Post by Jughead on Aug 28, 2012 11:40:22 GMT -5
I originally posted this in another forum, but it may help members here to get to know me a little better, so I am reposting it here 
I wanted to do something special, but a little bit different, for my 1k post. It's kind of a big deal for me, since for several years I was an occasional lurker here before finally jumping in a couple months ago. I never had the extra time that a forum obsession requires until this past summer. I realized a few days ago that my post spewing had resulted in an impending milestone, and I had better start making a plan! Though the problem I faced was that I know nothing about poker strategy, nor am I knowledgeable about probability theory or statistics, and I played like a donk for many years. So what to post about for the milestone?
Something you probably should know about me is that I subscribe to Card Player mag for the sole purpose of leaving it around my house casually obvious, so when people visit it looks like I know poker. I will occasionally read an article while in the bathroom, and I read their website sometimes when 2p2 is quiet. I have been reading the series called "When I was a donk", and it struck me yesterday that these were mostly lame donk stories! Typically some pro will write "A few years ago, I was playing 10/20 at Commerce. I'm in the big blind and CO opens 3x, it folds to me and I defend my blind holding AJ, but miss the Q high dry flop so I check. The guy c-bets, and with nothing but a hunch I call 3/4 pot! SPR is over 20 and I call OOP with Ajax, what a donk I used to be haha". Now, I'm reading this thinking... hmm, I've been to Commerce a couple times and don't remember seeing any $.10/.20 games, just $1/2 NL, where do they have the micro tables? And what's a c-bet? Why doesn't he just jam that AJ? Who or what is SPR?
I slowly came to the realization that these so called donk stories were not really about true donks. The pros that write in Card Player just tell safe stories about themselves that are not even close to being in my league as a donk. That's when it dawned on me, the thing that I am really knowledgeable about, and pretty much champion of, is being a donk! I own this I realized, and I should share my experience with others in the BQ forum. So here is the tale of my first tournament, the first chapter of my donk journey.
Las Vegas at the turn of the Century
I was in Las Vegas around the turn of the Century, with the wife and 4 kids, for a long weekend at the end of summer. We made the short drive to Vegas pretty often, and Vegas was becoming more of a family destination. I generally played Blackjack, while my better half pulled the slots handle or hit the shops. On that Sunday we had no plans, so the wife and daughters went shopping for the day. My boys wanted to go hang out on the Strip to find chicks, so I wished them good luck. I suddenly found myself with an afternoon free, and I had seen signs all over the lobby about a poker tournament about to start. The sign said for only $25 + $5 fee I could win about a grand, possibly even more! So I signed up, even though I hadn't played any poker since college, and $30 was a lot of money in those days - probably equivalent to about $33.50 today!
Now, I knew a bit about poker, having learned the basics of the game from my young English Uncle who came over in the 70's. During the first few months after he arrived he would sit at the kitchen table, with his D.A. hair and wearing his Teddy Boy outfit of purple satin smoking jacket and skin tight straight leg jeans over black leather half boots. We joked and talked for hours as he taught me what a flush was, and how a straight beat 3 of a kind. I reveled in the experience of having a "big brother" who talked weird, and was obviously a man of the world at least in my eyes. Later, in my college years, I played occasionally with my buddies. But the games were just drunkfests and the conversation was about anything but card strategy.
So here I was entered in my first tournament, about to play no limit hold'em which I knew little about, with no clue how a tournament was even played. I felt strangely confident though, having watched Rounders that past year. I knew two things from watching that movie - never bottom deal at a cop's private game and when you are playing Johnny Chan always bluff him with rags, because sometimes you just have to outplay the guy one hand. But I was excited, and anxious to get started, as donks usually are when faced with certain disaster. I checked in, got my seat assignment and was taken to get my tournament chips in a neat little plastic tray. I found my table easily, and sat down at seat 3 with my chips and a snack size package of Oreo cookies. The cookies I had grabbed at the last minute so I would look sort of dangerous and menacing. I looked around at the other players, strangely dressed in cowboy boots and hats, with long sleeve shirts even though it was like walking on the sun outside on the Strip. I was dressed in my usual khaki cargo shorts, flip-flops, and a t-shirt I had grabbed that past summer at the Grand Canyon on vacation. I forgot to mention earlier that at the time I was rolling in a burgundy Chrysler mini-van, with stock plastic wheel-covers. I had valet parked at the front entrance when we checked in the day before. I thought I must look pretty much like a standard high stakes gambler, and these guys at my table looked like cowboys from the prairies of Texas! Easy game I thought, they looked nothing like the sharks in Rounders.
