Bat-ter Up

It’s been a while since the Bat has found the time to fill in the poker world on his activities.  Well, world the Bat has been crushing it.  Bwin, Pokerstars, FullTilt et al have all felt the Bat’s wrath.   Now, the Bat is headed to the IP.

The Bat doesn’t know what to make of the Biloxi comings and goings of that other casino that saw fit to cesure the other animal on Gulf Coast Poker.NET.   Hmmm.  The Bat has been known to get dis-civil every now and then and would hate to get blacklisted from any of the Gulf Coast’s casinos.  Perhaps, they are a little too strict.  Seems like the Monkey can’t win in cash games, despite causing a ruckus wouldn’t that make the other players want him there? 

How many high rollers has he chased away at a 1-2 table?  Mighty loose definition of a high roller if you ask the Bat.  No offense PokerMonkey.  Then again, perhaps because he only plays 1-2 he doesn’t qualify as a person of worth.  The Bat guesses these casnios don’t understand that one banned Monkey might have a lot of friends that will ban the casino doing the banning.  Those people have a high enough net worth to qualify as people so maybe that’ll be the rhetorical strategy to get the ban lifted. 

The Bat’s been jumping all over the NFL games.  Sports Gambling is fun when the better, favored team always covers.  Unless you are Vegas.  The favorites are where it’s at and the Bat has won enough in the first six weeks to pay out a downpayment on a new Bat mobile.  (The Bat will never stop losing right?).   Just keep banging the favorites Bat, but stay away from SF-Indy this week.  The Niners can give the Colts a game.  In fact, the colts are a little bit of a paper tiger.  No other blogger will say that because of Peyton’s ties to the Gulf Coast.  Speaking of Gulf Coast, Favre will have his day and his way in Green Bay.  The Bat’s a poet, you know it.

Anyway, look for some IP updates in this same Bat-Space, same Bat-place, next time.

High Stakes Pokah

The Bat saw that his favorite talking head as far as poker goes (his favorite talking head is Martina Navratolova because of the accent and the specs) AJ Benza is getting kicked to the curb.  This guy is a straight shooting foil to Gabe Kaplan and now he’ll be a part time guest on the Howard Stern Show and little else.  Which was basically what he was doing before High Stakes Poker.  But if Ali Nejad can have a career why can’t the man Benza.  Nejad claimed he’d play poker online with all the nosebleeds back in the day.  Come on Ali.

The Bat went to Benza’s blog… titled “Benza Neat” while better than Benza Neato is still a little weak and in that HUGE picture of the guy means he’s got an ego even bigger than the Bat’s.  The Bat just moved Joe Seebok down the Boy wonder list and Benza to the top.  Would the Bat let Benza play online poker for him?  Doubtful.

High Stakes poker was a hell of a show and the droll Benza made the action even in its lulls entertaining.  If High Stakes Poker or more importantly the Game Show Network had to axe somebody maybe it should have been kaplan.  Sure Benza played the straight man but Kaplan’s worn thin like a marathon of the World Series of Poker and Norm Chad’s divorce jokes.

Rumor has it that Vanessa Ruosso is going to take over the gig.  The Bat doesn’t frequent 2+2 but let’s just say somebody pointed him there by accident.  Anyway, the pocket protectors and zit popping magic players over there say the gig is Ruosso’s.  Strange because she’s well known for tournament play not for being a cash legend, and though she has moderate online poker cred so what.

You can’t deny the girl’s got game, and the Bat’s not sexist, so he’ll give Vanessa Ruosso her due.  Put her next to Vanessa Selbst and she’s downright hot too.  The Bat would like to see these guys doing poker:  Dennis Miller.  Obscure, inane and thinking man’s references should be the norm.  Norm McDonald, while we are carting out old SNL geezers this guy has actually played poker and he wouldn’t be afraid to rip a donkey.  Jeffrey Ross.  One hour long roast after another.  Dave Chappelle.  Has he crawled out of his cardboard box crack house yet?  If not, here’s a gig he can sink his teeth into.

