I met and dealt to Jason B., a reader here, after he sat down in a $4-$8 Holdem game. He was going to play in the Friday’s at 5 the following day. Really cute, nice attitude, and we got to visit briefly on Friday. (A little jump ahead here), he was still in the tournament when I came in at 7. I looked for him a few hours later, in the faces that were left in the battle, and he wasn’t there…Damn. I was really hoping he’d win it.

Back to the game on Thursday. A woman that declared she was a CPA, but looked like she could have starred as a witch in a Walt Disney movie, sporting a snaggly toothed smile and long white hair, went all-in and lost. She pulled $40 in chips out of her handbag. Most of the guys at the table started ragging that she’d been ratholing her chips (that means sneaking them off the table). I explained to her that she had to leave all chips in play.

She knew exactly what was going on. Lots of snaggly toothed smiling going on here. She said that she’d bought $40 in chips earlier and paid for them with a $100 bill. Since the dealer couldn’t give her change, she took $100 in red and put $60 of it in her handbag.

The guys just weren’t going for it, even though I tried to interject that “IF” that’s what she did, she could do that. Now I went through the process with her (with a giant smile on my face and trying to make it into a joke…BTW I don’t have snaggly teeth and teeth are one of the first things I notice on people) of explaining that everyone was going to be watching her now and what she did with her chips and since I didn’t want everyone mad at me, she would be forced to leave everything in play on the table.

Her head bobbed up and down, more snaggly teeth smiling, and she laughed her ass off over the tiz the guys were having. The guys weren’t mean, they just wanted her to understand they knew what she was doing and from the way she acted, she probably did do just what they said she did. So I explained all of it to the dealer that pushed me, as he shuffled the first hand.

I then told her, “We’re watching you now,” as I went on my way to the next table.

She thought it was really funny and kept laughing. Nice not to have her go ballistic and throw a fit over it.

*****

I dealt one of the WPT NLH games (that’s the name of our low limit NLH game now). The buy-in has been changed to $200 and the Blinds are now $2-$4. Don’t worry, it never slowed anything down. There is/has always been a main game and a must move since this game started in the room. There’s so much action in this game, it’s not for the faint of heart. I really believe most of these players think that if they go all-in, you have to throw your hand away…or if you go all-in, you’re bluffing.

During my down in this game, one youngster in the 5s, threw off over $600 and left the table. The first hand was pretty incredible to me that he would even call the all-in bet. It started like this: Six or seven people called the $4 Blind.

The Flop was 8-9-10. Bet $5, two players called, the 5s made it $20 to go. The rest of the field called the $20, except the 4s…raise, all-in, for $353.

The 5s put some thought into it (about 30 seconds or so) and called. Everyone else folded.

In this game, once a player is all-in and it’s heads-up, the hands are turned over immediately, just like tournament play.

The 4s had Q-J, the 5s had 9-10. I was flabbergasted over both of their play but I wasn’t giving poker lessons then and I’m not giving them now.

A few hands later, the bet got raised (not sure how much) by the 5s and the 8 and 4s called. The Flop was Ace-little-little. Both the 4 and 5s checked. The 8s bet $100. The 4s folded and the 5s thought about it for around 30 seconds and went all in for a little over $150. The 8s called.

The 5s turned over Q-Q. The 4s exclaimed, “I threw away Queens!”

The 8s turned over A-K and since the Flop was a Rainbow, the 4s was drawing dead…if the 4s was telling the truth. I ran out the cards and pushed the pot to the 8s. The 5s picked up his drink and left the table…no noise, no fuss.

The 5s got married to every hand he looked at. While there are a lot of reasons to get married to a hand, there are a lot of reasons to end the relationship at any point during the hand…think about it when you take a seat in this little island of volcanic, chip spewing action!

*****
I was part of this project. Sweet!
Howard Lederer’s ‘Secrets of No Limit Holdem’