The first thing I noticed was that all the other players had their chips in neat stacks in front of them, and nobody was using the tray. I went to tip the tray and slide my chips out, holding my right hand against the chips and using my left to tilt the tray. The chips were tightly packed in one of the slots, and I had to give it a bump to get them to come out. Unfortunately, I bumped too hard with slightly sweaty hands and they all dropped out at once splashing onto the felt and exploding all around me! One of the green chips hit the table on it's edge and rolled lazily all the way over to seat 9 across from me. I nearly died of embarrassment, but luckily the guys were very friendly and helped me gather all my stray chips. Once I had my chips organized and stacked, I heard the floor announce the start. With cards in the air, I turned my attention to looking for tells, clueless as to what they looked like, and chatting with my table-mates. I heard a few of them talking about an apparently new suburb around Vegas called "Value Town", and from the way they spoke of it I made a note to check it out when I got back home. Real estate in California at the time was getting expensive and I thought it wouldn't hurt to look at Nevada developments. Not that the wife would ever dream of moving to Sin City, but a guy can dream! One of the cowboys on my left I quickly marked as a total noob in Vegas, when I overheard him telling his friend how he had been playing for more value "on all 3 streets lately". He also seemed to think "VAlue Town" was a nice place. But anyone who had been going to Vegas as long as I had knew the only street that mattered was the Strip, none of the downtown streets were worth your time. So I had a total noob on my left, and I planned to take advantage.
I played the first hour very tight, like Matt Damon had played against Chan. It was a bit tedious for me to play this tight, only betting with suited cards or both cards larger than tens. But I was patient, won a few small pots because the hicks at my table folded a lot. Once I was dealt 2 aces and I gleefully pushed all my chips in the middle. But none of the other players called me, so I ended up only taking a 200 chip pot. After the first break, I noticed a grease-board in the tournament area that said we only had 48 players remaining from a 98 player field. My table dispersed after the break, and I was seated at a new table with some normal looking tourists. I was having a great time so far, and already half way to the jackpot or whatever it is called to win a tournament! For the next hour or so I didn't get many cards, only once pushed all my chips in when I got dealt AQ suited. Again I only won a smallish pot, but I felt like I was really playing well. After a few players at my table were eliminated, we were down to only 6 and I was dealt AJ on the button. A player in the middle position raised to 4 times the blind amount and I re-raised him double that, figuring he would fold quickly. He thought for a minute, then pushed all his chips in the middle and quietly said "all in". I was shocked, but gleefully called with my shorter stack since I had an ace. He turned over 2 queens, and I smugly showed him my ace high. The flop paired my ace and as the board ran out clean he muttered under his breath. But finally I had a huge pile of chips, and started using them to intimidate the other players at my table.
Soon after that table was broken up and I moved to table 1. By this point there were only 14 players total, and the payouts started from 10th place so I was fairly giddy. I played loose with my big stack of chips, always looking like I would shove them all in and giving confident stares at my opponents. I made a big play with AK near the bubble when I re-raised all-in against a tourist in a Hawaiian shirt. He stared at me for several minutes before shaking his head and mucking his cards. The blinds were large by that time and I collected a decent sized pot, and when the tourist showed his KK I knew I had made him fold a pretty good hand. A few hands later the bubble was busted and we took a break, when we returned all the players remaining were sitting at my table.
As play resumed, I noticed I didn't have the biggest chip stack, but at least I was about average. We played the next hour with only 4 players being eliminated, and I was hanging on by folding lots of hands and betting my strong hands with an ace very aggressively. I had decided early on in the day to only play the bigger pairs, not feeling like it was smart to play anything lower than 99 since I figured out that was at least a higher pair than half the cards in the deck could make. It seemed to be working well, until I was dealt QQ in the small blind. One of the cowboys from my first table raised it 6 times the blind amount, and when it got to me I decided to re-raise him because I had a huge hand. Everyone else folded, but he snap re-raised me all-in! Since he had the larger stack, I took a minute to think. He probably has an ace I thought, but maybe he would miss the flop and my queens would hold up. I thought back to what Matt Damon had said in Rounders, and decided I would just have to play one hand like I could outplay anybody but I didn't have any idea what the line from the movie meant. I took a deep breath and pushed all my remaining chips in to the pot, turned over my queens and glanced at the cowboy sitting to my right. He looked at the 2 queens, and I swear he smirked just a little bit as he turned over 2 aces! The board ran out clean, and I was knocked out in 6th place. The tournament official took me to the cage to collect whatever it was that I had won. When I got there I found that I had actually made a pretty big score - I won $320, which is about equal to $350 today!
I started dreaming of moving to Las Vegas, and becoming a full time poker player like Doyle Brunson - the only guy I knew of that made money playing poker. I knew it was going to be difficult to convince my family to uproot and move to new schools and a new house in "Value Town" or whatever suburb was attractive, but I was feeling pretty good right then. However, it was just the start of my long and often very expensive donk journey!
