March Madness Update

Through day one the standings look like this:

Rank		Correct Picks	Points	Possible Pts
1	cardiffgiant	12 of 16	12	186
1	Jesse Takes a Shit	12 of 16	12	180
3	Duff	11 of 16	11	185
3	Candiru	11 of 16	11	179
3	leo's bracket	11 of 16	11	177
3	Jet Poker	11 of 16	11	157
3	Artichoke mizer	11 of 16	11	140
8	zz	10 of 16	10	184
8	Where's St. Johns	10 of 16	10	182
8	Fivos likely misses a shot	10 of 16	10	182

If anybody looked at the scoring system (which is just the Yahoo default), you'd notice that none of this matters, since the same number of points are available in every round (except to people like Artichoke mizer, who failed to select a winner for the championship game). Had the group gotten much larger than this, I'd say that you have to pick the winner right to take it down, but with only 25 entries it's very possible that a team nobody picked will win. Special props to leodoc, who I believe was the only person who actually had to create a Yahoo account in order to enter this thing. My Yahoo account is probably my oldest of any kind that is still active, with a verified age of 12 years. I just informed them two days ago that I no longer live in rural southwestern Pennsylvania, in fact.

Poker is going alright, although yesterday was a little frustrating. I showed up at 12:20 and the chiprunnery-floorpersonish guy Tony was like "Come, sit, please" and I sat in the must move 20. Kenny (the guy who owes me $100 because he bet on McCain on election night) told me not to sit, that everyone was leaving, but I posted anyway, and then everyone left immediately and we were 4 handed. Amazingly the other 3 people agreed to continue playing, and even once one and then two of them were moved to the main game we managed to pick up a few more brave souls. In short I got to play 3-5 handed for almost an hour and a half, which was a real treat. Nobody else had a clue what they were doing and I basically ran over the game with relentless aggression and blind stealing. This one guy (one of the yoekels from my previous post who was talking about how you shouldn't tip) who obviously fancies himself a pro on a downswing, just refused to adjust, trying to check/call his way to victory. I don't know how many times he folded ace or king high when I was barreling with it's red-headed 9-high step child, but I had to be winning almost half the pots.

The problem however was mohawk guy. Mohawk guy didn't really have a mohawk, but just a buzz cut with one inch stripe in the middle of his head that hadn't been cut quite as short. It looked fucking ridiculous, of that much I can assure you. Anyway I figured mohawk guy was actually adjusting to short handed play, but it turned out he was simply flopping the joint every time he and I got into a pot. His very first hand I open the CO and he 3 bets the bb, and then smoke bets the flop. What does he eventually show down? KQo. So I'm thinking yeah, this guy is going to have it kicked up a notch, I mean he's smoke betting king high. Problem was the flop was K42 (not that he knew that when he bet) and I called him down with AQ that turned a gut shot (I think I've mentioned this before, but my specialty is turning a gut shot in HU 3 bet pots). I have pocket 4s, he has 54s? He opens the CO and I 3bet the button? Flop 665 obviously. He donks the flop. Is the turn a 3? Of course. He starts talking shit and defends his blind with A2o. Does the board run out 22K-4-A? Of course it does. Do I have a king? Obviously.

So eventually I'm down about $800 and the aforementioned running over of the table starts. Mohawk guy stops flopping top pair and meekly peeling the flop with his entire range before folding the turn, and I start taking down a pair of 3 big bet pots every orbit without so much as a hint of a pair (I continued to flop pure cheese, but did busto Mr You Shouldn't Tip with the 63o when he opened the button with 2 chips behind and I called the BB. He was all upset, "How could I ever expect you to fold six three?" and I actually managed to not say "Start your button hand with more than $50 you idiot"). At the start of this run mohawk guy is up like a rack and a half (I mean we're only 4 or 5 handed and me and the anti-tipper are stuck bad) and quite proud of himself. Over the next 30 minutes he basically spews all of it back, with the capstone against me:

I open the 77, he defends the BB.

Q43dd

He does not donk, which means he has nothing. He doesn't have an OESD, he doesn't have a flush draw, he doesn't have a queen, he doesn't have any of the plausible hands about which I could conceivably be worried. I bet, and he calls.

6d

On the surface, scary card. But see the last few sentences. It's really hard for this guy to have 75, since I have half the sevens, and he doesn't have a flush because he would have donked that. He probably can't even have 64 or 63 because he probably would have donked those also. Dude was a serial donker. Also note that I have picked up a gut shot as per standard operating procedures, which made calling his check/raise even easier.

I don't remember the river card, but it was not at 7, 5, 8, Jack or diamond. I know this because he bet, I called, and he just sat there. Not refusing to turn over his hand, more not even acknowledging that I had called or that he might know that the order of things is that he bets I call he shows. He just sat there, staring at the felt with his headphones on and his silly head stripe. Eventually the dealer says "Sir, please show" and he starts looking at the bet in front of his cards which has not been scooped to the center yet and fiddling with the 8 chips. "Is this mine?" he asks and the dealer says yes. He then turns over his hand, the mighty J8o with no diamond and tries to take his bet back. The dealer, who is sick of him correcting her constantly and yet simultaneously having no idea what is going on, grabs the chips back and ships them to my stack. Mohawk man can only stare at my sevens and mumble something about me calling the turn (and by the way I did so instantly...no tank, no even hesitation) and then "She just said those were mine and took them away from me".