After work tonight, my son and I decided to go to The Commerce Casino to play a little poker. We haven't played poker in a long time. I hadn't played poker at The Commerce in maybe a year.
We both bought in at $100 games -- and at different tables. It's both fun and invigorating to play at a $100 buy-in game. You're not playing "big money" and the pots are generally small, and no one's life gets ruined at a $100 game. At least you hope not.
Generally players buy in for $100 and maybe they do a second buy-in if they lose it all too early.
Players are allowed to do a short buy if they go bust, and that's what I want to write about here -- a player doing a "short buy" (less than $100) after going bust.
The player in question appeared to be a low-level pro poker player meaning he spent a lot of time playing poker. I doubt it was his full time job and I doubt he lived off of his poker earnings, but I am sure he wanted to.
He wore worn out jeans and a worn out sweatshirt and he had a tattoo on the inside of his wrist right below the palm of his right hand that said "all in." You can't make this stuff up, you know. He really had that tattoo. And he was a very aggressive player -- playing many hands and always making a raise. He would never call -- he always raised.
Now raising when you are in a hand is a good strategy because it can eliminate weak hands and weak players -- but this player just played too many hands and raised too many times. And he got busted down to the felt -- all his chips were gone.
And so the player made a re-buy -- but instead of a re-buy of $100 he made a short re-buy. There is nothing wrong with making a short re-buy except in his case the short re-buy was $84 and that told me and everyone else at the table a lot.
Why $84 and why not $85 or why not $80?
$84 told us he was desperate -- and in fact it was all the money he could pull out of his wallet.
Desperate players make bad decisions and can be forced out of hands. And it wasn't long before the player with "all in" tattooed on his wrist was in fact all in and busted out.
So the lesson here is watch those "re-buy amounts" as they can tell you a lot.
How a player dresses means nothing. I've seen great poker players who are loaded with cash dress in worn out, tattered shirts and pants. And that was their "uniform" to deceive others at the table.
I had a fairly good night, by the way. I was playing a tight game and often folded to a raise so players would raise my raises thinking I would fold with weak hands. But in three hours of play and watching the action I could see who were the bluffers and who would bet big on draws and with weak cards.
And after three hours it happened -- I was dealt pocket queens. I was in early position and raised the big blind ($3) to $15 and another player re-raised to $50 and another player went all-in with $110 -- and I knew both of those players were likely to do that with hands like A-K or A-Q or even A-5. So I went all-in as well and thought if they both had an ace I was in pretty good shape.
There were three low cards on the flop, another low card on the turn and on the river came a Queen. I had beaten A-K and Ten-Jack to win a bit more than $200. (Photo below after winning pot with QQ.) A few hands later and I was dealt pocket-Jacks for a win of about $40.
I left the table with $345. Not a bad three hours at The Commerce.
But more importantly I got a good read on the players at my table and if I meet up with them again I will have a pretty good idea of how they play.