Ill-Advised, Low-Cheese Action, Chopsilog/Piccata, And Romeo
Posted by Al Pastor
4/17/05 Oaks Club $2-4 Hold'em
12:45-1:45 PM
In $40 Out $0 -$40
Hours Played 2005: 87.25 YTD:-$540
So I went over and played Sunday when I really shouldn't have. I am a little short on cheese, between all the sunglass replacements, waiting for a certain reptilian insurance company whose ad-wizards regard basic cable programming the way allied bombers regarded Dresden to issue me a fucking check (minus deductible, for which they assure me I will be reimbursed when they make a case against the poor drunk or illegal bastard that hit me and tried to escape, whose surname I have already told you is the same as mine and whose truck is registered to a woman who I will assume is his wife, as she has our name, too), complying with California's ineffective smog standards, and just generally running into a tight stretch. These things happen, even to nondegenerate gamblers. Even to nongamblers. The $500 in the negative, while it hurts, is not a particularly big swing at this level of poker. In fact, I will venture to say, that if not for the rake, the money the house takes from each pot, which disappears off the table forever, I would be at least even. But, what is it that asshole in the Mississippi beer store said?: if my aunt had nuts, she'd be my uncle. That is not the world we play in. Many smart players and poker veterans speculate that it is almost impossile to beat the rake at lower levels. This is the main argument for quick matriculation to higher limits.
I have also been a lot more social in the last few months, attending a lot more movies and events that take place outside the walls of the Hairball Management Compound/Colony, for which one generally pays a cover charge. This is the influence of Ms Chicken'N'Waffles, and my general reemergence after the post-Dagmar depression. But none of that is really any of your goddam business. You are here to hear about the Oaks Club.
I should have stayed home. I should have attended to domestic duties: done laundry; done the dishes that have been piling in the sink since a few days after the woman bit into the severed finger in her Wendy'sTM chili and made me crave my own chili, which I cleaned all the then dirty dishes to make only to have them pile up in the aftermath, fester for a matter of weeks and now smell like someone with rotting teeth's breath; alphabetized the cd's and records and uplaoded the stuff that I have bought but not put into Itunes or the 'pod and therefore have not listened to yet; hung this recently acquired clown painting with the weird orange light source that I can only surmise is the circus burning down just out of frame right; sew a button back onto my green baby-wale corduroy shirt; make a little progress in INFINITE JEST, which just gets better and better to the point that I am already looking forward to reading it again, which will make three complete passes plus however many Thanksgiving Eschaton readings or random consultations of the videophone and death-of- network-television-and-with-it-the- entire-advertising-complex digressions; post a column; & c. But I really wanted to play.
I had $40 that I could afford to part with and not face any major consequences, not bounce a rent check or haven to eat rice and shoplifted tuna until payday or go asking acquaintances for loans, which is really not enough to sit down at a $2-4 table. I mean to say that I would be allowed to sit down and play, the buy-in of a given game is usually 10x the small bet, so buy-in for $2-4 is a minimum of $20. It is strategically not very smart to buy in so small, but people do it all the time. Poker is a game of patience, and money is not just the way we keep score, it is an integral component of the game, as I have said here before, echoing everything I have ever read or learned about this fascinating game, money is nothing short of the language of the game. Playing short chipped is like boxing with one arm or trying to debate in mime, not impossible, but not pretty.
So, it was a recipe for failure, but I wanted to play, so I crossed the bridge. And I lost. So, I tried to do all that domestic stuff Tuesday. I got to some of it, but the sink still smells like bad breath. Tonight, maybe.
!
I don't discuss strategy at the table. It is my goal to be invisible. I want the other players to forget I am there or to think they can run over me and to be surprised when I am aggrssive. As a bookseller, there are certain poker books I never recommend. I do not steer people to bad books, I just don't tell them about the really good ones. I love to sell the Super System and now Super System 2, because they are both great books filled with poker lore and wisdome, but most of it does not apply directly to hold'em and that which does is more pertinent to high limit games, thus the book encourages people to play but does not geneerally improe their play immediately. The great information of these books is spread over nearly 1500 pages, and most people just won't do the work of mining it out. But for you gentle reader, I will name the poker titles that I have found valuable, as a reward for suffering the radioactive background. Sklansky, Malmuth and Miller's SMALL STAKES HOLD'EM is easily the best book specific to my game (small stakes hold'em) and Sklansky's THEORY OF POKER is a work of genius. Also, Schoonmaker PSYCHOLOGY OF POKER surprised me with its lucidity and effectiveness. Now, don't ask me again. And if you come nosing around my gambling section, you will be rewarded for doing your own research.
