least). He loved to say, "I play the player, not the cards," usually after making a trivially standard play. What distinguished The Sherminator from the d-bag horde, however, was his outrageous nerdishness, displayed in his pre-Hevad Khan era celebration of winning a big pot by standing up, putting his hands together over his head, and yelling, "I am the Highlander!" Santa wanted to felt The Sherminator as much as OJ wanted to find his ex-wife's real murderers. Hmmm, well maybe more like as much as Wile E. Coyote wanted to catch the Road Runner--and with about as much luck, given The Sherminator's off the charts SVB skills enabling him to run hotter than Betelgeuse.

Until I stepped in with my uber-SVB skills. Santa and I were playing our last long overnight session at the Venetian, looking for courtesy chips from the bottle service boys fresh off a night of clubbing. I had run up a nice stack but Santa was struggling to get any traction. Suddenly, The Sherminator materializes at our table! Game on.

The Sherminator actually played fairly well, which he was happy to point out for our benefit. He had built up a nice stack when the poker gods decided to teach a little lesson in the perils of hubris.

I was on the button. The game was playing loose-stupid, so there were a couple of limpers to Santa who put in a healthy raise; to those paying attention, he clearly had a premium hand, but the Red Bull-vodka crew at our table were as perceptive as Mr. Magoo. I glance over at Shermy who is clearly excited, either by his cards, or by the fact that the cocktail waitress called him "honey". Since I have bullets in my pocket, I decide it's a good time for an ambush, and silky-smooth call.

Shermy hollywoods a bit, then makes a "please play" raise. Santa decides he wants to join the reindeer games and pushes all-in for ~$250 total. I decide it's time to put my hard-earned image to good use, and I pull out a "Mad Hatter" hat--it was at least a foot high, made of red felt with black stripes and card suits sewn on. I pull on this so-funny-it's-cool monstrosity, look right at Shermy, and say, "Let's make this easy. I'm all-in, too."

Shermy goes nuts! He has over $600 total, but I have him covered. He also knows Santa and I are friends who have been making outrageous plays all night (well, I've been harassing Santa with annoyance plays to win Ironman tilt points, but the table didn't know that part of the dynamics). Shermy stands up and tanks hard. "This can't be happening! There's no way this is happening again!" Shermy is clearly in anguish, obviously holding Kings and dreading Aces.

That's when Santa makes a brilliant play. He looks Shermy dead in the eye and says, "I play the player, not the cards." That taunt must have hit home, as Shermy snap calls. He looks at Santa and says, "You have aces?" Santa shakes his head and rolls over Queens. Shermy looks happy and rolls his Kings. That's when I roll my Aces. Shermy looks like someone kicked his puppy: "Twice in one day! Twice!" Gee bud, sucks when variance catches up to ya, huh?

As Shermy whined on, the dealer put out the board. Shermy starts calling for a King like a wife trying to get her husband to do chores during the Super Bowl. Junky cards hit the flop and turn, but the river was paint: a Queen! Santa steals my pot to get healthy, while I took the side pot for a decent profit myself.

Shermy? He whined some more, then stormed out of the poker room, looking for an ATM. Funny thing--he came back to the room, but found a different table. Apparently the kiddie game was across the room.

Next time we see the Sherminator, I'll lay even money he's either crying while busting out of the WSOP Main Event, or an Internet millionaire looking for love (and to get to third base) on "The Bachelor".


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Let the Hijinks & Lowjinks Begin

The home Internet is out for the second day (thanks, Mediacom), so no pithy or insightful blog post for y'all today. Which is too bad, as I had a great post about Zoroastrian influences on Jewish eschatology all set to thrill and inspire the masses. Oh well!

In any event, I am less than 20 hours from touchdown in Vegas for IMOP-V. Wednesday night I will be hanging with other early arrivers including Santa, Lucky, and River Joe. Thursday night marks official IMOP kickoff, with a pledge test and hazing of the newbies as we welcome them to the IMOP brotherhood. Santa and I are planning to hit up Hard Rock Thursday night pre-opening ceremonies for the PLG/NLHE mix game and maybe dinner at Nobu.

I will attempt a few posts from the road, but your regularly scheduled blogging will be on hiatus until the IMOP World Curling Championship concludes.

(Can't wait to see how many Google searches for "Zoroastrian Curling Eschatology" land here!)


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Finding Gold in the Dirt

Last night, I played a session at the Meadows ATM. My first hand, I post in late position and call a small raise with Js6s. I flop a pair with a flush draw, and hit the flush to crack QQ. A couple of hands later, I play 75s, and again call a small raise. I flop a flush draw with gutshot straight draw, and turn the straight to crack KK. Establish tight image—check. I complete the first orbit when my QQ holds up against Yaks on a junky board. One orbit, three hands, and I’ve already doubled up! Sometimes I play so good.

The next few hours are pretty much a wasteland. Either I get junk cards or I whiff the flop. I take down a few small pots, and give it back one preflop raise or bad c-bet at a time. I crack KK once again when my 54o flops two pair and rivers a boat. But, I give that back when I make a tough call with TPTK holding AT on a Ten-high board, only to have the Q6s flush draw spike a Queen. Eh.

I was thinking about leaving early and locking in the double up when a regular sits down—let’s call him “JT”. JT is a known action player, has pretty good game with a style ranging from LAG to maniac, depending on the table. JT promptly starts playing nearly every hand, raising many hands, which was a big change for the table. JT also made and showed several big bluffs, which helped get him paid when he flopped big with a weird hand. JT’s pièce de résistance, however, came when he cracked a tight young player’s KK with 32s, flopping trips and turning a boat. The kid storms away in disgust, fuming, “That’s just a dirt hand! All you play is dirt!”

