you just got cold-decked, buddy. Then it was gone. Reason prevailed and I went back to playing.
In the past four months of online cash games, I’ve had pocket kings 127 times. In those 127 times, my pocket kings have been beaten by pocket aces four times. That’s a liitte over three percent if you’re keeping score. That is to say, running kings into aces happens. It doesn’t happen very often, but it happens. If I were to focus on the four times I’d run into aces with kings, I’d not be able to enjoy the 77% of the times my kings held up for a win.
So, let me get one thing perfectly, perfectly clear: At no time did I ever believe or have reason to believe I was being cheated. To make everything very clear, I think the Spring Hotel game is on the up and up, fair, and not a place where I have to worry about getting cheated. Finally, if you need any more evidence that I’m not worried, I plan to go back.
All of that said, that half-second of worry is what has slot gacor me pissed off tonight. It’s not that I got unlucky. It’s not that I only walked away from the evening with $11 in profit. It’s that for one millisecond, I had to worry at all.
Who do I blame for this? Well, of course, the government.
***
Around town, you can find a game just about any night of the week and just about any level you want. The poker boom has spawned a cottage industry of poker entrepreneurs who know the demand is high enough for them to risk getting busted to provide the poker supply. Just a few years ago, finding an underground cardroom in these parts would’ve been very tough. Now, I get Evite invitations to tournies on the weekends. When I was in Dallas last week, I met people who make a good living running illegal cardrooms. One, if not more clubs there have web sites with schedules, directions, and everything.
The demand is intense. How do I know? Well, I get to play poker all over the world. I have unlimited opportunity to play for as high of stakes as I want online. And I want to play live in my adopted hometown. Why? I love to play live. I love the characters, the camaraderie, and the face-to-face psychological game.
So, if a guy like me who is fortunate enough to get to play poker just about anywhere he wants is hellbent on playing live in rural underground rooms, how do you think the people who are stuck here feel? That is, there’s not a legal cardroom within a seven hour drive of this town. If someone wants to play live, they have to play illegally. And if they don’t have a homegame, by God, they are going to play in a raked game in one of the rooms around town.
***
Earlier in the night, there was a three-way all-in preflop for a substantial amount of money in which a house player was the last to call the all-ins. One player held pocket aces. Another player held pocket jacks. The house player held pocket deuces. The house player spiked his deuce on the river and the pocket aces holder stormed out without a word.
Now, his exit didn’t allow him to see that the house player donated all of his winnings and more back to the table within an hour. His exit didn’t allow him to see that the house player continued to play as loose as he did with the deuces. Not knowing the loser, I don’t know what was going through his head as he left. However, I wonder if he thought for just a second that he might have been cheated.
That’s my point. The sheer nature of illegal cardrooms offers at least the possibility that the game might be fixed. While I can’t stress enough that I believe this game is fair, the mere appearance of any impropriety hinders a player’s ability to see things in a reasonable way, to accept that there are donkies everywhere, to accept that suckouts happen, and to accept that they got unlucky. That is, you start to see cheating where it doesn’t exist.
***
So, the government.
I live in a state where thousands upon thousands of lottery tickets are sold every day. The legislators sold the conservative public on the game by saying a portion of the proceeds would go to fund education. This is the same state where 82-year-old ladies get busted for playing poker.
The overall hypocrisy sticks in my craw like a catfish bone.
So, tonight (this morning, actually) as the caffeine makes its way out of my bloodstream, I’m not angry that I got unlucky. I’m not angry that I didn’t make any money. I’m not for a full second believing I got cheated.
I am simply pissed off that there is not a legal cardroom in this state where I can go and get unlucky without the worry of being raided, over-raked, or cheated.
