So I decided that a good night to go play poker at the Vic would be Wednesday night after it had been snowing all day long and the whole of the U.K was on condition red and two seconds to midnight on the Doomsday clock with regards to the weather.

The cardroom was like a graveyard with only one game going on, £5/10 Pot Limit Omaha. That’s right, not even a £1/3 Hold’em game. It was like being transported back in time to a Saturday afternoon in the mid-90s when nobody played poker at all.

Mind you, it was a blinding game. Being snowed in gave people no choice but to play; naturally I proceeded to get stuck like the stuckest pig you have ever seen. I mean buried. In the words of an old mate of mine, it was raining soup and all I had was a fork. At least I have started this year like I ended last year.

One of the new young No Limit Hold’em wizards was “forced” to play in the game - you don’t come all the way to the Vic to just go back home, right?

“Any chance of them starting a £2-5 No Limit Hold’em game?” he asked. I told him there was no chance of that happening. Not to worry though, this Pot Limit Omaha game was pretty good.

“Yeah, if you’re a good Pot Limit Omaha player,” he replied. At this I took a look around the table and noticed that all the so-called good players were doing their money and that all the stars were winning.

“Who says you need to be good to win at Pot Limit Omaha?!?”

Talk Is Cheap, Calling Is Expensive

It wasn’t all torture though, I did get to witness some of the finest speech play I have seen in years. Demi is a regular at the Vic who I’m sure many other players would recognise even if they don’t know him (that’s right, his name is Demi like Demi Moore the film star), this is because you can usually hear him halfway down the Edgware road egging on his opponents to call him.

Demi had managed to talk Oscar into calling him twice in a row on the river when he had the nuts or close to it when yet again the river card not only bought the flushing card, but also paired the board. Bear in mind there was also a possible straight out there too.

Oscar now bets about half the pot and Demi immediately raises. Naturally this causes Oscar to go into the tank and sure enough, Demi revs up the verbals,

“Go on mate, you probably got me beat. That card did not help me at all, come on, call! I’ve got nothing, you’re probably winning. You bet it, din’ ya? You must be winning, you’ve gotta call, don’cha?!?”

“What’s that last card made you? You’ve got a full house haven’t you?” is Oscar’s response to all that.

“That card didn’t help me at all. I can assure you I don’t have a straight or a flush. Or a full house. I assure you I don’t have a full house. I cannot have a full house. Know what I mean? That last card did not help me. I guarantee that I do not have a full house. You’ve gotta call, I got nuffink. You must have me beat. You made the first bet, innit?”

And so on. And on and on. For at least five minutes. Maybe more. It was relentless. And don’t forget Demi had already done this routine for the last two hands and had shown down the winner both times. Even Oscar himself had admitted out loud to the rest of the table that he was a chronic non-believer. In the end I think he just wanted the onslaught to be over, anything for some peace and quiet.

“I call.”

“Full house.”

That was inevitable wasn’t it? But that’s the beauty of poker, when you’re not in the hand it’s the easiest game in the world. What all the railbirds and armchair critics forget is that everything is different when it’s you in the hot seat facing the decision.

Under Pressure

A bit later I flopped top two-pair and bet. Demi called and we both checked the turn when a straightening card appeared. A king fell on the river and now Demi had a bet. As I started to dwell up Demi couldn’t resist giving it a bit of his north and south.

Now, when it was on Oscar it was very obvious to me that Demi had the full house. Christ, even all the waitresses knew he had the goods in that hand. But now, in this situation, I honestly had no idea what to do. I’m sure the other players at the table knew exactly what Demi had in his hand, but what is it about this game when it’s up to you and everyone’s attention is on you and all you have to decide is whether to fold, call or raise?

If only one could remove oneself from the situation completely it would be a lot easier. By that I mean just detach oneself. But that is what is at the heart of the matter when it comes to poker. Even when you’ve played long enough to not let your ego trick you into thinking that you’re brilliant and everybody else is a complete mug it still gets in the way. You’ve seen how your foe plays against somebody else so why is it when they do the same sort of thing against you it’s different? It’s hard to admit to oneself that the guy opposite you who you think is a bit of a star thinks the same way about you.

“He knows that I don’t play like Oscar, so he must be doing the opposite. Or the same. I mean, I know that he knows that I know that he thinks I’m a tight player so therefore he must be bluffing. But then he’ll know that I’m thinking that, so therefore he must have it. But then again that’s so obvious he probably doesn’t. Besides I can only beat a bluff. Is he good enough to value-bet a better two-pair in this spot? Does he actually know what value-betting means? Maybe I should be raising? That way if he’s turned a better two-pair than my hand into a bluff there’s no way he could call… He is talking a bit like he did in those hands against Oscar. But I know he respects my game a bit more than Oscar’s… doesn’t he? Shit, maybe not - that must mean he’s at it. No, wait, on second thoughts it probably means he’s got the nuts…er…help!”

Jeez, talk about a clusterfuck. Of course, I took the conservative route of folding so I’ll never know what Demi had. No doubt air, but hey, if you can’t fold the best hand sometimes, right? At least that’s what the rocks always say to console themselves when they’ve been bluffed out.

In The Land Of The Blind, The One-Eyed Man Is King

I mean, check out a recent blog from Daniel Negreanu where he justifies laying down a set against Eric Froehlich:

http://www.fullcontactpoker.com/poker-journal.php?subaction=showfull&id=1262928300&archive=&start_from=&ucat=&w

“The only hand I could beat was K-J, but I just didn't think he'd risk his whole tournament in that spot with just two pair when I showed so much strength. My hand has to be REALLY BIG to play it this way. He should know that, and I know he does.

I later found out he had K-J and was really surprised. He told me later he thought I might have 10-J, but I thought his logic was really flawed for two reasons 1) If I have 10-J I won't call his shove, and he has me drawing almost dead, so why push me off the hand? 2) I'm just not going to play 10-J that way in that situation based on my chip position in the tournament. It's just not in my range at all.”

What I love about this is that DN expects other players to have the same thought processes as him, so when they don’t, they have played terribly. Just because he played his hand a certain way he thinks that the other fella must know that he has a set, so now to play the rest of the hand the way he (the other geezer that is) does must mean he has better trips or stronger. Yeah, ok. The key sentences are, “He should know that, and I know he does,” and, “I'm just not going to play 10-J that way in that situation based on my chip position in the tournament. It's just not in my range at all.” I mean, really, Froehlich has just ballsed up the hand so badly, how could he not pinpoint DN’s range exactly? What an idiot.

It kind of reminds me of players who get annoyed when their opponents don’t “respect” their bets and end up making loads of bad bluffs against people who like to call. But of course it’s not the bluffer’s fault, it’s the calling station donkeys who are to blame.

As an old shrewdie once told me, and I think I‘ll have this carved on my tombstone, “You can’t bluff a duffer and you can’t fight City Hall.”

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