Chris Halverson’s Blog

Jason’s fortune from LeeAnn Chin after playing at Canterbury: A close friend will help you find a hidden talent.

Being a close friend, here’s my help: Always fold two pair at 2/4, they suck.

It started innocently enough. Last week I posted about my trip to Canterbury and how I just found that I wasn’t having “fun” playing live anymore. I complained that it just seemed like a grind and how I missed out on the fun of the WPBT tables and the 2+2 table at Canterbury. My good friend Jason and I have lunch every Thursday (and have for like 10 years, literally). We were at lunch last Thursday (well, there’s a story behind that including a broken windshield and slow days at work, but it’s not really important) and he said he read it and brought up the prospect of going back to Canterbury during this week. He had the week off and was willing to go. We both got clearance from The Bosses and we planned on going down to the ‘Bury on Tuesday.

I pretty much blew off work during the morning and we met up around 1pm. Some logistical issues were worked out and I drove us both to scenic Shakopee and into McDonald’s for a bite before we hit the card room. One Big and Tasty later we roll into the room and we immediately realize we made a mistake. There are about 3,000 people waiting for a seat. In retrospect, we should have gone to McDonald’s after signing up for a seat. We had decided that this was going to be for fun, so we got on the 2/4 and 3/6 lists ultimately hoping for 2/4.

The ubiquitous Ferrari cap pulls through again as one of the 2+2′ers from last week, let’s call him Brian (since I have about a 70% chance of that being right), comes up and we chat for a bit. He’s sitting in a 6/12 game and doing well from the looks of it.

Two hours later Jason gets called for a 2/4 and I’m next on the list. Ironically a seat opened up at his same table (table 32, back by casino games) right away and I got called to the 1s at his table. Nice! Now we don’t have to worry about a table change. During the wait I had grabbed a beer and still had it with me when I sat down. I was the only one who had a drink at the table and I was hoping it would work to my advantage. I sat down and started chatting with the dealer right away which is something I never do.

The chip runner goes to get my chips and she returns just as I’m getting my first hand. The cards are down and I’m left trying to move my chips closer to the rail. While attempting to my move stacks in, I grab my cards and then start to move the chips in. Why I grabbed my cards I’ll never know, but while doing so I flash the cards to table. When I say flash, I mean I basically had them face up for a second. I realized this and tried to bring them back but when I looked up to see if anybody saw it I see Jason in the 5s staring at me with this look that basically said, “What a dumbass”. After stumbling to get the chips stacked I look at my cards and see 92o. Just the kind of hand you like to see when you are posting in the cutoff.

I get to see the flop for free and see 92x rainbow. W00T! I’ve hit a miracle flop, but remember that I basically showed the table my hand pre-flop. I look up at Jason and he just kinda lets out a smirk. It’s checked around and I throw a bet out. I pretty sure I hear a guy from Table 17 yell fold because he saw my cards. Amazingly everybody calls, including the two old guys in the 3s and 4s. Huh? OK. Well, suffice it to say that I pull down a 10BB pot on my first hand and things are rolling.

Not much else happens for a while, I order another beer and shortly thereafter the old guys in the 3s and 4s get up to leave. I move over to the 4s to be next to Jason. I tell the table that I’m going to raise his blind every time. I’m doing what I can to loosen the table up a bit because it had started to tighten up. Amazingly I get cowboys (see below) and end up taking down a pot right away. I make a couple of comments to the dealer asking to change seats every hand. She laughed but the rest of the table thought I was dumb. That’s fine.

During this time, the average age of the table dropped to 20.5. Jason and I are both 34 and there was one older guy left who was in his 60s. The rest of the table probably couldn’t even drink. This threw a wrench into one of my plans of offering to buy people drinks. Oh well, that save me money I guess.

The old guy was directly to Jason’s left. He bought in for 2 racks and played virtually every hand. He would take forever to make some calls but you could never put him on anything. He’d call down to the river with 85o and then check down with the best hand. If he was in a hand you were never sure where you stood because he’d call raises with crap too, very strange.

An example was when I had KT in one of the blinds. The flop comes down AQJ rainbow. I flop the nut straight and threw a couple chips out and he’s the only one who calls. The turn is the 14 of shamrocks and I check. He carefully sets out a bet and I pull the dreaded check raise. He goes into the tank and takes what seems like 5 minutes to make the call. As the dealer is throwing the brick that they call the river I was already throwing in my chips. He thinks and thinks and finally folds. I was nice and showed the table my flopped straight. Jason says the guy had ten high for a pair of tens on the flop, but with two overcards including an ace out there.

All the while I’m having a good time. Jason and I are talking and trying to get the rest of the table to loosen up a bit, but they were probably high school or college kids who didn’t have much money. It was one of the tightest 2/4 tables I have ever seen.

I did take pleasure in owning the kid in the 7s. I first put him a bit on tilt when I had my KK. I was in the cutoff, just moving from the other seat, and I saw the black cowboys. I popped it and a couple of us came along. The flop comes down all hearts, queen high. Not good. It’s checked around to me and I throw one out. Everybody except the 7s fold. The turn comes a brick and I’m a bit nervous. I figure he may have been waiting for a raise until the bets get bigger. He checks and I check behind. Maybe he bet and I called, either way I didn’t put him on the flush. The river is dealt and I’m looking at him and he’s looking at me to see if I react. This was almost WPTish, but I don’t let on that it didn’t help as it comes down a brick again and he throws out a bet. I call and he flips over ace high, no flush and MHIG. He couldn’t believe I called him down with a 3 flush on the board. I, of course, couldn’t believe that he was betting into it.

