Double or Nothing

Dr. Lawrence Gordon: What's your name?
Adam: My name is Very Fucking Confused; what's your name?

”Saw”

If I may deviate from poker for a moment, I just watched “Saw” on DVD over the weekend. Now I know it was released last year, and even opened at number 1 in the US, but since I saw it this year it counts as a 2005 movie for me. “Saw” is already the best movie of 2005. If you haven’t seen it, go see it. It is an awesome idea, and doesn’t rely on blood and guts to get it’s thrills. The ending is the best ending I have seen in a long, long time.

Watching this movie also left me very disappointed. This was because it was made by two Australians who on the advice of some talent agent, took the film overseas without even bothering with the local market. I don’t blame them, obviously this move worked for them. What annoys me is that they felt to get this movie made, they HAD to go overseas. Our local film industry would not have approved a movie like this. If the movie was about some Aussie battler or some middle aged women coming to terms with her sexuality, they would jump all over it. Other than that, Australia really only produces vehicles for actors. Such a shame when talent like this is forced to go overseas. But anyway, the movie worked for them and I’m sure they are getting whatever funds and approvals they need now.

Back to poker, and I had a small poker theory related post all ready to go before the weekend, and then at the tables something happened that was a perfect example of my thoughts.

Playing the $50NL tables at Noble, and this table has been pretty tight. After nearly 100 hands I am down to just below $40 with no big wins to speak of really and no big losses.

A new player joins the table, and first hand they raise all in. I have two beautiful red aces. It looks like perhaps he has just walking into Cowboys or Hiltons, so I am looking forward to dominating this match up. One player behind me also calls the all in. Amazing really, considering how tight the table was just one hand earlier.

On Noble, you don’t get to see the cards until the hand is over, so when the board showed no flush and no picture cards, I felt a little safe. Until the new player showed 24o, for a rivered two pair. The other player had a suited Jack. I saw a $120 pot slide across the table. I was in shock.

He did it three times in a row, and the cards were hardly any better for him. J6 flopped trips and then improved, 78o was good for a flush. He was 4x the buying in three hands by going all-in with junk and hitting. It had become a crap-shoot.

I thought the safe thing to do would be to run away, or do I rebuy and wait for this maniac to pay me off? Would I suck out again?

I decided that I have enough bank roll to rebuy and try to get my money back, which is usually how all these terrible going bust stories start. In two hands I got the cowboys, when I was UTG and he was the BB. I went all-in, just wanting him and him only to call. He did, and had J5o, and I think a short stack came along for the ride too. The turn gave him a gut-shot straight draw, but the river was another King to give me my money back plus a small profit for my time. Then I left the table immediately, as did every other player except him – who still had about 3x the buy-in anyway.

I don’t know if going back into the game was the right thing to do. I mean, it was still down to any two cards. I was lucky to receive a premium hand again so quickly, but I just considered that divine justice. I am now willing to sell his username to anybody interested for $5 a pop.

The thoughts I was going to talk about revolved around low levels of NL. Really, about 90% of the players are just waiting to double up. It is rare to see any pots in the 10BB-20BB range. They are either the blinds plus a few raises, or all-ins. I’m not sure that method is all that much fun.

It seems a little redundant to complain about the level of play at the $0.25/$0.50 tables, but it was just an observation of mine.

Noble will not have me as a customer for much longer – and not just because their software sucks. Do you know how hard it is to get a SNG going that is higher than $2? I guess that’s the difference between Party having 70,000 players and Noble having 400. They have tried to combat this with their Maui $5 SNG – if you win 5 in a row (I think it’s five) you get a bonus $15K. Worth a look methinks. I tried one and finished third when I lost a race with K-suited vs Ace-suited or something similar. But any profit is good with the wedding coming up.

I have recently also been inspired by Pauly’s “99 Things About Pauly”, and even though I am not attending Vegas for obvious reasons, I think I might try to make a list of my own. If I think it’s any good, I may even post it. Who am I kidding, even it is sucks I’m still going to post it.

At the moment, after watching “Team America: World Police” again over the weekend, we can’t stop calling people “Cock Bag” in our house. Even when we went through McDonalds drive through. It’s a fun little pastime, and you should see how often in your everyday life you can call someone a “cock bag” without them noticing. Helps the idle moments pass.