I played in a blinding game the other week. In fact, make that one of the best games I have ever played in. Of course, if you have any experience in the game of poker at all you should be asking me right now, “How much did you lose?”
There was a businessman in the game (£2/5 No Limit Hold’em at the Vic in case you’re wondering) who told us all that he normally plays roulette and proudly showed the table a cheque issued by the Vic for £50,000. He was a very nice guy and poker was merely a diversion from his real gambling downstairs in the pit.
I don’t want to be too critical because the businessman was a pure recreational player and these are the VIPs of poker as far as I’m concerned, but, and this is an understatement, the guy was a total calling station. To give you an idea of what I mean, there was a hand where a total nit made it £300 out of a £520 stack before the flop. This was three-betting me when I had made it £20 to go, by the way. Anyway, our roulette loving friend asked the dealer how much and called so fast the chips left skid marks on the felt.
Of course the remaining £220 of the raiser’s stack went all in on the A-3-x flop which our businessman friend insta-called. Well, you would too if you had flopped a set of threes, wouldn’t you? At least he had the thrill of flopping a set, thus giving him the illusion of not having made a bad call before the flop because of course the preflop raiser had the boots for top set. When all the dust had settled, they both made full houses, but of course a house of aces beats a house of threes any day of the week.
Before And After
The funny thing was that the raiser started asking me, “When did he make a full house? Before or after me?” Instead of replying, “Before you, mate, you got real lucky there,” or words along those lines, I was so stunned by the idiocy of his question that I answered truthfully – “WTF are you talking about? You flopped three aces at the same time as he flopped three threes, you both made a house at the same time.”
This guy was either deaf or exceptionally stupid because he kept going on about the businessman making a full house before him. As the game went on I realised it was par for the course for this player though. He and his neighbour on his right were both actually scared of the businessman because of his fondness for calling. At one point this same guy made the nut straight on the turn and put in a chunky bet. As usual the businessman called and the river went check-check (I guess a scare card came that changed the nuts) and the businessman’s super-weak hand was no match for what was probably the second or third nuts.
This guy now turned to his new pal on his right and started sighing for relief, “Cor, I thought I’d bet enough to get him out! How do you make him fold?!?!” I swear I’m not making this up – this guy had the nuts and he wanted his opponent to fold!
I have no doubt that their point of view was vindicated when they watched the businessman crack my aces for a big pot with J-3 off-suit.
Palm Beach
Seeing as I had taken a serious drubbing at my usual choice of poker venue I thought I’d check out somewhere else; you know, just to change the luck and all that malarkey. The Palm Beach casino in Mayfair is where a lot of the regulars at the Vic have migrated to so I figured I’d give it a spin. The games are super-soft; plenty of money and donkeys galore is all I have been hearing about for the last few months.
So I walk into the joint and immediately I recognise about 95 percent of the players, all karabiners the lot of them, frikkin’ marvellous. Oh well, I’m here now, might as well take a seat in the second must-move game. The one spot in the game, whose nickname is ‘Pinocchio‘, wants to make the game a round of each, Hold‘em and Omaha. “No problem,” we all say. Hold on a minute, the very nice lady in charge (I have no idea if she is the card room manager, but on this particular night she seemed to be calling the shots) tells us that they normally charge £15 an hour for 5-10 No Limit Hold‘em, but Pot Limit Omaha is £20 because, “Omaha plays bigger so we have to charge more.”
Eh?!?! WTF??? In that case, can we play Draw poker, jacks or better to open, and reduce the charge to £5 an hour? I’ve seen and heard some crazy things in poker rooms over the years, but this has to take top prize. I was tempted to argue back and maybe try and get a discount as after all the Omaha was only every other round, so maybe it could be £17.50 an hour? Instead I did what all poker players do and kept my mouth shut, when in Rome...
The Berry Patch
It didn’t matter because all of a sudden three random punters sat down who only knew about Hold’em, so all the stuff about Omaha was a moot point. Now, we had a game – jeez, everybody was right, this lot look like the three biggest eggs of all time, I need to start coming down to this gaff more often. Maybe there is a poker God after all.
Or maybe not – “Hugo, you’re top of the list, I need you to move to the other game.” Frikkin’ marvellous – I finally sit down in what will probably be the ultimate berry patch and get moved over to Mount frikkin’ Rushmore.
Ok, so I’ll exercise a little patience, sooner or later those ice creams will be must-moved to this game. Sure enough, an hour went by and two seats opened up. At last, my shot at some dead money. Wait a minute; the two players coming over are JQ and Panni. Frikkin’ marvellous.
So we watched paint dry for another hour or so and finally a couple more seats became free. Perfect, I’ve managed not to lose any money in a game that was so bad it made the bad games at the Vic look good, so now I’ve got a shot at a couple of stars.
“Hugo, you’re top of the list, I need you to move to the other game.” Wha??? Not again. Yes, again. I look over at the main game and it’s even worse. Aaaargh. Meanwhile JQ is creasing up with laughter as I pick up my chips and reluctantly move tables. Still, the last laugh is on him as he is next on the list and has to move over too. Ha! Serves him right for taking the piss.
I wish I could now tell you that the game became great and I had a nice touch, but the truth is it became pretty late and I had to leave without getting a shot at those pigeons. There’s always another day – now, if I can just work out when the best time is to arrive at the Palm Beach I might have half a chance...