Whippersnapper

Same thing that makes you laugh will make you cry. That’s Saturday morning poker to me. I used to enjoy getting up early and playing the daytime Saturday games at Casinos. Saturdays are when Casinos are filled with the old man weekend warrior poker players. The ones who are there to limp every hand, play their 1 buyin, chat it up with their doppelgangers, and “play the right way”. None of em win any money. They think they play good until their stack dwindles a bit and they find themselves in a spot where they have to commit with top pair and get felted. They go home convincing themselves they made all the right moves and just ran into bad luck. Whenever they fold top pair they have to announce it after the hands over. After every pot they have to explain exactly what they were thinking in that hand to each other. They never bluff and their preflop open range is something like JJ+,AK. Their main concern is basically to let the other players at the table know that they are a good player. Even though games are tight, I used to look at Saturdays as a safe way to make about a hundred bucks. Saturday I was in one such game.

Everything was chill for about the first 45 minutes. Everyone got to see their flops for $2 and nobody was making money except for the house and the dealers. A grand ol time was being had by all and I’m not one to wanna ruin everyones fun. But I am here to make money. One of the most standard and obvious ways to make money in these games is raising big for value preflop. Its tough creating big pots post flop in the limped pots unless it’s a cooler or a made hand vs. flush draw situation. So of course I’m going to take advantage of spots and raise as much as I can preflop with my good hands for value. I have no problem open raising for $15+ in a 1/2 game with even the bottom of my range if I think im going to get called by worse. Which is exactly what I started doing. I eventually had to raise my button preflop with AQ and came out double barreling a scary board in which I kinda missed. Took down the pot. Then one hand later I flopped 2 pair in a limped pot and bet heavy all 3 streets and won without a showdown. All of a sudden I heard someone at the other end of the table whisper “I’d LOVE to see what he had”. It was top 2 on a dry flop for the record if that’s so freaking unbelievable. 2 small hands and all of a sudden I’m striking fear into these old guys hearts. Anyone with a brain would see I was playing standard ABC poker. But at a table where the avg age of my opponent was about 60, at age 31 I had quickly become the young “whippersnapper” of the table.

Less than and orbit later I get AK (with the king of diamonds) in the small blind. After a few limpers I decide to pop it to $20. $20 seems like much but I think I can probably get 1 caller and If not Im content taking down the blinds. Of course limping and just seeing a flop is an option but I feel it’s a time where aggression with my big hands will add to my image and really get under these guys skin. Especially if we don’t get to showdown. To my slight surprise I get 2 INSTA callers. Flop is something like 754 of diamonds. In a $60 pot I decide to bet $45. I figure if I make my hand look enough like a big overpair they’re going to fold most of their hands. Hands like 88-TT fold here most of the time by these particular villains. Plus $45 is a lot for these guys to chase a draw. They’re mostly looking for any reason to fold post flop. So I get 1 caller. Turn is something like 2 of clubs so I check and villain checks behind. At this point I feel confident villain doesn’t have a monster. Im kinda puttin him on a small made hand with a diamond. Maybe like pocket 8’s with the straight flush draw. MAYBE AK with the Ace of diamonds. So the river is another insignificant black card. I can check and he’ll for sure check behind and If I bet I will only be called by better obviously, but I decide to bet small. Im not willing to bet big on a bluff and heres why. By bluffing Im trying to get him to fold the hands I previously put him on. Small pairs with combo draws that ended up missing, and AK with the A diamonds. Which I guarantee he woulda folded for about $50. No need to put more in. My bluff only needs to work about 26% of the time to be profitable. So I bet $50 and he calls with QQ (Q of diamonds). He had pretty much what I put him on but slightly better. Its tough to put him on QQ since he limped in sheer terror of building a big pot with QQ or having to fold it preflop. To me or you I played the hand in a pretty standard fashion…but you should’ve seen the reaction I got when I happily tabled AK to show the bluff.

Everybody on the other end of the table was awestruck that somebody would try to bluff in a game of poker. The lunacy! Who does this guy think he is! You cant just come into a poker game, raise preflop with premium hands, and then make stabs at pots that people don’t want. Whippersnapper. Suddenly all the rocks had turn into an angry mob trying to regain control of their precious little Saturday game of poker. There was a clear buzz at the table if not a downright outrage. Still missing the fact that I’ve played nothing but premium hands the whole time. Not more than 1 hand later I find myself on the button with AK AGAIN!

So now after the barrade of limps I decide a $15 raise is sufficient. This will thin the field and get me heads up or vs. 2 with position. I get only one caller (a guy with about $55 behind) and a flop of Q J x. Check to me….I check behind. Turn is another J….check to me….I make a $15 stab…villain insta shoves all in and it’s a clear fold. Before I fold I ask if he’ll show and he agrees. Of course he does because he wants everyone else at the table to see what he has so they know hes a “good player”. I show him my AK and he shows me 99. Pretty bold move for this guy with 99. Everyones now congratulating him for his AMAZING hand won. Chalk up a win for the good guys. Maybe this whippersnapper will think twice before raising his button with premium hands and then playing standard ABC poker post flop. What have I created!

Theres still a buzz at the table when I get QQ (with the Q of diamonds) the immediate hand after in the cutoff. After the limps I decide to play off my image and pop it to an absurd $25 in which the shortstack to my left shoves for $29 and 1 limper calls for $29. Flop is A65 of diamonds. Villain checks…I check. Turn is the 9 of diamonds. Check to me and I make the standard value bet with my monster hand of about $60. Now the villain is clearly counting his chips out and eyeing my stack trying to decide whether to raise or just call. He clearly has no fear of my hand and I have the feeling I’m up against the K of diamonds. After a few seconds he just calls. Now the river is a brick and I decide that villain is giving off enough tells about the strength of his hand that I think I’m beat…but I have enough showdown value to call a bet so I grab my whole stack as if im ready to ship it in. This of course fools the villain into checking the nuts to me…ya I said it…THE NUTS. Of course I check behind losing the absoulute minimum to this clown who was playing 87 of diamonds. I did nothing wrong in this hand and lost the minimum. This fool did everything wrong in this pot and reeps the rewards. Or at least he thinks he played it well. He really cost himself $100 by playing so passively. I don’t have a HUGE problem calling 87s preflop if you’re a savvy player whose capable of playing tricky, bluffling, and getting max value out of your made hands. But In this guys case he was just a horrid player who got lucky once and will lose a lot of money playing 87s in his poker lifetime. Especially if he’s not going to maximise his value when he hits. When asked by another player why he didn’t bet the nuts he said “cuz he’s a maniac I figured he’d bet”. See how being dealt premium hands can change the perception of how your playing. It’s not like I didn’t show my hand every time but all these guys saw was that I was raising big preflop. So instead of just not calling which would’ve forced me to raise smaller amounts, they decide that they are going to call with bad hands and play horribly post flop. Great strategy.

All in all my bad run of good cards turned into a day in which I soon became card dead. At this point I was down $200 which later became over $300. I was able to bring myself up to a respectable loss of only $220 after 7 hrs in which I felt I was losing focus and playing my B game. Leaving the table stuck a respectable amount is something I’ve been working on. Like I said in one of my last posts I can count on one hand the amount of times I was stuck over a hundred dollars after 5 hours and came back to profit over $100. Sometimes we have to understand it’s just not our day.