Dr. Chiplove: Or How To Pwn A Monster Pot With One Raise

[private joker]

Hustler 4/8. A rather lively Thursday night. Parking lot full. Tables buzzing. Longer than usual waiting list. At my first table, I'm down a bit. My image there is the table bully. I had QQ, JJ, QQ, TT, and AK all within two orbits. So for them I'm "always raising!" I only won 1 of those pots though. [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

I felt the target on me and I liked how passive they were being, but they were also airtight. Half the hands would just fold around until the blind scooped his chips back, or one limper would offer to chop. Not nearly as loose as I know Hustler to be. So I ask for a table change.

Bingo. Now the Joker train pulls into LAG City. Seven handmaidens greet me at seat #8. I'm off in the corner of the table and quietly sit down to watch maniacs go at each other for the next three hours. Guys yanking C-notes out of their wallets at will. Three or four sour-looking Asian women loosely calling all their raises, then angrily throwing their cards in the muck on the river. A lot of chatter, but a lot more chips.

My image couldn't be more different. I am card dead for a good hour. Zilch. Finally I get A [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] T[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] and end up making a one-card (obviously) royal flush with it. My first royal! The maniac bet into me on the river and I raised -- he took his time and then folded "out of respect," whatever that means. But since nobody had seen me play in an hour, they figured I had it. I showed my royal anyway, and so everyone got to talk about royal flushes for the next 15 minutes.

I only win one more pot the next hour, with KK that takes it down on the turn. I don't show. I am the rock. Then I start to get medium pocket pairs, and just then the action gets even crazier. Now instead of there being just a preflop raise every hand, there's a cap preflop every hand. It's insanity. It costs me 16 chips every time I get 55 and want to flop a set (I often have odds to peel one off for the turn if I miss). So I'm still down for the night; over $100 by now.

When this hand came up, a bitter rivalry has developed between LAG 1 (as I'll call the initial maniac whom I beat with my royal) and LAG 2, a slightly better player who has taken down a lot of recent pots against LAG 1. LAG 1 is starting to tilt, if that's possible, though he's playing the same way. He caps preflop with 97o and beats a guy's JJ when he rivers 2 pair. I've seen him burn through $400 since I sat down, and now he's got something like 60 chips left. Nobody else at the table is even an extra in this movie -- the stars are the LAGs, and they don't notice any other players. I might as well be camouflaged into the felt by this point.

The cards are dealt. I look down to see K[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] Q[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img] (w00t). LAG 1 is UTG and obviously raises. EP calls. I cold-call quietly in MP. MP3, a loose chasing old woman, cold-calls. LAG 2 on the button 3-bets (w000t) as expected, and the blind (a cranky woman who has floated between 6/12 and 4/8 all night, changing tables and seats every ten minutes) calls. LAG 1 caps it. I call another 2 cold, as does everybody else.

6 to the flop for 24 small bets.

Flop comes K[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img] K[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] J[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]. w000t.

LAG 1 bets, EP calls, <font color="red">I call</font>, MP3 calls, LAG 2 raises. Blind calls, LAG 1 3-bets, EP calls, <font color="red"> I call</font>. MP3 folds, LAG 2 *just calls* the 3-bet. Cool for me; if he had flopped a boat he would have capped -- he's a maniac LAG but he doesn't slowplay (he once tried to go 5 bets on a flopped straight against LAG 1). Blind calls again. LAG 1 now says, as he watches everyone call, "What, everybody has king-jack?"

5 to the turn for 20BBs.

Turn is 8[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img]. Okay, no more messing around for me. Two clubs, broadway draw, let's pump this hand now. LAG 1 checks for some reason (oh that's right, so he can checkraise, even though he was the last aggressor and has no grasp of when to pull a move like that correctly; whereas I do), EP checks, <font color="red">I check </font>, LAG 2 bets, Blind calls, LAG 1 check-raises. EP folds.

