Friday, May 06, 2011

Tilt-a-Donk, Chapter Eleventy-Seven

Hello Manifestites and a happy Friday to you!  Can you believe it?  4 (FOUR) posts last month?  Well, 5 (FIVE) if you consider the post announcing that I’m now on twitter is a real post.  It definitely served its purpose though.  That twitter thing is great.  A friend of mine lamented “ffs, I read your tweet which sends me to your blog only to find out that the blog entry tells me you’re on twitter.”  Isn’t technology great?  I’ve become part of the twittering tweeting twits.  Or something.  I don’t plan on using it much, but it’s a nice place to announce blog entries and various other random things.

So speaking of random things, here we are in the first week of May with yet another blog post.  I know what you’re thinking, how could I possibly keep up with both the volume and quality of April?  My more astute readers know this already, but the answer is, I probably can’t, so enjoy while you can cause this gravy train could end at any second.

As most poker players know, Black Friday happened for online poker in the US on April 15th, 2011.  I’ve been following some of the developments, especially with one particular network, the CEREUS network, home of UltimateBet and Absolute Poker.  Readers in the know will recognize these names as they were the center of huge cheating scandals in the recent years.  I was seriously considering devoting an entry or two to discussing the sites and what’s been going on since April 15th but then I realized that it would be much too much like actual journalism and nothing like what I’m really good at, which is telling idiots to shut the fuck up.  There are several really good blogs and news sites out there if anyone wants to follow the story for themselves, but for now I’m gonna continue on with what I do best.

This exchange happened earlier this year on PokerStars.  They have all sorts of rebuy tournaments, where you can buy back in if you bust for a single or a double stack.  They are very popular because they allow for some very deep stacked play later in the tournament.  Well that is, if you wind up playing well enough and caring enough to get that far.  I find tournaments are a nice distraction from cash game play, but eventually I get bored and find something better to do and my stack gets randomly distributed around the table.  Anyway I digress…  The first hour or so during the rebuy period can get a bit out of hand at times, because there are a lot of people who go all out nuts trying to amass a huge stack.  I’ve seen people rebuy 20-30 times in these things.  It’s pretty easy to do if you get carried away.  At some point, a guy on my table lost yet another hand, and starts in.  I don’t even remember the hand that started it all but I must have won, and of course I can’t help but to chime in:

R Lazzaro: what a joke
R Lazzaro: same ****ing hand and this donk still draws on me
XaQ Morphy: it's a $5 tourney, shut up moron
R Lazzaro: shut the **** up
R Lazzaro: fish
XaQ Morphy: headsup for your life?
R Lazzaro: go die?
R Lazzaro: ***got
R Lazzaro: anyone named Xaq is a queer
XaQ Morphy: lol
R Lazzaro: what a ***got name

Ahh yes, pretty much a standard exchange at this point.  I call him a moron, he calls me a fish, I offer the obligatory headsup challenge, and he starts in calling me gay.  Ever notice how they immediately start down this line? I’ve told them before and I’ll tell them again, I’m not gay, have no interest in being gay, and certainly aren’t interested in weird angry gay advances on a poker site.  Yet they still continue on.

A few hands later our friend RL shoves pre-flop with Jc Tc because it’s suited (aka, cause you know or cyk for short) and gets called by pocket tens.  Board runs out 5c Qd 4c 4s 2d, and the pocket tens hold up.  One thing that really bugs me about results oriented idiots are the comments about “on the river” or “I was a huge favorite on the flop” when the money went in pre-flop.  I blame the tv shows like the WPT and the WSOP for this a bit because of the way they over-dramatize the order the cards come out and all-in situations.  The fact is, the odds are calculated when the money goes in, then the cards are dealt and the player with the best hand wins.  In a case like this, the pocket tens are a bit over a 60/40 favorite over the Jc Tc.  Those are the only odds that need to be considered because all of the money went in pre-flop.  However, a lot of people flat out can’t see it that way because they think they “hit a flush draw” and then “missed”.  But this guy takes it a step further, as we see here:

R Lazzaro: nice
R Lazzaro: cant hit 1 out
R Lazzaro: cool
R Lazzaro: ppl draw out on me all day long
R Lazzaro: so funny
R Lazzaro: huh xaq
R Lazzaro: snt that funny?

