Wednesday, October 8th Action

This week, our Lederach poker crew of degenerate gamblers convened on Wednesday night in order to leave us the opportunity to spend more time with our loved ones on Thursday night: Cole Hamels, Ryan Howard, Chase Utley and the rest of our Phillies. For those counting at home, six wins until a parade and a lifetime of humiliation, pain and torment is all relieved. Once again, I digress.

As for the action itself, we played six-handed with the “quickly becoming extremely annoying” late arrival from Sir Lawrence to his own game along with the usual fashionably late arrival from Joseph J. Crawford and the unexcused late arrival from Msgr. Michael J. Hauer. Sir Lawrence arrived straight off a 30 hour bender of poker at the Borgata where he spent a majority of his time bullying tourists, building his stacks and, presumably, becoming the first Hold ‘Em player ever to place an order for chunky peanut butter with a cocktail waitress. Sir Lawrence, always difficult to look at even at even on his best day, looked much worse off without his beauty sleep although his game certainly didn’t suffer at all. In fact, Sir Lawrence won nearly $1,000 for the night by playing his usual assortment of garbage hands and bullying his way to victory or sucking out on his poor, unsuspecting guests. All of this is discussed further in painful detail below. Sir Lawrence needs to be given some credit, however, as he is now lapping the field and up to nearly $7,000 in profits for the year. Well done, Larry, now please take a shower, get some sleep and use some mouthwash. Your melting face scared us.

Kevin T. Cooper celebrating Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement, had a volatile night losing early, winning in the middle and losing late for a total of -$165. Mr. Cooper got felted early on by Sir Lawrence after his good call post flop with an over pair on a big all-in bet ended up losing to Sir Lawrence’s flush draw that hit. Mr. Cooper, clearly cranky and nearly delirious from the 46 minutes of fasting he had done at that point to atone for his numerous sins over the past year, threw a temper tantrum and threatened to quit before wisely cashing back in. Mr. Cooper eventually won approximately $500 less than an hour later on back-to-back hands, the second one cracking Drunk Action Dan with trip 4’s. The Gandhi-like starvation eventually got to Mr. Cooper as he continued his self destructive habit of making bizarre minimum raises into big pots with awful hands. Overall, a lousy night for Mr. Cooper. Let’s just hope God noticed all that fasting in the past 22 hours and is a little friendlier on the river to Mr. Cooper the next 12 months.

As for other players, Michael J. Hauer, this blogger’s favorite poker player, had a wild night resulting in losses of his total buy-in of $300. Msgr. Hauer was out of sorts from the start, arriving late and coming in and mysteriously finding Mr. Cooper raising pre-flop on back-to-back hands. That should have been a sign to Msgr. Hauer that something strange was in the air and it wasn’t to be his night. Msgr. Hauer had a chance to finally solve his enigma, Drunk Action Dan, and felt him for the first time in many sessions. Instead, Drunk Action Dan hit his two runners for a split pot on a big hand where he was way behind. It was all downhill from there for Msgr. Hauer. Later on, Msgr. Hauer was pushed off a huge hand on the river, again with a chance to bust Drunk Action Dan, on Drunk Action Dan’s big Ace high bluff on the river. Not to be outdone, landscaper extraordinaire Joe Crawford re-raised Msgr. Hauer out of a hand later on in the night, also with nothing in his hand. Finally, Msgr. Hauer finished his night with a brutal beat as he flopped a full house against arch-nemesis Sir Lawrence only to see Sir Lawrence, once again, hit his runners for a better full house and bust Msgr. Hauer. Hopefully the Titans early season Super Bowl push will ease some of his pain.

Dana continued his plunge into oblivion by dropping nearly $300 for the night. In fact, the only real highlight of Mr. Dana’s night was winning a pointless $25 side bet with sleepy Larry on whether or not he had a hand he claimed he did. After Dana’s first four sessions of the year, he was up over $1600 and now, lo these many months later, Dana has officially fallen into the red for the year. It’s only speculation but, clearly, Mr. Dana’s recent non-poker association with Drunk Action Dan has not been good for his game. Dumb stat of the week: All 3 players whose names start with “Dan” are in the red for the year.

Joseph J. Crawford returned back to his typical form that everyone knows and loves: Get beat up early, keep battling and ultimately win at the end. Think Rocky but if Rocky had long shaggy hair, mulched your garden for you and was working on a thesis for the last 12 years. Anyway, Joe got cracked, not once but twice and found himself down over $300 and within $70 of being done for the night before getting all-in against Sir Lawrence way behind in the hand but caught up with his specialty, the two card running flush. Joseph J. Crawford used the momentum from that hand to push Msgr. Hauer out of the big hand described above and ultimately scrapped his way to an $80 profit for the night. Once again, well done brother.

And, finally, last but never least, Drunk Action Dan had his most mellow night of the year very quietly losing his $300 with almost all of it going on the aforementioned trip 4’s to Mr. Cooper. Drunk Action Dan played sober and seemed confused by the Wednesday night game as it did not happen to coincide with any football or baseball action and allow him to lose even more money than just his normal poker losses. Either way, Drunk Action Dan is now down over $7,600 for the year. The race is on between Drunk Action Dan and the Dow to see which will cross 8,000 first. For the first time, we can actually say we’ll put our money on Drunk Action Dan.

Go Phils.