All I've been doing is calling, like the others, and I don't even think they know I'm in the hand. I grab a stack of 20 chips, slide them across the betting line, and say, <font color="red">"three bets." </font> I add 4 more chips to the stack and lean back. Everyone shuts up and does a double take. LAG 2's face goes white and he punches the table with the 8 chips he was going to call LAG 1's raise with, thinks for another 20 seconds, squinting at the board and screwing his lips up, then defeatedly tosses his cards into the muck. LAG 1 turns to me (or so it looks -- he has on thick mirrored sunglasses because he is Chris Moneymaker) and goes, "You raise now?" I shrug. WA-PWN! Luckily, LAG 1 still has 15 more chips left -- just enough to call me down.

Blind folds, LAG 1 calls. 2 to the river for 28BBs. River is a 5[img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img], LAG 1 check-calls all-in, and reveals K9o. I say, "I think I've got you outkicked" and flip over my hand. Pwn. I scoop up a $240 pot, and now I find myself actually up $63 for the night. Nice when a session turns around.

Another quiet player at the table (who has suffered the river bad beats from LAG 1) shakes his head, laughs, and says, "he had you all the way," as LAG 1 finally stands up from the table -- his last hand of the night.

(I didn't have time to get into an earlier story involving LAG 1 that made him the true table Villain. He had mucked preflop but then changed his mind and took his cards back and limped -- the dealer called him on it and LAG 1 made a huge fuss and started insulting and cussing at the dealer, saying stuff like "what ARE you?" and "that's the funniest joke I've heard all night, get a clue dude" and whatnot. It definitely was time for him to get busted. I felt so bad for the dealer that as I folded the next hand preflop I put a couple chips on the cards -- LAG 1 noticed and said to me, "oh what are you, the nice guy now? I'm usually polite, but this guy pissed me off!" The dealer nodded to me when he left that shift; LAG 1 shook my hand when he left the table broke. All is well at Hustler Casino).

[bakku]

Man this is long..I didn't read all of it, but I'm betting the turn.

[Chris Daddy Cool]

[ QUOTE ]
Man this is long..I didn't read all of it, but I'm betting the turn.

[/ QUOTE ]

holy [censored], there was an actual hand in this post?

[Robert Ezzo]

Apparently I'm the only who can read a post longer than 2 paragraphs? [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

Great story, private joker. I wish more hands were posted like this, I felt like I was sitting at the table with you. It must have felt great busting out LAG 1 - I usually take great joy in busting out jerks. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[krishanleong]

Probably about 5 times in the last 150K hands I've waited until the river to raise a monster. I'm not sure this was it but it was probably close. Depends whether you could read LAG2 as capable of folding the turn check-3 bet.

Great story, thanks. I really want to play B&amp;M sometime.

Krishan

[27offsooot]

Interesting read...Who the hell is Dr. Chiplove?

[jason_t]

Awesome post. I've never been to The Hustler, but you see similar characters at The Bike, The Commerce and HP so I could feel story as I read it. What about waiting until the river to raise?

[BottlesOf]

Fun post!

[private joker]

[ QUOTE ]
What about waiting until the river to raise?

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, the Blind was still in the pot at the time, and I wasn't sure what LAG 2 had. Both of them were probably drawing slim to beat me, but the pot was enormous and I wanted to price them off of whatever slim draw they had, just in case. My hand is vulnerable. The case king can hit his kicker to boat me out, any 2 clubs can hit a flush, and there are a few straight draws possible. Also, pocket pairs still have 2 outs to beat me (except pocket queens, which are drawing dead against me). By check-3-betting the turn, I get 5 more BBs in on that street, and charge LAG 2 and Blind with 2 BBs to draw to their hand. But furthermore, because of my image, I really made a statement with that 24-chip push that represented the absolute nuts -- either KK or KJ or maybe 88/K8. If they were drawing to the flush (which they had odds to chase), they might even fold thinking a flush was no good. After LAG 1 said, "What, everyone has king-jack?" the idea of needing a boat to win this pot was floating over the table in a cartoon balloon.

Another reason I didn't want to wait until the river is because on the turn LAG 2 was still trying to bully himself into winning the pot -- and his strategy was to get it heads up with LAG 1 and hope to turn over a better mediocre hand. On the river, if there are still more players, he would give up. I think the turn was the best street on which to both make the most money and protect my hand.

[private joker]

[ QUOTE ]
Interesting read...Who the hell is Dr. Chiplove?

[/ QUOTE ]

Oh, I don't know. Me? I was just making a reference to the Stanley Kubrick movie "Dr. Strangelove."