During my last two poker sessions, I have run across three examples of an annoying type of player, a sub-species of the internet d-bag who is seemingly incapable of betting with all red chips. These aren't odd ducks like Paul Magriel "double quack-quack"-ing as a mental tic. They aren't pulling a Lance Funston, famed for playing the buffoon with great success at the 2005 U.S. Poker Championship, "seeing your three purple, and raising two orange, two purple, and two green":
Nope, these are kids who deliberate and put out a precise bet—$21, $42, $67—each and every time they bet or raise. Often, the red and white chips (blue chips in Vegas) are intermingled, making it tougher to quickly determine the bet size.
Now this quirk is rather harmless, but it does make me a bit grumpy. Once a pot gets above $15-$20, there is no good reason not to round bets to a $5 increment. Betting with a mix of red and white chips unnecessarily slows the game down as the dealer has to make change, and usually players have to ask and be told the size of the bet because of the mix of chips. I could understand making the bet precise to within a $1 increment if it materially affected the game. But do these players seriously think that a player will call or fold because a bet is $42 instead of $40 or $45? If so, they clearly haven't played much live $1/$2 NLHE. Come to think of it, maybe it is an internet player quirk, where players are habituated to more precisely sizing bets to the penny. Stupid interwebs.
There is one—and only one—perfectly valid reason to bet with mixed chips postflop—to make a bet palindromic (e.g., $151, or $232). Palindromic bets are extremely strong wagers which greatly increase your odds of winning a hand. A "perfect palindromic wager" is one which exhausts your entire supply of white chips, and is a nearly unbeatable play. But otherwise, mixed chip bets are an incredibly stupid and pointless maneuver that should be shunned. Please, stop the checks mix madness.
I played a short session at the Meadows ATM after work Friday, and it was a rollercoaster. Early on, I donked off half my stack, flopping altos dos pairs with 98s, but my opponent pushed the turn when an Ace fell. It felt a lot like she had hit Aces up, but there were a lot of draws she would play that way, so I agonized a bit and made the call; she rolls over A9, natch. But I got healthy shortly after, when my A5s flopped the nut boat—A55—and got doubled up by AK unimproved.
In some strange hands, a guy played 7c4c for a raise, and flopped the 7-high straight flush. Guess it's the magic of the crubs. Later, a guy raises on the button, and I call in the small blind with a sooooted Spanish Inquisition (6-3). Flop gives me a gutshot straight draw, so I call a small c-bet. Turn and rivers are blanks and we go check-check. Other guy says, "I can't win" and is itching to muck. After a couple seconds, I say, "6-high" and roll my hand. Other guy laughs and rolls over his own Spanish Inquisition for the chop. Then, for the pèce de résistance, I play QhJh, and flop the monster draw—KhTh4s. I check, a guy bets, a lady pushes, I call, other guy folds. Turns out I'm up against a set of 4s. Turn is the beautiful Ac for Broadway, but the river is the Ks for the boat. Le sigh. It would've been awesome if I could've hit a King-high straight flush in hearts for the second week in a row, but regrettably, I left my Infinite Improbability Drive at home.
In any event, this session also marked the start of my self-imposed ban on the use of the phrase, "Nice catch." For those of you who haven't played poker with me, I like to think I'm a goodfella at the table, keeping things light with jokes and witty banter, always trying to be polite, never tapping the glass. But, I do tend to be sarcastic, and when I get annoyed, my go-to sharp barb is, "Nice catch." I am a veritable Baskin-Robbins of different inflections on the phrase—biting, cutting, derisive, dismissive, acidic, caustic, snarky, snide, sarcastic, and sardonic—I've got the full spectrum of tonal flavors.
During my marathon session last week, I found myself saying "nice catch" a lot more often than usual, primarily because the crazy loose action initiated by a rotating group of poker gamblers resulted in a high degree of bad play, which seemed to be rewarded with ridiculously improbable frequency. But, as I later reflected on the session away from the heat of battle, it occurred to me that the entire point of poker is to encourage players to chase improbable hands. We should want players to chase gutshot draws, to call preflop three-bets with dominated hands, to play seven-deuce (or other "favorite hand"), to ignore pot odds, and to be oblivious to kicker problems. In fact, we should want other players to suck out.
Now, we all know the pain of a bad beat. Why on earth should we welcome suckouts? Because they reward bad players for their bad decisions, guaranteeing they will continue to make similar bad decisions, and continue to chase bad hands for good money. Out on the casino floor, the pit bosses don't get upset when a gambler hits a longshot bet at high but bad odds. Nope, they smile, knowing that same gambler will continue making similar bad bets until all his winnings, and likely more money from his wallet, are resting securely in the casino counting room.