Hardly three hands later, the tight old regular sitting next to Dirt Boy raises to $17 preflop. I call with 64o on the button. Flop is 6-5-6. Donkey Kong! Old Grump bets the pot, I raise $50 more. Old Grump points at JT and says, “I’m glad he’s not in the hand.” Old Guy then gives the going home speech and raises to $200. I pretend to think a bit, then push all-in for his last $125. Old Grump snap calls and proudly rolls over his AA (duh! never saw that hand coming). Old Grump looks at my hand and asks the dealer, “What does he have?” The dealer says “six four” and old guy says, “He called $17 with that?” Old Grump says “good hand” dripping with sarcasm, and wanders out of the room. Dirt Boy had returned by this point, and he and a few others at his end of the table continue to murmur amongst themselves, presumably about my “stupid” play. I stack my chips—slowly—then play another orbit, before heading home with a nice profit.

So yeah, you might wonder, why am I boring y’all with another day at the poker office? After all, it’s pretty standard fare for me to crack Aces or Kings. Well, the comments by Dirt Boy and Old Grump are fairly typical of the kinds of comments I often hear after cracking Aces or Kings—“You called me with that trash?” and “You called $X preflop with that crap?” Depending on my mood, I either ignore them or make a snarky comment. But what these crAAKKer victims fail to understand are some important principles of poker that explain why they are bitchy and broke, while I’m happily stacking their chips.

First and foremost, these players place far too much emphasis on preflop hand strength. For many of these players, if they get AA/KK preflop, they feel they are entitled to win the pot, and if they lose, it is only because of some horrendous bad play by their opponent or pure bad luck. I think a lot of this mentality comes from televised and online tournament poker, where players emphasize starting hand strength due to the relatively short stacks in play forcing frequent pushes preflop. But in deep-stacked cash games, starting hand strength, while still important, fades and becomes only one of many factors to consider. As two leading poker analysts put it:

“In deep stack no limit, preflop hands derive most of their value from how well they extract money after the flop from opponents. Comparing hands based on how often they win a showdown or on their poker ‘hand rank’ is worse than worthless.”

—David Sklansky & Ed Miller, “No Limit Hold ‘Em Theory and Practice” (1st Ed., p. 124)

One of my favorite dealers at the Meadows ATM is a bit more pithy—“There are no bad hands, just bad flops.”

Now even I won’t play the extreme “any two cards” style of some maniacs, but hands like connectors and one-gappers Ten-Nine/Eight and below have some useful traits. First, assuming I can put my victim on a premium hand, my hand will almost never be dominated. Thus, I will never be faced with a tough decision, as I will know to a high degree of certainty where I stand postflop. Conversely, my victim will be in the dark as to the relative strength of my hand postflop, and he will be the one facing the tough decision—does my check-raise mean I flopped two pair or trips, or am I on a draw, or am I bluffing? Second, these hands are relatively safe, in that I can get away from them relatively easily postflop, while my victim may feel married to his AA/KK. So, my victim is at much greater risk of stacking off or losing a big pot than I am. Third, these kinds of hands often flop draws, pairs with a draw, or combo draws, giving me great semi-bluffing opportunities. Finally, showing down a few of these hands often sets up good bluffing opportunities on junky boards against other players later in the session.

The second critical error my crAAKKer victims make is to assume no rational player would call their preflop raise without a hand recognized as having a certain showdown “strength”. My victims assume that I would never make the “mistake” of calling a big preflop raise with “just” 75 suited. But, I am a logically oriented person. Why would I make a play my victims regard as irrational? Because my victims are overlooking what may be the most basic principle of poker:

“The key to no limit hold ‘em success isn’t to play perfectly. It’s to swap mistakes with your opponents. You trade small mistakes to your opponents if they will trade back big ones.”

—David Sklansky & Ed Miller, “No Limit Hold ‘Em Theory and Practice” (1st Ed., p. 178)

I don’t play speculative or “dirt” hands against just any opponent. Ideally, my victim is tight preflop, so that a raise means a fairly narrow range of “premium” hands, and a big raise means AA-JJ or AK. This is important because if I can put a player on a hand, but they can’t do the same for me, I have an advantage. Also, the victim should be a player who has trouble laying down Aces or Kings, especially heads up and on a “junky” board. Finally, the victim should be fairly deep-stacked, both to give good implied odds for when I hit (helping my risk-reward ratio), but also for those cases where he gets away with some or all of his stack intact, he may still tilt over getting his AA/KK cracked and give me a second crack at crAAKKing him.

So, when I crack someone’s AA/KK, and they rant on about how I called their $15 preflop raise with “junk”, they are absolutely correct—I did make a small mistake by calling their raise when I knew I was behind their hand. But—and this is key—they made a huge mistake stacking off for $200, $300, or more with only one pair, no matter how big that pair might be. It’s funny how my crAAKKer victims always blame me for the $15 bad preflop call, but rarely acknowledge their bad $200+ play postflop. I’m more than happy to trade those kinds of mistakes all night, or until their ATM card is maxed out.

Finally, let’s be quite clear. I play poker to make money. Cracking AA/KK with “junk” hands is merely a method for getting chips away from tight players, often in large chunks at a time. Although hilarity often ensues, the amusing story is just a fun bonus and is not the point of crAAKKing. Unless of course, my victim is someone annoying; then crAAKKing them is a matter of public service.