The Theory of...

Two Pies and I hit The Alea casino around 20:15 and picked up the buffet vouchers my sister had left at reception, before registering for the £22 turbo tourney at 20:30.

There were 69 runners this week and with the guy on my immediate right not appearing until the end of the first level,I was sandwiched between two good looking girls, which under other circumstances would probably be quite a bargain for £22! The Fallen Madonna ( 'Allo 'Allo reference for my older UK readers!) on my left was wearing a very low cut top and although I'm usually an absolute gentleman, it was obviously my poker duty to regularly check for those "jiggle tells" Sklansky mentions in his seminal poker book,"The Theory of Boobies".( or something like that...)

As for other tells and reads,I tried to pay attention and look for the basic stuff like someone looking strong when they're actually weak and vice versa.Watching one young guy bet quickly and stare intently at the other guy he was in a hand with convinced me he had just bluffed the Ace that fell on the turn...until he showed a full house to take the pot.

Another guy seemed to be staring at me really intensely ,even when I folded.As I'm such a sharp observant player,I noticed this and after several such looks I asked if he thought he knew me from somewhere.He was quick to tell me he was trying to see the electronic board ( with blind levels,players left,average stack sizes etc) behind me and didn't have his glasses with him.At least after all those jiggle tell checks,I finally got the chance to feel a right tit!


The game is a £22 turbo with 15 minute blinds which means we were barely managing one table orbit before the blinds went up.I won a small pot with K7 from the big blind on a King high flop in an unaroused * pot and folded all the junk hands I was being dealt.Of course at the end of level 1 the late guy finally showed up to take the seat on my right and on his very first hand he doubled up with KK v AK on a King high board.That's poker and I wasn't at all bitter about the fact that if just one more set of traffic lights had been at red on his way in,those Kings would have been mine! Yes mine,all mine.My KK,my double up! ( not at all bitter!)

I made the break at the end of level 6 with just over 7k left and the blinds resumed at 600/1200.On the second hand after play restarted another young guy raised from UTG,the cut-off called and I looked down to see KK.Easy all in and Mr Intense Stare from earlier didn't look too happy before shoving for 12k to try and get heads up with me in the pot.His ploy worked,he showed AK and after four sweet blank cards, the bastarding *Ace fell on the river to knock me out.Winning that pot would have taken me to around 20k in chips and blah blah blah,you know the rest..

Two Pies knew I wasn't going to hang about for ages if I did get knocked out before him and after grabbing a smoke and watching him play a few hands,I headed home.Maybe next time...


* I did originally write "unraised" of course, but I preferred the spellcheck suggestion.Never go broke in an unaroused pot!

* Bastarding is defintely a word.The guy behind me at Ibrox is always shouting that our top scorer,Boyd,is "too bastarding slow".