Why Do People Hate Money??

In poker sometimes people almost literally tell you what they have got without saying the actual words.   I don’t mean little “tells”, like betting patterns or looking nervous or anything else like that... i mean they tell you their exact hand!  Well, if you are concentrating on what is (and has been) going on at the table they do anyway.  Let me give you 2 examples i have seen of this in the last week.

1, Very last hand of a session & I raise with AK from the button, guy next to me calls & so does this slightly crazy guy on the other side of the table. Just as the flop is about to be dealt, the crazy guy says “call the police, come on, call the police”.  Now, this means one of two things, he is either about to commit a crime OR he has pocket 9’s and wants to hit another one on the flop (thus giving him 999).  I pick up on this instantly but the guy next to me is too busy talking utter shite like he has been all night & totally misses it.  So, the flop comes K,3,9.  Shite-talking guy bets out £15, and the crazy guy just shoves all-in for like £100 more.  Now this crazy guy has been very active virtually all night & people have been trying to pick up hands against him to catch him out when he inevitably raises. So, ordinarily this is virtually an automatic call if shite-talker has a King.  I fold my AK here without a second thought cos i KNOW crazy guy has pocket 9’s (he told me with the “call the police comment”), but shite-talker is oblivious to this & calls with KJ.  Crazy guy proudly throws over his pocket 9’s and scoops the pot.  Shite-talker says to someone else “thats sick, how does he find trip 9’s there when i have hit top pair?”   I chose not to divulge the information i had heard!!  This example especially i just thought was hilarious afterwards.  Initially cos the guy said it in the first place about the police & even more so that the other guy could’ve saved himself £85 by just folding if he had been concentrating on the hand that he chose to get involved in by calling my raise. 

2, Player in seat opposite the dealer has just been having a pretty long conversation with the dealer about a hand he played the week before with Pocket Jacks & how he hates them etc etc.  Dealer deals the next hand & this player starts laughing & says “you won’t believe it”, another lad says “believe what?” and this guy says “oh never mind” and then he raises.  Looking around the table it seems pretty obvious that some people were listening & know what the lad has, and a few others are clueless.... the two lads who call his raise are the ones looking confused about the conversation!! The hand plays out & the guy with pocket jacks wins on a rag board, but the two lads again could have saved themselves a few quid there.

These 2 examples are just a small sample of some of the information people voluntarily give to you & others choose to ignore (or fail to hear)..... they obviously have too much money already & don’t want any more!!!   Surely if you are going to get involved in a pot then you want to be aware of everything you can regarding  your opponent, the hand & have all possible information available to you.  This is why i don’t understand people who sit there for full multi-hour sessions with their music blaring in their ears, they miss out on so much information off people by listening in to, and engaging in, conversations etc etc.  A lot of the time after hands have finished, people will tell you why they played certain hands in a particular way, again giving off masses of information.  If you are new to playing live poker, then yes you can read all the books in the world & play for a million hours on the internet to improve your game, but sometimes its the easiest things in the world that can win (or save) you money.

On the subject of hating money, the amount of times i have heard the phrase “oh ok, i know i am behind but i call” is just ridiculous.  If your instinct or reading of the hand/your opponent makes you believe that you are behind in the hand then why don’t you just fold you muppet?  After all money saved is money gained!  Don't get me wrong, if they are playing against me then i want them to call when they are behind but i just don’t understand the mindset of these people!! DO THEY NOT LIKE MONEY?!!!

(On a non-poker related subject, i have to just announce that my 5-a-side team absolutely destroyed Graeme Robinson's team 33-5 last night!!! The two pints you owe me for the side bet are gonna taste amazing Gra!)

Coolers

Aaaaah, “coolers”..... That dreaded word that poker players hate.  Well, we hate them if we are on the losing end of one.  If we are the winner of a “cooler” hand then we are happy, overjoyed even!!!  But we generally don’t speak about the hand for a good few minutes, especially to the person on the receiving end. That is because the person on the receiving end of a cooler is usually on “suicide watch” at this point in time & we do not want to tip them over the edge.  We have all been there & we just want to sit & bathe in our own self-pity for a while, we certainly don’t want to talk about it.  The main reason is because virtually EVERY single cooler will be for a big pot and/or both players stacks inevitably.  When someone has just lost their entire stack in one hand, the last thing they want to hear is “awww thats horrible mate, you couldn’t have done anything different though”

At this point, half of you are thinking “What the friggin hell is a cooler Andy?  We aren’t all poker players”.  So here is the best way i can explain it..... During any given hand/pot, 2 players both have such strong hands that all they are thinking is “I need to get all my money in the middle here & make sure my opponent does the same”.    Basically it’s when 2 extremely strong hands come up against each other & all the money is going to end up in the middle one way or another.

