Rick's Cafe Americain

The WPBT got me all fired up. I want to play with that crew again ... and soon. But I’m really much more of a live-game player than an online player. I prefer being able to fire jokes and collegial insults in real time. When I have to rely on my fumbling fingers to type a barely-witty apercu before the chat scrolls away, too much is lost.

Also, playing poker with women online just has no jazz. Toby may as well be a 42-year-old machinist with a wife and two kids online. But she is not. Nor are Toni or Julie for that matter. It isn’t that they are just pretty faces, but when the alternative is Pauly, well, you might as well just play online. Also, rooms full of guys love talking about sports. I can and do talk about sports ad nauseum myself, but I really don’t like to do it; having a couple of women in the room usually prevents that from happening (even if—sometimes especially if—they are actually sports fans).

“I leaked a little more to Ferrari when I made two pair on the flop, but he called and caught his flush on the turn. He says it was the river but he is wrong. Or he is a worse player than I give him credit for because he definitely wasn’t getting the odds to try for runner-runner. Either way, I was foolishly blind to the flush possibility until the fourth diamond hit on the river and it cost me extra bets.”

Dude, this was the hand where Tobi went all in.  I had two diamonds and there were two diamonds on the flop.  You bet, I thought about raising and then figured it was pointless since Toni was all-in and the side pot was only $3 before your bet (raised pre-flop by me so I think $11 in the main pot with a BB fold), so even if I bluff you out, she is still there and betting up the pot heads up hoping to catch is not mathematically correct.  Turn was a brick.  You bet, I called.  River was a diamond and either you bet and I raised, or you checked and I bet and you called—that part I don’t remember. 

Sorry, but you got the hand wrong (if you recall, you didn’t even see the flush until after I beat you, so your arrogance of insisting that you know the order the diamonds came when I was watching them DURING the hand and you were not is a little pretentious).  There were NOT four diamonds, only three.

To everyone else, we debated this hand after the side game was over and this was very near the end, so my recollection was pretty fresh, especially since I had sat and thought about raising Ugarte with the flush draw and then decided not to, and especially since I love hands where I pound Ugarte on the river.

That makes this the requisite hand for every game where our memories collide. If I thought there were only three diamonds, I would agree with you. I remember looking at the board and your hand and thinking How did I not see the flush with four fucking diamonds on the board?

I’ve never been more sure of a hand I have debated with you than this one. 

Honestly, I think you were in shock over the flush you didn’t see and then later misremembered (or possibly thought you saw four diamonds by me throwing my cards at the board or something).

Anyway, give yourself credit.  I can see you, occasionally, missing a flush draw where there are two diamonds in a threeway hand with a pre-flop raise and then the 3rd hits on the river.  I can’t see you missing three diamonds on the board.  Also, give me credit.  Do you honestly think that I wouldn’t have raised the shit out of you on the turn if I had hit the flush then?