Poker is a Woman

Poker is a woman. Just when you finally coax her into liking you and bed her, she berates you for your lack of skills in the sack.

This is perhaps hyperbole at its worst, so I'll start at the beginning.

Last night Lance and I played a $1/$3 cash table game at a home game in Arlington. I bought in for $300 and ended up walking away with a bit over $1100. Normally this post would be about what I did (or thought I did) right and wrong during the game; or, perhaps about the truly crazy-eyed young Asian whiz kid who, just when I started to figure him out, cashed out and left; or, how I made a killer conservative lay-down of my pocket JJ to Lance (even thought I would have won the hand with them). But, instead, this post is going to have to be about Emily Post.

Last night I apparently did the poker equivalent of scooting my butt along the felt.

Some background's required. For the last ten years, although I've played poker online off and on, I've never played live games with the exception of my daily lunchtime free poker meetup that Rick and I play at the Hyatt Grand Slam. There, we are encouraged to talk about our hands while in the middle of them (example: Brian says in the middle of a hand involving 6 people, "Rob, I have top pair, should I call?" Or, Rob might say in the middle of a hand, "Damn, I'd folded pocket 10s!"). Not only is it encouraged to discuss your hands, to some extent, if you have the nuts and don't give half of your bar friends a heads-up to get the hell out before they lose their virtual chips, it's considered downright rude.

But, this is free poker. Last night was not free poker and the rules are different.

You aren't supposed to discuss your hand nor anyone else's hand while the hand's going on, with the possible exception of banter during heads-up play. So, when I folded pocket nines and mentioned that with three people left in the hand, it was not only inappropriate, it irked Lance more than you could imagine since he considered it "cheating." Partly, it's because if he brings me to one of his events, I think there's the expectation on his end that my behavior reflects badly on him. Partly, it's because Lance can be exacting to compulsion, so anything that deviates from proper poker play -- including etiquette -- will warrant a swift and brutal reprimand.

Lance's Rules of Table Etiquette (So Far):
-- Do not discuss your hand or anyone else's during live play.
-- Do not "slow roll," which means taking too long in turning over your cards at the end of play when you know you have the best hand and/or when play is dead (to my credit, I was tired, didn't know I had the best hand, and was kind of out of it, so I should have gotten a pass on this one, particularly after I apologized).
-- No string betting.
-- Use proper poker terminology. Bets and raises are different things and, if you use them interchangeably, you are going to hell.

Needless to say, this all resulted in a bit of an argument last night. I walked away with $1100 and expected my poker teacher to correct the couple of mistakes I made, but, once we got in the car, to discuss how -- even with variance -- the lessons I learned from him had, to some extent, paid off. I expected some discussions on how my bet sizing had improved.

I wanted a gold star from my favorite teacher. Or at least a silver one. Instead, I got "bad dog."

I sent an apology email to the organizer of the event as soon as we got back. I don't know if he was nearly as upset with my behavior as Lance was, but I thought it was the right thing to do. Personally, if they don't have me back, I have a theory that it might be slightly more because I took everyone else's chips than it would be because of etiquette, but we'll see.

While we're discussing tangentals to poker, I have a few rules of my own to pass along -- lessons learned from a month or two of live play. I would imagine that most people would disagree with the majority of these; but, for me, they've held true so far:

-- If you felt out, it's usually best not to rebuy because the amount of time it's going to take you to get back even half of the money you lost is not worth the late night Taco Bell run that you could be making instead. Not to mention your increased risk of playing on tilt.
-- If you're at a table with young men who don't know you, it's extremely advantageous to stare at them for 3-5 seconds and smirk. They don't know if you're flirting with them, if you're an asshole, or if you're just a psychopath. It almost always guarantees a fold in a head-up situation.
-- Always watch for the older men who are playing to have fun and not because they're psychotically obsessed with poker like the rest of us. These will be your chip bleeders and the people who will call you 2 cards after they should have folded.
-- Watch out for twitchy Asians. They'll play loose-aggressive, and usually reasonably well.
-- Don't fall in love with a weak Ace or middle pairs. These will cost you more money than you can possibly imagine.
-- If you're at the poker tables on a date, unless you both walk away with a profit, shut your trap and don't act too happy if you're the major chip winner.
-- You can have poker or you can have sex. You rarely can have both and most certainly not on the same night.

Despite all the apologies and kowtowing to Lance about the events of last night, as Cheers so brilliantly reminded us, "it's a dog eat dog world and I'm [still] wearing milkbone underwear." You know they're still mad at you when your "I love yous" are met with grunts. I'm still waiting on that gold star from my most favorite teacher and I think I'm going to be waiting for a while.

In the mean time, I'm walking around with a wad full of cash and a hankering to play solo against some twitchy Asians.