Chip Runner Slays Seven

So I roll up the Hawaiian Gardens today a bit on the late side because Danielle was the guest chef at work today and she invited her mother and I to attend. She actually cooked all of her mom's old recipes and it was really cool, but that's not really relevant to my story here. I sit in the 20/40 game for like 15 minutes before I get a seat in what appears to be a truly amazing 30 game, and for some reason am even allowed to sit in the Jesus seat. So it's a multi-step process and I give Mike the chip runner (who is young, white and like 350% more on top of his shit than every other chip runner in the entire casino) $2K and ask him to preload my seat with 2 racks (I'm afraid someone is going to realize I'm getting the best possible seat and want to be able to claim "chips are down chips are down!" when somebody tries to take it). I skip my UTG hand in the 20 to move over and post between in the 30 (at HG you can enter the game by posting between the button and small blind, something I'm sure I've explained like 400 times) and immediately crack a tricky lagular's AA on a board of JT9-9-7. Like first hand, no waiting, he caps it up preflop and I flop a set turn a boat no problem. Great.

Now at this point the megafish in seat 8 (I'm in the 9 hole, which basically explains why nobody wanted it) asks me if I can just sell him two stacks because he called for chips and the guy hasn't shown up yet. Sure, whatever, no biggie, he hands me 4 bills I give him 2 stacks and now have what can only be described as a clusterfuck of monetary instruments in front of me. Exactly $900 in red chips, a rack and a half of brown ($10 chips), 4 Benjamins, and a pot that needs to be stacked. On top of this the megafish just bought his last 7 bets as he's not the type to go off for big numbers and I'm starting to make plans for the shortest session ever because I'm now locked out of the 20 for an hour. Cue Mike, responding to the megafish's call for chips. I give him some business, handing him the remaining reds and the bennies, asking for a total of $1300 more brown (which as a note will have me sitting with like over $3500 which is a little out of bounds for someone who has been dealt exactly 2 hands). I win another small pot and see Mike just kind of...disappear. He wanders off pushing his little cart to the main section of the casino. I'm not worried, just a little concerned. I wait patiently. More hands are dealt. I'm kind of looking for a reason to take a minute and collect myself anyway, so when my blind comes (I've been dealt like 7 hands now) I go off after him. Eventually the floorman informs me that Mike had to reload his cart and would be back in a few minutes. No biggie...I take a leak and come back to the table and immediately the megafish tells me "dude you should have seen it, K9, KQ and pocket aces, flop 9, river 9, look at all these chips!" I concur that he does in fact have a lot of chips, and lament my out button; it will be four hands until I can play again.

He wins all four of them, raising blind preflop at every opportunity. A4? Turn the wheel. J7o for 4 bets? He's calling, check-raising the flop in 3rd place, betting the turn, then mysteriously check/calling the river when he trips up. 92s? Put the lid on it, trips coming. 74o? Facing two bets cold on the turn KT6-3? "This is the real test" he declares. "I have four outs." He gets there. My blind comes and the rest of the table is just livid. He wins another pot, this time with K3 by making one pair. Of 3s. On the river. He wins again on his button, once again putting the lid on preflop, this time with what by now could be considered a premium holding; 86s. It looks like more of the same during his CO hand until....he misses! The streak ends at 6 hands in a row, not counting the K9 one I didn't get to see. He stands up from the table and declares immediately "deal me out, time to go home!" He doesn't even take his free hands, and Mike comes over to rack up his chips. The damage? $4500, American. The other 7 members of the table are simply flabbergasted, and I can't help but think about my decision to take the lap off basically caused this lunacy to happen. If Mike hadn't walked away and made me just a WEEEEEEE bit nervous about my chip situation the guy almost certainly would have just busted the $400 and walked away. But instead he's got 11 times that much, is as happy as a monkey in a banana store, and the other 7 people at my table are ready to gouge their eyes out with a spork.

