Gunning for the Grump

First a bit about the photograph above. I stole it from the "Literature and Poker" blog kept by Tim Peters--specifically the December 27, 2007, post. Tim is the book reviewer for Card Player magazine (his older stuff is here, but unfortunately it appears that his newer contributions there, the book reviews, don't get put up on the CP web site), and contributes to the Hard-Boiled Poker Radio Show (as do I). He doesn't post often in his blog, but when he does, it's always worth reading. He also has a knack for finding wonderful old poker photographs, postcards, etc., with which to illustrate his posts. I came across the one above just as I was mentally composing this very post, and instantly knew that it was what must accompany a post with the word "gunning" in the title.

The incident I want to tell you about actually happened several weeks ago. There is no particular reason for the delay in writing it up, other than the fact that every time I felt like blogging, there always seemed to be something else more immediate to talk about.

Anyway, I was at Planet Hollywood, and within my first few hands was dealt the A-J of diamonds. I made a standard raise, got a couple of callers. The flop brought me a royal flush draw, with the Q and 10 of diamonds, plus a blank. I made a continuation bet. A highly aggressive player at the other end of the table made a substantial raise. I had no idea what he had, but there's no way I'm folding with so many cards that will make me the nuts.

An additional incentive is this: It's not likely that I'll get the one card in the deck I need for the royal, but if I do, there's a $600 bonus the casino will pay me. I have about a 4% chance of it coming, the effect of which is the mathematical equivalent of the poker room having just dropped an extra $24 into the pot.

I'm perfectly content to get all my money in at this point, and do so. He calls. He has K-Q for top pair. The turn brings a baby diamond to complete my flush, and I double up.

None of this would be particularly unusual, except that Mr. Hothead takes the loss of the hand very, very personally. He makes a snide comment, something like, "So you like going all-in on draws, eh? Nice suckout." I ignore him and stack up the chips. (There's something about stacking an asshole's chips that makes ignoring his nastiness a whole lot easier....)

I didn't think much more about it, until the next time I put in a raise he called, and called me down all the way to the river. They were all insta-calls, glaring right at me, barely paying any attention to the cards on the board. I got the distinct impression that he was gunning for me, determined to take back what he felt were rightfully his chips.

Sure enough, for the remainder of that session, every time I limped into a pot--100%, with zero exceptions--and he had not yet acted, he would put in a large raise, and every time I was the initial raiser--100%, with zero exceptions--he would call or reraise. Furthermore, he never gave up to a bet on the flop; he would always at least see the turn card. Sometimes he would raise, sometimes just call me down.

I have never had an opponent so obviously and doggedly trying to take me down. It was actually quite amusing in how predictable he became.

Now, think about how easy this made my session. Suppose we set up an unusual set of poker rules, in which you are required to play every hand you're dealt, but I get to pick and choose whether to put my money in. Short of being allowed to see an opponent's cards, it's hard to think of a set of rules that would make my life as a player easier. Yet that's precisely the disadvantage that this moron put himself at, committing himself to playing any two cards when I was in the hand, while I could sit back and wait for premiums.

Furthermore, after the first couple of times that he raised after I limped in, it became clear that he would do this as a matter of course, so I started to limp with the biggest hands, and let him do the raising for me, disguising my strength, then nail him with a big reraise either before the flop or when the flop looked good for me.

Naturally, I didn't win every hand against him. If the flop missed me, I didn't bother with bluffing or continuation bets, because there was no getting rid of him, so I could concede them with little loss. He probably hit a few monsters along the way, but I wouldn't pay him off. In other words, I won the big pots, and he won the small ones. Seems like a good deal for me; for him, not so much. But he was the one setting the strange terms under which we played, and I wasn't inclined to renegotiate them with him, since I kept coming out ahead.

Two or three days later, I was playing at PH again when he arrived and sat down two seats to my right. He immediately asked the floor for the first available table change, and was moved within ten minutes or so. I can't be certain that he had decided he didn't want to play with me anymore, but I have my suspicions.

One of the most foolish things you can do at a poker table is target another specific player. Now, I have to qualify that assertion. Certainly one is always on the lookout for the weakest opponents, and hopes to tangle with them. But the rational way to go about this is to identify what kind of errors they tend to make, then look for or set up situations to exploit those tendencies (e.g., value-bet the calling stations, bluff the tight-weak players when scare cards come, etc.). Moreover, you don't do that for just one opponent, but for every person at the table simultaneously, so that you can make money from anybody and from a wide variety of favorable situations.

Making a mental decision that you're not going to rest until you have won the chips from a particular player is just asking for trouble, because the only way to do that is to repeatedly come after them at a disadvantage. In addition, you will waste your ammunition (chips) in these failed attempts, so that you have less available to use in what would be more advantageous situations against other opponents. It's insanity. It's ego run amok.

Mr. Hothead decided, whether consciously or not, that it was more important to win chips from me specifically than to maximize his win rate for that session, letting the chips come from where they may. Getting even with me was a higher priority than actually turning a profit for the day. I had no such inversion of goals. I was looking to make money whenever and wherever I could. As it happened, a disproportionate share of it came from Mr. Hothead, because he, more than any other player that day, repeatedly and willingly took the worst of it against me.

I'm happy to play under such conditions anytime they are offered to me. I just can't begin to grasp why he wanted to offer them.