Poker savagery

There’s a poker league I play in back home. It’s a tournament structure & the standard of play is reasonably good.

The league runs for 11 months of the year, we play about 40 games.  There are usually between 5 & 8 runners, points are awarded for 1st & 2nd only and your average over the year determines your place in the league.

It’s supposed to be a friendly knock about & back in the day it was. Not so much these days though…..

In recent times the league has been dogged by controversy. Etiquette is more or less gone from the table, angle shooting is rife & petty arguments regarding all of the above now dominate the evening.

But its the only game in town so we just have to wade through the bile that passes for strategic discussion & get on with winning teh mobnies.

The latest round coincided with City’s last Saturday home game of the season so half the league were double booked for the day & still falling about the town when the cards were first in the air. No matter, we’ll make it back for the 2nd game – which we did.

About instantly was much hatred (thinly disguised as banter) directed at the incoming blue half of the league (the rest all being reds). Accusations of this, insinuations of that, allegations of the other. Yeah, yeah, yeah whatever chaps. Just deal the cards.

I’ll change the names as I don’t actually have permission to publish this stuff. Hero (Blue), who was not as drunk as he seemed was playing his usual aggressive game which irritated J-bot(red) who was sitting 2 seats to his left & losing Big Blind after Big Blind to Hero’s aggression. Between the 2 of them sat Newred (red) who claims he isn’t a red but chooses to go to the games anyway (wat). Beyond J-bot sat Not-out (Blue), out of the game before this match report got going and beyond him was Barlord (red), so-called because he is one. The final seat at the table was occupied by non other than PC H-loud (Blue); Good to have an officer of the law around. Shame he isn’t one.

A couple of late cry offs meant we were missing Check-Call Guy (Blue) & Dayoff (Blue).

Dayoff was actually out on the town with us but got himself spectacularly drunk & lost his wallet so could only manage to get himself home & not to the card game. Shame on you, Sir.

So, I already mentioned J-bots dismay at his awful seat draw & Not-out donking himself out well ahead of time. What of the rest of the nights play?

Well, the first argument quickly morphed into the second which, as it always is, was about breaks. Standard is to break after the 2nd blind raise but it never approaches, arrives or passes peacefully & this time was no exception.

Hero needs coffee. Hardly a big deal. Nowhere else in the world is it a big deal; Unless J-bot is host at some other venue in the world then it’s probably a big deal there too.

For reasons known only to himself our host has taken to hiding all the decent cups leaving out only the stupid blue ones he knows Hero cannot use. How tiresome.

And time-consuming since Hero now has to hunt down a suitable vessel from which to drink coffee, yawn.

A paper McDonald’s cup was rescued from the… well nevermind where it was rescued from, it was still usable so we went with that, ok? ….and was about to be filled with reasonably ok instant coffee granules when Host lunges forward and wrestles said jar of reasonably ok coffee from Heroes hands, replacing it with some horrific version of instant coffee the like of which no self-respecting supermarket would ever stock.

Much nonsense ensues culminating in some sharp diversionary tactics employed by our hero giving him just enough time to hustle some of the more drinkable granules into the washed out paper cup.

No small amount of time has passed during this melee and tempers are about to fray further since nobody has had their smoke break yet.

Eventually, amidst much sniping & muttering, hostilities are resumed.

Some hands pass with nothing of note occurring then: 2 folds, a limp, Barlord completes in the small blind, action to PC H-loud……………….

H-loud tank-checks his option in the Big Blind.

Nothing flop. Check, check, action to H-loud……………

H-loud makes for some chips, stalls, tanks again then finally checks.

Turn is a brick and its checked to Barlord who knows a good opportunity when he sees one so he throws out a small bet. Action to H-loud………..

…..

This is the driest board you ever saw but PC H-loud looks like he thinks he can get action. So we wait again, with bated breath. Anxious to see what this mind game maestro could possibly be about to conjour…..

Nope. He’s actually fallen asleep. Mid hand. We’re all sat around waiting for a guy who fell asleep to play his cards.

Is it any wonder we always get such poor turnouts for these events?

I think the rest of us were only moments from sleep too by the time J-bot & Newred had finished discussing what should happen to H-louds remaining chips. Bet your bottom dollar it was some obscure ruling they came up with. It usually is.

So 2 down, 4 left in.

Our Poker games would not be complete without one of us falling foul of one of Heroes short stacked open shoves. lol .

This time he had T7 off suit & into it walks the hapless Barlord. Nobody remembers what Barlord had. Something respectable vs Heroes range here probably. No matter, the hand played out as expected & Hero takes it down leaving Barlord only to seethe over the monstrous injustice of it all.

3 left

A regular feature of these games is the prohibitive blind increases. If there’s only 3 left in it’s not unusual for the chip leader to be nursing around 5 big blinds. So it was this night.

A pushbot free for all speeds us to a disappointing climax once again. Hero gets tripped in the box and goes down swearing leaving J-bot & New red to the agony of the penalty shoot out.

J-bot fluffed it England style and New red stormed to the top of the charts on a hand nobody could care less about. Bloody Germans/Argies/Portuguese. Who’s gonna be next?

I’d post the current league table but its been doctored to within an inch of its miserable life so whats the point?

NEXT WEEK

Friends I used to have who’s wives no longer let them out

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