School is in Session

Sometime last week I found myself in the usual Garden City mid-day clusterfuck. There are some 20 games going (usually 2-3) and there is talk of starting a 40/80. Frank the prop is usually the main proponent of this move, as he always wants to gamble as much as humanly possibly in his 8 hour shift (after which he takes his wife, whom I have dubbed "bride of Frankenstein", to Bay 101, where they gamble more. I am perhaps being harsh on the wife because she recently cracked my ATs with T4o on a flop of TT4 in a 6 way raised pot but anyway). This is pretty incomprehensible to me, as the guy clearly doesn't win much, if anything, in these games, mainly because he is a gigantic alpha tilt monkey.

I can't stand Frank, as basically his goal in life seems to be either to put everyone on tilt or to simply lie in a attempt to get exactly what he wants to happen to happen 100% of the time, even though his job as a prop is really just to keep games going. He's very irritating, saying stupid stuff at the table and actively doing the things to fish that you just don't do (like saying "where are you going?" when they rake up or "seat open? come on in" when they walk past). All in all, I don't like the guy, and have adopted a policy of either completely ignoring him or, and this is more fun, saying exactly the opposite of what he wants or expects to hear 100% of the time with no concern whatsoever for the meaning of the words I'm using.

So anyway, Ned (name changed to protect the innocent....me) the worst floor man in the history of human existence walks around asking people if they will play 40 if he starts it. This is a stupid question, as my honest answer, 100% of the time, would be "It depends who is in it." The problem is that this is a very common answer, since while everybody who walks into Garden City is in some way functionally retarded, most can at least comprehend that playing poker with 8 people who are clearly better than you is a dumb idea. So usually enough people eventually lie to Ned the worst floor man in the history of human existence that he calls down the 40/80. This is a critical turning point in the day at Garden City, as one of two things is about to happen:

1. Most likely, after about 15 minutes of people slowly getting up from their games and ambling towards the 40 table, we get a hand off 6 ways with two props, Frank and his buddy and translator Magic. Magic is a white older prop who plays very well and has a good head on his shoulders. He has taken it upon himself, it seems, to act as a buffer between Frank and the customers and floor men, probably so Frank won't get fired and Magic can continue to play shorted handed 40 with him and take all his fucking money.

2. The game is still born, never getting off the ground, and the 3 poor saps who gave up their 20 seats to sit in it are now furious with Ned and demand to be first on the list. Ned blames the customers, who, last I checked, were always right.

So we're going through this process but for some reason it's happening earlier than usual and I'm not yet in a 20/40 game. So of course I sit at the 40/80 table hoping that the game will actually go (since I have no 20/40 seat to lose), and sure enough we end up in the (1) situation from above. The game goes off 6 handed and Frank the prop goes directly to tilt (he does not pass go, nor does he collect two hundred dollars). He loses pot after pot and within 20 minute is stuck $1400. During this time I'm up around $800, basically through winning a couple of big pots by way of the "top pair top kicker" plan. Once, however, I stole Frank the prop's blind with some cheese ball (like A5o or thereabouts) that ended up making trips on the river, and he's rather hot and bothered about it. He also has fallen into the usual trap that bad players on tilt do, whereby they see a hand at the absolute bottom of your range and begin to assume that when you open raise in that situation you always have that shitty hand and completely ignore the fact that you could have, you know, kings.

So we're doin' our thing, makin' the gamboool, slingin' the chips, and the following hand, annotated with humorous banter, occurs:

It folds to me in the CO, which in actuality is like UTG+3 because we're 7 handed. I open raise with Ace-Queen offsuit. Frank looks at me and says "Stealing again?" and then...cold-calls on the button. This is the usual response of bad players when they feel they are being pushed around. You raise? I call! This is obviously terrible, awful, obscenely horribly strategy unless you have pocket Aces, and even then is debatable stupid. The terrible small blind cold-calls like the champ that he is (he has shown down, for two bets preflop, such gems as 74 soooted and T9 off in just the last 10 hands or so), and somehow the big blind tosses his cards forward instead of 4 chips (beats me...everyone makes mistakes I guess?). I look at Frank and declare "It's time for plan B." He says "Plan B? What's Plan B?". Obviously plan B is to flop a pair....

So we're 3 handed for 7 bets, and the order of operations is Idiot, Jesse, Frank the prop.

J95 with two spades. Sadly, I do not have even a single spade, and Plan B has gone the way of the dodo bird.

The small blind checks, I bet, and Frank calls. The small blind folds, and the turn is:

J95-4 with still just two spades.

I check, and Frank says "That's plan B? Bet to see and check?" I respond in rhythm (see above regarding my plan to say the exact opposite of what he's expecting) "No, no, it's bet to check and see". My quick English skills are lost on Frank, and he repeats "So that's plan B?" I say to him, in all honestly, "Nope, we're on plan D now." You see, I completely whiffed on Plans A (steal the blinds), B (flop a pair), and C (c-bet, take it down), and have been forced to move onto my final plan D (check to Frank to induce a bluff).

Frank bets, and I think for about 10 seconds before calling. I do this to project weakness so that he'll think he can bluff the river and get the impression that I have a bad hand that won't pay off a thin value bet. Perhaps this was all lost on Frank, but whatever. I hollywooded it, and it was freaking fantastic. River....

J95-4-J with no flush

This river is fantastic. Frank's non-raise on the flop basically eliminates all Jacks from his range. I check with my left hand, while holding 8 chips in my right hand behind my stack. Frank bets, and the instant he lets go of a single chip I slide my right hand out and unfurl my call (sliding the chips forward in a line). He looks at me and says "Plan B?", still somehow confused. I say "Nope, Plan D" while waiting for him to turn over his hand. He realizes he has to show and rolls KQs. I look at the hand and shake my head declaring "no good" and roll my AQo, for basically the next best hand. The table generally concurs that my contingency plans are top-notch.