I do love to talk about poker. I prefer to do it away from the table, though, with people I know. So Saturday night I went over to Lucky Chances in Colma and had dinner and discussed theory, among other topics with my friend Milionaire. She likes Lucky Chances better than the Oaks Club because it is easy for her to get to and she doesn't have to cross a bridge. She also thinks the wait for a table is generally shorter. I disacree with the shorter wait speculation, but not enough to prove it. I don't really like Lucky Chances beacuse a) it is a block from the pet cemetary where I had old Cleveland cremated, and I miss old Cleveland and it still makes me a little sad to drive that road even more than a year late and b) the game is nearly twice as expensive at Lucky Chances because they play with an extra forced bet, as I have explained here before, which limits the profitable choices a player, especially a tight player like myself, gets to make.
So Saturday I drove out to the little city of the dead and had dinner with the Millionaire. I had chopsilog, which was great (it is almost as hard to fuck up chopsilog as Mamet claimsit is to fuck up a baked potato), she had chicken piccata which she characterized as "excellent". Such is the democracy and diversity of the card room coffee shop.
We discussed the game and trying to get a home game together, then I waited with her 45 minutes for a seat. If you, gentle reader are interested in joining a home game, you can email me at alpastorATpalacefamilysteak houseDOTcom. We are thinking a $1-2 dealer's choice game, $20-40 buy-in, mostly flop/community games, but maybe some stud, too, with at least one small buy-in no-limit tournament during the evening and a very minimal rake.
!
It's almost over. The last item I will attend to is Romeo. Romeo is a youngish Filipino, who I hope always has money and always gets seated at my table. He might not be as young as I think he is. Filipino men are famously well preserved. My grandfather looked about forty when I was a kid and looked about forty-three six months a year before he died. He did sort of a Dorian Grey thing in that last year, so that when he passed he llooked like a dead eighty year old, but who needs to be pretty in the crematorium? Nobody lying down.
Anyway, Romeo may not be as young as he looks (there are three Romeos that I know of who are regulars at the Oaks club: two are Filipino-our current subject and a tiny, 75 year old who it is not uncommon to have to shake out of a doze when it is his turn to bet, and one is a 20something Latino who I hope does not get seated at my table), but I would put him just shy of 30. He has a tall pompadour and a little Errol Flynn mustache, and wears gold aviator sunglasses. And he is the loosest player I have ever sat at a table with. He plays every hand, all the way to the river, often raising unconvincingly at the end. Thinking back, I can't remember ever seeing him drag a pot. He usually comes in with his wife, though, who plays, too, but never really at the same table as him, and when he taps out he will usually get a float from her. So I guess it is her I am really hoping never goes broke.
4/17/05 Oaks Club $2-4 Hold'em12:45-1:45 PM
In $40 Out $0 -$40
Hours Played 2005: 87.25 YTD:-$540
So I went over and played Sunday when I really shouldn't have. I am a little short on cheese, between all the sunglass replacements, waiting for a certain reptilian insurance company whose ad-wizards regard basic cable programming the way allied bombers regarded Dresden to issue me a fucking check (minus deductible, for which they assure me I will be reimbursed when they make a case against the poor drunk or illegal bastard that hit me and tried to escape, whose surname I have already told you is the same as mine and whose truck is registered to a woman who I will assume is his wife, as she has our name, too), complying with California's ineffective smog standards, and just generally running into a tight stretch. These things happen, even to nondegenerate gamblers. Even to nongamblers. The $500 in the negative, while it hurts, is not a particularly big swing at this level of poker. In fact, I will venture to say, that if not for the rake, the money the house takes from each pot, which disappears off the table forever, I would be at least even. But, what is it that asshole in the Mississippi beer store said?: if my aunt had nuts, she'd be my uncle. That is not the world we play in. Many smart players and poker veterans speculate that it is almost impossile to beat the rake at lower levels. This is the main argument for quick matriculation to higher limits.
I have also been a lot more social in the last few months, attending a lot more movies and events that take place outside the walls of the Hairball Management Compound/Colony, for which one generally pays a cover charge. This is the influence of Ms Chicken'N'Waffles, and my general reemergence after the post-Dagmar depression. But none of that is really any of your goddam business. You are here to hear about the Oaks Club.
I should have stayed home. I should have attended to domestic duties: done laundry; done the dishes that have been piling in the sink since a few days after the woman bit into the severed finger in her Wendy'sTM chili and made me crave my own chili, which I cleaned all the then dirty dishes to make only to have them pile up in the aftermath, fester for a matter of weeks and now smell like someone with rotting teeth's breath; alphabetized the cd's and records and uplaoded the stuff that I have bought but not put into Itunes or the 'pod and therefore have not listened to yet; hung this recently acquired clown painting with the weird orange light source that I can only surmise is the circus burning down just out of frame right; sew a button back onto my green baby-wale corduroy shirt; make a little progress in INFINITE JEST, which just gets better and better to the point that I am already looking forward to reading it again, which will make three complete passes plus however many Thanksgiving Eschaton readings or random consultations of the videophone and death-of- network-television-and-with-it-the- entire-advertising-complex digressions; post a column; & c. But I really wanted to play.