I wanted to do something special, but a little bit different, for my 1k post. It's kind of a big deal for me, since for several years I was an occasional lurker here before finally jumping in a couple months ago. I never had the extra time that a forum obsession requires until this past summer. I realized a few days ago that my post spewing had resulted in an impending milestone, and I had better start making a plan! Though the problem I faced was that I know nothing about poker strategy, nor am I knowledgeable about probability theory or statistics, and I played like a donk for many years. So what to post about for the milestone?
Something you probably should know about me is that I subscribe to Card Player mag for the sole purpose of leaving it around my house casually obvious, so when people visit it looks like I know poker. I will occasionally read an article while in the bathroom, and I read their website sometimes when 2p2 is quiet. I have been reading the series called "When I was a donk", and it struck me yesterday that these were mostly lame donk stories! Typically some pro will write "A few years ago, I was playing 10/20 at Commerce. I'm in the big blind and CO opens 3x, it folds to me and I defend my blind holding AJ, but miss the Q high dry flop so I check. The guy c-bets, and with nothing but a hunch I call 3/4 pot! SPR is over 20 and I call OOP with Ajax, what a donk I used to be haha". Now, I'm reading this thinking... hmm, I've been to Commerce a couple times and don't remember seeing any $.10/.20 games, just $1/2 NL, where do they have the micro tables? And what's a c-bet? Why doesn't he just jam that AJ? Who or what is SPR?
I slowly came to the realization that these so called donk stories were not really about true donks. The pros that write in Card Player just tell safe stories about themselves that are not even close to being in my league as a donk. That's when it dawned on me, the thing that I am really knowledgeable about, and pretty much champion of, is being a donk! I own this I realized, and I should share my experience with others in the BQ forum. So here is the tale of my first tournament, the first chapter of my donk journey.
Las Vegas at the turn of the Century
I was in Las Vegas around the turn of the Century, with the wife and 4 kids, for a long weekend at the end of summer. We made the short drive to Vegas pretty often, and Vegas was becoming more of a family destination. I generally played Blackjack, while my better half pulled the slots handle or hit the shops. On that Sunday we had no plans, so the wife and daughters went shopping for the day. My boys wanted to go hang out on the Strip to find chicks, so I wished them good luck. I suddenly found myself with an afternoon free, and I had seen signs all over the lobby about a poker tournament about to start. The sign said for only $25 + $5 fee I could win about a grand, possibly even more! So I signed up, even though I hadn't played any poker since college, and $30 was a lot of money in those days - probably equivalent to about $33.50 today!
Now, I knew a bit about poker, having learned the basics of the game from my young English Uncle who came over in the 70's. During the first few months after he arrived he would sit at the kitchen table, with his D.A. hair and wearing his Teddy Boy outfit of purple satin smoking jacket and skin tight straight leg jeans over black leather half boots. We joked and talked for hours as he taught me what a flush was, and how a straight beat 3 of a kind. I reveled in the experience of having a "big brother" who talked weird, and was obviously a man of the world at least in my eyes. Later, in my college years, I played occasionally with my buddies. But the games were just drunkfests and the conversation was about anything but card strategy.
So here I was entered in my first tournament, about to play no limit hold'em which I knew little about, with no clue how a tournament was even played. I felt strangely confident though, having watched Rounders that past year. I knew two things from watching that movie - never bottom deal at a cop's private game and when you are playing Johnny Chan always bluff him with rags, because sometimes you just have to outplay the guy one hand. But I was excited, and anxious to get started, as donks usually are when faced with certain disaster. I checked in, got my seat assignment and was taken to get my tournament chips in a neat little plastic tray. I found my table easily, and sat down at seat 3 with my chips and a snack size package of Oreo cookies. The cookies I had grabbed at the last minute so I would look sort of dangerous and menacing. I looked around at the other players, strangely dressed in cowboy boots and hats, with long sleeve shirts even though it was like walking on the sun outside on the Strip. I was dressed in my usual khaki cargo shorts, flip-flops, and a t-shirt I had grabbed that past summer at the Grand Canyon on vacation. I forgot to mention earlier that at the time I was rolling in a burgundy Chrysler mini-van, with stock plastic wheel-covers. I had valet parked at the front entrance when we checked in the day before. I thought I must look pretty much like a standard high stakes gambler, and these guys at my table looked like cowboys from the prairies of Texas! Easy game I thought, they looked nothing like the sharks in Rounders.
