Dear reader: I wrote this in 2002.
He really got me good on this one.
I was playing $40-80 limit hold’em at Lucky Chances. Alex was at the next table, playing no-limit. He spoke to me with a hand gesture and said, “Do you want to take a break on your next big blind?” I signaled back “yes.” A few hands later, he was standing behind me, ready to go. I was under-the-gun. I looked at my cards and raised. I don’t recall how the hand went after that except for the only thing that is pertinent to the story: at some point, I folded. Then I hopped up, and outside we went.
Walking away from the table, Alex asked, “What’d you have?”
“Ace-queen,” I said.
He looked at me kind of funny. “Really?”
“Yes,” I said. And then I did some splaining. I don’t know what I said, but I can do a reenactment of the tone and content. I said something like, “I knew when the small blind called preflop that he had at least bla-bla-bla, and that when he checkraised the flop he either had bla-bla or bla-bla, so when the bla-of-bla came on the turn, it was a no-brainer to fold.”
I can assure you that whatever it was I said, it was all very sensible. It was a legit explanation for playing ace-queen exactly the way I had played it. Except for one thing… I didn’t. I mean, I didn’t have ace-queen.
What I actually had was king-queen. I had lied, masterfully, as usual. I’m really good at this game. I can always come up a believable lie that will send whatever message I’m trying to send. I might be lying so that my opponents think I played better than I had, or worse. I might be lying to save face, as I had done with Alex. Or to maintain a solid image. It doesn’t matter. All lies are created equal as far as I’m concerned, and by that I mean equally well.
After my stategy rant about how I had played a fictitious ace-queen, a couple minutes went by, and I remember being caught off-guard when Alex asked, “So, what did you have on the last hand again?”
“Ace-queen!” I said. “If you think I played it bad, just tell me!”
He probed yet again. “Are you sure you had ace-queen?”
Something was going on here. I gave him a stern gaze. He broke into a big guilty grin, and I figured it out.
“You bastard!” I said. “You saw my hand!”
He was doing nothing but laughing now. And then me too.
8 Comments
That reminds me of a story. Doug and David and I were in Brussels. Doug spent most of high school there, since his father was posted to NATO in the Air Force. Doug said we had to try a waffle. David took one bite, and turned to Doug and said, “You bastard! I can’t get these at home!”
It’s very surprising to me how often somebody asks what I had and I name two cards which would have been the nuts, no matter the board, and people just kind of nod and move on. Even on paired boards or straight flush boards, they just don’t pay attention. They are just looking for some indication that they made the right play. The people that actually pay attention to what I say take the hint of “I’m not telling”, so either way, the person gets the information they want. But it’s hilarious to me to hear somebody say, time and time again, “ah, thanks” and not even register the hand.
Haha, that was funny for real
Hi Max,
There was a long period where anytime anyone asked me what I had, I always said “pocket aces.” It didn’t matter how the betting went or what the board was or if I had folded or won or whatever. And like you said, it’s surprising how often this was an impossible answer yet still seemed to satisfy whatever needs were needed.
In a recent session, after a hand was over, an opponent started chattering about the hand that was just played. I remained mum for a while, but finally caved in and added some splaining of my own. From a betting perspective, I had played the hand well, but I left that session disappointed with my sixth street action on that hand.
In a more recent hand, I endured the needling of two opponents for several minutes after the hand was over. Having resolved to exercise my mum muscle, I put on a show of mum that even mum could be proud of.
Thank you Tommy, my steps up the mountain are steady and firm.
Thank you for almost every other magnificent post. The spot otherwise may just any person obtain that kind of data in such a great approach to writing? I’ve a display future full week, that i’m about the try to find such info.
Thank you for sharing that post.
Hello admin do you need unlimited articles for your website ?
What if you could copy post from other blogs, make it pass copyscape test and publish
on your blog – i know the right tool for you, just
type in google:
kisamtai’s article tool
Add Comment