Mark Making

Home game night. It’s a full moon, I’m wearing my Dead Guy hat and I’ve brought a 24-ounce bottle of the ale with the same name.

As I don’t particularly care to play in the tourney, I came late, just for the cash game. Right away I could tell something was amiss. R, the guy who holds the game, has a new girlfriend. He’s been dating a couple different women. This one was in the bedroom watching TV. I think folks thought their game might be in jeopardy as there was some rumbling about her moving in already. R was smiling the smile of a man getting steady trim, so who am I to judge? If the gig works out and we have to move the game out to the workshop, so be it. Nothing a propane heater can’t take care of when the weather turns. If it doesn’t work out, maybe R will be dead money for a couple weeks. It could happen.

Enough people had busted out of the tourney so we started a 5-handed game in fairly short order. The edge remained. Even M, the jokester was in a mood, and taking it out on T.

We usually play .50/1.00. T insisted that we play .25/.50, Ok, we’ll play .25/.50. T is one of those people you want in a game. He always thinks he has the best hand when nothing could be further from the truth. Top pair or 2 pair (not 2 cards in his hand pairing on the board, but a pocket pair and the board pairs) and he thinks he’s got it tied up. He lost his buy-in in short order. The problem is that when he loses, he gets agitated; and I guess because he’s a big guy, he thinks that if he threatens bodily harm, people will back off of hands. After M takes down a pot with trips against T’s monster bottom 2 pair, the sparring ensues.

“Do that again and I’m gonna come over there and knock the shit outa you.” Yes, the audacity of having a better hand.

M is no small guy, yet he’s considerably older. He says, “I don’t have to go 2 hours with you. It won’t take long at all.”

T retorts, “Are you still talking?”

M fires back, “Why don’t you go piss on some tires, something you’re good at.”

I’m dying as I try to hold back my laughter. Such an oaf.

T wasn’t the only person at the table who was getting under M’s skin. W was there. W is a youngish Asian guy who talks a lot of poker smack. I know W from the casino. He’s a rather affable guy, if a bit superficial. Make that gregarious, and he likes being the center of attention. He never shuts up. He was sitting to my right, which is a good thing as far as the cards go, which I’ll explain in a bit, but it is also a bad thing because he had my ear. My good ear. I’m trying to concentrate on the game and he’s talking to me at a volume just loud enough to for me to barely hear. I’m his confidant?

“Last hand I had flat tire. I woulda won”

I have no clue what he is talking about. “A what?”

“A flat tire.” He asks with some incredulity, “You never hear of flat tire?”

“No.”

“Jack-four. If you get a flat tire, what is jack for?”

“Ah. Unfortunately I am not caught up on all of the poker jargon. I tend to disregard such as ephemeral, opting to concentrate on what is going on in each hand.” Really, I phrased it pretty much like that.

Pause.

“Do you know what “ephemeral” means?”

“No.”

“It means transitory or lacking endurance or longevity. This too shall pass. Maybe I should have said superfluous.”

After that, he toned the chit-chat down a bit. Yet, the table was still a captive audience, or so he thought. W is pure LAG and everyone knows this. J2 is his favorite hand. “Jack-deuce, never lose.” Say that at the casino and everyone says, “You know W, eh.” W leads out with $6 after a couple limps, everyone folds ad he shows a pair of sixes. “Six dollar for pair of sixes, right? I have best hand.” Wrong table, W. These guys don’t always back down, and they will pack like wolves. How much did W lose? $100 or so. Tons for a ,25/.50 game. After he left, R says, “And you guys were bitching and moaning when I told you W would be here.” He does liven up a game.

But with W out of the picture, I shall continue to paint the portrait of T. He’s tatted up pretty good with a nice Ace of Spades on his tricep, Harley verbiage with “fidelity” and other such bullshit, on one shoulder (he’s wearing a wife-beater) and on the other some busy red and blue images I didn’t bother examining too closely. It may have had an eagle in it. Of course. R, Sirius was programmed to a 80s station and T insisted he change it to a classic rock station, which according to T is something along the lines of Def Leppard. (I had to google to make sure I had the correct spelling.) R caught a jazz station while searching and I suggested he hang with that for a while. It was some 50s Miles. A great groove with some amazing minimal harmonies. You never saw a bunch of guys squirm so much. The shit was kickin’ but these shit-kickers weren’t catching it. I came right out with it: “You’re just a bunch of fuckin’ heathens! That’s what it is.”

T starts screaming, “I’m gonna kill myself if we have to listen to this crap.” P chimes in, “I’m gonna kill you (T) if I have to listen to this.” R finds the Motley channel and T calms down. “Hey, I recognize this song.” I repeat: “Fuckin’ heathen. So narrowly defined, confined to your little square box.” I was pushing it and wasn’t so sure that anyone would have my back, or that I could get my knife out of my pocket in a timely manner, so I toned it down after that and went back to waiting for my turn at T’s reload.

I wish I could say it came. I turned a straight on the button and minimized my risk with 4 people still in the pot. T caught a river flush and made it abundantly clear he had done so. Good job, nice hand.

It was getting late and I had told my dear wife that I would pull the plug at 2 AM. A few hands later I caught a set of sixes after calling a 3-bet that turned into a family pot. I bet the pot and called it a night, up $15 from my initial $60. Nothing stellar, but hell, I got a blog entry out of it.