Anyway, I walked out feeling pretty good about my game. I had just outplayed some of the best amateur players that I know. With my head swollen so large, it was inevitable that I was gonna roll down the 710 freeway to play some $2-3 No Limit at Commerce. Buy-in is $100, and I had $200 ready to go.
I showed up and wasted no time in continuing to play great. I basically treaded water for a while, winning a pot here and there with the nuts, then making small and obvious bluffs at other pots for advertising value.
At one point in my career, I would always attempt to establish a tight table image early on, that I could loosen up and exploit later on. Nowadays, I establish whatever table image is necessary for the game I happen to be involved in. At this table, I decided I would try to appear completely random. Did I have the stone-cold nuts? Did I have diddly squat? I wanted the players at my table to have no idea whatsoever. It was working. I was betting out, and having the other players raise me to see where I was at. I’d either make it obvious I was trapping with a re-raise, or make it obvious I was bluffing with a fold. So like I said, for a while I just treaded water, winning some small pots and losing some even smaller ones. Not going up or down very much at all. Just waiting for the right hand to trap with, vs. the right opponent.
Eventually, I moved in with top-pair and an open-ended straight draw vs. the guy to my immediate right (call him “Lee”). He had top pair with a better kicker. I missed my draw and lost my stack. I was okay with this … just setting him up for later. I re-bought.
A few hands later, a bunch of players saw the flop for $20, including myself with the Ac-Th in the big blind. Normally I would fold this hand to such a raise, fearing domination. But as I was last to act before the flop, I decided I was getting sufficient pot and implied odds to see a flop. The flop was nice, Qc-Jc-Tc, giving me bottom pair and the royal flush draw. Lee checked from the small blind, and I moved in for $75 into the $100 pot. Everyone folded, and I showed my hand. Lee smiled, shook his head and told me I was brave (by which he meant stupid). I thought to myself, I can’t wait ‘til I get some decent cards. This guy has a large stack, and he’s gonna pay me off all night long.
I didn’t have to wait long. The very next hand, I looked down at pocket Aces from the small blind. Beautiful. The action went around the table … one guy limped in from middle position. The button (Lee) popped it up to $20, and I inwardly rejoiced. I immediately made it $40 to go, and the limper got out. Lee just called.
The flop wasn’t terribly threatening. It was 9-7-3 and two-toned. He couldn’t have flopped a straight, but the draw was there (unlikely) as well as a flush draw. And he could have flopped a set. But seeing the way Lee had been playing, I figured him for Ace-medium, giving him a single pair at best. I knew how aggressive he was, so if he sensed weakness, he would definitely raise with any pair or a flush draw. Especially against me.
The pot was $85, so I intentionally under-bet it. I put out $30, because I knew he would raise it up. He didn’t disappoint, minimum-raising it to $60 total. Without hesitation, I moved all-in, and he thought only a moment before calling.
He said, “I think you have me this time.”
I know I have you, you sophomoric donkey. You can stop your braying now and pay me, I wanted to say. Instead I let my cards do the talking, tabling my bullets. He merely nodded in resignation.
The turn was an offsuit 4, and his nodding turned into a wince. It was the kind of wince that says, "I just bad beat the crap out of you." My heart sank.
“You hit a set?” I asked him nervously. When he didn’t react, I pressed him: “Two pair???” He started nodding again.
The river was meaningless, and he sheepishly showed me his 3-4 offsuit. I couldn’t believe it. He’d called my re-raise before the flop with that garbage, as well as my re-raise all-in on the flop with bottom pair. I guess my table image strategy had worked a little too well. I had gotten him to do exactly what I’d wanted, and still lost the hand. Gotten all-in for $175 as a 4:1 favorite. I should have been up $150, but instead I was down $200.
Yay … more Sklansky-Dollars[2] to add to my account.
Pardon me for not exactly being thrilled.
_ _
[1] It has been suggested that poker players often have trouble reading players of other races. This could be used as an explanation of why I’ve never been able to get a good read on my Asian opponents in Jun’s game. There have been many times when they have all thought it was obvious that one of them was bluffing, when I had found the player totally inscrutable. Of course, another obvious explanation would be that they play with one another much more often than I am able to. I guess my point here is that it’s hard for me to say if they really have great poker faces or that I find their tells more difficult to sniff out due to our differing ethnic backgrounds. Would an Asian player they didn't know find them easier to read? An interesting point to consider.
[2] The term “Sklansky-Dollars” refers to the theoretical money that a poker player earns when his opponent makes a mistake, regardless of whether or not that players wins the physical pot. It is a joke on David Sklansky’s Fundamental Theorem of Poker, which states that
“Every time you play a hand differently from the way you would have played it if you could see all your opponents' cards, they gain; and every time you play your hand the same way you would have played it if you could see all their cards, they lose. Conversely, every time opponents play their hands differently from the way they would have if they could see all your cards, you gain; and every time they play their hands the same way they would have played if they could see all your cards, you lose.”
Thus, players have made the obvious gripe that “If a donkey makes a mistake but bad beats me, how can I be said to gain? When the pot is being pushed toward someone else, it sure feels like I lost!” Hence the term, Sklansky-Dollars. Personally, I feel like a Sklansky-Dollar millionaire.
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