The Stack Pack

I've been really high on poker recently. No wins, but I've been feeling good about my game and just generally feeling good about life. Getting my first (real) comment on this blog probably has something to do with that. By the way, the truth has come to light and the identity of Anonymous has been revealed. Needless to say that it was someone from within the K.O.C. camp who was just a little too eager to start helping out around here. My friends and family don't even know about this blog yet, so any readers that I have at this point have come here through entirely legitimate means. Aside from Anonymous of course, who was acting illegitimately.

The most obvious and main reason for my aforementioned condition is the W.S.O.P. The whole poker world is currently abuzz because of it. Everyone has at least one friend out there in Vegas right now who is about to play the main event or some of the preliminaries. My guy is a strong player who's been putting in work for years, totally bracelet-worthy and overdue as far as I'm concerned. He's a master of late/endgame play, so every time he runs deep I'm refreshing his blog like I've got money riding on it. I've briefly met tons of cool people through poker, but you know it's a weird thing with poker players and friendliness... for the most part everybody wants to be friendly, but no one is really there to make friends (and neither am I for that matter.) In the old days you weren't even supposed to ask a player his name. This guy is the only person that I have actually made an effort to stay in touch with, so of course I want to see him win the Main Event.

Speaking of winning the main event, I plan to do that too some day so I can be insanely hood-rich. Before that happens though, I would like to officially state for the record that I plan to give back to the poker community tenfold after I hit it big. By the time I'm an old man there will be various foundations, charities, and whatnot, but every empire must start somewhere so the first thing I'll do is put together my poker crew, The Stack Pack: a boisterous collection of notoriously broke poker players, fixed-up in dapper clothes, and traveling the circuit grinding out all the major tournaments with a shared bankroll. They would be provided with stakes, travel expenses, gambling money, spending cash and designer suits (to keep the crew looking sharp.) Everyone loves the fedora look, think Gavin Smith when he won his first bracelet.

The Stack Pack line-up will only include the most desperate of characters from the poker world including:

The great T.J. Cloutier


The venerable Paul "Eskimo" Clark


myself


squatter blogger extraordinaire LuckyJimm, and (my favorite) the most brokedest of them all King Niche. Maybe also Jean-Robert Bellande, but only because our press photos would look cooler with him in the background looking like our bodyguard. I have less respect for him, so he would have to carry our bags. He's got quite an ego, but I'm pretty sure he would want to crew-up with us though; I heard recently that he was broke again, starting over with a bankroll of $1,600 hustling pool.

If we could find a way to wrestle T.J. away from the craps table for a few days we might have a shot at winning a bracelet, other than that I don't really expect much in the way of results for the crew. The reality TV show would be a smash hit though. All my loses on this investment will be re-couped there, so long as I (rightfully) get that "Created By" credit and all its due residuals. If the producers feel that season one was too boring then I'll add Sam Grizzle to the crew just to spice things up. That could get scary though.

My ultimate goal for "The Pack" is for it to become an institution, and continue to operate long after I'm no longer involved. It will be a place where broke players can come to prove themselves (or to be humiliated on national television with all their leaks and tells exposed for the world to see.) My girlfriend gets credit for creating the sexier, less humiliating female version: The Rack Pack.

"The Stack Pack" is the best name I've come up with so far, but if you can suggest a better one... The Hat Pack? The Stake Pack? The Rake Pack? The Rake Back? ... by looking at us it should be called The Fat Pack... if Layne was involved I would obviously call it The Flack Pack

Casinos Are Rigged

Since apparently now I have a reader (albeit one who comments anonymously) I suppose I should take this blog more seriously. The aforementioned anonymous commenter wondered aloud if I am just as unlucky in a casino as I seem to be online, and asked if I think online poker is "rigged" for players to lose. If you want to know whether online poker is rigged or not, I'll give you the answer, it's very simple: No... well... I don't know. Maybe. Actually, probably. I mean, why not? Anyways, how am I supposed to know??? Considering I've made money playing online, I suppose it can't be rigged. Then again maybe I'm just one of the lucky ones that they let win to keep up appearances... but I digress...

Since Anonymous felt the need to point out the fact that I've yet to post any live-play bad beat stories, I figured I would take this opportunity to go straight to the casino and tempt fate for his (or her) amusement. My destination this time: Harrah's Rincon in sunny southern California. This was my first trip to a Casino on the west coast. Having heard various stories about the horrendously terrible players that frequent The Commerce in L.A. I assumed this place would be a goldmine.

After taking the early bird bus with about thirty retirees (and a few seemingly homeless people) I waltzed into the poker room at about 11:00 AM. I had never played poker that early in the day before, nor had I ever played $3/$6 limit which was the only game running at the time. Limit? Are you serious? YGBFKM. I sat down at the table CLEARLY the youngest person there, and promptly announced to everyone that I'd never played limit before and that they should take it easy on me. "See you on the river" the dealer said, and they all laughed. To be honest with you, I didn't know what that meant when she said it; but by the second hand I figured it out.

