PhantomMut

So, other stupid Mut tricks: I actually fell for a bit of thea-tah from Badback. (I was going to bestow the nickname "Brokeback" because that did come up in typically-wrong Crackhouse conversation, but since I feel the name would be fundamentally misleading, we'll skip it, even though it would be very Crackhouse.) Now, I'd seen him do this kind of thing before, so when he did the heavy sigh bit when a couple of spades hit, with me having top pair, ace kicker, I should have known that the check on the spade on the turn followed by the all-in after the uncoordinated River card meant that he'd caught the nut flush on the turn. Instead I doubled him up and put a big dent in my considerable stack.

Actually, for sheer stupid, that's about it. At one point Rybka ribbed me for making a significant bet pre-flop (two bucks, I think) and then checking the flop and folding to the bet-and-calls behind, but my 89 suited whiffed and there's no use throwing good money at push-ninjas with what would seem to be zero chance of actually winning.

(Oh, and F-Train, what does it mean when Da Mut sighs at a lowball flop with two spades, then bets at it? It means the Mut has once again flopped top pair/top kicker on a board that seems destined to flush his hand into oblivion. Maybe that's where Badback got the idea for his Emmy-winning performance, who knows? But the sigh was actually me thinking "this is why you don't play unsuited trash aces in early position." So maybe there was a little bit of stupid left over to talk about.)

No, where the Mut got into trouble was actually with some pretty smart play. Betting with pocket Tens in early position, getting Ari heads-up, flopping a rainbow board of undercards, and going all-in. Ari thinks, shows her hand to her neighbor, thinks, calls as a three-to-one dog, and her AK catches a king on the turn, felting the Mut.

Later against Ron and Rybka, with the button, Ron bets three bucks, Rybka calls, I raise to nine bucks, Ron goes all-in, Rybka calls having Ron covered, I have Ron covered too but not Rybka, and I go all-in. Rybka thinks and thinks and thinks (actually he talks and talks and talks) and finally calls. I have pocket kings. I'm good until the river, when Rybka's AK finds one of the lonely Aces, and he nukes both Ron's Queens and my Kowboys.

(Maybe I should have waited until the flop to push; but I really didn't want to be three-way with Kings even though I was correct in thinking I was way ahead against both of them. Post-flop Rybka picked up the back-door flush draw, but his overall odds to win would have gone down, so maybe calling off those extra chips would have been more difficult. Of course that strategy didn't work against Ari in the earlier pocket-tens-versus-Big-Slick hand. Bottom-line, I don't think I could have driven Rybka off that hand post-flop or post-turn, so getting the chips in up-front when I was favored to triple-up was probably the correct decision.)

Having mentioned Ari twice, I should point out she had by far the prettiest hand of the night. She actually flopped a Royal Flush against Mary, and Mary had the bad fortune to have a very good hand when it happened. I'm sure Dawn will have a complete write-up but that was massively cool to see.

So, down two re-buys (which isn't bad by Crackhouse standards) a short while later, and after having pushed Rybka off a flopped open-ended straight draw when I went all-in with my paired Ace on the turn, after which he insists on rabbiting to see that he would, in fact, have caught that river magic one mo' time, I catch KJ on the button, and raise it to three. I can see Rybka go into "I'm going to outplay this motherf***er" mode, and he bumps it to nine. I know he's got garbage, so I call.

Later: "If you knew I had garbage, why didn't you re-re-raise?" I think the phrase is "Don't tap the glass".

Flop comes J 7 2 rainbow. Rybka insta-pushes all-in. I insta-call, thinking I've caught him with Ace high, or at worst (for me) a pair of sevens with an Ace kicker.

No. He has playing the ultimate "I'll outplay this motherf***er" hand, 2 7 off-suit, and it's Hammered-Time for the Mut when neither King nor Jack saves his furry ass on the turn or the river.

If you're not going to outplay someone, outdrawing them is no bad thing.

I played my Kojak stupidly against Alceste and won. Considering my read on Rybka (I think he pushes all in regardless of what flops there, because as he said "that's what you people do with the hammer") I think I analyzed it right and lost big. Kojak giveth, and Kojak taketh away.

On a sad, rather than just bitchy/whiny, note: The Crackhouse has been a trip, but I'm thinking that was my last game, at least for a while. My company's payroll problems aren't going away (read: where's my money, bitch?) and considering we've had our corporate AmEx cards canceled, the company's overall financial situation must be really shitty. Having a good idea about what's in the pipeline sales-wise, and knowing why Accounts Receivable is having such problems regardless, I have reason to believe no one's job security here is the best in the world.

It's great when people can say "it's not like a $20 buy-in is real money", but practically speaking, the way the Crackhouse plays, you've got to be comfortable pushing a buy-in (or two, or three) in when you're holding Kings in position after two guys push in front of you and you know you're ahead, with the idea that pulling another $20 out of your wallet will be no big deal.

With the twins on the way, and my plans to be a stay-at-home dad starting in June, and the job security issue potentially accelerating that timetable, those extra Andy Jacksons are starting to feel mighty irresponsible. And that's affecting my enjoyment of the game, way more than any tough beat by itself could.

Okay, maybe that was still bitchy/whiny. But I have been having fun, wild variance notwithstanding (hell, maybe I dig the wild variance....) and I didn't want to just stop showing up.

So I'm hoping Dawn keeps me on the mailing list, and if my company straightens out and Real Life doesn't prohibit I'll be back. Hell, I might even make a weekend tourney or two, just because tourneys by their nature have built-in stop-losses.

But in the meantime, I'm really going to miss the School of Poker as taught by the best of the Crackhouse regulars. (You know who you are).