So I was playing a week ago at the casino and I thought I would bring up something that went down at the table. There was a donk that brought her stack up to 2300 at a $5/5 nl table. I sat down at the table late in to her session. I could tell that she was inexperienced because she kept on making string bets. She kept on going back and forth to her stack even after constantly being told by the dealer. 

One particular hand between the donk and a regular made me laugh.  The board was 95A9k (no 3 flush board) and there was about $700 in the middle before the river came. The donk was first to act on the river and she put out $100 before trying to go to her stack for more chips. The dealer called a string bet. The regular immediately announced raise and put out $300.  The donk didn’t even think and said “I Call You All-In”. The dealer announced that she was All-In. The regular who obviously had a 9 believed that he was ahead of the donks range and called after two minutes of thinking. The donk turned over A9 for the winner.

I didn’t say anything as I wasn’t in the hand. Heck I wanted the donk to get all of the chips. After the hand I mentioned that the phrasing in which the girl went all in was justifying a call.  If the regular would have made this apparent during the hand and called the floor I believe he would just have had to turn over his cards and the all in bet would not have stood.

I believe a similar situation happened like this against Kathy Liebert in a major tournament. The floor was called over and the ruling was that the player just had to call her bet.

Don’t make the mistake of being a donk.  Make sure you properly phrase your bets.  You wouldn’t want to get donk status for the rest of your life.

Cheers,

Errol

Last week (Friday May 1st) I was up Fallsview Casino playing poker and saw Brody Jenner and his boys playing some $2/5 nl. They just came from drinking the night away at Dragonfly Nightclub (located on the side entrance of the casino). Brody was promoting the club and getting an appearance fee for his time. I had just finished playing some $5/10 NL when my table broke.

I decided to shoot some $5/5 nl (I wasn’t in the mood to leave yet) when I saw Jenner and about three or four others that were with him sitting at the $2/5 nl table ($300 max game). It must have been after 3am.

(image from: hollywoodknights.com)

I told a girl I knew that Jenner was playing and she went over to say hello (she was a big fan of The Hills). He gave her the cold shoulder and remarked “who is Brody Jenner” when she came over. I was a bit shocked that he would be such a dick to a fan. But then again I guess he gets that all the time. Anyways … on to the good part of the story. His crew was very loud and it seemed to me that they did not respect the players at the table. You could tell by looking at the table from a few tables away that these guys did not have any sort of poker etiquette. They were high fiving each other when they won pots etc. I don’t think any of those guys cared if they won or lost any money. The stakes just didn’t mean much to them.

Getting on to the drama. After about an hour or so of them playing I saw Jenner and this Asian fellow get into an altercation. Apparently the Asian fellow wanted to take Jenner outside. Both Jenner and the Asian fellow started swearing and threats were uttered  (I can’t confirm what was being said as I was sitting 2 tables behind them). The floor quickly kicked the Asian fellow out and asked Jenner to leave as well. Jenner seemed to be on the defensive side. Him and his boys continued to utter that they did nothing wrong. The floor took Jenner aside and told him that he had to leave the poker room. He was arguing with the floor for about 25 minutes before security showed up. Jenner kept on bringing one of the waitress’s over to help back his story up. After talking to security for another 30 minutes Jenner and his boys finally decided to leave the casino.

I thought the whole incident was quite comical. It was like the cameras were on Jenner and his crew and they needed to create drama for TV. Oh and if you check out Jenner’s twitter page he makes a comment on the incident: “WOW!!!!! Great times last night.. Except for the death threat hahahaha Words of advice.. If you get a bad beat in poker deal with it!” source: http://twitter.com/BrodyJenner/status/1680298394

Cheers,

Errol

The one thing that has been bugging me lately when playing cash games (live) is the amount of soft play that is going on at the tables.  Soft play occurs usually when friends are in the pot together and end up checking the hand down. This usually happens at lower stakes poker games, however I have seen witnessed this sort of stuff in $5/10 nl games.

I think that soft playing should not be allowed as it ruins the integrity of the game.  If you partake in soft play you are cheating yourself, your friend and all the other players in the game.  Many people don’t realize that by soft playing a hand with a friend they are in fact affecting the action of the other players at the table.  Let me give you an example of how this can happen.

We are in a $5/5 game and there is a raise preflop of $25 dollars with four callers (approx 125 dollar pot). So five players are in the pot and the flop comes out 2s 5h 9h and it is checked around to the preflop raiser who is on the button. The preflop raiser makes it $100 and the first position calls.  Let’s say the stacks are really big. Two other players fold and it goes to the player to the right of the preflop raiser who makes it $300 to go. The preflop raiser folds and then the initial player in first position says “buddy if I call can we check the rest of the pot down”.  This is just an example. The player who raised to $300 and the person in first position may already have established to check down all pots after a bet is called heads up. This sort of soft play is designed to isolate one of the players in the game out of the pot (although might not be intentionally). The player in first position or the re-raiser might get a cheap draw to see the turn and river.

I believe that soft play is a mild form of collusion. More problems with soft play happen in tournaments. But I can’t really stand it in cash games. The next time you are at a poker table and someone asks you to soft play pots with you tell them that there are no friends at the poker table. And always be thinking about the integrity of the game!

Cheers,
Errol