The first thing I noticed was that all the other players had their chips in neat stacks in front of them, and nobody was using the tray. I went to tip the tray and slide my chips out, holding my right hand against the chips and using my left to tilt the tray. The chips were tightly packed in one of the slots, and I had to give it a bump to get them to come out. Unfortunately, I bumped too hard with slightly sweaty hands and they all dropped out at once splashing onto the felt and exploding all around me! One of the green chips hit the table on it's edge and rolled lazily all the way over to seat 9 across from me. I nearly died of embarrassment, but luckily the guys were very friendly and helped me gather all my stray chips. Once I had my chips organized and stacked, I heard the floor announce the start. With cards in the air, I turned my attention to looking for tells, clueless as to what they looked like, and chatting with my table-mates. I heard a few of them talking about an apparently new suburb around Vegas called "Value Town", and from the way they spoke of it I made a note to check it out when I got back home. Real estate in California at the time was getting expensive and I thought it wouldn't hurt to look at Nevada developments. Not that the wife would ever dream of moving to Sin City, but a guy can dream! One of the cowboys on my left I quickly marked as a total noob in Vegas, when I overheard him telling his friend how he had been playing for more value "on all 3 streets lately". He also seemed to think "VAlue Town" was a nice place. But anyone who had been going to Vegas as long as I had knew the only street that mattered was the Strip, none of the downtown streets were worth your time. So I had a total noob on my left, and I planned to take advantage.
I played the first hour very tight, like Matt Damon had played against Chan. It was a bit tedious for me to play this tight, only betting with suited cards or both cards larger than tens. But I was patient, won a few small pots because the hicks at my table folded a lot. Once I was dealt 2 aces and I gleefully pushed all my chips in the middle. But none of the other players called me, so I ended up only taking a 200 chip pot. After the first break, I noticed a grease-board in the tournament area that said we only had 48 players remaining from a 98 player field. My table dispersed after the break, and I was seated at a new table with some normal looking tourists. I was having a great time so far, and already half way to the jackpot or whatever it is called to win a tournament! For the next hour or so I didn't get many cards, only once pushed all my chips in when I got dealt AQ suited. Again I only won a smallish pot, but I felt like I was really playing well. After a few players at my table were eliminated, we were down to only 6 and I was dealt AJ on the button. A player in the middle position raised to 4 times the blind amount and I re-raised him double that, figuring he would fold quickly. He thought for a minute, then pushed all his chips in the middle and quietly said "all in". I was shocked, but gleefully called with my shorter stack since I had an ace. He turned over 2 queens, and I smugly showed him my ace high. The flop paired my ace and as the board ran out clean he muttered under his breath. But finally I had a huge pile of chips, and started using them to intimidate the other players at my table.
Soon after that table was broken up and I moved to table 1. By this point there were only 14 players total, and the payouts started from 10th place so I was fairly giddy. I played loose with my big stack of chips, always looking like I would shove them all in and giving confident stares at my opponents. I made a big play with AK near the bubble when I re-raised all-in against a tourist in a Hawaiian shirt. He stared at me for several minutes before shaking his head and mucking his cards. The blinds were large by that time and I collected a decent sized pot, and when the tourist showed his KK I knew I had made him fold a pretty good hand. A few hands later the bubble was busted and we took a break, when we returned all the players remaining were sitting at my table.
As play resumed, I noticed I didn't have the biggest chip stack, but at least I was about average. We played the next hour with only 4 players being eliminated, and I was hanging on by folding lots of hands and betting my strong hands with an ace very aggressively. I had decided early on in the day to only play the bigger pairs, not feeling like it was smart to play anything lower than 99 since I figured out that was at least a higher pair than half the cards in the deck could make. It seemed to be working well, until I was dealt QQ in the small blind. One of the cowboys from my first table raised it 6 times the blind amount, and when it got to me I decided to re-raise him because I had a huge hand. Everyone else folded, but he snap re-raised me all-in! Since he had the larger stack, I took a minute to think. He probably has an ace I thought, but maybe he would miss the flop and my queens would hold up. I thought back to what Matt Damon had said in Rounders, and decided I would just have to play one hand like I could outplay anybody but I didn't have any idea what the line from the movie meant. I took a deep breath and pushed all my remaining chips in to the pot, turned over my queens and glanced at the cowboy sitting to my right. He looked at the 2 queens, and I swear he smirked just a little bit as he turned over 2 aces! The board ran out clean, and I was knocked out in 6th place. The tournament official took me to the cage to collect whatever it was that I had won. When I got there I found that I had actually made a pretty big score - I won $320, which is about equal to $350 today!
I started dreaming of moving to Las Vegas, and becoming a full time poker player like Doyle Brunson - the only guy I knew of that made money playing poker. I knew it was going to be difficult to convince my family to uproot and move to new schools and a new house in "Value Town" or whatever suburb was attractive, but I was feeling pretty good right then. However, it was just the start of my long and often very expensive donk journey!
