Those of you that might know me better know that in the past 6 months or so I have picked up Free Role Bar room poker as a past time.
I have to give a lot of credit to the company that runs these games around the Delaware Valley area. River Chasers has a great product. They are very professional, have some great prizes and I usually have a great time. The way River Chasers works is that they run these tournaments at bars. The bars put up prizes usually for the top 3 finishers. But River Chasers also has a point system. The top 30% of the players in each tournament are given points. The number of points depends on the number of players in the tournament. River Chasers splits up the year into trimesters. At the end of each trimester the top 400 players play in a special invitation only tournament. I actually made the tournament for the 3rd Trimester of 2008. However it is the weekend of the AC Boat show and I will not be able to attend.
I started to play Poker at bars as a way to get out and interact with people by myself (Solo, no wing man).
I also started to really get into the game. Poker (especially Texas Holdem) is a great game. There is math skills, interpersonal skills and a bit of luck involved. I started running an occasional home game with friends. While I am at the AC Boat show I’m gonna try my luck at a few $1/$2 cash games.
So last night I was at Peppers Resturant in King of Prussia. I have never done well (finished in the points) at Peppers. I’ve played there probably about 6 or 7 times.
Last night I played well, but…..
There was a player that was sitting to my left. He called himself “Pops”. Pops looked like he was a left over biker. His cell phone had a ring tone of a woman screaming like a horror film. He got several phone calls and at one point said that he needed to leave.
I had about 290 chips, the blinds were at 5/10. So I was in good shape with just under 20 times the starting pot. I was sitting in the small blind. Everyone folded around to the dealer (Pops). Pops decides he is going to go all in blind. This basicly means that he didn’t look at his cards and he was going to bet his entire stack. I looked at my cards and saw 10/Q offsuite. Not a great hand, but with the all in blind, I felt like against any 2 random cards I was in good shape. When Pops turned his cards over I still felt good. No pair, not suited.
Ok, I got greedy. I saw a chance to double up. I forget what the cards were that came on the flop. But in the end, pops had a straight, and I had a pair of 10s. That was it. 1 1/2 hours of playing well, flushed down the tubes by a player who wanted to leave. He should have just given his chips to the tournament director and left.
I was pissed. I got up and left with out a word. I paid my bar tab and left.
I hate free poker. But I’ll be back.