Poker Good; Pop a Shot? Not So Much

So last night marked the second time I've gathered up a group of poker players to go bowling. Obviously we bet on the games to make it interesting, but I'm fighting an uphill battle. I was at one point in my life a decent bowler, and glimmers of that "OK-ness" showed through in my first two games two weeks ago, where despite starting off zero for nine on ONE PIN spare pickups I rolled a 160 and a 139 to start off the evening. My final score for the night was a 120, and I had to take some pretty terrible lines in games 2 and 3, and ended up down on the night in prop betting, albeit it only $20 to the big potato (who generally cleaned up). Fast forward to last night and we're about to get started, but our lane is messed up and then messed up again and we have to restart after 5 frames and Hyperprrank is late and well anyway I told myself I was going to offer 15 pins for the first game to everyone, started my offer at 10 and was soundly mocked and ended up giving 20, and promptly came in last place, straight up. I just fell apart, and everyone else bowled numbers in like the 130s and 140s, and it was just awful. OK fine, that was on me, you can't expect to bowl like I did and win, but now I have a problem. Jailyard and Kangster just beat me by like 30 and 40 pins respectively and STILL WANT PINS in the next game. I'm not even kidding; we're not raising the stakes, we are still just betting $20, and they want to be spotted pins against a guy who just rolled like a 97. I refuse to give action and promptly roll a 77 in the next game, the wheels completely falling off, with me deciding to start throwing a hook in about frame 4 just to see how it works out (this once my no spread bet with Hyper was basically already decided, as he posted 80 pins through 5 frames). As I was finishing out the string I commented that my horsing around will probably give them a reason to still request pins next week, claiming I wasn't trying. In the 14 frames before I started horsing around I made one mark. And they're going to want pins next time.

So since our lane was messed up and we started late we only got in 2 games, and on the way out decided to play some air hockey and pop a shot. We paired off in 2s, and I clearly chose...poorly. Jailyard and Hyper played pop a shot, with the final score being something like 65 to 55. Meanwhile Kangster beat me 7-5 in air hockey, which was honestly probably about the fairest bet I made on the evening. So now he and I walk over to pop a shot and decide to bet one last time and he offers to go first and just...starts...killin' it. He does so well they give him a bonus round. Then another. Then another. The man scores 355 points. To restate, the score of the previous match was 65 to 55. He graciously lets me buy out for half and I post a 95, which honestly felt pretty respectable.

So my lesson learned is that I'm not giving these nits action next week :)

I Am In The Well

2p2 has a tradition of "wells", which are threads in which a specific poster agrees to basically answer any and all questions asked of him. My well has just started, and I'm looking forward to it for several reasons (some of them obvious, like it'll be fun, and some of them less obvious, like it will likely make me think pretty hard about some stuff I otherwise might not).

I Can't Believe This Just Worked

So I'm playing live 20 in a pretty tight passive lineup. Someone raises the HJ, the button insta-calls all in, the SB calls and I call J7dd. The SB declares "lowball dealer, seven seven deuce" Nd we take a flop:

743

SB checks, I check, PFR bets, SB calls, I raise, PFR calls, SB calls.

Ar

SB checks I cringe bet, PFR folds (KQ FTW), and the SB calls. Timeout.

What does the SB have here? I think he pretty obviously has a 7 with some small kicker, given his preflop speech and general weak passive play in general. Specifically I have him on 76, 75, or 78. OK moving on....

743-A-4

[ ] kicker plays

He checks and I decide that I'm so sure he can't scoop me that I'm going to try a soft angle. I bet instantly, he calls, and I table my hand instantly. And it works. It fucking works!

"Nice kicker" he declares and flings his hand face down toward the muck. Sadly the allin player turns over AK to drag the 4 bets in the main, but the 7 bets on the side get shipped directly to me. The SB realizes his mistake as the next hand is being dealt and is pretty upset. I shrug and say I figured we were chopping but thought I'd bet anyway cause maybe he had 66 or 55 (which of course was possible but he'd be extremely unlikely to call the river).

Does this make me one of them?

Ah, Commerce

I just had one of those must move only at commerce situations. The guy in the 2 seat at my table refused to sit in the right spot. Everyone, including the dealer, explained to him that he didn't get the whole corner, but he insisted he was right. So I move from 3 to 5 but that's not far enough and move again from 5 to 8 and wait out 2 hands after playing my button. I'm 3rd up to move (I wouldn't risk losing the free hands if I was first but this is super safe.

So I move to a worse seat because of the dbag and sit out two hands which last like literally 5-6 minutes. As the dealer is dealing me in in the CO Marcel comes over to tell me it's my turn to move. The other two names are not here he says, despite the fact that we started this game 25 minutes ago and nobody has left.

So I play my CO hand and move, but they are playing musical chairs. The open seat is the HJ but I'm assured I can't have it, someone is moving. So the dealer doesn't deal me in and the guy who is moving drags a monster by cracking the COs AA. Now I'm informed it's my seat and asked if I want a hand in the LJ. I pass cause CO and HJ hands are too valuable for my inner nit to forfeit.

So i wander off and eventually 10-15 minutes later take my free hand in the CO. My second hand someone crumples his hand into a ball in a 5 way pot during the river action where I have raised, bet/3, bet bet a KJ3hh-7r-2r with KTs. I am called, the button folds KT face up, there is another fold, and then he folds his crumpled ball as if nothing is wrong.