Sometimes ya just gotta grind it out. I was in a pretty good mood when I set out from work for my regular Friday night trip to the cardroom. The list was significant;y longer for the $6/$12 game I’ve yet to try, and so I signed up for just the $3/$6 game and within 15 minutes I had a seat.
I had planned to play just a few hours. The goal was to leave at midnight. My softball league’s playoffs began Saturday and my team had a 9:00am game, which meant I had to be at the fields to warm up by 8.
I got seat #1, one of my favorite seats too. I didn’t get much of a playable hand early and so the only thing that ate at my stacks from my $150 buy-in was the blinds. I used the time to watch and noticed that a player in seat #7 seemed rather loose, even calling preflop raises with garbage hands in hopes of hitting a flop, a not-unusual low-stakes tactic for many players.
Most of the other players weren’t quite as loose, and some seemed downright selective for the level of play. One of the things I’ve been trying to learn is how to establish a table image. While I tend to see far, far fewer flops than most players here, anyone who is paying attention would notice this and fold immediately should I ever raise (unless they have a premium hand, of course).
So I’ve wanted to get into a position somewhat early where I could make it seem to the other players that I was more aggressive-loose than I actually am. With that in mind, after about 45 minutes of seeing maybe one or two flops out of the blinds, I found myself with a tiny pocket pair in early position. In fact, it was the second smallest.
I fired out a raise in hopes of getting players to fold to the seat $7 loose cannon. I mostly succeeded; I wanted to isolate him early and then try to push him out late. The flop came middle-high and I fired out again, trying to represent strength. Everyone folded except for seat #7 and I thought I was going to reach my goal.
The turn paired the board (a second 10, if I remember correctly) and I fired out again. But my opponent raised. I thought for a moment and concluded that he was trying to buy the pot, so I re-raised. He came back over the top, a which point I just called.
The river did nothing for me either, but I was feeling a bit stubborn at this point. I bet out, he raised, and I just called, whereupon he showed his full house. I meekly mucked my little threes and looked down to see two whole $30 stacks missing from my stake, a full 40 percent of my buy in.
Rather than steam about getting beat, I pulled back my game, going conservative again, wondering if that play had done anything for how I was perceived. I went back to getting quite unplayable cards for the most part. When I did get strong cards, such as AQ suited, and raised it up, the flops failed me miserably. It took me more than an hour and a half to win my first pot of the night.
I continued running cold and by about 11 I played a decent hand that ended up putting me all-in and that I didn’t win. Against; perhaps my better judgment, I reached into my poker stake wallet and pulled out another hundred.
Perhaps I should have just gone home. But I was feeling just a little but stubborn. Plus I had this little bug in the back of my mind saying that I’d been a net winner the past five Fridays I’ve played there and I didn’t want to break that streak. Plus, I believed that for the most part, I wasn’t being outplayed, I just wasn’t getting the good fits when I rightly got aggressive early.
Right around then a fortuitous event happened: A very aggressive (and very verbal and loud) player sat down. By then I had moved into my favorite seat, seat #10. (I don’t normally move seats unless I am at the end, but in this case, something that had happened on occasion before, a new player who simply reeked of nicotine took the empty seat next to me, making me almost choke on the stench, and I wanted a seat with clearer air.) and he sat down first in seat #4 with a hefty stack, although somewhat deceptive because about $300-400 of it was in $20 chips, not the table’s $1 chips.
He posted to play right away and raised immediately when it was his turn. He taunted others who raised him back. I saw immediately what was happening and pulled back even further. He won the first 4 or 5 hands using those tactics, usually getting everyone else to fold on the turn or river.
By then it was past midnight, past the time I had set to leave, but I saw a future where my fortunes would turn, even if the cards didn’t improve.
One side effect of his aggressive raising on almost every hand was that others at the table were now quicker to fold. Another was that flop and turn raises by other players with good hands were re-raised by this player. So I knew that should I get a premium hand, I had a good shot of pushing back profitably.
And that’s exactly what happened. After biding my time, I got a very good hand. I bet it hard and he came back just as hard. Unfortunately, he drew out on me. Fortunately, it wasn’t long before I got another premium had and pushed it against him again. This time it held up. Not only did it hold up, but it was raised and re-raised on every betting round, so that the resulting pot was more than $100.
After the first few quick wins, he started not winning so much. His stacks of $1 chips disappeared and he started tossing in the $20 chips. I was able to isolate him a couple more times with success and within about an hour I was back in the black for the entire night.
I was quite sad to see him leave the table.
I cruised on a bit longer, picked up one more small pot, missed out on a couple others, and picked up at 2:00am, my win streak still alive, even if it was just a $17 net win. All in all, I won just 9 pots in 5 ½ hours of play.
But this tale also brought to light one player annoyance of mine, one that I’ve seen on occasions, and one that dealers often don’t take control of. This particular player, when he bet on the river and was called, would try and not show his cards, trying to get the caller to show first and if the caller’s cards were good, he’d just muck his cards.
My understanding is that the last bettor or raiser who was called is the first to show cards. The vast majority of the time, that’s what happens. But when a player tries to avoid doing this, I think it leaves a bad taste in the mouth of the other players at the table. It doesn’t help when the dealer doesn’t speak up and get the callee showing first.