Though I didn’t make the final table, last night’s Poker Smoker was a lot of fun. I got a box of Camacho cigars, just for showing up! And if you haven’t ever been up to Yamashiro, (until last night, I hadn’t — even though I’ve lived here for nearly 33 years) I suggest adding it to your list of great places to visit in Los Angeles. It’s on top of a hill in Hollywood, and the view is breathtaking. From my seat in the bar I could see the Griffith Observatory, Dodger Stadium, The Capitol Records Building and all of Hollywood, Downtown Los Angeles, Baldwin Hills, and out to Century City. If it had been clear, I could have easily seen across Santa Monica and down past Palos Verdes to the ocean. I don’t know anything about the food or service, but the view is just incredible.
(Note: I will now do my best to describe a bit of the poker tournament in language normal people can understand. It may help to have the Wikipedia’s Hold’Em entry open in another window, though.)
I play conservatively. This means that I don’t like to bet before the flop without a “made hand”: a big pair, or a very strong drawing hand like an ace and a king, or a jack and a ten of the same suit (and even that jack and ten I really hate to play if I am in early position.) I also like to raise, rather than call, because it’s usually a stronger way to play. In most situations, this gives me something called “fold equity.” What that means is, players who are paying attention to me will figure out that I only open when I’ve got a hand, and I rarely just call, so if a few players have checked ahead of me, and there’s a big card or something on the board, if I bet at it, they will fold, because my playing style says I probably have them beat. (Sometimes this doesn’t work, and ends up costing me a lot of chips, but I won’t go into why that happens today . . . I’d really have to speak in ancient Pokerian to explain it.)
Unfortunately for me, a cold deck (lousy cards that I really can’t play) and two calling-stations (players who call any bet with any two cards, hoping to get lucky) behind me made it really hard for me to out-play anyone.
But mostly it was the structure that killed me. We started with 1000 in tournament chips. The blinds started at 25 and 25, and went up every 15 minutes. There were unlimited rebuys until the fifth level, so the first few levels were all-in crapshoots. The guy to my right sucked out twice with incredibly weak hands (one of them was a suited Jack three. A real powerhouse.) So I was one of two people at my table who didn’t rebuy. If I can drop a name for a moment, the other was Jason Mewes, who seems like one of the nicest, most down to earth people in the world. As far as I could tell, he’s a pretty solid cardplayer, too.
I survived — barely — until level 5, when the blinds went up to 200/400 with a 50 dollar ante. I’d stolen a few blinds, and picked up a few pots, but I’d been blinded down to 800, so I was in “double up or go home” mode when I found AJd in the big blind.
The guy under the gun went all-in quickly. He’d just sat down, so I didn’t know if he was trying to steal a blind from the short-stack, or what . . . but it was the strongest hand I’d seen all night, so I was calling no matter what. It was folded around to me. I pushed, and he turned up, incredibly, the Ace of clubs and the five of diamonds.
What the fuck? You go all-in with that crap under the gun? I gotta get this guy’s number and invite him to a homegame!
The flop was J-A-7. Sweet.
The turn was another J. Jacks full, baby!
An excited murmur rippled across the table
And then, the river . . . an ace. Perfect. It gave us both Aces full of Jacks, and we chopped. Instead of doubling up, I halved-up, and I was right back where I started. When the small blind hit me for 200 on the next hand, I pushed in the dark. When the flop came K-8-x, I peeked at my cards: a black ten and a red six. I wasn’t surprised, because this was the bullshit I was getting dealt all night.
I forget the way the hand played out, but Mr. All-in with a tiny unsuited Ace pushed again, and this time he made two pair with his king-little, I think on the turn, to beat the other guy’s medium ace.
I mucked my cards in disgust, and stood up. I shook hands around the table, picked up my monkey, and walked out to the valet. I looked out across Los Angeles while I waited for my car.
If you don’t read comments, you missed the following thought yesterday, from WWdN reader ruddyadam:
That clock is pretty insane. Kind of makes you realize that the reality we exist in is only one moment in time. And no matter how hard you try, you can’t hang on to a moment longer than it is here. Once it’s gone, you can only remember it, but really it will never be back again.
A cold deck in a loose/aggressive game is the most frustrating thing in the world to me, and I was pissed when I stood at the valet and waited for my car, but it hadn’t cost me anything (other than 4 bucks for a watered-down coke and six bucks for the valet), and there are much worse ways to spend a Thursday night than smoking cigars and playing poker . . . so I looked out at the twinkling lights of my city, the Griffith Observatory, Dodger Stadium, The Capitol Records Building and all of Hollywood, Downtown Los Angeles . . . and enjoyed the moment.
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