Fun with Cardgrrl

I mentioned a few days ago that Cardgrrl was coming to town. She arrived today. I just got home from a delightful five hours of poker sitting next to her at Caesars Palace. As you might have deduced from reading her blog, she's smart, funny, and interesting, my top three favorite attributes in people.

I had aces twice, kings twice, queens twice, and A-K four times. Cardgrrl was mostly card-dead all night. Yet I ended up losing about the same amount as she won--and she had the added disadvantage of jet lag. You be the judge of who played better. Of course, I never even once got dealt the mighty 2-4, so I had no chance. (I'll let her tell her own 2-4 story, if she chooses.) And, in my defense, I was on the upswing when we left, and she was on the downswing, so it might have ended differently if we had stayed.

There was only one hand that I think is worth relating. I was on the button with Ah-Qh. (That's right, it was sooooted.) Several players limped in ahead of me. An elderly gentleman, who was under the gun, reraised all-in for $97. It was folded back around to me.

I had basically four thoughts, all of which converged on the same conclusion. First, the reraise was so big that it seemed clear that he didn't want a call, which suggested that I should frustrate his desires with a call. It would have been scarier if he had put in a raise to, say, $50. He still would have been pot-committed, but it would have conveyed a sense of "call me, sucker," rather than "go away." The way he put his chips in also seemed to me, well, defiant, for lack of a better word--overly forceful and dramatic. Second, he had played few hands, and I couldn't remember him winning a pot. I thought he was frustrated and pushing with less than a premium hand--the old "double me up or send me home" syndrome. Third, there was going to be enough dead money in the pot that it was mathematically OK to take the slight underdog position if he had an underpair, which is what I thought his most likely holding was (roughly 7s through 10s). Fourth, he could easily think my raise from the button was based more on position than my cards, as if I were just trying to pick up the limpers' money, and thus reraise me fairly light to catch me in a bluff. So I called. The big blind reluctantly folded.

I was wrong. He had Q-Q. The flop and turn gave me no help, so I was resigned to my fate--until the dealer put out an ace on the river. Whew! At that point, the woman who had been hesitant to fold said, perfectly plausibly, that she had folded A-K. Whew again! I had hit a two-outer. Hey, I'm not proud of it, but I'll take it.

The older guy who lost the hand got up in a big huff. He limped a short distance away to his mobility scooter, fired it up, and took off. But as he zoomed past the table, he called out to me, "You were only a 15:1 dog!"

And *poof*, he was gone out the door.

It's the first time I've ever been the victim of a drive-by taunting in a poker room.

The poor man would not have liked the reaction he provoked, which was laughter all around. It was so pathetic it was funny. It also became a running joke for the table. For the rest of the evening, when somebody made a bet, he or she would warn opponents, "You're a 15:1 dog here." Conversely, somebody folding would say, "I can't call--I'm a 15:1 dog."

I also managed to get a good laugh out of the dealer (who had been trying hard to maintain his professional neutrality) when I said, "He should have known a bet that big would only get called if he was beat."

I can't say that a good time was had by all, but I think a good time was had by all but one.