Dirty dirty D…

Well, my competitiveness got the better of me, and now I feel a bit dirty.

For whatever reason, I have a keen sense of game strategy, for most games anyway. Somehow, I connect the dots on what it takes to win rather rapidly. The first time I ever played scrabble (junior year of college against greg Barlow and chithra) my focus was on creating great large words. Until greg played his turn and opened my eyes to the REAL way to play scrabble. It’s not about the length or coolness of the word, but how you place it on the board. A well played Xu (oh scrabble dictionary) can be triple the points than a badly played Sexy.

I’ve beaten pool players who were slightly better than I because I understood the defensive positioning of pool. If I had a choice between shots I would always go with the one that would leave the cue as far away from his balls as possible. Position position.

Recognizing the big picture, finding the weakness, and figuring out how to exploit it, these things just come easy for me. I blame chess, and the sped up button pushing version of chess, one on one fighting games like tekken and street fighter.

Add to this my obsession with small scale politics, with my belief that I somehow understand and can manipulate events better than others… It all leads to trouble.

So, yesterday was a big test to see if I was getting lucky or if I could actually keep winning at poker. I took john out one on one Sunday, beat him and Angus Monday, and now the rematch was set.

First hand, the flop comes seven seven nine, and I have the nine. John checks me and I bet, he calls and another seven pops off. I have a full house, we both go all in and he has the seven for quads. First hand, and im out. And that’s the way the night would go. By a couple of hours later, im down thirty dollars, john is a huge stack, and Angus is riding in a smallish stack.

So my politicking began. I new that if I bought back in for ten dollars, I would basically just be giving it to John (unless I got really lucky really quick and doubled up right away). So I asked if I could buy in for twenty, something that john never did last night. Fingering his stack, Johns says he’d rather not, seeing as we did not do so yesterday. And he was right, he did not want me to buy back for enough money to hurt him. But buying ten, twiddling it away, and buying another ten was just not going to happen.
“well,” I said. “Then I’m out.”
“well twenty it is, I guess.”
I had to push it that way, there was no other path to victory. So we continue playing, and john keeps his stack. By eleven thirty five Angus is out, and out of money (again. Angus, you have to get more aggressive preflop with good cards. You have to be able to put them down if they don’t hit, and you must chase with more discretion. Also, when small stacked, stop calling with anything not worth something, and get more aggressive when you do have cards. Short stacks have two options, all in or fold). I had my twenty that I had just bought in for.

The day before, once angus was gone I called a four hand limit, because I wanted to keep my stack as big as it was. John tried to pull the same thing on me this time, but I knew a couple of things: a. john with no constraints will just keep playing, he loves this fucking game. b. he remembers losses. He will want to vindicate himself with a thorough victory. c. his girlfriend was gone, he had no constraints and he was big stacked. Conclusion, john was in until I had no money left.

So I pushed for half an hour, allot more than four hands, and john said yes. So we started going at it. The one on one battle. And I started to get good cards. I got jacks in the hole twice, and ate john’s large preflop raise with an all in. I pushed hard with ace anything. Slowly, I was grinding away at his stack. And the time kept ticking. At one point I knew it was passed the half hour mark, but I said nothing, just kept dealing the cards, hoping john would not call it (if he had I would have had to stop). And so, we rolled, and I kept eating away at his stack. And then…

… I get ace queen suited, and John raises three pre flop. At this point, I know that he has something good, and it smells like high pockets… I wonder if he could have aces queens or kings. But fuck it, its late, I have a high hand, and im all in. He calls with jacks. Damn if its not a race.

I flop the ace right of the bat, and nothing else comes. I took it all. Again. I had grinded john to such a point that I had enough to take him out.

He was furious. He new he should have stopped when he had a chance, knew that I manipulated him into more play… it just felt dirty. But, john could have pulled the plug at almost any point and there would not have been much I could do, so he did kinda go along with it, hoping for something like jacks to put me away. Talk about backfire.

So I am a manipulating little bastard sometimes. I just want to win.

Then, after all that, john proposed another 20 dollar tournament because his fury could only be appeased by more poker. It was getting late, and I did not want to play anymore (afterall, I had just pulled one of my greatest comebacksever, from minus fifty to plus fortyfive!), but how could I refuse. Angus wanted some more too so we loaned him the twenty. He goes up early with some good hands, and I lose early and don’t hold on too well because im not that into it and winning was not going to further my cause at all. John and angus are almost even when they call four more hands. John bullies a bit, and then the last hand comes. A small raise preflop, and four four seven come off. Angus checks and John goes all in. A conflicted angus takes a long time talking himself through the hand, wondering what john could have. He settles on the four, John had to have the four. So he folds, not wanting to end the night in such a terrible hand, but he flips over his cards. Pocket aces. On the last hand he gets pocket fucking aces. John then flips over his ace two suited bluff, and angus remains conflicted and angry. He folded pocket aces on the last hand, something john and I could never have done. Oh well, someday, someone will actually have the four and he will be happy he did not call.

Anyways, pictures are coming soon, and I am now up 120 on the record.