Sweatin' with the oldies

Most people think that poker isn't an aerobic exercise, but it can sure work you up a good sweat.

Tonight I was playing at the Flamingo. We started a new table, and about 30 minutes in, I found two red kings in the big blind. There were two limpers, followed by a young man on the button raising to $10. First decision: Call or reraise? A reraise might earn me only $14 if everybody folded. The limpers were two retirees, who had a tendency to limp-call any normal-sized raise. I thought they would fold to a reraise, but stay in if I just called, making for a nice pot. Also, if an ace were to come on the flop, I could get away with little loss, because odds were that at least one of these guys had some ace-rag hand. So I went with the call, and my prediction about the oldies (sorry to use a slightly disrespectful term, but I have to justify the post title I picked--besides, I consider myself one of them, being eligible for the WSOP seniors event next year) proved to be correct. Four of us to the flop, pot about $35 after rake.

Flop: 5h-6h-2d. Though I thought the button would continuation-bet anything if we all checked to him, I didn't want to take the chance of it being checked all around, because there were too many potentially scary cards that could hit the turn. Also, going for a check-raise was not ideal here, I thought, because I was first to act after the likely bettor (the button), so if one of the retirees had hit a set, my check-raise could get really expensive. Better, I decided, to lead out, because the flop was coordinated enough that a set would probably raise to protect against draws, so I could get away, if necessary, with the cost of just my opening bet, rather than having to face a likely all-in from a slow-played set after having put in a large check-raise. I bet $30. Our senior citizens folded fairly quickly. When it was his turn, the button instantly shoved for $181. I had him covered by less than $10.

I didn't have a ton of information on him. This was the first time he had made any move this large or aggressive. The most salient fact here was the size of the reraise--six times my bet. I thought that a big overpair would be more likely to raise smaller. Would he do that with a set? Possible, given the consideration of the draws. But in my experience, most $1-2 players just LURVE to get cute with sets, and shoving doesn't give them the satisfaction of the trap. The size of the bet seemed to me to be either a big pair not wanting to get drawn out on, or a strong draw (e.g., A-Q in hearts) that was semi-bluffing. He had taken no time at all to decide on the push, and I thought that a set would take a minute to consider the options for how to play it.

I thought about it a while. I decided that I had most of the big pairs beat and was a substantial favorite against a draw. I have a really strong distaste for putting in my whole stack with just an overpair, but this seemed to me like one of the occasional places where I likely had the best of it with nothing more than unimproved kings. I called and showed.

My opponent flipped over 8h-9h, for a gutshot straight-flush draw. I was indeed a favorite, though not by as comfortable a margin as I would have liked. To be exact, it was 57% me, 42% him.

The ol' apocrine and eccrine glands went into overdrive on the turn, which was a black 8, giving him a pair. He gained more outs, but, of course, was left with only one card on which to hit, so I improved a little statistically: 64%/36% now. Still, I could just hear Mike Sexton, in that overexcited voice that he gets when all the money is in and it's down to one card: "He can hit a heart, a 7, an 8, or a 9. Vince, Grump is going to have dodge a lot of cards here!"

My sweat was extended when the dealer put out the river, but I couldn't see it, because his hand hovered where it blocked my view. (This was not purposeful on his part.) I could see a flash of red on a face card, but that was it. He actually announced the winner before I could see what had happened: "Kings." He moved his hand, and I finally saw that the jack of diamonds had joined the board. Whew!

Score one for us old guys.



Oh, and admit it: You had to look up "apocrine and eccrine glands," didn't you?