The same principle applies in poker. Why get upset with the maniac who seems to be hitting every hand, building up a monster stack? How often do those players keep their monster stacks? Just like with the casino gambler, the poker gambler almost always gives back his winnings, plus interest. Although a sarcastic "nice catch" might feel good momentarily, it really is a form of tapping the glass. Hearing "nice catch" tells bad players they are playing badly, which is information they really should learn on their own (hopefully very slowly). Hearing a snide remark also reduces the fun the bad player is having, making him less likely to continue gambling. Above all else, do anything possible to make sure a bad player has a great time while losing his money!
So, beginning with my last session, I have banned myself from saying "nice catch" at the poker table. If I do, it means a redbird fine, paid as a tip to the dealer who is being subjected to my personality that particular down. So far, one four hour session, only one fine. To that lucky dealer, let me just say, "Niiiiiccce catch, Vinny!"
The past few months, "Rush Poker" on Full Tilt Poker has electrified the online poker world. The concept is simple—see a hand you don't want to play, hit "fold" and be instantly whisked to another table where another hand is already waiting your attention. The genius of Rush Poker is it allows masochistic nits to click-click-click until they find Aces or Kings, so they can overbet them, get them cracked, and go on super monkey tilt ten times as frequently as regular poker. By all accounts, Rush Poker is apparently profitable and addictive.
Friday night, I played a session of poker at the Meadows ATM that can only be described as the absolute antithesis of Rush Poker—Molasses Poker, if you will. My table had mostly players with short stacks of $50-$200, and the play was nitty-passive. Given the nature of play, most speculative type hands were off limits, and I was reduced to waiting for so-called "premium hands"; there would be few "crAAKKing" opportunities at this game.
Now, just in case the short stacks weren't enough to suck the joy out of the game, the players stepped up to assist. The table had the biggest collection of players who either couldn't keep track of the action or who had to think deeply about every routine decision. I doubt we got in more than 20 hands per hour. Trust me, when you're waiting for playable hands, that kind of table is almost as annoying as being stuck behind an Amish or Mennonnite buggy in a lengthy no-passing zone.
"Is this Vegas?" "No, it's Iowa."
One of the worst slowpokes was a young kid who was obviously rather new to live poker. He had trouble keeping track of the action, in part because he was wearing headphones, and in part because there wasn't a flashing light or alarm sound when it was his turn to act. I would've cut him some slack, but he also was one of the three or four guys who liked to do the dance of the seven veils at showdown, utilizing the incredibly obnoxious "20 Questions" routine with the occasional change-up to the "One Card Monte" trick. It was so bad, the dealers on at least three occasions had to tell the guy to roll over his second card so they could ship him the pot. Although I understand the desire to be helpful to a newbie, at some point the easiest way to teach a lesson is to simply award the pot to the player with both hole cards showing. I guarantee you it would cure the problem instantly.
Unfortunately, the most obnoxious etiquette breach of the evening occurred on my last hand. Although I had built up a $250 profit early with a couple of sets, I had given a lot of it back when I ran trip tens into a U-boat, and had two flushes chase and hit against my two pair and a straight. On the final hand, I played A8 from the button for a limp in a straddled pot. I flopped top pair with the 8 on a rainbow board. It checked to me, and I made a small bet, getting a couple of calls. The turn was an Ace, giving me top two pair, and putting a spade flush draw on board. I bet 2/3 pot, and got one call. The river was a baby card that completed the backdoor flush. My opponent checked to me, and I pushed for his remaining stack, around $60. My villain sighed and assumed this pose for the next 30 seconds:
Auguste Rodin makes the taserlist!
After thinking for a while, then rechecking his cards and thinking some more, my opponent made the call. I announced "top two", my opponent paused for a moment, then dramatically threw over KsJs for the stone cold nuts! That's right, not only was I slowrolled, I was slowcalled. I can understand doing some Hollywooding when there is action remaining, but here, the only thing my opponent had to decide was whether to call with the nuts—I would actually have preferred the "snap call fist pump" with some Hevad Khan theatrics to the slowcall routine. I made a snarky comment—"Tough decision to call?"—then decided to head home even though I was playing well enough I would normally have stayed a few more hours.
Of course, on the drive home I was pulled over by one of West Des Moines' finest just as I was turning into my development. The officer claimed my brake lights were not working, but after he looked me over and glanced at my license, he verified that, much to his astonishment, my lights were working just fine and sent me on my way. Nice try fishing for a DUI bust there, bucko. Although the incident took five minutes at most, it was just the pickle on the sh*t sandwich that was my evening. I took that as an omen not to play poker Saturday night, and instead caught up on some TiVo'd shows. Yup, my life is one thrill after another.
Incidentally, the reigning world champion for most offensive slowcall has to remain this one (hat tip to Pokerati via the Grump):
