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#642 – Engulfed by Biloxi #12 – The Road to Ruin, Part VI
DESTINATION LIMP CITY
The play that’s been killing me lately is the Unshakeable Limper. I always assumed that someone who limps is either slowplaying a strong hand or weak. Somehow, I seem to be running into a lot of people who are either messed up on the strength of their hand, or messed up on its weakness. I’m just not used to playing against them and haven’t made a good adjustment yet.
For instance, I lost a bundle when a guy limped with pocket fours and I bluff-raised big preflop with J-7. He waited until almost all his chips were in the pot on the turn to check-raise with what was by then fourth pair. He clearly hadn’t put me on a bluff. He just didn’t know how to play the fours and so he played defense by calling off so many of his chips that he pot-committed himself. Even so, he left me with a lot of outs but I doubled him up.
By 3:30 AM, I was very low on chips, with under 3,000 and blinds of 200-400 and a 50 ante. It was my big blind and I had Ac-5c. A player on a fairly short stack (but more chips than me) limped and two others followed, along with the small blind. I moved all-in. The initial limper just called, which caused the other limpers to fold. The other played had A-Q.
You’re going to have to work real hard to convince me that limping with A-Q is a good idea, especially when your stack’s not that big. (I think he had about 20 big blinds.) Especially, with big blinds and antes. Especially with a shorter-stacked player in the big blind. Especially when you don’t “complete the trap” by moving in after me.
I think players are just getting paralyzed by how they play certain hands after the flop, so they limp with them and make it up as they’re going along. Honestly, I don’t think he goal was to lure a smaller ace into moving in.
So I busted, and that’s when I learned the lesson of the Vicksburg Volunteers and the Clan of the Mystic Confederation.
Read the signs. Don’t push your luck.
What kind of gambler stirs up the local populace, then drunkenly wanders into the local militia screaming threats and turning over tables?
What kind of gambler bombs out of two tournaments, the second one his stated “only satellite into the Main Event” and then signs up for another at midnight?
I should have known better. Instead, it was nearly 4 AM and the casino bar I hoped was entertaining a thoroughly-soused-and-senseless Erick Lindgren – heck, Gaven Smith would have done fine – was closed, leaving me alone with my lesson.
Poorer? Definitely.
Wiser? For now, yeah, but there are no guarantees. My usual strategy of riding a hot streak or trying to break a losing streak because “I’m due” pretty much assures that I resolve all ambiguities by simply playing more poker. To my credit, I did NOT play Full Tilt’s 4 AM guarantee tournament upon returning to my room.
Though I did think about it a little bit.
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