#490 - Unstuck, Yet Stuck

Not that I’m complaining, but I probably have little choice but to keep playing poker (and writing about poker) until at least November. Every time I contemplate doing something different - and to move forward in my life away from poker, I probably have to give up writing about it and, for the most part, playing - something good happens.

I had a week early this month where I won $12k from three strong finishes. Yay poker! But then I gave about $8k of it back over the next couple weeks. Suddenly, a few new book projects jumped to mind and I started going to town on a movie idea I’m developing.

On Sunday night, after a long day in which I thought I played well and was treated poorly by the deck, I played well and got a lot of good breaks to win the Sunday Mulligan. It was worth more than $47,000, my biggest single cash in tournament poker. (I actually had a Sunday in which I won slightly more back in February, but that was from two different tournaments.)

I’ve usually taken my good results as an excuse to play lots and lots more. Many a fine result has died hard by that reasoning, so I’m going to take it easy, at least for several days. I couldn’t help myself though, and entered the $1k Monday tournament, which I usually play only after doing well on Sunday.

I’m telling you, I played better in the $1k than I did in the Mulligan. For the first two hours, every hand where I lost more than a bet was a bad beat. On several occasions, I was near the bottom of the tournament. I went from 1/4-average to above-average over a period of an hour-plus without ever seeing a turn card. Then I made a couple big starting hands and got paid off.

I’m not mentioning this to brag. (Well, okay, just a little. I finished 12th in the $1k, worth exactly 1/10th what I made in the Mulligan.) I’ve decided, if I’ve resigned myself to playing poker for the next several months, to a resolution:

I’m going to ignore people who complain about how I play.

I used to think I had decent reasons for engaging people who wanted to argue about how I play. First, there’s nothing wrong with a battle of wits. Second, I’m in red so people can chat with me and not all the chat is going to be people lauding my wonderful play. Third, I honestly like sharing my perspectives on the game. I’ve felt that engaging in that discussion was good for poker.

I’m ready to admit I’ve been wrong about all that. Long, long ago, I stopped engaging people who begged for money. And I’ve almost never complained when the deck hasn’t gone my way - I’ll occasionally say something if someone else brings it up but even that’s probably not good. This is now the next step.

Most of the people who want to fight with me have no interest in learning. They just want to fight - and not really fight but whine in anonymity. And I’ve reached the critical point in my career in poker where I’m not interested in teaching people about their mistakes unless they approach me just right.

Here’s the one that put me over the brink, in the $1k. The player in Seat 2 had won one of the FTOPS main events. I remembered his name because, during a recent talk with a top online cash-game player, we discussed how the good games are disappearing because the bad players are going broke.

Then the guy said, “The only time the games get really good now is when some tournament player wins an FTOPS and starts showing up in the big games. Like __________ .” He started laughing like remembering a great joke. “This guy would sign up for $200-$400 and the game would fill up instantly. Then before you know it there would be a waiting list of, like, twenty names.”

Well, _________ was at my table in Seat 2. Naturally, good manners and lack of first-hand knowledge kept me from even considering mentioning his starring role as The Sucker. But then the guy opened up his yap at me, and he did it in service of proving he was an inferior poker player and couldn’t hold his own in a battle of wits.

Here’s how the hand went down:

$1K Monday
300/600 Ante 75

Seat 1: (18,582)
Seat 2: __________ (14,506)
Seat 3: (4,803)
Seat 4: (24,030)
Seat 5: (11,905)
Seat 7: Michael Craig (24,007)
Seat 8: (6,622)
Seat 9: (16,794)

Everyone antes 75. My small blind of 300, Seat 8’s big blind of 600. The button is in Seat 5.

*** HOLE CARDS ***

Dealt to Michael Craig [9d Qc]

Seat 2, the FTOPS winner, limps for 600. I call from the small blind, the big blind checks.

*** FLOP *** [7d 8c Td]

I have an open-ended straight draw and an overcard, but I think the limp by Seat 2 is suspicious so I check. So does the big blind. So does Seat 2.

