Swimming upstream – Okie Poker style

Sometime Saturday evening, while attempting to regain the buy-in I dropped at the Riverwind, I was the victim of a sneak attack. An army of microbes had invaded and stormed the beaches of my nostrils.

I managed to decimate a few battalions with several bone rattling sneezes, but it wasn’t enough to seize the day. The allergens’ Special Microbe Forces managed to best my defenses and successfully set my histamines into a panic.

I toughed it out, though. I was on a mission of my own and I wasn’t going to allow a runny nose, itchy eyes and fits of sneezing to deter me.

It was the six-seat – he was my target.

I arrived at the Riverwind mid-afternoon after attending an ex-co-worker’s baby shower. While I’m happy that she and her husband are about to become an ecstatically happy family of three, I’m not a baby-shower sort of person. That is to say, ooo-ing and ahhh-ing over little pink things, baby bottles and rubber duckies just don’t float my boat.

I departed soon after the cake and punch were served, grateful that the host had eschewed baby shower games such as “sample the baby food” and “baby shower bingo.” None-the-less, I was in need of some balancing. A session of poker seemed the ideal yang to the baby shower yin.

I was surprised to see the poker room as busy as it was that time of day. I was put on a 1.2 NL list and waited. While I waited I rail birded, if you will, the Lucky Lemmings slot players just outside of the poker room. One fella was doing pretty good on his machine. Up about 5300 credits (which in slot-speak is $53) I watched his little lemmings jump off the cliff, bounce off a seal and hit the bonus rocks on the opposite cliff wall.

“Fascinating,” I thought. “This is the kind of game, Grubby gets paid to invent. Cool.”

I was called to my table and I settled into the one-seat.

My visit to the Riverwind the week previous had been profitable. I’d doubled my buy-in and was now hopeful I could break the no-repeat curse which seems to plague me in the live arena.

I spent the first round or two sizing up the table. It quickly became clear that the west-end – the six, seven and eight seats – were loose, limping, in-every-hand players and the east-end – my end of the table – were the tight, patient watchers – salivating to pounce and relieve the east-end of their bounty.

Of course it wasn’t easy, however I did manage to felt a couple of east-enders. As the evening wore on, though, I became witness to the most incredible run of trips and sets I’ve ever seen accomplished by a single player in a single session. Ever. And it wasn’t me, dammit. It was the six-seat.

In nearly every hand, he was catching like an angler fishing with dynamite and stealing pots with impunity. Hand after hand as I mucked trash hand after trash hand I was creaming for something with which I could bring him down. I wasn’t the only one, either.

We were a table in awe. In time, you could feel a collective sphincter clinch if the board paired and he was in a hand. Yup. Trips again. His K-6 off caught the two sixes on the board… ad nauseam.

It wasn’t only his garbage that hit. Dealt an inordinate amount of pocket pairs, those were hitting as well. Eventually, I just shook my head and said, “It will probably be another ten to fifteen years before you hit another set or trips after tonight, so enjoy this while you can.” The table laughed and even he sheepishly shrugged in acknowledgement of the spell he was under.

It was also nearly impossible to shake him off a hand. Oblivious to minor points such as pot odds, he cold-called indiscriminately. He took a big chunk out of my stack by chasing his flush which, of course, hit the river. I’d bet big, having made my straight so I welcomed his calls but, geeze, he hit and hit and hit and…..

Each time we went to battle together, the kid (subsequently dubbed the Quads King after hitting quads twice) in the seven seat became my cheerleader. When my hand would go down in flames, he’d spout “I thought you had him!”

(Side note: he was a sweetie – barely 18 and legal, he and his buddies were having a good time at the casino that night. He had a lot to learn about playing poker, but it was a joy to watch him when he’d win a pot – his face could’ve lit-up the Vegas strip)

About seven to eight hours into the session, under full attack from the allergens, struggling to regain the buy-in that had drifted to the west-end, I experienced a nice little run. Now I was a little better than even and contemplating a retreat.

The six-seat was slowly beginning to bleed back his chips, but I was weary. I didn’t think I had it in me to soldier on. I decided to leave it up to my table-mates, even clueing in the new guy who’d just sat down on my left. But there was one more hand to play.

Looking at king-jack suited, I raised it up to $15 when it was limped to me. This had become a fairly standard punish-the-limpers raise – this table thought nothing of calling $10 raises, but would drop out of the pot at $15. But the six seat… well, you know… he called.

The flop had a king. Six-seat checked. I bet a little more then half the pot.

He called.

The turn was a blank. There was now a flush draw on the board (not my suit). I bet out $50. Enough, I thought, to bust the odds for a flush draw.

He called.

The river was a queen. He checked again. Hmmmm.

“He’s got some of it. Does he have a set, though? Does he have two pair? What the hell does he have?” If he’d hit big, he would have bet into me on the river. This I knew, because this had been his M.O. all night. But…

Since the beginning of the hand, my frustration level had built to bubbling over. I’d had it. What the hell would it take to shake him off a hand? I grabbed a stack of reds and put it over the line.

His chip shuffling went into overdrive. I had only a pair of kings, but I was past caring that I was risking a quarter of my stack to find out just how much he was willing to cold-call. He went into the tank trying to talk himself into calling. He just wouldn’t let himself believe that I had a hand that could beat him.

I was sure he had two pair – convinced he’d hit his King-trash on the turn. If he’d hit a set, he would’ve been betting, not check-calling, all the way. His quandary now was whether or not I had him beat, which I didn’t, but I’d put the pressure on.

For a moment, it looked like he was going to fold. But, then he shrugged and said “I have to see it” and pushed a stack of reds in.

“Call.”

I shook my head and said, “You got me,” as I turned over my K-J. He flipped over…

…. K-J (off-suit, I should note). A push.

He was congratulated for a great call. I just shook my head and was bemused. It would’ve been a great call if he’d had a read and put me on a hand, but I can’t say that he had.

He did mumble at one time “you probably have two pair,” and not even in an effort to get information from me. He stared at the board the whole time. He was not a multilevel thinker, that much was obvious. So his “great call” was, in reality, an “I just can’t let go of top pair” cold call.

And my play? Well, I’ll leave that open for criticism – fire away, I welcome it. I freely admit that, at it’s core, it was an “I’m frustrated as hell and I’m not gonna take it anymore” move.

BUT – what I gained from that was a firsthand understanding of the power of putting pressure on your opponent. Even if it didn’t work. This time.

When the blinds came around, I decided to take that hand as a hint, grab my $60 profit and head for the comfort of home, kitties and antihistamine.

It was a tough session, to say the least. However, aside from a moment or two or three of minor tilt, I played well. I had a strong table image which awarded me a fair share of stolen pots (whenever the six-seat wasn’t in a rare hand) and my losses were mostly from out-draws and busted draws.

My losses were regained and I left with a little profit – in my book, up is up. And after the battle that session was…. I’ll take it.