A few examples of coolers then, and i couldn’t do this blog without commenting on the worst cooler i have probably ever seen which happened to a mate of mine (Danny Fogg) at Salford Grosvenor this week... So Foggy has got JJ on a J74 flop.  There are 5 or 6 players in the hand, there is a bet of £3 & a call, Foggy makes it £11, original better reraises, Foggy goes all-in & the other lad calls with pocket 4’s.  So they both have a set, its virtually impossible for either player to fold a set regardless of the board but this is like the driest board ever too! Foggy at this point is a 96% favourite and, not wanting to slowroll, shows his JJ and as the river comes the remaining 4 to give the other lad quads he wins about a £200 pot.  Foggy actually took it reasonably well & laughed but the only other option is to cry & he wouldn’t have wanted to do that at the poker table!!

Another example is from a few weeks ago, i have 67 of diamonds in the big blind & its limped round to me, i check & the flop comes down all diamonds. Now, the chances of flopping a flush are 1 in 118 so its a massive hand for me.  I check-raise & the other lad just calls, i am putting him on a hand like top pair & he doesn’t wanna see another diamond, or maybe Ace of diamonds with a pair too & he is playing it passively.  When the turn is a non-diamond he goes all-in & i snap call. He turns over a higher flush!   Siiiiiiiiigh !!

Aces vs Kings is another much simpler version of a cooler as quite often it will be all-in preflop.  I actually got aces vs a friend of mine's kings at 235 the other week, but we didn’t get it all-in til the flop as he played it sneakily & just flatted my raise preflop. On a 10 high flop he led out, i shoved & he made THE quickest snap call of my life!!! The turn & river were bricks & i won about a £200 pot.

So, to sum up.... coolers are like the devil himself interfering in a poker game !! they are cruel to the loser of them, but they make the best bad beat stories ever and, once they have calmed down, usually the person will literally tell anybody willing to listen!

My next blog is already partially written & is entitled "Why do people hate money?", it should be on here by Tuesday

Frustration

Remember in my first post, i mentioned poker can cause extreme frustration.... well tonight was one of those occasions.  I arrived at 235 Casino in Manchester at about 11:30pm & left at 5:30am.  Now thats 6 hours of playing poker, and in those 6 hours i can remember playing a total of 6 hands. I'm sure i played more hands than that but i must have literally seen a flop cos i was in the blinds & then folded to any action cos yet again i had not hit anything!!  Looking down at hands like 9,2 7,3 6,2 8,4 6,3 9,5 time after time AFTER FRIGGIN TIME !!!  Jeeeeeeez!  There were about 6 or 7 times when i thought about just calling it a night & going home but i stuck it out.  After those 6 hours, i was somehow a huge £25 in profit ! Wooooo! hahahaaa!   Although to be honest, ANY profit is a huge bonus after a night like i had!

Ok, the hands i can actually remember.  I raised a lady called Val all-in on a K,Q,5 (2 clubs) flop when i had 6c7c, she called the extra £40 with A10 (no clubs) and a 6 on the river meant i won the hand. How she called my all-in was a little strange to me, but hey-ho!    The next hand i remember i had KJ in the small blind & called a raise to £4. I actually hate the way i played this hand from start to finish, so i'm just going to quickly tell you the outcome.... the flop comes KJ10, original raiser C-bets, there is one caller, i raise enough to let them both know i'm not folding, original raiser folds & caller goes all-in, i have to call even though i know i am behind, he turns over Q9 and i sigh !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! FFS!

This is the sick hand of the night, i had to reload for another £150 after the previous hand & have literally not played a hand for about an hour. I pick up KQ of diamonds which looks absolutely huge compared to the other million hands i have seen all night. I have straddled to £2 and a pretty solid player makes it £10, there is one caller & i flat call too.  Flop is 10,J,A rainbow.... Nice, i have just flopped the absolute stone cold nuts.  I do my best impression of someone who has yet again missed the flop & check. Original raiser makes it £20, the caller folds, i have a little look at his stack, he has £75 behind so i call (I'm 90% certain he has A10 or better so he will be getting the rest of his money in on the turn). The turn is a 4, i check, he shoves the rest in & i snap call.  The river is a Queen & he turns over AK so the queen on the end means we are splitting the pot cos we both have broadway.  Sit there for hours, play like 2 hands and then happen to flop the nuts in a biggish pot only to end up chopping it.... FRUSTRATING!!    After that i bluffed a 3 diamond board against a guy who was happy with his profit for the night & took a pot off another lad when i turned two pair & check raised him as there were 3 diamonds out. Unfortunately he folded but these two pots got me back into profit for the night.

The funny part is that at 5:20am some guy comes & sits down for the last 10 mins before the casino closes. In those 10 mins he flopped quads against a guys overpair, he rivered the nut flush in a massive pot against 2 opponents & then turned a straight in another all-in pot!  He sat down with £30 & 10 mins later he had about £450. Absolutely ridiculous!  MUST BE NICE!!!!

Right, with that i am signing off !  The morning ended well as my favourite butty van has returned in Birchwood so i got a bacon & egg barm on the way home!!