*** TURN *** [7d 8c Td] [2h]

Michael Craig bets 1,800.
Big Blind folds.
Seat 2 calls.

*** RIVER *** [7d 8c Td 2h] [9s]

Michael Craig checks

Seat 2 takes some time to think, then bets 5,400. (There is 6,000 in the pot.)

If he had a ten, he would have bet the flop. Same with an overpair or two-pair or a set, or at least he’d have checked down after the river with a 4-straight on the board.

For him to have a straight, he’d have to have a six or a jack. He wouldn’t have called with nothing but a gutshot on the turn, so the hands he could have had are very few: like 5-6, 6-6, 6-7, 6-8, J-7, or J-8. And I have to discount slowplaying by now because he’s neglected too many opportunities to make the pot bigger if he already had a straight or two-pair and he let the board get too dangerous with an overpair or two-pair. He turned down 3 chances to show strength and suddenly bets 90% of the pot on the river. I think he’s made the classic mistake of betting on the river with a hand that’s too strong for a bluff and too weak for a value-bet.

I call.

*** SHOW DOWN ***

Seat 2 shows [Ac 7c] a pair of Sevens
Michael Craig shows [9d Qc] a pair of Nines
Michael Craig wins the pot (16,800) with a pair of Nines

So what’s this FTOPS winner, this guy who once made $400,000 in a day, say? “michael craig = big donkey”.

Even then, I turned the other cheek. But when he started going on about how I was a terrible calling station, I had to unload. But even then - EVEN THEN - I was tactful. I asked him if he took any of his FTOPS winnings to the cash games. That gave him a chance to ignore me and just shut up.

But he said, yeah, the cash games were good.

I replied, “Every cash game is good … for someone.” He then said he was up $240k, but lost back $200k.

I didn’t say another word about it, but several people on the rail outed him. They either watched him donate or they log on to sites and forums where his Suckerdom is famous.

So now, illogically, ridiculously, he calls me “the worse calling station in poker” and that he “knew not to try and bluff you.” He also called me “donkalot” and “moron.”

There’s literally not enough space in the chat box to respond to all of that. Apart from the fact that he clearly misplayed the hand at almost every opportunity - maybe only the call on the turn was okay and even then he was a wuss - he outed himself as an idiot by telling me that he knew not to bluff me … right after he bluffed me.

The only thing I said about him the rest of the night - he busted short of the money - was when someone on the rail asked if he was a well-known pro. I said, “Yeah, he’s Scotty Nguyen.”

After that whole exchange, I felt like a grown man fighting on a playground with a child. Here’s a guy who once had $400,000 behaving like a jerk and highlighting his playing mistakes to boot. Why should I undertake to have a constructive conversation with such a dope? (If nothing else, imagine the ire I’ll arouse among the high-stakes players who’ve been relieving him of his FTOPS boon without remorse?)

So from now on, the critics get dealt with like the whiners and the beggars. If you want to learn poker from me, watch quietly or ask nicely, or just e-mail me at mrchaotic@aol.com.

I’m not giving out this attitude because I think I’m a genius about the game. I think I know quite a bit - much more a compliment to my teachers than their student - and my results over the last year show pretty consistently that I’ve absorbed at least some of it. I make mistakes, bad plays, and encounter situations where I’m just wrong. But I’ve passed the point where an intelligent person would presume I’m wrong because their instinct is to disagree with me, unless they are really smart poker thinkers, which means they don’t call people morons.

I’m not even saying the FTOPS winner doesn’t know how to play. Who wouldn’t want a $400,000 day? But the guy’s had 2 winning months of the last 16. I’d take his results over mine, but that doesn’t mean that his understanding of the game is so superior to mine that his disagreement is evidence of my error. When Andy Bloch disagrees with me, I’m most likely wrong. When Chris Ferguson disagrees with me, I’m most likely wrong.

But the guy they build the $200-$400 games around? Calling me a moron? He’s not going to teach me anything that way, and he sure as hell isn’t going to teach me anything by the way he played that hand.