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.
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11 comments:
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!
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.
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.
GTFO ROB U NUBB
Oh, and 8.) If I ever caught him throwing a game—to me or anyone else—I'd have to break up with him.
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?
No, that wasn't obvious to me. But I'm happy to take your word for it.
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.
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.
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.
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