So he gets his money in bad, flops a flush draw and then somehow thinks that he got drawn out on, even though he didn’t hit so much as a pair.  He also calls me out even though I didn’t say anything.  That’s not to say I didn’t deserve it, mind you…

XaQ Morphy: J 10 losing to 10 10 is drawing out on you?
R Lazzaro: after the flop

Oh yeah, so after the flop, where he’s still a 51/49 underdog, he still thinks he got drawn out on.  Of course he won’t mention that based on his line of thinking that he’s a 3:1 underdog on the turn, and if he hit a club or a J on the river that he would have drawn out on his opponent.   Makes sense, right?  Only if you’re a fuckin moron, but then again, that’s why we’re here:

R Lazzaro: dumb ****
R Lazzaro: did u see the flop?
XaQ Morphy: all the money was in preflop sparky
R Lazzaro: or are you ****ing blind
R Lazzaro: ?
XaQ Morphy: it doesn't matter
XaQ Morphy: goddamn idiot

See, I never believe in just letting people vent, especially if they are venting at me.  I always like to take things one step further.  I find calling someone an idiot after they vent something idiotic tends to bring out the real idiot in them.  Sure enough, he starts the all caps shit and loses it:

R Lazzaro: it does matter
R Lazzaro: after the flop comes
R Lazzaro: stupid ****ing queer
R Lazzaro: i picked up outs
R Lazzaro: are you ****ing stupid?
R Lazzaro: or blind
R Lazzaro: which one
XaQ Morphy: your money went in preflop as a big dog
R Lazzaro: WHO CARES
XaQ Morphy: doesn't matter what order the cards are dealt, slugger
R Lazzaro: AFTER THE FLOP CAME
R Lazzaro: I PICKED UP OUTS
XaQ Morphy: the flop came?  did you jerk it off or something?

LOL, this last line cracks me up every time I read it.  So simple, so eloquent, I mean that’s some of that journalism shit right there.  Or is that Donkalism?  Anyway, I don’t think I’ll be getting a Nobel prize in Donkalism for telling idiots to shut up, so might as well continue on here.

One of the great things about PokerStars is (was) the chat moderators.  You could go in and hit the “Call Moderator” button, type in a complaint, and then a moderator shows up at the table, claims to review the chat, does absolutely nothing at all, and then vanishes wishing everyone well.  The mods are absolutely useless and if anything are just a complete waste of man-power.  I’ve had mods ignore non-English chat where the people were flat out talking about their hole cards on the table.  I’ve also had mods tell me when people were blatantly cheating that the chat moderators weren’t meant for reporting “table play issues”, and that I should email support instead.  Useless.  So naturally since they are completely useless I try to waste their time as much as possible since that’s all they are there for.  Might as well make them earn their paychecks, right?  So I called the mod and told them RL was an idiot.

Moderator102 [Moderator]: Hello players.
Moderator102 [Moderator]: Please note that all chat must be clean and respectful at all times.
Moderator102 [Moderator]: Please refrain from using rude or derogatory remarks/comments.  We want everyone to enjoy their gaming experience at the tables without being offended.
XaQ Morphy: what if the guy is really an idiot?  is it ok to call him an idiot then?
Moderator102 [Moderator]: Thank you in advance for your cooperation and good luck with your games. :-)

See?  Completely useless.  Funny, but useless.  Then again, maybe they did something, because that was the last thing I heard from our friend RL.  I tried talking to him again, but he didn’t answer:

XaQ Morphy: hey Lazzaro, I'm sorry your flush draw you picked up after you got your money in as a big dog lost.  Can we be friends still?
XaQ Morphy: nh friend

Oops.  He busted out, didn’t rebuy and then vanished, probably getting his chat banned in the process.  Fucking ***got queer.

Until next time!

Yours Donkily,

Morphy