No, not me. Someone who I managed to put on tilt (or helped along the way) and profited from.
I thought I’d just go out last night and play for a couple of hours after the movie because it’s not likely I’ll get to play next weekend. I got to Artichoke Joe’s about 8:30 and waited just half an hour to get a table.
The table was semi-passive and I was in close to an ideal position. While I had one big stack to my immediate left, the next few players seemed to be solidly conservative. To my right were some loose players, so loose, in fact, that not only did one sometimes post a straddle, sometimes the next player down would post a straddle reraise.
Dumb, of course.
I took down a huge pot, close to $200, early on when I raised in early position with AKo, got reraised by one of the looser players, I reraised back, and he capped–and we had three other players calling. The flop came AJx rainbow. It was checked to me, I bet, the preflop raiser reraised, and I reraised back. He only called. Again, we had two players all calling all these raises.
At this point, I figured I was either way ahead or way behind. The turn paired the x card. I bet and just got called all around. The river brought a blank, I bet and was called only by the preflop raiser, who showed his pocket kings after I showed my aces up.
Shortly after that an older, gray-haired Asian man sat down three seats to my right. I think I recall playing against him before, and he can be wild and reckless. It wasn’t long before we got into it together. He raised from early position, and with AKo (again!), I reraised, actually thinning the field to just the two of us. The flop came all low junk. He bet, I raised, he just called. The turn was again small and he checked, which is what I wanted with my flop raise. I then picked up a few chips as if I was thinking about betting, and he immediately threw 6 chips into the pot. I noticed this and immediately said, loudly, “check.” The expression on his face when he turned to look at me was priceless. I’d caught him at his game and he was not at all happy.
The river didn’t help and of course he bet, angrily, throwing his chips nearly across the table, and I folded my ace high.
But the result of that one action made me some money. But it also affected a hand that I didn’t win.
It was a hand with a couple of callers, and he raised, as he had been doing nearly every hand since the one I just described. I was on the button and found J-10o, not anything close to a great hand, but with position, I decided to call and see what happened.
The flop came AJ8 rainbow. It was checked to the preflop raiser, who bet out in his usual angry manner. It was folded to me, and I raised to try and isolate him, figuring that there was a good chance my second pair was good against him.
But my plans went awry when the big blind check raised to three bets. The flop bettor was flummoxed. I simply watched the sputtering, unmoving and staring straight ahead. To my surprise, he folded, but not until after a long wait and a lot of muttering.
At this point, I knew I was way behind and could win only if I caught one of the two remaining jacks. I called the one remaining small bet and folded to a bet on the turn when a blank came.
Still, by later raising when I had hands, I was able to isolate the tilter a couple of more times and get him to fold when he didn’t catch his draws and ended up more than $100 to the good in just 2 hours. A nice way to end a busy weekend.