Dead Money

As a prelude I would like to make a distinction. In his videos on DC, BigBadBabar refers to posts as "dead money", and I think this usage is confusing. The money being posted plays for the poster as a bet and is therefore not dead. My definition of dead money is not the big blind sized post that you get when a new player enters a game, but the small blind sized money a player with a missed blind button must put into the pot which does not play for him. Minor point, but it's my blog so I'm free to be as on point or pointless as I like.

In this game sometimes you do everything right and get absolutely shit on for it. Other times you do something completely ridiculous and come out smelling like a rose. It's just the nature of the beast, and I had a 10 minute sequence today which illustrated the principle perfectly. For the first hand the action folded to me in the lowjack (for the record on all this jacking...first there was just the button and the cutoff. Then according to legend Tommy Angelo brought into being the highjack, one seat before the cutoff. The next logical progression was to call the seat before that, which is actually under the gun in a six max game, the lowjack. Professor Ben, in his decidedly finite wisdom, has suggested that we call the next seat the farjack, but that hasn't really caught on yet) and I pick up the King and the Ten of spades. I go for my chips, start cutting them, then glance left (more Tommy Angelo) and realize the passive fish on my left in seat 8 has eight chips in his hand and is preparing to raise. I muck my cards and only seat 9, a long time pro with whom I've become friendly, notices. Seat 8 gets some action from the button and one of the blinds, and the final board runs out as such:

KJ6dds-As-5s

Seat 8 bets the flop and is raised, donks the turn and is once again raised, then check/folds the river muttering something about "ace no good" or some such. Note that my KTss made the stone cold nuts, and could not have been pried from my cold dead hands with a crow bar. Looking left just cost me a huge pot. I did everything right, astutely noticing that I was going to be playing the pot out of position against a premium hand, and managed to avoid a bad spot. Yay for me.

So like two hands later I have to pee and am going to get up and hopefully just miss one hand, but the player on my right gets up for a walk also and I decide meh I could use a lap off so I take an out button as well and leisurely use the restroom, buy a diet coke (these things are related obviously) and meander back to the table. When I get there the button is on my immediate left, in seat 8, and I resolve not to post into the game. I'm OK with buying the button (making up both blinds in the small blind position, with 4 chips playing and 2 chips being dead money) but think that you give up too much posting in the cutoff with the dead money. I could be wrong on this, but that's not really the point. The point is that it's my custom in such a situation to wait to take my natural blind. But what happens? Seat 6, the player on my right who was out for a walk, shows up and posts himself, dead money and all. Now that changes everything, if I'm not mistaken, and probably makes not posting a mistake. If it's even close before, having the highjack post must make it the right call. So anyway I post and UTG declares "look at all that dead money!" and I say "come and get it" and he....open limps. One or two other players limp, me and the other poster check, and to boot I have the Q5 suited, which to be honest is a fine hand to be the 4th person to enter a pot with anyway. The small blind, (the pro in seat 9 who noticed my KT shenanigans and asked me about it when I apparently cringed on the river) however, declares "Some idiot has to raise this one" and does just that. We all call, the pot is hudge, and away we go:

AQ8dd

He bets, there's a call or two, and I of course take one off.

5d

I raise and he calls.

5c

He check/calls and I sheepishly turn over my hand. UTG declares "can't win with good hands you so you gotta play that?", having already forgotten I posted, to which I reply "like you said....dead money"