Have another one buddy
In my last post I made reference to a big session online Friday night. I (virtually) sat down at a .5-.10 NLHE table with a $10 buy-in, and when I left I had $68.50, and I got nearly all of that cheddar from two drunks. It was quite the perfect scenario, and normally I don't trust the chat I read, but in this case there was no denying it. Here's the best part: It was a six-handed table, but I sat alone with these guys for almost an hour. They kept typing in stuff like: "I set a record. It's been a whole 10 seconds since alcohol has touched my lips!" and "I thought I had three 9s in my hand." WE WERE PLAYING HOLD 'EM! And, I'm actually being kind here as my editorial instincts fixed all of the typos. What it actually said was "Iset a recrd. its ben a hole 10 sencods sense alchol has touchd mylips." And his partner typed in: "I gotcha beet, 14 second heer."
So, at first I was skeptical, because people try all sorts of things to make you call when they have the nuts, etc. But these guys were hammered, and they were trying to bluff at all the wrong times. It took me a few hands to realize they were just two drunks laughing it up at the table with each other on a Friday night. I even made a big laydown early on, not knowing they were drunk bluffers. One time I had a wheel and a guy called off his entire stack with Q-high and one card to come. I kept busting them and they kept rebuying. Or, one drunk would bluff the other one, get all of his chips and then he would try to bluff me and I would take them from him. Every so often someone would join the table, lose a pot to one of the drunks, leave, and then I'd take that money from the drunks later. It was a dream.
In the end, the Great Porcelain God took them away from me, but I went to sleep a happy, happy poker player.
So, if this isn't a good enough ad to keep you from drinking too much alcohol and playing poker, then nothing is. Imagine their faces the next time they logged on and saw their bankrolls. I have no idea how much they lost collectively on the night, but I got mine.
LOW LIMITS: I continued my assault on the lower limits, posting three more winning sessions at Stud/8 and/or HORSE on Saturday night and Sunday.
ONE MORE THING: I forgot to post this on my last entry about Saturday's home game, but we played poker for six hours and not once was Razz called. Is that blasphemy?
-- Chris
Illustrattion by Chris Cosenza using images from iStockphoto.com
Christopher Cosenza is co-host of the longest running poker podcast on the planet, Ante Up! He started playing poker seriously in 2003 and his favorite players are Phil Ivey and Kenna James, though he tends to act like Phil Hellmuth if you make a bad play against him.
Scott Long, Ante Up!'s other co-host, is the author of the monthly Bet on It column in tbt*. He began gambling way too young (don't tell the fuzz!) and in the seventh grade, named his state "Gambleland" for a school project (State Animal? Loan shark, of course).
Not sure what is the bigger blasphemy... No razz... Or only playing for six hours... ;)
Posted by: FrodoNL | October 08, 2007 at 12:10 PM
Quote Chris Wrote: ONE MORE THING: I forgot to post this on my last entry about Saturday's home game, but we played poker for six hours and not once was Razz called. Is that blasphemy?
Yes
Posted by: Sharkey | October 08, 2007 at 12:26 PM
Fantastic! Maybe there is a future show on discussing the optimal strategy for playing a table full of drunkards. Oh wait...that's every weekend online in the micro limits.
Congrats on cleaning them out!
Posted by: OhCaptain | October 08, 2007 at 12:39 PM
The last time that happened to me where I KNOW they were drunk and I cashed in was on Pacific Poker. Some guy literally dropped $1K in an hour at $.50-$1. I got about $275 out of him. He was smashed and said he didn't care "cuz I won the lottery." ... That's when I wrote "And now so did I."
Posted by: Chris Cosenza | October 08, 2007 at 01:28 PM
Last time this happened to me was in Tunica in January. I had a horrible trip up until the last night. With both events going on it was hard to get a table. Finally at 2am a seat opened in $2/$5. I bought in for $500 and within 2+ hours I had it up to $1500 with zero risk.
Its always good when you flop the nuts and the other shove his stack into you on a bluff.
Posted by: Snuffy | October 08, 2007 at 02:25 PM
This is the session you rarely read about. Usually, you read about the one time in 10 the drunks get lucky and take a load of money off you.
Posted by: Godard | October 08, 2007 at 03:05 PM
Screen names please...
Posted by: ChicagoJason | October 08, 2007 at 07:39 PM
Yeah Jason, that is info I will be keeping to myself. Sorry. It's like finding a tell on someone in your home game, you don't tell him and you don't tell your friends either.
Posted by: Chris Cosenza | October 08, 2007 at 09:09 PM
Hey Chris,
Did you know that the rake structure on FTP is a whopping 10% at the .05/.10 level? A ripoff... It's better to play .10/.25 where its the more standard 5%.
http://www.fulltiltpoker.com/rake.php
When you go over your wins and count the additional rake you find it really adds up.
Maybe you guys should encourage the ante up nation to watch the rake and pay no more than 5% of the pot for cash games at low limits and 10% of the buy-in for tournaments.
Later,
Veener
Posted by: Veener | October 09, 2007 at 06:41 PM