Playing Poker All Night Long

May 7, 2009 by Nick Wealthall

Nick Wealthall As I’ve grown up some things have become soul crushingly clear to me – father Christmas isn’t real, love often fades and every tv programme I adored as a kid wasn’t just bad looking back; it was bad at the time. However one inalienable truth remains; all night poker sessions are cool. To be clear I’m not talking about playing a couple of hours later than your normal bedtime then wussing out because you’re a bit sleepy. I mean the sun has come up, you’re eyes are bleeding, you’re way past the point you can make anything barely resembling a good poker decision and you still want more. And when it’s finally done you get to go and eat breakfast and watch the rest of the world start their day as you finish yours. It’s a waste of time, a waste of life and it just might be the best thing in the world.

It’s been a while since I had that childish visceral pleasure but this month I welcomed it back like a long lost friend. My good friend Brian Townsend is really good at poker he also happened to be in the UK for a few days so it was inevitable we’d get together and play. Brian’s game these days is PLO and apparently that’s now my game too. If you want to do well at poker in your life the golden rule is follow the monekys; sorry I mean money. And the money these days is in PLO. Of course the problem is when you start you are one of the monekys however I’m slowly getting to the point where I’m picking up the dead money rather than providing it…which is nice. All of this is inspired by a challenge I have with the good people at Virgin poker. I need to make $5000 playing plo before the next world series and Virgin will match it to fulfill a life long ambition and get me bought in to the main event; you’ve gotta have a goal you know.

By the time Brian and I started playing it was already gone 10 so a late session looked likely. My session had started badly getting it in good a few times and seeing the pot pushed the wrong way after they’d put the rest of the cards on board as apparently they have to do. When I informed Brian of a bad beat he responded with sympathy and encouragement, actually on reflection he laughed, a lot and said ‘that’s PLO’. Time marched on, long past the obligatory late night, none of the food groups represented, massive pizza and well into the next day.

Then I took another pretty horrible beat at the hands of a tight regular player who had decided to ‘vary his play’ – or some such nonsense – and play a junky hand which sucked out on me on the river. Now I try to be a calm, professional, rational poker player but deep down I’m a child. The red mist descended and in a Hellmuth like display of lameness I decided to berate him for his play. We then proceeded to ‘get into it’. When it comes to trash talk I’m very middle class and very disappointing. I smacked him down with lines like ‘You were so far behind when you got it in its pathetic’…ZING! He then told me he ‘got it in with the hand that won; that’s the general idea’. Okay so we’re in a ‘whose the worst at trash talking contest’ but – as Brian with rising glee pointed out – he kind of owned me. The reg then told me he was ‘disappointed, I thought you were finally getting it’. He meant poker – by this time I was steaming; Brian despaired.

Losing money and losing my cool I was to quickly receive a redemption I didn’t deserve. I was also playing on another table with the regular and we both ahd deep stacks. He open raised a hand and I reraised with a hand that was marginal at best – all aboard the tilt express. He called. I managed to flop trips – the poker gods reward those playing badly, tilting and back chatting to other players; silly fickle gods. He checked, I bet the pot he called. The turn made the board drawy – he checked, I bet the pot and he called again. I couldn’t tell if he was as affected by the virtual verbals as me or if I was being trapped. The river paired the board, he thought for a bit and shoved his stack in causing my heart to simultaneously sink.

It’s hard to say why I called. In a normal hand with a decent player my holding was definitely no good here. Maybe it was the stubbornness of my tilt infested brain, maybe I realized he thought I was tilting or maybe I was so sleepy I hit the wrong button. But I made my hero call and got shown Aces in his hand for a losing two pair. On reflection I think he was trapping me the whole hand figuring – reasonably – I was tilting. I wish I could tell you I was a gracious winner, I mean I could you weren’t there, but truth be told I exploded with glee, ran across the room and high fived Brian giggling like a child and then returned to the chat box…’Are you finally getting it?!’. Yeah that told him…that and the 4 buy in pot of course.

That massive pot had turned my losing session into a winning one and after it the deck started smashing me in the face allowing me to go to breakfast a big winner. Brian has promised to add some of my expert verbal smackdowns to his 50/100 games – though I suspect he was humouring me. The bottom line is I’d had a great time and it only cost me a night’s sleep which I plan on recovering by going backwards past the international date line in the near future; standard.