I think I may have mentioned this previously, but Lady Luck generally cannot be relied upon. She goes where she likes, regardless of ability, cunning, deception, and all the other qualities that make Holdem such a great game. Your monster hand or dominant chip-stack can easily be turned by her fickle nature into fuckle. And so it proved (said this week’s Walk Of Shame player – yours truly).
It would be easy to dismiss this theory as the moans of a beaten man (Harder! Harder!) but that would be an over-simplification of the facts. Sometimes Lady Luck must get tired of moving around, and then decides to just settle down with some random player for the duration. Unfortunately, „random” can also include players who already understand how to play poker really well – as happened this week. Much like a Trump presidency, justice is in short supply.
Those in search of justice would do well to avoid playing poker and to look away now, while I try to keep this report as mercifully brief as today’s game. It was a beautiful, sunny day, and everyone was keen to get outside before another long-distance event robbed us of that opportunity. But of course, we all wanted to claim the victory, earn some points, and obviously the accompanying bragging rights.
The game was both set up, and finished, in record time. For the uninitiated, „record time” was about two and a half hours in total. Just before the break, I’d been dealt AJ, and the flop was JT-rag. I raised and Rusty called. The turn was another ten, and I made a modest continuation bet, which Rusty re-raised. My all-in then revealed that Rusty’s dominated hole cards (AT) would require me to rebuy. At this point I was thinking, nice hand, but let’s see how your luck is after the break.
So, after the break, I flopped top pair (Q) with a decent kicker, and I even made trips – all to no avail. Rusty had played 89 (suited) and was rewarded with the nut straight on the flop. I was thinking of heading home, but the carnage continued apace so I hung around to watch his comeuppance. I may as well have bet on Elon Musk apologising for capitalism.
Remarkably, Sean (who was low stack) was taken out by Ug, who isn’t Rusty at all. Sean made his move when he hit top pair (7) on the flop, only for Ug to reveal he’d slow played his pocket Qs. But Rusty wasn’t sitting on his lucky laurels for long.
It was almost deja vu when Tom picked up pocket TT, which pointlessly turned into trips, as Rusty made another straight, hitting Broadway on the river. To be fair, he did have pocket Qs, but it was cruel for Tom.
Next, Robert took on the behemoth of Rusty’s chip-stack with AT spades. Naturally, Rusty flopped trips with his hand of the day – 89 (not even suited this time). Which left Ug to challenge the very dominant stack of today’s luckiest… sorry, best player. (God, I hate auto-correct).
But oh dear! The sun wasn’t going to be shining on us the whole time, and although Ug wasn’t quite in a „chip and a chair” situation, it was still far from ideal. I wouldn’t call it an art, but in the spirit of Donald J. Rump himself, a deal was struck and we all headed off to catch some raise.
Epilogue: The upshot of today’s game is that Rusty shot up (the league – he doesn’t waste his winnings like that). He’s kicking ass and taking names, and we suddenly have a situation where 6 players are divided at the top of the table by a measly 10 points. It’s all to play for, so bring your eh? game next week. Oh, and some lucky heather shaped into a horseshoe, plus a voodoo doll of Lady Luck’s paramour (whoever that may be next Sunday).