Case Study: The Skyline Bar, Windsor Locks, CT
Last Saturday, Michelle and I decided to play a live game. In other words, Michelle dragged me kicking and screaming to a live game. "This one will be different", she promised, "This one has a great structure!" Well I'd heard that one before so I wasn't getting my hopes up.
We got there early - very unusual for us as we normally miss the first two blind levels of any live tourney we play because Michelle is still straightening her hair. The Skyline is a pretty standard American bar/restaurant - wooden bar, booths, plasma-screens. What wasn't standard was the treatment we got at the door. A host welcomed us and took us down a long passageway and into a large, nicely decorated and well-heated function room where the game was being held. We registered and headed to the bar, pleasantly surprised by the quality of the pub-grub. This was, I admit, a promising start to the evening.
The tourney commenced at 6.30 and would you believe it - it DID have a great structure, roughly modeled on that of a Full Tilt 45-player SNG!
60 players
1500 chips
Blinds start at 10/20
30 minute levels
No antes ever
I limped a bit for the first 40 minutes, seeing cheap flops in the hope of flopping big. In one hand, I flopped a sneaky top two pair with 86 and in another I turned broadway with KQ on a AQ10J3 board. In the latter hand, I kept my customer on the turn but lost him on the river. He mucked AJ face-up but it was still a handsome pot. Disaster struck 20 minutes later as I lost with KK to AA and was back to a starting stack. I rebuilt from there to amass an 8K+ stack by the last 2 tables. It was 8pm, Michelle was out and in accordance with our last-longer bet, she was massaging my shoulders - a chore that was supposed to continue until I busted. However, being, as I am, a generous boyfriend, I allowed to her to buy out so she could go play cash-game.
The key hand came with me limping from the button with the Q9 of diamonds. (The BB had shown himself to be a defender preflop but weak-tight post-flop so this was my chosen modus with the blinds at an awkward 400/800.) The SB called, the BB checked and the flop came AK6 with two hearts. Check, check and I made it 1500. Fold from the SB and a call from the BB. The pot was 5400 and with the BB starting the hand with around 1500 less than me, there was a little under 4500 in our effective stacks. The turn came the deuce of clubs, the BB checked and I had a quick think. I didn't think he had an ace as figured he would have raised pre-flop. I didn't think he had a 6 because I think he would have folded that to my flop bet. His line seemed to represent a weak king or possibly a flush draw. With nearly a pot bet in my arsenal and him making a decision for his tourney-life, I felt I could get him off a King and price him out of a flush draw.
"All-in!"
"Call!"
"Shit! You must have me!"
"Eh, I doubt it!"
The BB flipped up the 34 of hearts for the nut low and a 4-hi flush draw. "Wow", I said, "Now I like my hand!" I flipped up Q-hi and explained to him that he's actually got 15 outs. Booooooom came the the 4 of spades on the river and I was down to a stub. I doubled up the next hand but an orbit later, I was out in 12th place.
Okay, so that covers the game itself. Pretty standard stuff. Nothing, you might say, that would make it a worthy 3rd installment to the 'I Hate Live Poker' epic. Well that's where you'd be wrong as I have thus far neglected to mention the far more interesting extra-curricular activities of a young Asian-American kid who had been seated to my immediate left at my first table.
What was he doing? Every ten minutes or so, he was replenishing his stack from chips located in his hoody-pocket. (The tournament used generic chips.) How did I come to suspect this was taking place? Well, you see, I'm an online player and as such I am obsessed with the stack-sizes of my opponents, a piece of information conveniently available onscreen at all times but lacking from the live game. Thus, I monitor the stack-sizes of those around me at regular intervals and on the occasions when I estimated his stack, something seemed awry. He seemed to lose more pots than he won but his stack got taller. Not only that but it appeared to have a healthy number of higher value chips despite very few ever being in play in the early levels.
I watched him like a hawk for the best part of an hour and observed that his modus took the following form:
1 - He played a lot of pots, splashing chips around so as to make it difficult for other players to take notice of the progress of his chip-stack.
2 - He kept a low enough profile, keeping table-talk to a minimum
3 - He wore baggy clothing
4 - He kept his chips tucked in behind his bottle of beer
5 - He was happy to call light when there was a good chance he still had equity in a pot (In other words, he wanted to take your chips but didn't mind losing his own as they could be replenish from 'bank-de-pocket'.)
While I was first tipped off when I sensed something odd with his chip-stack, I was not 100% sure until I saw the first of his more blatant manoeuvres. From my POV (to his immediate right), here's what I saw:
Chips fell to the ground. He bent down to pick them up. I immediately looked down and saw that they were green and blue chips (the 500 and 100 value chips). I didn't notice chips fall from his stack so it seemed odd. The fact that there were green chips among them was even more odd as he had been keeping his green chips at the bottom of one of his stacks. Even if chips had fell off the top of his stack without my noticing, there was zero chance they would be green ones. When I bent down to 'help' him, he got very shifty and uncomfortable.
Having confirmed my suspicions, I decided to proceed diplomatically. I was, after all, a tourist in the eyes of these players and they might not welcome me pointing fingers at one of their regulars. My plan was to tell the tournament director at the interval.
About 90 minutes in, our table broke and 'the cheating little prick' (or 'CLP' as I will now call him) was keen to move. I knew what he was at and watched him stuff his chips into his hoody pocket as he crossed the floor. I counted 2 green chips in his stack when they went into his pocket. (We all started with 2 and he had lost 2 to me, 2 to an elderly lady and 1 in another pot so the maths were already way off!) As he walked over to his new table, he carried his beer in his right hand and put his hand in his left jeans pocket. I stood up from my seat and walked by his new table for a better view. As his hand came out of his jeans pocket, so too did a new stack of blues and greens. He then unloaded the chips that he had put into his hoody pocket. I looked at his stack. It was far bigger than it was moments earlier and it was adorned by 7 green chips.
I went straight over to Michelle's table to let her know happened and let her know my intention to have a subtle word with the director. My plans were immediately thwarted as Michelle doesn't do subtlety. She told everyone at her table what I had said and she called over the director herself. He listened but was hesitant to act without definitive proof. At that point, Michelle devised the perfect way to check on the total chip-count. She went table-to-table and counted the green chips - no new green chips had been put into the tournament beyond the two per person with which we started. There were 16 extra greens in circulation in the tournament. CLP had 11 greens and the next most had 4. Case Closed!
A number of the senior players agreed to talk with him at the end of the night so as not to make a scene. If he won, the money would be withheld but he would be allowed continue in the tournament. While it wasn't ideal, I understood the need for discretion when dealing with such a delicate matter. It's a great game with what is for the most part a nice group of players and it would be a shame for one bad egg to ruin a good thing. Low-Stakes Live Poker is susceptible to these types of scumbags which is yet another reason why Online Poker is the superior choice.
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