Tao of Poker

Ugarte's Poker Grovel #17

Ugarte posted a great write-up of Ferrari's home game. Here's my favorite part:

Uncharacteristically, I played A2o and even called Pauly's preflop raise. In my defense, I thought that Pauly was only raising at me because I accused him of paying the homeless for sex. The flop was A-x-2 and I bet like crazy, as did Pauly. I had him pegged for AK or AQ and was thrilled to have caught him. We capped on the turn and the river and Pauly showed me a pair of bullets. A kevlar vest won't prevent the pain when someone fires bullets at you during the showdown. I was betting my ass off, but I was essentially drawing dead from the flop. Ouch. But bonus points to Pauly for pulling off the illusion that the preflop raise was "revenge." It probably doubled the size of the pot.

OK, I made a comment at the game how I always give homeless people on the subways money before I go play poker. It's a karma thing. I figured if I share the wealth with a street person, it will come back ten times at the tables. This theory does not work very well, but I feel better as a human being for helping out the homeless, even if my reasons are selfish in nature. And yes, Ugarte zinged me good! It was at the right time too when I got dealt pocket aces!!