Often times in poker, you will see players over dramatize a situation to throw an opponent off. John took this to a new level during the first game of the September 2009 session. While most players would have looked at the board, looked at the current bet, and made their fold, call, or raise; John was not going to be most players in this situation. John must have felt that his on air personality from his old days at Y103 would come into play on this hand. The board was up with
. Phillip bet $600 into a $1200 pot. Snake (Steve Larry) folded, and Alastair (or as most players referred to him as, Al) made the call. Now it was to DJ Johnny B, he looked across the table at me and said, “$600!” Johnny B looked at the play clock to check the current blinds, and again said, “$600!”
Let me shift focus for a quick second to human emotional responses. I have heard that whenever you give someone a gift, no matter what the occasion, and that person mentions that the gift is a great gift three or more times, than that person really doesn’t care for the gift all that much. With that said, we go back to the current hand being recapped.
As John checked his hole cards, he again said, “$600!” This triggered the 3x gift theory in my mind and I felt that this was a classic over dramatization of the current hand. He is making it sound as if he is not in favor of the $600 bet, but still reluctantly (yeah right) he makes the call. If anyone knows John well enough, he rarely talks during play, other than to state his bet amount. When a quiet guy tries to get a nomination for an Oscar, it tends to send off warning flags that something smells fishy. Since I was betting ½ the pot with rags to find out where I was in the hand, and John was making such a big deal about
, I felt that he can have my feeler bet and be done with it. Since John just called the $600, the turn card turned a
. Alastair checked, John bet $1200, I folded my rags, and Alastair (being the new guy) went right along with the lights and glamour of JB and made the call…..John was able to extract another $1200 from Alastair after the river brought a
.
What can John learn from this, how about go back to your normal routine of betting and keeping emotions at check. Too many times players can get emotionally tied to a hand and it costs them chips. Had John not put on a performance and then waited to see who won the Oscar, he may have been able to extract a few more chips from me, but he didn’t.
Larry on the other hand, got emotionally tied to his Ace when he called my all-in (thus putting himself all-in) with
and finding out that he hand to catch an Ace on the river to stay in the game, and he did…..Luck will run out eventually… Congrats to John for graduating with his Masters in BS.
