The Life Aquatic
The White Bear pub should be given a special EU grant. Not for serving great Guinness or putting on fringe theatre and stuff. No. For a few nights a month when the poker’s on, they single-handedly replenish the entire fish stocks of the European waters. Over in Scandinavia the sharks may be taking over but in a corner of SE11 the fish are thriving.
And as I sit shaking my head, busted out early yet again, my stack of green 500s kindly donated to Danny Cullen I wonder to myself: How is it possible that I learnt Hold ‘Em some 2 years previously with the same bunch of guys and the majority of them still, STILL believe that betting all the way to the river is a RULE, Ace High is a decent winning hand and that when I bet heavily post-flop, don’t realise that I BLOODY HAVE SOMETHING!
An example hand from a few months ago:
Des (who was so badly traumatised by the whole episode he has yet to be seen again) is up against Packie, the fishiest Irish fish in the whole of London. There’s a fairly sizable pot pre-flop. Both players check the flop, Des bets on the turn and Packie calls. Packie flips over his cards forgetting there’s another card to come and reveals bugger all, a King High. Des looks apologetic and says “sorry Packie, I’ve got to do this” before shoving all his chips in. Now most normal members of the human race, most poker players, shit, even my Gran who doesn’t know what day of the week it is would have folded, but Packie simply calls, KNOWING FULL WELL Des has seen his cards! Then the twist: totally horrified at this absurd call, Des flips over his hand to show he was bluffing. He can’t even match Packie’s hand with his Queen high. Des heads out of the door and everyone just stands in gape-mouthed awe at the sheer audacity that’s been played out before them. Packie doesn’t seem to acknowledge what’s happened. He just hoovers up the chips and goes on to win the game.
Now you could argue Des was greedy to go all-in. A sizable bet would have been enough to scare off most players, fish included. But this is an Irishman we’re talking about. There’s always that chance, however small that he’ll call. You look at last year’s Irish Open. Won by a 1st-time tournament player. And he was Irish. I don’t know how the event panned out but I wager quite strongly that he raised everything and chased the runnerest of runner-runner hands. Just a guess.
So you’re in a game. You’ve planned your strategy out beforehand. Sit tight, play premium hands, raise in good positions, fold high cards in early position, blah blah. Then you sit down and you realise your table looks like the Billingsgate Market on a Monday morning. What do you do? Is it simply a case of going back to your ABCs ? Can you even contemplate CDEs, or dare to implement the JKL ? Or is there a way of playing them at their own game? I try and compare my last two tournaments. The charity event in Berkshire was loose-passive incarnate. Players called right down to the river but there were rarely any heavy raises, minimum raise at MOST. Actually, I think some players managed to negative-raise if there is such a thing. But unless I hit big, I simply had to fold. Limping was not an option. At times it was like playing heads-up short. All-in or fold. And after 3 hours of play I think it clicked somewhere in my head. Aggressively raising on my big blind and following on post-flop I became the master bettor. Big stacks across from me collapsed like flimsy collapsible stacky things. And from there it was a short hop, skip and thump to the final table. But then the White Bear. Now I’m up against loose players again, but forget limping. Actually don’t forget limping, they like that too. But they also love massive raises with shit. Chase the Ace, runner runs, you name it. The text books will call it loose-aggressive, the players ‘fish’. A friend gave me a better description: ‘Donkeys’. ‘Donkeys are different to fish. The passive Fish are players who limp all the time and love showdowns. They don’t realise they’re bad players. Over time they’ll improve. The aggressive Fish don’t realise and frankly don’t care if they’re bad. They just love to gamble. “Look at Gus Hansen” my friend says, “most of the time he resembles one of our Irish pub players.” “So why isn’t he a donkey?” “Cos he has shitloads of cash and he knows when to tighten up.” At least with the passive players you had a chance of forcing them off pots. But an aggressive pub player will quite happily see you go all in, then, in one dark cloak of mayhem will see you, and you’ll go out (again) as his full house unfurls god-like in your lap. Graham the landlord is planning a £100 Xmas Special in a couple of weeks. Even if my bankroll could handle it I’m not even sure I can contemplate the paucity of the value.
My head spinning, I wonder if I’ll ever see a decent game of poker at the pub or if I’m destined to run the gauntlet of aggressive recklessness for eternity. I can never ditch it though: the atmosphere’s second to none and the banter great. But it’s either this or go and sit in a card room of corpses. Decisions, decisions.
