What Happens When

So MikeL and I are writing a book, apparently. Or at least he's giving me enough material that, combined with cherry picking the stuff I've written here and the (extremely limited) amount of interesting strategic discussion I could generate, if I wanted to I could bang one out lickety split. The beginnings of the book were a few weeks ago at Commerce, when we agreed the title would be "What Happens When". I mean really, you can't go wrong with that title; you have any automatic lead in for virtually every chapter or story you can think of. So anyway Mike is in the 40 at Commerce and says "So I found out what happens when you cold call with AKs....Someone raises, you just call and get all kinds of action. The flop comes KTT and you bet, someone raises, and two people just call. You're a smart guy; you see what's going on here. You take one off, miss and gracefully check/fold the turn. Bang, king on the river. The guy with jack ten has no idea what just happened. But that's what happens." Later on that day I found out what happens when you open limp pocket 7s UTG; you get action from 73o, which, confusingly, you do not want. That's what happens.

So now we know, we've got a few chapters, and we're working to fill out the rest. Or at least I am; Mike is just saying things he perceives as common knowledge which in fact are brutally and fantastically hilarious. For example today he turns to me completely unprompted as a regular has just finished declaring "aaaright!" in a high pitched whiny voice and says:

"You know, all people have their thing that they do all the time that they think is endearing, and everyone else just plays along but is really thinking what an asshole. Every person on Earth." I pause for a minute and realize he's 100% right. So right in fact it's just scary. As an aside Mike is sure that this man, who literally cannot be understood over 30 percent of the time despite having lived in this country for more than two decades, speaks the Queen's English in his home and is literally just fucking with us by pretending to have the language skills of a 4 year old. It's a little far fetched, sure, but impossible? Nay.

Next up for discussion on Mike's agenda; Royal Flush Poker. Apparently the game was spread on Absolute years ago, and Mike made just an absolute killing playing it as high as they would spread it (3/6) for as long as he could (like a year). The game plays exactly the same as limit texas hold 'em, with a single (massive) twist. The deck only has 20 cards, ten through ace. All the tables are 6-max (obviously, and at a full game all 20 cards are dealt if you include the 3 burns), and according to Mike people simply could not learn how to play. And I have to admit, some of it wasn't very intuitive to me. Imagine you flopped a straight (it doesn't matter what two cards you have...you flopped broadway). That's good, right? Fail. You practically cannot win, because your opponent is either going to also make a straight as well or fill up. There are only a few cases where he can miss, in fact, where has has something like AJ, you have JT, and the board runs out AKQKQ. In that case, sure, you've got it. But most of the time you're just completely screwed. Another twist is that in this game there is no flush. If you make a flush, it is exactly a royal flush. Mike went on to explain that basically you can only play AA, KK, and AKs, and that honestly you shouldn't even defend your blind with like AQ. After 5 minutes my brain was throughly sore.

Later on after an amazingly hilarious situation took place (briefly; there was a big game and a small game, and a megafish walked in the room and wanted to play a game in the middle which was not currently running. The floor decided to simply open that game and risk breaking BOTH of the other games. What happened then is that the entire smaller game just picked up and walked to a new table to spread the middle game, while the players at the bigger game were like "wat") he turned to me to tell me stories of the megafish all the fuss is about. Now I've played with her before, and she is truly truly epic. Like honestly she's one of the worst 5 players I have ever seen, so I'm prepared for this. But Mike's hand goes like so...he raises with AA in the big blind and is in like a 7 way pot. The flop comes KJ4 and she just donks right into him. He raises, somehow everyone but one other player folds, and she just calls. The turn comes a ten and she re-donks. He's like whatever and just calls, the other player folds. On the river he binks a queen and she bets again.

"So I'm sad that I'm gonna chop the pot with this woman but whatever, I raise anyway. She calls, I show my hand and she turns over king deuce. After all that, the donking and me raising the river and everything else that's happened here she is turning over one pair like it's good and just send the pot."

We share a few more stories about her, and he explains his theory in a nut shell as a hilarious showdown occurs at our table. "I call this haunted house poker. You have aces, the flop is like K84 and everything is going fine. You're betting, they're calling, it's like you're walking around at Knot's and you're like "Ooooo, house of mirrors, this is kind of fun" and then "bleblblblblblblblbl" she jumps out at you like a zombie on the river and shows you two pair. That's haunted house poker"