How to make poker no fun

The first major tournament I went to for Oregon Trail Poker (at that time, that was the name), I was the second person out. I raised from the big blind with I think A/Q, might have been big slick. The flop was perfect, giving me top pair, top kicker, no flush or straight draws. I raised, a guy re-raised all-in. I went over the hands he might have and finally put him on a medium pair...and was correct. I called him. He flipped up his pocket 8s, I showed my Aces. He said, "Well, I always hit my 8." And when the river was an 8 I was gone. I was a 19-1 favorite and lost. That hurt. A lot. Even worse, he thought he made a good play by going in knowing he was behind.

Well, the second major tournament I have gone to (3rd if you count the charity tournament, but the 2nd for the league, though it is now Oregon Tournament Poker, we would see what would happen. On the bright side, I was not real into it. I was there primarily to help Bob run it. But he did not need help running it, so I got to play. On the bright side, I had Roman and Amanda on my left. On the dark side I also had Paul, All-in Dee, and Randy at my table.

I folded the first few hands, then raised to 4 times the blinds from under the gun (25/50 blinds). Dee called my 200 from the button, Randy called from the small blind. Flop was nice, A/q/7. I flopped a set. Bottom set, to be sure, but a set nonetheless. No flush draw...good. Randy checked, I raised 600, Dee raised to 1200, Randy called. I was half-way there so I called.

Dee will play some maniacal draws...she could easily have something like J/K, K/10, J/10...she will play any of those that way or even go all-in. Randy could have the same range. Or either of them could have something like A/Q, A/J, maybe A/10 or even A/rag and they would play it the same. I was pretty positive I was ahead.

Turn was a 9, putting all 4 suits on the board. I raised to 1200, same as Dee had, she called, Randy called. Hmm.

River was a ten and Randy almost beat the card getting all his chips in. I instantly put him on the straight. Then I set myself to trying to talk myself into believing he was on a bluff. First there is our history of him playing absolute garbage hands against me and crushing me on the river. Then there is the history of him making that all-in move as a bluff. But I could not talk myself into believing he had anything but a straight. I finally folded my set.

Dee then went into the tank for a long, long time before finally calling. She flipped up a hand I wish I could have been in there with...A/Q for 2 pair. She had a legit, strong hand and played it strongly. Look back at what she did; called 4 times the blind with A/Q, then re-raised a raise with 2 pair. She figured to have the best hand. The 9 on the turn doesn't bother her as nobody has anything obvious except a straight draw that is a long shot at best if they stayed around with something like K/J, K/10, something like that. And on the river 2 pair is hard to get away from, particularly if you have not played with someone before, and I don't think she had played with Randy. Of course, she had the third best hand at the river...but that isn't her fault.

And yes, Randy had the straight. Oh, not the 9/10/j/q straight that would make sense. No, he had the 6/7/8/9/10 straight.

So let's take a look at his play. He called pre-flop 4 times the blind with a 6/8. Okay, I am on board with that. If it hits hard you play and make bank, otherwise you get away from it cheap.

Flop gives him 6/7/8 with an Ace, a Queen, a bet and a re-raise in front of him. He has nothing, no flush draw, no reasonable straight draw...nothing. And he calls. This goes down as one of the most ridiculous calls I have ever seen. When some newbies used to call with nothing, they might have been as bad in poker terms, but they were excusable because the people did not know how to play. Randy knows how to play. He knows there is no hand he can beat and to beat anything he has to hit runner-runner that doesn't connect with anyone. Furthermore, it makes no sense.

I bet pre-flop after folding. He knows I have SOMETHING. Even if it is just 2 big cards. Sure, Dee will call anything with anything, but he does not know that. When I raise on the flop it is possible I missed it completely and am making a continuation bet. Let us say he puts me on something like the aforementioned K/J, K/10, J/10 type hand. What does he put Dee and her re-raise on? One person might miss and bluff, but few and far between are the people capable of calling a pre-flop raise, then bluff-re-raising a bluff on the flop. Unless he thought Dee was Daniel Negreaneau in disguise...that was the worst call I have ever seen based on his theoretical skill level and the situation.

So the turn comes, I bet 1200, Dee calls, so does Randy, making another mistake.
But wait, you say, his call on the turn was okay, now he has an open ender. There was 650 in the pot (200 from Dee, Randy and I and 50 from the big blind.) On the flop there was another 3600 added, giving us 4250. He called 1200 to win 6650, so 5 - 1 on his chips for a straight draw which has 8 outs, about 16% or so to hit...oh, wait, he is worse than 6-1 so no, even there it is a bad call. And even worse in light of all the betting that has gone on.

I suppose you could say at this point his implied odds make up for the pot odds he is not getting.

Still doesn't change his status in my mind. He was a complete donkey on that hand. And he got hugely rewarded for it. He got 2600 of my chips and 4000 of Dee's as a reward for being an idiot on the flop.

On the bright side, when a donkey has your chips, you have a pretty good chance at getting them back. Sure enough, a bit later I was under the gun again and picked up pocket tens. All my chips hit the middle, the 1325 I had left. He called. With a K/7o. So I got back to about 27, maybe 2800. Stole a couple more blinds to get to around 3K and hovered there for a while.

Blinds kept going up and I kept hovering, getting just enough blind-steals to stay at or around 3K. But every hand was being raised 3 - 4 times the blind with multiple callers and a mere call pretty much pot committed me so I could not play anything except hands I was willing to go to the felt on. I had no chance at all to play poker all night because of a first hand donkey. It was brutal. It was not fun. I just wanted to double up so I could actually play or else bust out and watch football.

Meanwhile, Randy donkeyed off every chip of his once huge chip lead. Every. Stinking. Chip.

