Thursday, February 19th Action

Last night featured exciting 10 handed action even with the absence for the second straight week of Sir Donks a Lot, Eric Baum (aka Chommie). Onto the action:

The big winner was beloved premium hand player Mr. Cooper who was hit by the deck and dealt high pocket pairs all night allowing him to profit more than $700. Mr. Cooper’s two big hands of the night were flopping sets with pocket eights (eight is also the number of days of Hanukah) with which he cracked Mr. Chad on one hand and post flop re-raised Joey C. out of a top pair\straight draw that would have hit on another hand. Mr. Cooper is now firmly in the black for the year and better hope he remains that way if he wants to support that pretty Jewish fiancé of his.

G Ron, heretofore to be known as “Ronny Balls” and not for his courageous play, had a rather dull night of folding although he did manage to eke out a modest profit of $89. Ronny B spent a majority of his time discussing the benefits of consuming whey protein after midnight with fellow gym rats, Moke and Joey Crawford, and in between those lectures, whining about the lack of premium hands being dealt his way. However, Ronny Balls did turn a straight flush against Msgrs. Hauer and Cooper but barely was paid for it as he mysteriously checked the river evidently scared one of his competitors was playing with 4 wild cards and hit 5 of a kind.

Rounding Error St. Clair, named that because usually the modest unaccounted for losses at the end of the night when tallying the totals can be attributed to his 6 hours of folding blinds, went against script last night and became much more aggressive. Bad move. Within his first hour, RE St. Clair was cracked after flopping a set when adversary Sir Lawrence turned his flush. Even RE St. Clair’s big river bluff against fellow Kevin (Mr. Cooper) was shown no respect and was called. Overall, a total of $245 in losses for RE St. Clair or the equivalent of 10 boxes of diapers. We look forward to seeing a return to a tighter form next week from Lockwood’s finest.

The thundering noise heard last night around midnight was the crashing and burning of high flying Mr. Chad and his even higher flying hair. Mr. Chad had a miserable evening and was in a cranky mood, for a change of pace, making it much more difficult to sympathize with the severe Indian burn or whatever his homemade bandage is covering on his arm. Mr. Chad was initially cracked when his top pair ran into Mr. Cooper’s flopped bottom set and then lost his last $200 on his pre-declared last hand of the night taking that final “free look”. Mr. Chad learned that, indeed, nothing in life is free as that free look and two pair that ran into a flush caused him to lose those last two Benjamins. Mr. Chad cashed out the same amount he would be cashing out if he tried to exercise those SEI stock options that he’s been hoarding for years. Zero.

Moke’s three session winning streak came to a sudden halt primarily by virtue of a tough flopped flush loss to D Chick. After Moke was felted, he fielded loan offers from nearly every player in the basement and we’re still trying to figure out if that’s a compliment to Moke’s good character and credit worthiness or to his colleagues low opinion of his poker skills. We’ll take the high road here, for once, and point out that Moke is still up over $1,800 year-to-date.

Sir Lawrence crashed the $1,000 profit mark for the year with his +$600 night making a good portion of those profits well after this blogger was asleep dreaming about the Motherland, Israel. Sir Lawrence sucked out horribly on Msgr. Hauer after Msgr. Hauer found himself all in with A K versus A Q with an Ace on the board. A Queen hit on the river and we can imagine Sir Lawrence laughed and laughed while his belly shook like a bowl of jelly. Wait, that might be a Santa Claus nursery rhyme, never mind. Anyway, Sir Lawrence also had the Tostitos Slow Roll of the night when he took the better part of a minute to turn over his a** end straight he rivered against Ronny B and Mr. Chad. Either way, Luckbox Larry seems to have a nicer ring to it than Luckbox Chad.

Msgr. Hauer took his second brutal beating in as many weeks with his aforementioned bad beat to Sir Lawrence leaving him down $700 for the night. Msgr. Hauer even got yelled at several times for not properly moving the dealer button from his distracted neighbor Joseph while also losing a side bet with Sir Lawrence on if\when RE St. Clair would actually play a hand. The only real highlight of the night for Msgr. Hauer was the stimulating conversation with Mr. Cooper on whether Spurs coach Greg Popovich looks better with or without the beard (the conclusion….he looks awful with it but no worse than Ron does with the creepy thing on his face).

Michael Evan Kiner, acting this week as the game’s dumbest Jew in Chommie’s absence, returned to action from his sickbed. Mr. Kiner was down big from the start only to battle all the way back to even, and then some, only to go on tilt late night against Sir Lawrence and the other vampires who play in the Peach Pit After Dark game that occurs after 2 am (first blog 90210 reference!). Mr. Kiner was so determined to crack Sir Lawrence it led him to make a $50 plus pre flop call with Ace Ten (unsuited) that hit and won (and forced a fold from Mr. Cooper with pocket 10’s that kept him awake all last night despite his big winnings) and made a $100 river call with a 6 6 6 7 2 board with Ace high (Sir Lawrence did have the boat). Mr. Kiner and Sir Lawrence even scrapped on three straight big hands at one point making us wonder how things got so personal so quickly. So, in the interest of future harmony, we have put together a list of things that both men have in common because in reality they are both quite similar. Common threads for these two gentlemen are: Both 6’5ish, 36-37, out of shape white males whose best athletic days are behind them although both are in deep denial about that fact. Both are stone cold degenerate gamblers and live by the mantra “the flop changes everything”. Both have jobs where they seemingly drive around all day while randomly calling their stupid friends and yet both somehow are successful and make gobs of money. And, finally, both love hosting TJ to their homes for a little one on one time and refer to him as their “walking ATM machine”. That sidebar now aside, let’s move on.

D Chick Mortgage Guy, was humbled in each of the last two weeks and decided to leave the $2,000 brick at home and cash in for a more modest $1,000 this time. The poker gods rewarded his self control by granting him a plus $327 with his hand of the night an Ace high flopped flush against Moke’s Queen high flopped flush which sent Moke to the rail ever so briefly. D Chick is good for the game and we were amused by his “calling out” of Dana via e-mail this week although the last mortgage guy who got into with Dana was last seen getting drunkenly thrown out of Lederach and narrowly avoiding the beating of a lifetime courtesy of Mr. Dana.

Finally last but not least was Joseph J. Crawford who had an excellent evening winning more than $500 and has nicely shrugged aside his early year losses and the disappointment of barely being featured in this week’s most recent episode of LOST. Crawford got himself going early on with a nice bluff against a scary board versus Moke and was off and running from there. Joseph also got himself paid nicely by Msgr. Hauer (who didn’t?) on his flopped boat shortly thereafter as well. Despite all those winnings, we still look forward to the day in early April when young Joseph will be landscaping our garden in his Callahan Auto Parts shirt while we’re yelling at him “nice mulching, Tommy Boy”.

See you on Thursday.