Saturday, March 03, 2012

2nd place that feels almost as good as 1st




I arrived back in Vegas a few hours ago.

My last evening with Cardgrrl we decided to join Mrs. Lederer's occasional Thursday-night All Vegas Poker game. This time around it was the 8-game mix, a real challenge. The coolest part was that Cardgrrl and I were the only two to make the "money" (just free points, sadly). Once we got down to heads-up, I realized that I really didn't care who won, which I don't think I've ever experienced in a poker tournament before. Cardgrrl got short-stacked early on and had to mount an epic comeback to win, so I'm happy that she did.

11 comments:

Rob said...

Congrats on the 2nd place. But I do have to say, it sounds an awful lot like you were soft-playing Cardgrrl.

I remember reading a post on an excellent poker blog recently about how soft playing is really cheating. I can't remember who posted it, let me see if I can find it....oh, here it is:

http://pokergrump.blogspot.com/2011/11/soft-playing-is-cheating.html

I think you know the blogger who posted this!

Rakewell said...

1. I do not think it is possible to view what I wrote as implying soft-playing without an enormous degree of eisegesis.

2. I would be perfectly willing to let anybody examine the hand histories for any suggestion of soft-playing, confident that the only possible conclusion would be negative.

3. Our long history of playing online runs contrary to any implication that we slow-play each other. E.g., the last time that we ended up the last two standing in a MTT, I won it. (See http://pokergrump.blogspot.com/2009/10/mookie-i-winz-it.html.) This time she did. That's just how it goes.

4. In our last cash game together earlier this week, I once called her pre-flop raise with 7-8 offsuit, hoping to hit a lucky flop and catch her off-guard, not suspecting what I held. I did. I flopped the nut straight. She folded, having missed, so no payoff. But this is not the action of one soft-playing his girlfriend.

5. I actually lost the heads-up battle because of being overly aggressive, not by letting her win.

6. Even if, theoretically, I had worked my way to heads-up only to intentionally throw the match at the end, it's hard to see how anybody else would have been hurt--in contrast to essentially every other situation in which soft-playing is an issue.

Rakewell said...

Oh, and...

7. If you are suggesting that she can only win if I take it easy on her, well, you don't know her at all.

Anonymous said...

GTFO ROB U NUBB

NT (aka Cardgrrl) said...

Oh, and 8.) If I ever caught him throwing a game—to me or anyone else—I'd have to break up with him.

Rob said...

1. Thanks for introducing me to the word "eisegesis." I will try to add it to my vocabulary if I can ever figure out how to pronounce it.

2. You do realize I was kidding, right?

Rakewell said...

No, that wasn't obvious to me. But I'm happy to take your word for it.

lightning36 said...

Eisegesis? Who said that poker blogs were not educational?

I can attest that Cardgrrl is one tough cookie on the virtual felt, although it sticks in my mind that I trapped her (not an easy task) and she sucked out on me the last time we played in an online tournament. That seems like light years ago...

Oh -- and thank you for being true to yourself and using fuliginous language at the risk of appearing supercilious.

Rakewell said...

Hmm. I didn't think "eisegesis" was that obscure a word. I learned it in college lo these many years ago. It's one of those words for which there is no substitute or equivalent. I wasn't TRYING to sound erudite; it's just that there is no other word that expresses the idea of reading one's own thoughts into a text.

BuzzedSaw said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
BuzzedSaw said...

I have a reasonably broad vocabulary, I subscribe to "A Word A Day" and 'eisegesis' was unfamiliar to me, so thanks for the introduction. Personally, I eschew obfuscation, and never use a big word when a diminutive one will suffice.