Poker Chick...Who's That?

It's obviously been WAAAYYYY too long since I posted on this blog and I have no legitimate excuse for that. Life has been quite hectic, but that doesn't excuse the neglect to the poor blog. I've been doing a lot of real estate stuff lately (you can check that out at bluewaterdev.com), so poker has taken a back seat again, but I've still been playing online semi-regularly and I make it down to the tables every couple weeks or so.

The real story for me online has been the HORSE tourney on Full Tilt. I have worked my stats up to have an in the money average of 41% for that tourney. For those of you that don't know (and those of you that do can take this as a little brag) that's CRAZY good! A couple of weeks ago, I had back to back final table appearances and finished ninth, second, and fourth. I think I need to go scour the other sites and find some HORSE tourneys with higher buy ins. Maybe get into town once and a while and play some real life HORSE events.

As for casino play, my most recent venture was to Ceasar's. I met a couple of friends down there, Ben and Chisum, and Chisum and I took a piece of each other in the nightly tournament. For those of you that have never played the regular nightly tourneys at Ceasars they are quite good. The structure is decent and the starting chips vs. blinds is high enough that you aren't involved in a crap shoot. I got knocked out in the third round when I got it all in after the flop with QQ against another guy's under pair to the board - 99. I was eliminated when (you guessed it) a nine fell on the river...nice. Anyway, I headed out to the 1-3 live NL and made about $400 playing for the next three hours. During that time, Chisum made it to the final two tables and then helped orchestrate a 14 way chop for 1st. So I at least got my entry fee back out of it.

As always, playing in the casino provided me with some interesting encounters. A guy wearing a loud pin stripe suit, fedora, and gaudy fake jewelry sat down at my table and bought in for $300. He immediately began attempting to bully the table with ridiculous bluffs and lost his $300. When a seat opened up directly to his left, halfway through his second buy-in, I moved over next to him. He immediately began berating me, asking if I had come over because I thought he was a fish. I told him that I just liked the end seats at the table, but he wouldn't quit. He kept going on about how he'd been playing poker since before I was born and he didn't play TIGHT like me. On and on he went about how TIGHT I played. I didn't say anything. I only managed to get myself into two pots with him before he lost his third and final buy-in. On one of them I bluffed him off of his hand with two complete rags (which I didn't show because I was still hoping he'd stick around a while) and on the other I got him to call me down when I flopped two pair.

About half an hour after he had disgustedly left our table, I took a bathroom break and stopped to say hi to Ben who was at another game across the room. I came up laughing and started talking loudly, "Man you wouldn't believe this guy who was at our table a few minutes ago," I began, "sitting there trying to be all Gangster with his fake Versace suit and a toupee that looked like an animal died on his head." It was just like you see in the movies. Ben's eyes got really big while I was talking and then as soon as I came up for air he grabbed my hand and spoke in a low tone, "You mean that guy over there in the two seat?" "Oh no!" I thought. I peered around the dealer and, sure enough, there he was in the two. I couldn't help but laugh at myself. "Oooops," I said. I know he heard me. Everyone at the table must have. I felt bad. Well, not that bad. He had been a jerk. But I always figure that losing their money is enough of a punishment for jerks like that. I don't have to rub it in.

Until next time...remember to look both ways before you berate an absent player.