Tommy Angelo

The other day I was in a conversation with an old friend, and some new acquaintances who I would most likely never see again. We were jawing away about rock and roll. Twice I tossed out bits of pertinent trivia, and twice I was quickly told by one of the acquaintances that I was wrong. Both times I knew I was right, and both times I backed off immediately.

The next day I was walking with my friend. He had done some research since the day before. “You were right. Joni Mitchell did write the song ‘Woodstock,’ and Bill Bruford did drum for Genesis on their first post-Gabriel tour.”

“Yup.”

“So why didn’t you call that asshole out yesterday when he said you were wrong the only two times you even said anything? You’re always avoiding conflict. You should show some balls when you know you’re right.”

“Okay, as a favor to you, I’ll give you some conflict. You’re wrong.”

“That’s more like it! [laughing] Please hammer me some more!”

“I don’t avoid conflict. Actually what I do is just the opposite. Avoiding conflict is easy. What I do is much harder. I end it.”

“Oh please do explain.”

“Avoiding conflict is what a bullfighter does. He sees the conflict coming, and he moves out of the way. If a bullfighter were to stand still, and face the bull as the bull charges, and allow himself to be impaled and killed, that would be ending the conflict. When a person charges at me with words and ideas that are in conflict with mine, I just stand there. But it’s different than bullfighting in that words and thoughts don’t draw blood, so when I end a conflict, nobody gets hurt.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

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My friend Jack is from China.

When he speaks English, he does so with a very heavy accent, and his word selection has on occasion caused me to reach for my pen to capture the moment. Like this one time…

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We were playing shorthanded $40-80 limit hold’em in the middle of the night.

The Three Lives of Thomasina divx Alexander Rush buy A hand came up where I raised before the flop, and I raised on the flop. On the turn, it was headsup, me and Jack. Jack bet the turn and I called. On the river, Jack bet and I folded. Jack showed his cards. He had a very strong hand.

A little while later, the same thing happened. Liberty Heights dvd Jack and I played a pot, and on the river, Jack bet and I folded. Again he showed a good hand.

Soon after that, Jack raised from under-the-gun, and everyone folded around to me in the big blind.

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I folded.

Jack showed pocket kings. What he intended to say to me was something that meant “You have a good nose for sensing when I have a good hand.”

What he actually said was, “You smell good.”

Here’s a decision I made in the $10-10-20 no-limit hold’em game at Lucky Chances in the spring, when the minimum buy-in was $2,000. The lineup — what we lovingly call The Breakfast Club — was playing tight and tough, as it so often does. Inevitably, the cards slice deep cuts into some of the stacks, which causes blood to flow, and that gets the chips moving, sometimes, depending on whose nuts get cracked.

When this hand came up, the game was two hours old, and there had been no major wounds. The two biggest pots of the day had been in the $1000-2000 range, and neither of them went to showdown. On this hand, I was under the gun. I opened for $80 and only the button called. The pot was $190. On the flop, I bet $200 and he called. On the turn, I bet $500 and he called. At this point the pot was about $1600. On the river, I checked, and he went all-in for $1600. (I had him covered.)

At this point, his hand was polarized. I knew he either had me beat, or he didn’t. If I called, I would be getting 2-1 on my money which meant that if he had me beat twice as often as he didn’t, then it didn’t matter what I did. And as best as I could figure it, within the image of reality that exists only in my mind, which happens to be the only version of reality I have access to, that was how it was: the EV of calling was the same as the EV of folding.

So, what to do?

Well, that’s an easy one: move to an outer shell of parameters and weigh the decision from there.

My opponent was a player who often plays pretty snug for long stretches, and then, when he plays a big all-in pot, he will sometimes play somewhere between reckless and rukus for a while. And it doesn’t matter if he wins the big pot or loses it. He tends to get spunky either way. And when the spunkiness comes over him, his spunk can cause a few others to spunk it up, and now we’ve got a game. And let’s just say for the sake of parameter thinning that I thought I could rely on myself to be equally steady, win or lose. So now we have determined that after looking at the meta-game, the decision was simple.  Call and maybe rev up the game, or fold and keep it the same.

I asked myself: Do I feel like playing? And what kind of game do I feel like playing in? My choices were:

Fold and continue playing in a tough-tight game. (I like tough-tight games during those times when I like that kind of game. It just depends.)

Fold and quit a tough-tight game. (Never a bad idea.)

Call and play in a loose-ish game ahead $2400. (Sometimes I keep playing because I’m ahead, and independent of that, sometimes I keep playing because the game got looser.)

Call and quit a loose-ish game stuck $2400. (Sometimes I quit because I’m stuck, and independent of that, sometimes I quit because the game got looser.)

This was a difficult decision for me at the time, and I took way longer than usual on it.  And then a big grin crept over me inside when I realized that the reason I couldn’t attach to one of the options was because I was unattached to all of them. So I pulled out my most trusted scale tipper, my protector, my net. Remember when I said I thought I could count on myself to stay steady if I called this hand, win or lose? Well, that’s not actually true. Usually I can. But sometimes I can’t. And I never really know for sure which way it’s going to be. And even when I am perfectly unflustered by a big pot, it nonetheless increases the probability a little bit that the next big pot might knock me off balance.

I decided to let the first blood spill on someone else’s hand. I decided to wait for a +EV spot to play an all-in pot. And I realized I liked this tough-tight game right now, just the way it is. So I folded and posted my blind.