Kids? What Kids! It's Poker!

Wow. I haven't written a blog post in 3 years 20some days. Been a little while. Guess somewhere I lost not only my sense of humor, but also the ability to write. The kids are grown now. They've moved out moved on and well, LilDD is living with me but she only comes in to sleep and do laundry. So, if I ever find time to redo my graphics for this thing, it's all about poker now. Yeah, twelve years and still playing.

A few things really stood out about the tourney yesterday that for some strange reason I wanted to write about.

There was a young kid sitting in seat 7. I think it was his first tournament because he was scared to death. The first hand he played (first or second hand of the game) the blind was raised from 50 to 300 by seat no 4. Kid tossed in one $100 chip and two $1,000.00 chips. Didn't say a word. The chips were somewhat similar in color. Dealer calls, "RAISE, Two Thousand, One Hundred" to which the kid's jaw dropped. Mouth open. "huh"? Guy in seat No 1. mentions, he should have said, "call" right? (I was waiting for the kid to whip out his badly worn copy of NLHEforDummies at this point). Dealer proceeds to explain to the kid to verbalize and yes the chips are similar in color, expensive lesson you just learned, etc. Fold all the way around the table to Seat No 4. who had the original preflop raise. He calls. After the flop No. 4 bets some inconsequential amount and the very green kid folds. I continued to watch him, he would toss chips in hand after hand but wouldnt' see anything through to the end. I used this to my advantage twice to fluff up my own stack a little bit.

I tweeted about the bald guy sitting in seat No.5. He started into the game shoving and trying to by blinds out of the gate at 25/50. The first time, I think maybe he had a hand. I was watching, not dancing the first two times he did it. Something felt a little off though. He was bullying, or trying to, but wasn't doing it in the normal arrogant way of a very experienced player (some of whom can be just about unreadable some days!) so the third time he opened up after the flop with 2,400 I had AQs and AQ7 hit the table, I went up over the top of him and he folds. Eye contact immediatley after from Patty, the other lady player at the table, told me she knew exactly what I was doing and I enjoyed giving him the spanking. He played some decent hands but when we switched tables I lost track of him and don't know how he ended up.

I never like playing a hand right after they move players around. My stack was decent I was having fun and I'll be danged if my first hand at the new table wasn't AKc. If I'd been any shorter stacked I would have folded it and just sat back and watched for a while. Only one other guy was in and I think the blinds were something like 400/800 at this point. I can't remember what came out on the flop, it really never mattered. The guy bets 2400. I call. I didn't have jackdiddly at this point but I just knew this guy didnt even have a pair. Turn, same bet same call. River, same bet same call. He was chasing and my A was good. The hand itself really doesn't matter. It was his reaction to me actually calling his bluff which will with me for quite a while. He blinked. Looked me and blinked again. And did this little head twitch shake thing. Blink stare twitch. He was still doing it 10 minutes later. Tons of fun.