And as I sit shaking my head, busted out early yet again, my stack of green 500s kindly donated to Danny Cullen I wonder to myself: How is it possible that I learnt Hold ‘Em some 2 years previously with the same bunch of guys and the majority of them still, STILL believe that betting all the way to the river is a RULE, Ace High is a decent winning hand and that when I bet heavily post-flop, don’t realise that I BLOODY HAVE SOMETHING!
An example hand from a few months ago:
Des (who was so badly traumatised by the whole episode he has yet to be seen again) is up against Packie, the fishiest Irish fish in the whole of London. There’s a fairly sizable pot pre-flop. Both players check the flop, Des bets on the turn and Packie calls. Packie flips over his cards forgetting there’s another card to come and reveals bugger all, a King High. Des looks apologetic and says “sorry Packie, I’ve got to do this” before shoving all his chips in. Now most normal members of the human race, most poker players, shit, even my Gran who doesn’t know what day of the week it is would have folded, but Packie simply calls, KNOWING FULL WELL Des has seen his cards! Then the twist: totally horrified at this absurd call, Des flips over his hand to show he was bluffing. He can’t even match Packie’s hand with his Queen high. Des heads out of the door and everyone just stands in gape-mouthed awe at the sheer audacity that’s been played out before them. Packie doesn’t seem to acknowledge what’s happened. He just hoovers up the chips and goes on to win the game.
Now you could argue Des was greedy to go all-in. A sizable bet would have been enough to scare off most players, fish included. But this is an Irishman we’re talking about. There’s always that chance, however small that he’ll call. You look at last year’s Irish Open. Won by a 1st-time tournament player. And he was Irish. I don’t know how the event panned out but I wager quite strongly that he raised everything and chased the runnerest of runner-runner hands. Just a guess.
So you’re in a game. You’ve planned your strategy out beforehand. Sit tight, play premium hands, raise in good positions, fold high cards in early position, blah blah. Then you sit down and you realise your table looks like the Billingsgate Market on a Monday morning. What do you do? Is it simply a case of going back to your ABCs ? Can you even contemplate CDEs, or dare to implement the JKL ? Or is there a way of playing them at their own game? I try and compare my last two tournaments. The charity event in Berkshire was loose-passive incarnate. Players called right down to the river but there were rarely any heavy raises, minimum raise at MOST. Actually, I think some players managed to negative-raise if there is such a thing. But unless I hit big, I simply had to fold. Limping was not an option. At times it was like playing heads-up short. All-in or fold. And after 3 hours of play I think it clicked somewhere in my head. Aggressively raising on my big blind and following on post-flop I became the master bettor. Big stacks across from me collapsed like flimsy collapsible stacky things. And from there it was a short hop, skip and thump to the final table. But then the White Bear. Now I’m up against loose players again, but forget limping. Actually don’t forget limping, they like that too. But they also love massive raises with shit. Chase the Ace, runner runs, you name it. The text books will call it loose-aggressive, the players ‘fish’. A friend gave me a better description: ‘Donkeys’. ‘Donkeys are different to fish. The passive Fish are players who limp all the time and love showdowns. They don’t realise they’re bad players. Over time they’ll improve. The aggressive Fish don’t realise and frankly don’t care if they’re bad. They just love to gamble. “Look at Gus Hansen” my friend says, “most of the time he resembles one of our Irish pub players.” “So why isn’t he a donkey?” “Cos he has shitloads of cash and he knows when to tighten up.” At least with the passive players you had a chance of forcing them off pots. But an aggressive pub player will quite happily see you go all in, then, in one dark cloak of mayhem will see you, and you’ll go out (again) as his full house unfurls god-like in your lap. Graham the landlord is planning a £100 Xmas Special in a couple of weeks. Even if my bankroll could handle it I’m not even sure I can contemplate the paucity of the value.
My head spinning, I wonder if I’ll ever see a decent game of poker at the pub or if I’m destined to run the gauntlet of aggressive recklessness for eternity. I can never ditch it though: the atmosphere’s second to none and the banter great. But it’s either this or go and sit in a card room of corpses. Decisions, decisions.
posted by swampsterjy at 10:36 AM
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