I wrote a blog entry last week addressing weekend warrior poker guy. This week I’m taking aim at Holiday Weekend poker guy. Weekend warrior poker guy specializes in knowing how to NOT win. Holiday weekend poker guy specializes in making sure I don’t win. They just do things that are so puzzling and there are so many of them to be accounted for….let me explain.
Not to sound Helmuthian but Its just impossible for me to beat a table full of Donkeys on a regular basis. I guess I’m just not good enough. 3 or 4 crappy players are fine by me but trying to navigate a minefield of 8 brain deads is just suicide. This Memorial Day I found myself on 1 such table. I don’t want to go on a rant about how bad I ran, (which was pretty awful) or how they call any size bet preflop with any hand, or how they chase with bad odds constantly and don’t know how to get paid off when the hit, and…well the list goes on and on and on and on. What I do want to talk about is their flawed mentality…and how ridiculous the things they actually think are.
I enter a happy go lucky limpfest around 10AM. No regs. Everyones seeing flops, playing crappy and loving life. Fine by me. After about an hour of me adhering to the status quo yet playing sneakily tight I raise a limped pot to $15 out of the blinds and get 2 callers. One was an older guy who limp called UTG with a stack of about $150. At this point I assume his limp call of $15 is tight especially since he must put me on a big hand. Right? He must put me on something good…right…am I crazy by thinking this?
Any way I bet $35 into a Qjx flop and he called and the other donkey folded. The turn was a brick and due to many factors I decided to just check the turn as did he. The river was another brick and I decided to make a value bet of $45. He folded and loudly announced “nice move” to which I quietly shrugged off. Then he and his neighbors continued to overevalute the hand won by the “young whippersnapper” who suddenly decided it was time to build a pot preflop so he could run a bluff on an old man. The guy claimed he flopped an open ender. So at best he had King high but is accusing me of making a move. Even if I had Ace high I had the best hand. Either way I’m now public enemy number 1 as far as the other side of the table is concerned.
By playing tight ABC poker I’ve once again earned the title of table maniac. All eyes on me for the 2nd weekend in a row. It just completely blows my mind that people think this way. I love it when people get mad that you raise it to so much preflop but they’ll call every time anyways. They don’t realize that if they just stopped calling so much with crap hands my preflop opens would be considerably less. Sometimes it seems like they don’t realize that if they fold the dealer will just deal us another hand 10 seconds later. Anyway…this brings me to dunce-o number 2.
This guy is playing alongside wifey. The 2 biggest calling stations in the game. She’s losing…totally incapable of folding top pair to even the most dangerous of boards…and hes luck boxing his way to about a $600 stack full of reds. I open to $13 from mid with AQ and get a caller and him from the SB. He called $13 with 2 random suited cards cuz that’s what HE does. And of course he flops a flush draw and of course I flop an Ace. I bet…other guy folds…and this guy call. Turn is a brick. I bet about 60% pot…he calls. River completes the flush and he fires out over $150 to which I insta fold. The second I fold he looks at me and says “pocket queens???”. I just love the fact he puts me on 1 exact hand and then bets an absurd amount that I would NEVER call that bet with the hand he put me on. Then when someone suggested to him that I had an ace he was in absolute awe that I would possibly fold an ace in that spot. He congratulated me for 5 minutes saying sick fold. And he was being genuinely honest.
The 3rd offender is the holiday guy I detest the most. Holiday guy who THINKS you’re a mainac so he opens up his preflop calling range to any 2 cards against you. NO…THIS REALLY HAPPENS. A good player might tighten up against a LAG especially out of position while this guys appear to do the complete opposite. Let me explain…
After a grueling 8 hours of playing tight as a rock at this table I attempt 1 river bluff when my open ender and flush draw miss in the river. Standard play in relation to the pot size & my table image IMO. Everybody should still be aware that Im playing like a rock. 5 hands later I get KK utg+1 and raise $15 after 1 limper. I get a call and the limper calls. Flop is Q98. I bet $35 and only UTG calls. Turn is a J and UTG checks in a very suspicious way to me so I check behind. River is an 8 and its checked to me again as UTG turns to me and is staring me in the face hardcore. I take a minute and decide its just not worth it to bet and he shows T4 offsuit for a made straight. Wow. I don’t say 1 thing and he goes into explaining mode. “Well I thought you were making a move preflop…the way you played the hand before made me call” and “I had 2 gutshots before and didn’t hit em”. Awesome mentality. You think a guy is making moves on the table so you decide to fight back out of position with T4 offsuit. You couldn’t make this stuff up.
I don’t know which Holiday guy I enjoy more. The one that chases and overbets his hand or the one that chases and expects me to bet it for him. Either way their bad choices after their hands hit saved me probably over $100. It is kinda depressing though when you find yourself at the softest table you’ve played in weeks and you’re the big loser.
BONUS SIDENOTE: Heres a stupid hand I wasn’t involved in between 3 players who had been at the table for over an hour and should be aware of the flow of the game and what not. I remind you…we were at a very loose passive table with not a lot of preflop raising going down. Standard open was no more than $12 if that. UTG player opens for $15.…UTG +1 passive guy from before whose playing with wifey pops it to $55 ($500ish behind)...NEVER DOES THIS WITH QQ…Its 100% KK or AA no questions asked and this should be blatantly obvious. Button player insta ships for $140ish. Back to utg who has a $400ish stack and stares at his cards for 50 seconds just saying soooo sick over and over. He clearly doesn’t have aces from the way hes acting. Hes not a good player so you could tell his worriment was genuine. He’s definitely not hollywooding with Aces. I put him on QQ/KK at the time. After a minute of fretting he shoves his whole stack in to which the guy who popped it to $55 folds KK face up! Now the guy who shipped $140 shows JJ and the other bonehead shows AK. JJ ends up winning and then the general consensus after the hand was that the guy with JJ had to shove his stack there…It was the only move….and everyone agreed. I actually told the guy next to me that I think JJ is a fold there and he looked at me as if I had 17 heads. And then proceeded to crack my Kings with T4 off. Classic Holiday Weekend Guy.
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