Dealt 7c8c on the small blind, I called and five people went to the flop. If you've seen the movie Rounders, you'll recognize the cards the dealer proceeded to fan out: 6 9 10. "I flopped the nut straight." Maybe limit hold 'em isn't so bad after all. I was first to act and bet right out. The big blind and UTG call, one was an old Asian (who seemed like a huge gambler) and the other was a mustached old grumpy dude. The turn comes, and it's an ace. I pray someone now has two pair, but since they both just call my next bet I have no reason to think that they do. The river is another six, pairing the board. I guess somehow I knew that I was beat and checked. Old Asian bets, and grumpy mustache folds. I call and wait a long time for him to turn over his cards, and when he finally does it he throws them face-up into the middle of the table with a loud "Bah!" Now, to me that "bah" usually means a player's not tabling a tremendously strong hand, so without looking I proudly flip over the 5th nuts or whatever it is I have. The whole table gasps. "Wow, a full house" someone says. Wait, what? The dealer says "sixes full of aces" and starts pushing the pot towards old Asian. He does not tip her. "You see what you've walked into?" one of the other players asks me. I look down to see that I've lost about one third of my starting stack within 90 seconds. I guess I'm glad he didn't raise on the turn.

He takes out his ear buds and asks me "dis you firs time playin'?" Where were you two minutes ago dick-face? Clearly rocking out to some J-Pop.

The only other hand of note from my limit session is too embarrassing to recount, even here on the most embarrassing of poker blogs. Long story short, I got bluffed. Now, I know what you're thinking: in limit it's impossible to get bluffed because no matter what you always have odds to call. Well I know that. Or rather, I knew that, but I guess I forgot. I thought I was making a pretty good lay down, but instead I gave the mustached old grumpy dude too much credit. I didn't think he'd flame off a bet with nine-high, but I guess some people got money to burn and suicidal bluffs to run. I'm sure %90 of the time I'm saving myself a bet in that spot, so I guess I can't be too mad at myself. "You can't bluff in limit... unless you're a good player" comes flapping out from between the mustache lips and he starts laughing like he just said the funniest thing ever.

Since senior citizens were whipping my ass relentlessly in the cash game, I couldn't wait for the noon tournament to begin. It was a $30 MTT with a $20 add-on and a $5 charge for "bonus chips." Tournament directors: can we please just call it a $50+$5 like normal people? Anyways, the players at my starting table were fairly predictable: a couple of old man nits, a Brooklyn-accented LAGtard, a couple of young internet players, an old lady callingstation, and a tall skinny guy who ordered his coffees spiked with Jameson (this man was clearly and my long lost brother and I completely regret missing the opportunity to reconnect with him.) Nothing exciting really happened in the first hour. I got maximum value out of the Brooklynite in a funky hand where I flopped two pair with the old jack-trey, and then sniffed out that I was still good when he bet the board-pairing river. I had run my starting stack up to 10k when it happened, the moment you've all been waiting for...

Of the aforementioned players, which one do you think busted me? Please, take a minute to think about it. I'll wait.

Near the bubble, with the blinds at 400/800, I decided it was time to open up a little. On the big blind I look down at KhJh as the old man nit and old lady callingstation both limp from the button and small blind respectively. I go all in and await their decisions. Old man nit thinks about it, then folds. Now, I have absolutely no clue what old lady callingstation was thinking, and I really regret not taking a photo of the cards to prove that I'm not making this up, but she makes a reluctant call for all her chips and I show her my paint. I'm assuming she has ace-rag and that I need to get lucky, but she does not have ace-rag. She has jack two... suited. I've seen people make kamikaze calls like that online, but to do that in a casino you must really be ready to go home. This should have been my ticket to the money, but instead the board rolls out x J x x 2 and I am bust down to under 3k. The next hand she limps again, this time from the button, and makes another call when I shove from the small blind. This hand I have KQ and she has KJ and I catch a small double up. The next hand after that she limp-calls again, this time holding K 10 against my second KQ in a row. My usual luck (or lack thereof) takes control of the situation and board rolls out a classic 7 J x 8 9. She ended up being part of a four-way chop, earning herself a neat $250. There is no way in God's green earth that I would ever even CONSIDER chopping with her, or any of those other players for that matter.

Thank you for being my first commenter Anonymous. Now please ship $135 to Flynn McCaffrey on FTP because you know you done done me wrong.

My Return to JokerStars

After the cash-out curse killed my bankroll on Poker Stars I stopped playing there (obv) so when I got an email from them saying I was being put in a special invitation-only tournament with a $10,000 guarantee I figured this was their way of making it up to me. I thought for sure I was guaranteed at least five bucks or something, and maybe they were trying to make it up to me, but not with money... anyway, here's tonight's unluckiness...


I flat called his raise pre flop so I was surprised when he lead out on the flop with a 2/3rd pot bet. The funny thing is, I had a feeling that he was really strong and for once had to think about re-shipping here. My girlfriend happened to be watching me play at this particular moment and I actually told her that I might be beat with a set, but I didn't really believe it. I didn't think Stars would do it to me like that. Luckily, after all the money went in and he hit on the turn, I could blame her for being the cooler instead of them. Here's looking foreward to my next Stars invitational!