North Pole Hold 'Em

Try your luck against Santa's elves. I play an aggressive style of poker as exhibited in the graphic to the right...


Scroll to the bottom of this page to give it a try! Watch out for Reginald's nose rubbing tell and make sure Santa isn't stacking the deck against you.

Tilt-a-Whirl

Aaron is the master. Last Friday night we went to our usual spot to play a little poker and hang out with Aaron's buddy Andrew. Well, there was an older guy that kept checking out the game. He was trying to razz us about our pathetic play, etc.

Well, Aaron finally got him to sit down and the guy proceeded to spew out 264 big bets on his first hand as Aaron goaded him on. Aaron politely raked in the pot and thanked him for doing business. It was a stellar round of Mexican Kung Fu.

Bad Beat

I think this is as bad a beat as one could (not) hope to encounter. Poker is not for the emotionally unstable...just don't tell them that!

I had pocket TTs and call a pre-flop raise of about 3.5BB (because I'm not like the internet fish). 4 people see the flop. I flop a set. Beautiful! What's next? Well, I need to milk this for everything it's worth. The pre-flop raiser throws out a continuation bet. I decide to just call as there are two players behind me. One of them calls (yes!) and the other folds.

The turn comes an 8 of spades. This puts two spades on the board, so I'm willing to be a little more aggressive now to protect my set. The sucker throws out a bet. I raise. He re-raises all-in. I don't have to hesitate in calling. He confidently flips over pocket 8s. Yes! Could he be more dominated? At this point all his money is in the middle, there is one card to come (the river), and only 1 card out of 44 that can give him the pot. I'm liking my 97.7% chance to pull down this massive pot.

Well, given the above, it's obvious what the river brought. This little fish swam upstream and delivered the knockout blow...the case 8 of clubs comes out to give him quads. Any of the 43 other cards would have handed me the pot. I guess at least I should be pretty solid the next 43 times I get my money in the pot in a set-over-set situation like this.

I smiled and congratulated him. The dealer was afraid of getting hurt and was surprised I didn't completely unleash on him. What can I do? I had to quickly move on from that hand. There will be more pots and more opportunities.

Definitions

It's important to define some terms for later development.

poker [poh-ker]
–noun
1. a person or thing that pokes.
2. a metal rod for poking or stirring a fire.
3. a card game played by two or more persons, in which the
players bet on the value of their hands, the winner taking
the pool.

gup·py [gup-ee]
-noun, plural -pies
1. A small, brightly colored live-bearing freshwater fish
(Poecilia reticulata or Lebistes reticulatus), native to
northern South America and adjacent islands of the
West Indies and popular in home aquariums.

One concept that is key to one's poker success is that one should not "tap the aquarium". Many players simply don't understand or appreciate this fact. Guppies sometimes eat their young. Big deal. Are you jealous of a guppy?

One of Aaron's best qualities is that he understands this, but is still able to get under someone's skin in other ways where they just can't believe that he's for real. Well, he's for real...and so are his cards!

Congrats!

While Aaron is most certainly one of the biggest fish I know, I need to pat him on the back. Within the last week Aaron has two live tournament cashes including a 1st place finish last night.

You have to get lucky, but you also have to put yourself in position to get lucky. Here's hoping the streak continues! I'm just scared about what sort of attire Aaron will start wearing now that he has some money to splash around...

Who's the fish?

I'm finding myself asking this question for the first time. We have reached the pinnacle of our rivalry.

Silly me for thinking my AJo was a solid hand heads-up. Aaron just knew that his 95o would go runner-runner to suck out a straight. I mean, anyone that flopped three to a straight would need to put in lots of chips to see if it could develop, right?