Re: unbeatable game?
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The table consists of 9 people (other than you), all of which know the basics to playing poker, but just don't follow them, including one 80 year old man who plays EVERY hand and calls them all down to the river(no joke, he loses $2500-$5000 a night at best.)
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Stonecold, I feel your pain. My problem is that my style and knowledge is suited to No-Limit, but my bankroll puts me right at that $2/4 table, between the 80-year-old man and the blue-haired woman who's decided to gamble away her social security check at the poker tables rather than the slot machines.
I've decided to stay away from these games where there are at least seven showdowns at the river. I've been adding to my bankroll by playing sit-n-go tourneys online, but obviously, as a recent college grad with a 9-5er getting in the way, it's slow-going.
Anyway, I thought I'd share a couple bad beat stories that happened at Foxwoods in the very same day, at the very same table... maybe it's just for morbid amusement; maybe there's something to be learned from it. I don't know.
Anyway, I was playing at Foxwoods for the very first time, so I decided to start small. I bought in for $120 in the $2/4 limit game, and found myself up about $60 playing with young folks, like myself. All of a sudden it was like a changing of the guard. As the whippersnappers shuffled off one by one, they were replaced by retirees, apparently waking up from their afternoon naps. Apparently they were so refreshed, that all eight felt alert enough to play EVERY hand down to the river. After losing with trips or top two pair to straights and flushes at the river no less than six or seven times, my original $120 was whittled to about $70. After losing with pocket aces to (get this) a 2 7 offsuit in middle position who had called my raise (neither of us hit the flop, but she saw fit to call my bets all the way to a 2 on the turn and a 7 on the river), I decided I would play my last hand. Down to about $40 after the last tragedy, I look down at pocket 9s. Miraculously, only 5 opted to see the flop, even without a raise to scare them off their monster 3 6s and 4 8s. Flop comes 10 10 9. Bingo. Now I can only imagine that three of the old-timers must have had hands that even THEY couldn't mathematically draw to, because it was down to me and a particularly ornery-looking fellow with hair sprouting from his ears. I had flopped a full boat, and only two hands beat me at this point: 10 10 or 10 9. Guessing he had neither, I bet into him.
Now Foxwoods has a rule in limit games that when it gets heads-up, instead of capping the betting, each player may keep raising in turn until one is all-in, if they so choose. as he kept pushing me, I knew he had a 10, but figured his kicker wasn't a 9, and he would have to outdraw me to win. Eventually I was all-in... he still had a mountain of retirement chips in front of him. He stood up and flipped over A 10, pretty much what I had expected. When I flipped my hand over, he guffawed and said, "You was raisin' me with that, sonny. You ain't even got a 10!" He didn't realize that I had a full house until the dealer pointed it out. Long story short, after catching running 4s to pair the board and give him a higher full house, he had the nerve to pull a Josh Arieh and tell me that I stupid for betting against him and I got what I deserved.
Anyway, I did what they tell you to never do. Instead of walking away and cooling off, I bought back in for $100. Almost immediately, I found myself in the big blind with A 3 suited. Who should join the pot but Old Man River himself? He raised and everyone else, probably remembering the tension from the last showdown, folded in turn. I called. Flop came A A 3, giving me nuts. At that point nothing could beat me. So I bet. The old-timer just scowled at me and grumbled "Back for more, eh?" Same exact thing happened. We raised back and forth until my $100 was all in the pot. I expected that I was at least up against an Ace with a high kicker, meaning I was at least risking that he would draw once again to a higher full house. Much to my surprise, he turned over pocket 8s. When I flipped over my A 3, he didn't even blink. He had put in $100 with two aces on board with only a pair of 8s! I didn't even look up to watch his face as the turn and river came 8 8 to give him 4-of-a-kind.
The dealer just shook her head and looked almost as sorry as I did. As I got up and walked away without a word, I heard the old man say quite loudly, "That ought to put him in his place."
Again, I'm not sure what the lesson here is, but I think it's something like this:
I was devastated to lose $220, particularly since I was between jobs and didn't have much more than that $220 to my name. I was so confident in my ability to be patient and take the swings that I thought I was sure to come out ahead. In terms of solid poker, I think I was right to put all my money in the pot in both those instances. But in terms of financial responsibility, I probably shouldn't have been putting up my entire stake in a single hand unless there was NO WAY that the nuts wouldn't hold up the whole way (basically by flopping a royal flush). For some people, it would be just another bad beat story and a minor swing. For me, it meant eating Ramen noodles for a month. Now I make sure to ask myself before I sit down to play if all the money in front of me is money that I could lose and still get sleep at night.
Sorry for the long read... just thought I'd share the story to let you know: a) that I know exactly what it's like to play with happy callers and how bad it feels to give your money to people who make terrible plays; and b) just to get it off my chest, because I still have nightmares about that old man and his smugness over what can only be described as the dumbest of luck.
My advice: unless you're the savviest and most patient of players, and unless you can calculate the odds of your hand holding up against any range of hands with flawless efficiency, don't play a game in which the only strategy is holding the best hand at the end. Basically, don't play $2/4 at Foxwoods.
- Mike -
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I wish I could count on 1 hand how many of the "bad beat" hands in this thread are made up. Hand 1 probably happened, I would be confident in making a bet that instead of just flopping the nuts and losing it all again, you actually tilted off your last 100$. Why you would play any poker game with money you can't afford to lose while you were between jobs is beyond me.
-James
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