WHERE'S WALLY?
AND THE TALE OF MARTY THE GUNSLINGER
Steve Deadmoney
Another Dogs only night - courtesy of some much-needed planning to take us closer to our (poker) world domination aims. So where was everyone? It was a bit like Where's Wally? An initially perplexing problem turned about to be blindingly obvious...
Pete apparently didn't know what day it was (hey, we've all been there, just with less regularity than The Slag). Pete - its Wednesday - the night we play poker??? You'll pick it up sometime... maybe. Dave was in France, no doubt sampling the local vino and writing up his own reports.
Phil was busy in his own imaginary world of major sports (playing ping-pong) - a fact that had previously eluded Andy, who asked me to pass on this very important and pertinent message -
"DUDE!!!! What the fuck?" And if the ping-pong wasn't funny enough, what about Baz? Apparently he'd broken his wrist or hand or something. Word is Mrs. Baz has put him on rations lately, so you can draw your own conclusions - I did. The wank of shame? Baz - it won't be much consolation, but I know what its like to get busted JKo...
On a happier note, the Dogs plans ARE progressing. If you haven't yet noticed, we're hosting our first ever tournament on behalf of the Keep Mobile charity. Sign up (via home page) before we send the boys round! We've also reached a milestone with our website (not yet 1 year old) which has now had over 20,000 hits. All of this is as nothing compared to Marty's news - "Quads" and his wife, Gabrielle, are expecting a baby in April - hopefully this will be one occasion when he doesn?t live up to his nickname, although he says he'll be happy if he gets a small pair... whatever, we're all delighted for you both - its good to know that going all in gets a result sometimes.
So, a meagre 5 Dogs sat down to do battle. I'd had virtually a whole day of getting my arse kicked on Poker Stars and was in no mood to see Andy extend his lead at the top of the league, or anyone else close the gap behind us for that matter. Easy to talk the talk, but with only the 5 of us (the others being G and Lindz) walking the walk was a lot tougher as the game turned out to be tighter than a gnat's chuff from start to finish.
Lindz decided to take an early bath, and the remaining 4 of us all played a very sensible game - lots of laying down in the face of raises - all textbook stuff, clearly designed to get the easily-bored (yeah, that's me) to make a mistake or seven. Ha! I don't think so. Usually yes, but with Andy top of the league, I for one wasn?t about to let him extend his lead without a scrap.
And there was plenty of scrapping going on as with only a handful of rebuys, the chips in play were modest indeed. Nevertheless, Marty established a reasonable lead until post-flop he went all in with his pocket rockets (I bet Gabrielle thought he only had the one... ) Despite his pre-flop raise, I'd stayed in with 68 suited and hit 2 pairs. These held, and I was back on level terms with the loaded gun. On the very next hand, Andy picked up AA, and it was Marty's turn to try to outgun him with his rags (67 suited). Marty managed to pair his 6, but that was all. The aces held up this time and Quads was left wondering where all his chips had disappeared to.
As we hit 400/800, it was all fairly even. Marty started to nose-dive further, right up until he called Graham's all-in with A9. Marty had pocket 2s, and made a full house with three 4s on board. G wondered how he'd been called, and how a pair of ducks had held up. Answer - that's poker! G then had to make a move fairly quick, and went out 4th with K2 suited to Andy's AJ suited.
More tight play ensued. I tried putting the pressure on Marty (putting him all in with my AQ suited) but when he called with K7o, lucky 7 saved his day and we were pretty much back to square 1. Andy was lowstack at this point (keeping a lower profile hoping that Marty would finish me off, I suspect). Andy should have been the target, but he folded when I had A5 suited, so I raised, only to have Marty go all in.
In my head, there was much debating (a refreshing change from the more regular mass debating) and eventually I called to see my A5 dominated by ATo. At least I was suited.... The flop provided me with the miracle 5, but also 3 more diamonds offering a flush draw for Marty. The extra diamond failed to materialise, and I'd gotten away with murder. This gave me a huge chip lead over Andy, who was in need of a prayer. Mate - there is no god (at least not in poker). I proceeded to put him all in almost every hand. It worked, I won, and now the Las Bagshot Kid and I share the top of the league.
Afterwards, Marty asked how I could have called his all-in re-raise with A5. I was tempted to refer him to his earlier call with the pair of ducks, but thought better of it. The point was, had I let him take my earlier raise, with the blinds at 500/1000, at that point I'd have been pretty much out of it. In my mind, Marty was Clint Eastwood, asking me whether I felt lucky or not. I did, and besides, I've always thought Clint was rather over-rated.
Imagine the scene - you're stood facing the gunslinger, smoking his cigarillo in his stetson and poncho. I've always thought the "Do you feel lucky, punk? Well do ya?" line would be far more believable if replaced with "Do you wanna buy a blanket?" So, Marty, I didn't entirely believe you, I got lucky, and the rest is history. I guess that old adage is true for you right now - unlucky at cards - lucky in love.
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