I had $40 that I could afford to part with and not face any major consequences, not bounce a rent check or haven to eat rice and shoplifted tuna until payday or go asking acquaintances for loans, which is really not enough to sit down at a $2-4 table. I mean to say that I would be allowed to sit down and play, the buy-in of a given game is usually 10x the small bet, so buy-in for $2-4 is a minimum of $20. It is strategically not very smart to buy in so small, but people do it all the time. Poker is a game of patience, and money is not just the way we keep score, it is an integral component of the game, as I have said here before, echoing everything I have ever read or learned about this fascinating game, money is nothing short of the language of the game. Playing short chipped is like boxing with one arm or trying to debate in mime, not impossible, but not pretty.
So, it was a recipe for failure, but I wanted to play, so I crossed the bridge. And I lost. So, I tried to do all that domestic stuff Tuesday. I got to some of it, but the sink still smells like bad breath. Tonight, maybe.
!
I don't discuss strategy at the table. It is my goal to be invisible. I want the other players to forget I am there or to think they can run over me and to be surprised when I am aggrssive. As a bookseller, there are certain poker books I never recommend. I do not steer people to bad books, I just don't tell them about the really good ones. I love to sell the Super System and now Super System 2, because they are both great books filled with poker lore and wisdome, but most of it does not apply directly to hold'em and that which does is more pertinent to high limit games, thus the book encourages people to play but does not geneerally improe their play immediately. The great information of these books is spread over nearly 1500 pages, and most people just won't do the work of mining it out. But for you gentle reader, I will name the poker titles that I have found valuable, as a reward for suffering the radioactive background. Sklansky, Malmuth and Miller's SMALL STAKES HOLD'EM is easily the best book specific to my game (small stakes hold'em) and Sklansky's THEORY OF POKER is a work of genius. Also, Schoonmaker PSYCHOLOGY OF POKER surprised me with its lucidity and effectiveness. Now, don't ask me again. And if you come nosing around my gambling section, you will be rewarded for doing your own research.
I do love to talk about poker. I prefer to do it away from the table, though, with people I know. So Saturday night I went over to Lucky Chances in Colma and had dinner and discussed theory, among other topics with my friend Milionaire. She likes Lucky Chances better than the Oaks Club because it is easy for her to get to and she doesn't have to cross a bridge. She also thinks the wait for a table is generally shorter. I disacree with the shorter wait speculation, but not enough to prove it. I don't really like Lucky Chances beacuse a) it is a block from the pet cemetary where I had old Cleveland cremated, and I miss old Cleveland and it still makes me a little sad to drive that road even more than a year late and b) the game is nearly twice as expensive at Lucky Chances because they play with an extra forced bet, as I have explained here before, which limits the profitable choices a player, especially a tight player like myself, gets to make.
So Saturday I drove out to the little city of the dead and had dinner with the Millionaire. I had chopsilog, which was great (it is almost as hard to fuck up chopsilog as Mamet claimsit is to fuck up a baked potato), she had chicken piccata which she characterized as "excellent". Such is the democracy and diversity of the card room coffee shop.
We discussed the game and trying to get a home game together, then I waited with her 45 minutes for a seat. If you, gentle reader are interested in joining a home game, you can email me at alpastorATpalacefamilysteak houseDOTcom. We are thinking a $1-2 dealer's choice game, $20-40 buy-in, mostly flop/community games, but maybe some stud, too, with at least one small buy-in no-limit tournament during the evening and a very minimal rake.
!
It's almost over. The last item I will attend to is Romeo. Romeo is a youngish Filipino, who I hope always has money and always gets seated at my table. He might not be as young as I think he is. Filipino men are famously well preserved. My grandfather looked about forty when I was a kid and looked about forty-three six months a year before he died. He did sort of a Dorian Grey thing in that last year, so that when he passed he llooked like a dead eighty year old, but who needs to be pretty in the crematorium? Nobody lying down.
Anyway, Romeo may not be as young as he looks (there are three Romeos that I know of who are regulars at the Oaks club: two are Filipino-our current subject and a tiny, 75 year old who it is not uncommon to have to shake out of a doze when it is his turn to bet, and one is a 20something Latino who I hope does not get seated at my table), but I would put him just shy of 30. He has a tall pompadour and a little Errol Flynn mustache, and wears gold aviator sunglasses. And he is the loosest player I have ever sat at a table with. He plays every hand, all the way to the river, often raising unconvincingly at the end. Thinking back, I can't remember ever seeing him drag a pot. He usually comes in with his wife, though, who plays, too, but never really at the same table as him, and when he taps out he will usually get a float from her. So I guess it is her I am really hoping never goes broke.
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