Playing Your Rush

3 APR 06

First off – I wrote this first thing on Friday. I was going to post it Saturday, but we did the “Become Your Favorite Blogger” thing for April 1st. My favorite was Joe Speaker’s take on Factgirl, but Drizz did a number on Bobby Bracelet. Both are worth a read. Enjoy.

So, I have fans. Well, technically, I have readers I didn’t know about, but I choose to call them fans because it makes me feel kind of famous. And, you know my ego isn’t big enough already…

After my write-up about Colette, I finally ran into her. She was extremely gracious. She really could have made me feel like a creep, but instead she seemed genuinely flattered, and I was touched. She’s still hasn’t sent me any photos from Costa Rica, but those seem secondary now. If I get them, great. If not, well that’s cool, too.

I was confused when she told me she read my blog, because I never told her the name of the website. It turns out she found me from a link on another Muckleshoot blog. Another dealer at the ‘shoot (Ryan), read John’s blog and found me, then told Colette.

Now we come full circle. Ryan was seated one to my right in the very first game of 10/20 I ever played. I was scared money, and he knew it. I bought in for $200, and played very weak-tight. I finally looked down at AK of spades, but Ryan raised it to $20. I just called and the flop came K 10 6. Ryan bet, and I remember being scared straight.

I had been watching Ryan and another regular (Peter) go at it for about an hour. Both were clearly comfortable with this level of play and I was jealous. I wanted to be like that, but at the time, I didn’t know how. They were raising and reraising their turn and river bets and winning with hands like 45 and J9. Who the hell plays 45 in 10/20? Don’t these idiots know that’s a lot of money???

I was getting ready to call Ryan’s bet when, out of the blue, Ryan says, “Don’t bet, I hit my set.”

Huh?

I had not seen this play from him. Why would he tell me this? I was getting ready to call, when he said, “Look, I’ll show you one card.” He flips over a 6. I’m frozen. I really don’t know how to react. I’m looking back and forth between Ryan, the exposed 6 and my chips. Is he allowed to show his card? Should I bet anyway? What’s that warm sensation running down my leg?

Then he flips over the other 6. He turns to me with a big smile and says, “I don’t want to take your money.” He points to Peter and says, “I want to take his money.” Both Peter and Ryan start laughing. I nervously laugh along, but I realize I’m WAY outgunned at this table. I lost the rest of that buy in and limped away with my tail between my legs.

I think about that hand and that session often. Ryan’s carefree attitude has been something I’ve tried to emulate every time I sit in the 10/20 game. It’s only recently that it’s started to work. I don’t think I’d ever show a fish (and I was a fish back then) my flopped set, but I understand why he did it. I remember thinking, the only reason he did that is because he wants me to have fun so I’ll come back in the future and lose even more money to him. The actual effect was to further my resolve to be comfortable at this level, so that I could go back and beat his brains out at the table. I (and my bankroll) owe him some thanks.

So ends what I wrote on Friday. But wait, there's more...

Now, fast forward to Saturday. Ryan was dealing my 10/20 game! I relayed the above story to him and we had a good laugh about it. He seemed shocked that he exposed his hand like that. I actually expected him to remember the hand, but it was clearly a much bigger deal to me than to him.

To complete the circle, I had my best rush of cards ever. At one point, I won 5 hands in a row (including a kill pot where I raised preflop with 23 and caught a wheel on the river). In those 10 minutes, I won over $600.

And I owe it all to Ryan. Well, I owe a bunch to Lee Jones and Doyle Brunson and David Sklansky, but Ryan deserves at least some of the credit.