The Buttoff Seat

Words lag behind what they label. Bad beats were around long before the term “bad beat” was invented. And “the universe” was here for billions of years before it got its name. So it’s no surprise, given how fast poker is growing and changing, that we are always running behind. That’s why I have taken it upon my magnanimous self, in the spirit of public service, to help us stay caught up, by making up words (or reassigning them) when I notice that one is missing.

Most of the words I come up with are like defective genes; they don’t get passed along. Now and then, I coin one that spreads, such as The Hijack seat. And I’m the guy who redeployed the words Twotone and Monotone to refer to non-rainbow flops.

And now, I give you: the buttoff seat.

First, let me say, I did not make this word up. It came to me in a typo, in an email, from Matts Quiding. All I did was recognize the potential contained within the typo.

Here’s the pertinent part from Matts’s email. He was asking me a limit hold’em strategy question. And I quote:

Hand 9

Betfair – 4-handed
I have 10h-8h in the BB. Very loose cannon who now seems to be raising every hand opens from butoff. Loose-aggressive who realizes this three-bets on the button, SB folds. I’m in the BB. My play here? My calling range for situation?

I saw the word “buttoff,” and my mind did a happy dance, which is typically followed by an urge to write to everyone I know and exclaim that I have yet again come across the coolest thing ever. Right away I knew what the word butoff was meant to mean, and that it should have two Ts.

The Buttoff Seat defined:

The buttoff is a pre-flop position that arises at live poker when the player in the cutoff seat looks left and sees that the button is going to fold. Before his preflop action, the player in the buttoff knows that if he sees the flop, he will be last to act for the entire hand, even though he doesn’t actually have the button.

These are some of the milestones that have shaped my life: 1) The big bang happened. 2) The solar system happened. 3) Led Zeppelin happened. 4) I happened to notice that the best seat in the house is the one to the right of a tight player who reliably telegraphs his pre-flop action.

So I started moving to the right of tight telegraphers – and looking left a lot – which effectively gave me the button about one and a half times per round.

Looking left is huge because when it makes a difference, it makes a huge difference. When I’m in the cutoff and the button gives me the button by indicating that he is folding, now I might call when I would have otherwise raised, or I might raise when I would have called, or call instead of folding, or raise instead of folding. Those are the biggest strategy alterations possible! Brought to you by one little look to the left.

If you’re skeptical about the value of looking left, then the way to think of it is like this: Would it be more profitable for you to not look left? If you think the answer is no, then that means you think that looking left is at worst a freeroll. And if you’re any kind of gambler, you’re supposed to love freerolls.

Okay, for all I know, you might think this is the dumbest idea since nearly-sliced bread (like they serve in restaurants these days). The buttoff seat might die right here, right now, and never get reproduced in our meme pool. So be it. All I know is that if you’re sitting on my left, and you have the button, and I look over and see that you are about to fold, I know what I’ll be thinking – butt off!

 

2021 update:

I’m making movies! About poker stuff. Check out the PokerWords video gallery at my YouTube channel.

 

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