Finally I was able to check it from the big blind with a bad hand, Q/3 of diamonds. Flop came Qc, 9d, 4d. I had top pair, a four flush, and unless someone was playing Q/9, Q/4, or 9/4 I was way, way ahead. I went all in.

And got three callers. Okay, maybe someone limped with Big Slick. At this table I did not believe it, but it was possible. Turn was a blank. Heavy, heavy betting. I figured I was dead. River gave me the flush. More heavy betting, 2 people got all in. Sure enough, they had a combined flush draw up to the river. I was ahead with a lowly pair of queens until the river where a J/2 diamonds was not as good as the A/7 diamonds.

I was just glad to be out. I was never able to play and unless I doubled up about 2 or 3 more times I was going to be right back in the same cycle of having to steal blinds just to not be blinded out so it was not a disappointment.

I was pretty much done with poker for the day but they talked me into playing a consolation table. Here is a little secret; I do not enjoy consolation table games. Starting with 1000 chips is so pointless. Let's see, I make a 3 times the blind raise. Now I have 850 chips. If I want to price out a draw, I need to bet the pot. If I get just 1 caller, there is a minimum of 300 chips in the pot. That means I bet 300, that leaves me 550 and I am priced in if they re-raise me. So there is no room to actually play poker. It is just all-in fest, exacerbated by the abominable play when people do garbage like, "Oh, it's just consolation" and make ridiculous calls and raises. To me, that is not fun,

I enjoy trying to figure out what people have, their strength relative to mine, and working my mental acuity to ascertain when it is correct to raise, fold, check, call...I have to admit, on one level it was a huge rush to fold a set. That is a pretty strong hand. But was it worth not playing at all the rest of the night? Pretty much no.

Well, on the bright side, I was able to start everyone with 3K chips. So it would not have that issue.

Too bad there were so many donkeys at that table, too. Roman and Amanda I know can play. We had 4 West Linners...and frankly, if they are any indication of the level of play at West Linn, West Linn sucks. Let me be upfront about it. They were TERRIBLE.

Example: again, I fold a few hands, then pick up pocket Jacks which I raise from early position. And everybody...EVERYBODY...CALLS. Flop is ragged. No straight draws, flush draws, or overs. I am happy. I jack it up. And get re-raise, re-re-raise, Roman folds with a stunned look, caller, I fold. Someone had to have flopped 2 pair with some heinous call with something like a 2/10 or some such nonsense. I think Roman said he folded pockets on that hand too. Care to know what won the hand? Big Slick. No flush, straight, trips, 2 pair, not even a pair. Big slick. She was the one that after my raise was re-raised elected to re-re-raise. Oh, and in case you are wondering...the re-raiser had a Jack high. I wish I was lying.

I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. Maybe I gave off a weak read or something. Maybe they were playing me, not their cards.

Fortunately they disabused me of this notion rather rapidly. They did similar stuff with regularity. They would have raises and re-raises and talk about how they had raised their draws...their gut shot and runner runner draws, that is...it was like playing with a table full of Randy's. It was horrific.

So I went into big-bet mode. If they were going to be donkeys it was going to cost them. I continued to wait for cards. When I got them I raised 4 - 6 blinds. Then on the flop unless it was super dangerous I was all-in.

Much to nobodies surprise I built a HUGE chip stack. You want to play donkey poker with me, you go right ahead, but you better hit the first time or you will be short stacked. Or if you hit it, I will be out. I am just sick of donkey poker. It isn't fun for me. And since I am playing free poker, if it isn't fun there is really no point to playing.

So I started doing bizarre things myself. Since I did not really need a hand to play with them, I once raised a 6/7 off to 500 (blinds of 50/100) because I felt like playing a hand and a green chip was closest to hand. Flop came K/9/K. Checked to me. I jacked it up, they all folded and I showed, mostly just to annoy them. Then I went back to playing good cards.

So Roman and I played our usual solid games.

We got rid of most of the donkeys and it was 3 handed. I had a decent chip lead, Roman was second and the donkey woman was a distant, distant third.

Roman checked out of turn from the big blind. Had I not called before he did that, I would have jacked it up right there, but I had called. She also called, he checked. Then he went into acting mode ad he flopped trips and ended with quads and suckered me into going all in. I thought he had maybe 2 pair but was afraid of the trips. I mis-judged it and went with my table play maneuver...so suddenly I was all the way down to 3 or 4K and he was the monster chip leader.

Eventually I was not at all surprised to find it was he and I heads up. I chipped away, taking down a few hands, he took a couple, but the ones I was winning were bigger than the ones he was winning. We got to where we were trading the lead back and forth.

I raised with A/4 of diamonds. Flop came 3d, 4c, 5d. He raised. I came over the top all in. He went into the tank for a long, long time. He finally folded, showing his 5. I showed my hand and we ran it out. Had he called my last 3600 the river would have been the 2D, giving me my first ever straight flush. Had we played it out. We didn't.

Couple hands later I doubled up and he was down to 2K. I blind raised to 2K (blinds by now were 500/1000). He called with his last 1000 and flipped up Dolly Parton. Sadly for him I picked that hand to pick up a hand for the first time in weeks...American Airlines. The Aces held up and I "won" a table that never exceeded 8 people. And I can say without fear of contradiction there was me & Roman, then Amanda, then everybody else. What a bunch of donkeys.

On the bright side, playing with Roman and Amanda was fun. On the dark side...I just don't even ever want to play at a table with people who play like Randy and Dee and the clowns from the other table anymore. It just isn't even fun. I would so much rather just work on my book. How sad is that? My favorite hobby just isn't all that fun almost half the time anymore. Maybe more than half.