Then a little while later came the bitch slap.

I’m in the big blind and see A6o. Four or so of us see a flop that comes down 6QA rainbow. Ug. Surprisingly it’s checked around and I get to see the turn for free. It comes down a beautiful 6. I decide to not give a free card and lead out. The 7s raises and I raise him back. He goes in the tank for a bit but calls, everybody else drops and we’re heads up to the river. The river brings a super scary Q for a double paired board. I decide to be brave and bet, he raises and I go into the tank. I have got to call. I hem and haw and throw in 4 more blues. Since I called him he flips first (after I point it out because I was pissed, I wasn’t slowrolling, I figured he had a queen and made the bigger boat) and he has an Ax for aces and queens. I show my A6 and I drag down the pot.

He laughs and just looks at me and says, “If I get heads up with you I’m going to fold, I can’t bluff you out of anything.” Uh, ok. Of course, I had him all the way with my trip sixes, but that didn’t seem to bother him. Of course, this is also 2/4. I have a good paying job, I can, if I have a semi-decent hand, call another bet on the river, it’s really not going to bother me. Not sure what he’s thinking about bluffing at 2/4, but such is life.

I think most of the kids at the table were either in college or maybe seniors in high school. What money they had to spend was on the table. I, of course, still had another Franklin with me, although I never dropped below my original buy in. This money was also totally disposable, I wasn’t going to get too worked up over one more $4 bet on the river. If I had part of it, I was probably going to call it down.

At about 6pm, right after the “Aces Never Lose” promotion ends, a young woman (early 20s) sits down in the seat next to me. She’s cute and she’s pretty talkative. She definitely knows what she’s doing, I don’t know if she was “good” or not, but she held her own. We got chatting a bit. She was probably happy that she got sat next to me, a 34 year old married guy, instead of on the other side of the table that was dominated by 20-something (maybe) guys.

She, of course, got on my bad side right away though About two orbits after she sat down, we were in the blinds and it was folded around. I was already pulling back my bets and I looked to her and said, “Chop?” She immediately completed and said, “I never chop.” Well, ok! I put on a show for the table and that became the running joke for a while. What took over was when she raised my big blind once. Damnit. We had a good time and it helped loosen up the table a bit, which was good because about once an orbit there’d be a blind chop. At 2/4. It was unreal. We now had me, Jason and this woman talking things up and having a good time and even the tightwad young kids were smiling now and then.

My crowning achievement of the night was showing Jason how to play one of poker’s most difficult moves: The River Suckout(TM). I’ve been practicing this a lot lately, mostly by watching online low limit people pull it on me. Repeatedly. Now, however, the time is mine.

We’re in the blinds and I see pocket tens. There are a couple of callers and I just complete instead of raising. This is important, you can’t correctly pull off the Suckout(TM) if you drive people out of the pot or show that you may actually have a hand. The flop comes Q9x. I’m not happy about the overcard but I throw out a bet anyway. Jason smooth calls and we lose everybody else. The turn is some card that doesn’t help either of use. I throw out a feeler bet and Jason immediately raises. I wasn’t happy about that and make a big show about the raise. This was, of course, just the setup. I was luring Jason into thinking that he was ahead when in reality I knew I was going to win. After all, I had called upon the power of the Suckout(TM) to win this hand. To make the point even more, I say, “Fine, I’m calling to keep you honest”.

The river is a ten, just as I knew it would be.

Because he’s a friend, I decide not to pull the check raise and just throw out a bet. See, I didn’t let him off for free, plus I had to get him back for raising me on the turn. He raises and I gladly call while saying, “You’re not going to like this”. He quickly flips over Q9 for a flopped two pair and my set of tens is good, just as I knew they would be.

The table loved this, especially because they knew we were together. We didn’t slowplay or anything and we hadn’t all night. We were having fun, but not afraid to raise each other, so don’t get all worked up that we softplayed. There were plenty of ways I could have been beaten on that hand, so reraising probably wasn’t prudent.

Jason got about 63 combos of two pair, hardly any of which paid off. It was weird. He’d get them on the flop and bet, but the turn would bring a flush draw or some such thing and he’d either have to drop or he ended up getting beat by a higher 2 pair.

Jason’s wife’s cousin also stopped by. He was a total poker newbie who had just graduated from college. Ironically, he also got seated at our table right away. He seemed to have an ok time but he played way, way too many hands and quickly dropped the $70 he had allocated to play. He then went to the Indian casino down the road and won back $40 of it in blackjack.

We started to get hungry, and Jason had to get back and I theoretically have to work in the morning, so we called it a night at about 7:30. We played for a bit less than 4 hours. I ended the night +$22 (5.5BB). Once you factor in the oppressive rake at 2/4, tips, drinks, etc. I feel pretty happy with the night.

More importantly, I had fun playing poker. I needed a “blow off some steam” poker night. Many of you do this on the blogger NL table. I haven’t done this in forever, most likely since my anniversary. I really, really needed a night like this to recharge my batteries a bit. Thanks Jason for bringing it up, it was a great time.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 28th, 2004 at 11:25 pm and is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.