Are You Ready For a War?!

While trying to decide what to title this post, I came up with a lot of ideas. There's the one I went with, which is from Braveheart where Mel Gibson gives one of his pep talks. I could have gone with "Bad things, man...Bad things", which comes from one of the funniest commercial series of all time. Ok really I just wanted to link to that....anyway....

Yesterday was a pretty bad day. I bought in for a record amount (8 racks...that's $4000), and towards the end found myself sitting at a table with a bunch of regulars, including Yodaman, JS, Bolly, and Tom B. At this point I was stuck 5 racks through a parade of 2 outters, missed flush draws, and general awfulness, but was determined to win some of my money back (and play until after traffic ended). As is usually the case, JS decided to through out the "Round of Live Straddles" idea. For those unfamiliar with the live straddle, it works like this....You post a double big blind on your under the gun hand (when you are immediately to the left of the big blind), which acts as a blind raise with one caveat....You get to act last on the preflop betting round. This is obviously a horrible thing to do unless you hate money, but if the entire table agrees to one round it can be a fun way to liven up the game.

So anyway, JS is talking to everyone and for once it actually looks like there is hope (I've never been at a table where this has actually happened....Pete was once, and so was one other friend of mine). JS talks to everyone and says "Does anyone object?" and basically nobody says anything and almost all of us say "Yeah sure, one round would be fun". So Yodaman starts it, and JS promptly flops a set of kings and wins like $300 from Bolly. Then Bolly straddles it and nothing interesting happens. Then it's my turn, and I post up my $40 and behold the 9 and the 7 offsuit before my now non-virgin staddling eyes. Of course it gets capped (strategically speaking, a straddle basically acts as a huge blind, which makes people try to raise even more preflop) and I call the two more bets, flop nothing, and fold, losing $80 that I would not have lost.

While the hand is playing out, Tom B (whom I think I've written about before) gets up and walks to the chip station for racks. He brings them back, and suddenly the table realizes he is leaving (it will be his turn to straddle in 3 more hands). Immediately there is concern. JS is like "But Tom, you agreed" and he's like "No I didn't" and it's obvious that he's just being a fucking prick. JS tries to reason with him, but to no avail. At this point the guy on my left, whom I've only seen like twice, decides that since Tom is leaving, he's not going to straddle. I am stunned and furious. I tell him "Oh come on, we can still do it" but no dice.

So now I turn to Tom and say "Tom, are you sure you want to do this?" The off-duty floorman looks at me knowingly from his position on the rail. Tom basically says nothing. "Tom, really are you sure you want to do this? There are 6 people at this table who aren't going to be very happy about this." You see, Tom had chosen a particularly bad group of people to piss off. Between me, Yodaman, and JS alone he had probably 80 hours a week of 20/40 player to worry about. Tom says he has to go.

The time has come to declare war.

"Tom, you really should stay. I'm going to sit on your left for the next month." This is out of bounds; tapping the glass at this level is something you should never, ever do. Tom looks at me confused. "Well alright then, Tom. I'm here every day. See you tomorrow." Tom leaves, I table change and win back 1300 of the 2600 I'm stuck over the next 90 minutes.

Fast forward to today....

I wake up nice and early and get myself to Bay 101 at 9:45. Tom B and I get seats back to back at the same 20/40 table. I instantly put my name on the seat change list and within 30 minutes managed to change to his immediately left. The Gods are with me today, as in the 30 minutes it took me to get situated in the jesus seat I've already flopped top set and top two pair against Tom, bludgeoning him mercilessly. On the third hand in a row that I've raised him preflop (twice just to two bets when he limped, but this time to 3 bets after he'd raised), I declare "All day, Tom. All...Freakin....Day". Sadly I lose this hand, but whatever. From the Jesus seat the money starts to pour in, and Tom has already bought a 2nd rack of chips. It folds to him on the button and he raises. I 3-bet AQdd and he calls. The flop is 3 diamonds and I bet/3-bet him. He calls the turn, but on the river the board reads something like:

89J-2-Q

And he raises my bet. I 3-bet him before he knows what happened and he calls saying "flush good". I respond "nut" and table my hand while fast grabbing my chips (not his...don't ever fast grab your opponents chips, even if you truly do hate them). At this point I comment to Pete via text message the "visceral hate is apparently good for focus and run like jesusing".

Over the course of the next 3 hours Tom and I change seats 3 times a piece. Each time he changes to get to my left, I change to the next available seat to get on his left. Each time he changes, I scratch his name off the seat change list (something that technically you're supposed to do, but nobody ever really does). I run like jesus the whole time, eventually accumulating a stack of $3300. I am forced to keep this stack in an unconventional formation, however, due to the need to keep moving it around the table. This further irks the table, as I now have ten towers stacked over 60 chips tall that I can barely see over to look at my cards. I don't really care.

Eventually Tom B disappears for two orbits, and when he comes back he talks to Sophorna (the floor lady) and moves to the 40/80 game. I half-shout over to Sophorna to put me up for 40. She says "Seat open" and I say "Lock it up!". Tom B can hardly believe his eyes. 4 hands later I'm unsheathing my chips at the 40 table and say to Tom "A promise is a promise". I watch Tom blow through another rack at the 40 game (at this level, a rack is $1000) before it eventually converts back down to a 20/40 table since there aren't enough players.

At 4:10pm, I leave after 6 hours of play, up a comfortable $1500 for the day, content that I won the war. To quote a very wise man...."You don't fuck with the Jesus!" (Ok, I just wanted to post that too).