SUPER Seniors - Levels 3 & 4

I am back.  My friend Todd and I chatted during the break about the diversity of poker players.  Dirtbags, passive lambs, hard-eyed professionals.  Every table has a buffet of archetypes.

He said, “Remember the movie Bullet Train?  One of the characters, Lemon, said that everyone is one of the characters from Thomas the Tank Engine.”  As a TTE fan from my children’s infancy, I get the concept, but I am not sure who I would be.  Definitely not Gordon.  Maybe James.

Good lord, the drought continues.  No premium hands, no miracle flops, just a series of mediocre or worse hands.  If someone could design a personal hell for poker players, it is eternally being dealt the second best hand.  (And to clarify, if that would be my personal hell, I might have died and didn’t know it, because that is where I am right now.)

The guy to my right’s card protector is a 10mm combination wrench.  That’s a first for me.


Speaking of wrench guy, I just knocked him out of the tournament and got to 21,600.

Tired of waiting for a hand, I limped with 78 diamonds.  Big stack raises to 1600.  The flop was 984, no diamonds, and I have second pair.  I check, Wrench Guy checks, and the big stack goes 2400.  Thinking he doesn’t have an overpair, and was just pushing on two small stacks, I do not give him the satisfaction of a fold.  Wrench Guy calls too with the last of his chips.  Now a 9 pops on the turn.  Time to move - I bet 6000.  Big stack ponders and then folds.  He stares with some surprise when I roll over the 78.  It holds up against Wrench Guy’s 10 7 and he is out (and I am not).

Another guy says, “I’ve been surprised all day by what people are turning over,” a subtle ding at me.  I don’t care. I’m above my starting stack and now have a table image of playing junk.  Good time to start playing tight again.  (But have I played tight yet?  Objectively…no.)

Poker patois:  “Aces are like a good-looking woman.  Nothing but trouble.”  Response: “Yeah, but give them to me and I will take my chances.”

After almost three hours, I think the table has three donkeys, four solid players, and one recent arrival I haven’t seen enough of to know.  Lots of limped preflops, which is unusual in a WSOP bracelet event.  Old guys are pretty cordial.

But at the same time, the betting action is pretty disproportionate.  The hand I am waiting right now goes like this: with 800 in blinds and antes in the pot, late position bettor goes 1000, and the guy to his left raises to 4000.  Consider: the pot was 1800 when the second guy bet a little over twice the pot.  As they say, that got ugly fast.  But the 4000 pushed the 1800 out, which is usually the point of betting.

And then I am out.  AK ran into 999.  I am snake-bit.  Sorry to be such a punk!

Arrgh!


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