Ugarte's Poker Grovel #6: Tepid Days and Shout OutsIt was time for the Churchwarden’s game again; a monthly ritual of jovial and loose poker play, bourbon and cigars. But I forgot to pick up the cigars. Thank god for the bourbon. We drained what was left, and I must remember to restock Das Alte Kerkwarden’s liquor cabinet.
Also, there are some much belated shoutouts to other poker blogs around the web that have been kind enough to link to the Grovel, so stick around for those.
Forgive the Orwellian rechristenings of my poker colleagues; I can’t turn down a request from a friend. The Churchwarden and I sat down with Helmut Newton and Leo Bloom. Rick had to work again and a sixth player bailed, so we were playing at a short table once again. The Churchwarden and Leo took a fairly severe pounding the last time out and were looking for redemption. I was looking to recover from the pounding I took in the No Limit Debacle. Helmut had done his share of winning lately, so even though I could insist to him that playing loose would eventually cost him he was in a position to disagree. Strategy, says he. Piffle, says me. But the only place to settle this dispute was at the table, so to the table we go.
I would have made a better argument had I not started playing junk. Not total junk, but semi-junk. K5, Q8 - the stuff I know that I’m not supposed to play. What can I say? We were playing 4 handed 1-2 hold ‘em and I confess to getting a bit bored since there was very little conversation. I confess that I am a fan of coffeehousing at the table, as long as the people out of the hand don’t start theorizing about the hand in progress.
Like I said, it was a quiet day. Helmut came out gangbusters. He took down the first five hands - 2 straight wins, a river and 2 times the table folded to him. 10 minutes after we first started dealing and he is running away with the table. Time for bourbon.
I really don’t remember the rest of the night. What I do know is that Churchwarden started playing tight and solid, and I refused to respect a preflop raise from Leo to my peril. (My 55 didn’t stand a chance against his cowboys.) After that solid start, Helmut spent the rest of the night pissing away his chips. Two hands from his slide to the bottom stand out and both involve me.
I have A6c and am head to head with Helmut. Flop comes Kx-6x-4c. Helmut checks. I’m not a particularly good reader of people, but I know that my sixes are strong. I bet, he calls. Jc on the turn. He ain’t got no J and now I have the nut flush draw. I bet again, he calls again. 8x. He checks, I bet, he calls. And turns over ? 85c. So he called me with a draw to a gutshot straight after I opened three times. Would you have guessed that I had a K? I sure would have. Man did I want a club to come on the river, but Mick knows the deal. Does revenge come? Yes, yes it does.
Holding 67o in the BB, Helmut calls from the SB and we are head to head. Flop is 2-4-5 rainbow. Helmut bets. Even though I figure he has a low pair - those are the hands he plays - I call. Between the open-ended straight draw and (I thought) 6 additional outs, one bet seemed reasonable. Turn is a 3. Jackpot! Now I have the stone nuts and we cap the betting. River is useless, he checks, I bet, he calls and turns over 46. And made some noise about me getting lucky. I concede that my draw was a little lucky (and if a 6 had hit the board it would have cost me a lot of money), but what was he doing calling pre-flop with 46? Or refusing to respect 2 reraises? I have no regrets. If Helmut is going to live by the chase ...
The tally is strange. In the final accounting, I wish I had lost an extra quarter to Leo and Churchwarden.
Churchwarden +$45.25
Leo Bloom +$45.25
Ugarte +$0.50 (Yes, that’s right four bits. For four hours. I could have been stitching Nikes.)
Helmut -$91.00
Here is the part where I honor those that came before me. I have to give multiple shoutouts to those who have shouted in my direction:
Hello back to Pauly at Tao of Poker. You can also check out his general blog Tao of Pauly. Pauly’s a New Yorker, so I figure that we’ll play eventually.
London Froggy of Vagaries is, well, in London - so I doubt that we’ll play any time soon. But who knows. It might be fun to lose sterling instead of dollars.
Grubby at Poker Grub is running the Hammer Challenge. Are you man enough to win the extra prize in Round III? Is grubby in NY also?
Iggy at Guiness and Poker is ... I don’t know where Iggy is.
Felicia Lee runs a yahoo group about her play out in Nevada. Not on Yahoo? Go here.
Finally, it took so long to post this that in the interim my cash cleared the pokerstars account. So I played for a little while at the 1-2 table at 7am yesterday. Stupidest $20 I ever threw away; did it in about a minute and a half. Next time I’ll play when I’m awake so I don’t have to bury it at the back of the grovel.
Read Less...
