What Did You Think Was Going to Happen?

I'm going to try and write a post while I'm waiting for action online. I've become a bit of a nit about which games I play in, mostly because of the graphs I posted a while ago that showed (over an admittedly small sample size) that I have no idea how to play when there are 4 or less people dealt into the hand. So I'm mostly focusing on playing "all the full ring games" on full tilt and this often results in me spending a good deal of time waiting to get into the games. I'll still play the 6 max tables occasionally, but for now I'm trying to focus on what I'm good at, I guess. I'm still plowing through the videos on DC, but not as quickly as I might like....

Jesse gets seats on all 4 full ring games at once....

OK and we're back. I played about 300 hands and basically broke evenish I think (I didn't even check good for me), but just now did qualify for Iron status in the Ironman promotion for the first time. Hurray for me. Anyway, it's not that I'm afraid of the short handed games or even that I feel uncomfortable in them (babar asked me about my comfort level and I basically said that it's impossible for me to feel uncomfortable in any game I play online because of my propping experience at Garden City, where I would play 5 handed 40/80 kill games for hours at a time. After you do that you really can't be uncomfortable at 3/6, if I'm understanding the meaning of the word correctly). It's just that I feel like I need to commit to playing in games where I have a proven track record of generating winnings (or at least ones where the evidence doesn't lean the other way), and so long as I can play 5 or 6 tables at a time well it really is close to worth my time from a purely $/hour point of view. Anyway....

I was going to complain about Commerce again, so here goes. One day this week I decided to bail on HG to head over there because the game was just not very good and I wanted a change of scenery anyway. Changing scenery to Commerce is of questionable merit unless you are currently engaged in a firefight on the streets of some Middle Eastern city, but so are a lot of the things I do. So I get to Commerce and find myself 6th up with 1 game currently running. This is a catastrophe, which is proven as I wait 40 minutes before they attempt to call down a new game, with me now being first up on the board and about 10 names strewn behind me. So we do the Commerce new game dance, whereby the 3 of us that actually want to play sit down and the chip runner guy calls for a dealer and brings over chips, but then something hilarious happens. The floorman (I'm not going to use names here but man do I really want to) basically says "where are my players?!" and the chip runner is like "you told me to start a game" and they in general just start bickering with each other in front of the now 4 of us sitting at the table. I can't help myself and suggest "You guys could actually try calling down the game", because they HADN'T EVEN DONE THAT yet. The floorman just walks away and the chiprunner is upset that he's leaving him alone but goes to the phone and calls the game over the intercom which as expected doesn't really change a fucking thing but at least he tried. So we are sitting there with our cocks in our hands and finally a 6th player shows up and the dealer gets us to draw for the button and of course I pull the big blind and just as I'm slinging it into the pot the floorman comes over to inform me that I have a seat in the main game. I snatch those chips back so fast the table doesn't know what hit them and say not a word as I practically run to the main game. As I'm leaving the guy with Parkinson's puts up his hand as if he wants to be called on at school to point out to the floorman that they don't have a game. Not a single hand is dealt, and eventually the game goes off like half an hour late. The thing that amazes me most is that I am SURE at least 3 of those guys were planning to button each other, basically seeing if they could get free hands then lobbying when the blind game. Anyway....

The main game is the slowest game on Earth, mainly because of this one Asian lady who is literally taking 5 seconds too long on every single action asked of her. For someone like me this wouldn't be a huge problem, but for someone who is taking like 75% of her hands to the river and often calling multiple bets one at a time on the same street the effect is quite large. The game has slowed from 35-40 hands an hour down to something like 25, and everyone is a bit on edge. The best part is that the lady is lighting chips on fire, rebuying a rack at a time literally every 30 minutes or so. She also successfully requests a set up on the hour 5 hours in a row (2, 3, 4, 5 and 6). On the 5pm setup I comment to the only other guy who stays at the table with me and her that I think we had just gone an entire dealer down without a single player incurring a missed blind button. This has to be some sort of record at Commerce, and I'm glad I was a part of it, but it really didn't bode well for what was about to happen to us. Sure enough the setup is ready and there are 3 of us sitting there, me, the other dude, and the pissed off Asian lady now stuck 5 or 6 racks in the game wanting nothing more than to be pitched two more cards so that she can call to the river with no pair no draw in hopes of getting even. She is now livid and calls the floorman over demanding he get the players back to the game. I say vacantly "Sometimes this happens when you call for a set up" and she looks at me inquisitively (I don't think she understood, but I am of course sitting on her immediate left). I turn to her and ask "Really, what did you think was going to happen?" and leave it at that.