Luckbox

I played a hand wrong, maybe. I was two-tabling at Stars. Can I blame the fact that I was playing more than one table? You betcha! I just can’t do it. Or rather, I am still not practiced at it. Even sitting at one table while looking for another to join stretches my ability to concentrate on the action. After some fumbling and bumbling, I find a second table that looks promising and pretty shortly pick up Aces in the hole. Sweet, and I have AKo in the BB at the other table. Oh no, crunch time. The flop for my AK is negative, so I click the fold box to a bet while at the other table an early position player has raised 3 X BB. By the time I can give my hand the attention it requires, time is running out, so I use a predetermined bet size button and only pop it another 2 BBs. Of course, he calls. The flop is 787, all black, two spades. He bets a small amount, I bet the pot and get a call. Whoa. Turn is another spade, check, check. River is 9c, he bets the pot, and like a numb-nuts, I call. He’s holding J 10 off. I paid him off, yes, yet, as the game progressed, the only comfort I could give myself was that he would not have folded even if I jammed the turn. The guy was a calling station.

Sweet! Right? Except at this particular moment he seemed to be hitting everything, boating up with 89o after calling big raises, calling shortie all-ins with nothing and hitting trips. It was sick. I knew that the only way I was going to feel comfortable with this guy was to wait for monsters, punch up the flop and if the turn was a blank, punch it up some more. He occasionally would fold on the turn. I retrieved a little of what I had lost. Yet, I did not do as well as others.

You could smell it: players waiting to nail the guy. And nail him they did. The great thing about a calling station is just as they don’t care where they are in a hand as long as they have any kind of draw, a pair, two pair, or whatever, they are unable to discern when they are beat. As lucky as this guy had been, he doubled up a couple players along the way. He was the temporary custodian of chips. Yet, even if he lost $25, it was not long before he had another $20 from 2 and 3 outers, usually from players new to the table. Again, sick.

He was still there when I left, as were several of the players I had started the game with. It was clear they were still there only to crack this guy. I made a note. I will seek this guy out in the future.