Kamikazi Chip’n

So last week the Bat gives you the Stone Cold Donkey Nuts and this week he hears two people saying it… the Bat is a trend setter, that’s no doubt.  Anyway, poker fiends the Bat has some more poker terminology for you.

The Bat read the Tiltin’ Texan’s blog post the other day with all that Cardplayer geekese poker speak and it’s only fitting that the Bat gives you a helping of the trendy words of next year.  So next time you are at your home game telling the donkfish at your table he was sitting on the Donkey Nuts not the nuts, you can also debrief him on the white chip tell which the Bat has dubbed the Kamikazi Chip’n.

This is one of tells the Bat has learned over years of playing and believes in.  It only works on bad players so if anybody thinks you are decent don’t try and reverse the tell on them when you got a hand.  Nobody’s buying it at best they put you on a draw.

Anyways Kamikazi Chip’n is when the idiot at the end of the table is betting away at a pot and firing little go-away bets on the flop, turn and river.  Guess which chips he’s using?  The kind he doesn’t mind losing.

For some reason, the red chips being that they are more valuable than the white ones, are more likely to be used when the guy is sitting on a bigger hand.  Same is true of the green chips and black ones.  Though at times a casual flip of an overchip is meant as a scare tactic too, but that’s not usually done by a bad player.

No, a bad player, the Bat has noticed will put a stack of 10 white chips rather than two red ones which he’s got diddly.  He’ll also stack these lesser chips at the end and put them in the middle in an attempt to bluff at the pot when he’s got nothing.  It’s called Kamikazi Chip’n because those chips are on a suicide mission and they ain’t coming back to his stack. 

Now go use this tip on all the Latvians playing in Riga.

Donkey Nuts

The Bat saw Joe Seebok dressed as Robin on the front page of www.gulfcoastpoker.net.  Seebok must have gotten the memo that Bat was looking for a Robin.  The Bat will consider his credentials although it looks like he’s already signed with a mentor:  Phil Hellmuth and Ultimate Bet.   That’s nuts.

Speaking of nuts, The Bat wants to talk about a poker term you may not have heard but you should have, but the Bat knows you haven’t because the Bat hasn’t coined it yet.  Now, the Bat is coining it:  Donkey Nuts.

What’s a Donkey Nuts?  Donkey Nuts, to put it bluntly, are the beanbag of a ass or the hands a donkey thinks are the nuts.  They are called Donkey Nuts because an inexperienced player might bet into you like they are sitting on a royal flush yet only have top pair weak kicker.  Usually, the hands are a little better than that, but don’t think for a second a donkey won’t call you down with a naked ace and a terrible kicker.

Anyway, donkey nuts usually come out to play on a scary, brutal board where the river card tends to add straight and flush possibilities to an already paired board.  Donkey might think the last card that gave him two pair gave him the nuts and give every physical indication that he’s sitting on gold.

The Donkey Nuts is a mixed bag of decent but not great hands all to way to the genuine bonafide nuts.  The Bat gives you a tip, point out one of the 30 hands that the board just made and ask if the Donkey can beat it.  If the Donkey looks like you just took the carrot from the stick and broke out a whip, then call if you can beat one of the lesser hands.

The Bat likes donkeys and likes that donkeys think two pair is the nuts.  The Bat also enjoys it when a Donkey states he has the nuts his straight is worse than any flush. 

Oh well, good luck the next time you run into the Donkey Nuts, sometimes it takes horse balls to call.  Course if you play poker online, you don’t have to worry about a Donkey sitting like he just laid the golden egg, but that’s the advantage and disadvantage of internet poker.

Bat to Bat

The Bat has enjoyed a crazy week of action in online poker and real poker.  The Bat likes to play poker online if he can play limit poker.  Of late the Bat has had to stop his losses, gross, gross losses that running bad in no limit poker can do to a fella.

Two outer on the river?  Don’t worry donkeynut you’ll get there.  Afterall, you are playing the Bat, the worst lucktard in the box.  Used to be when the Bat would play online poker he’d steamroll the regs, the fishes, the newbies, the luckboxes, the lunchboxes, and the box of crayons three primary colors short of set.

Now, it’s the Bat running into sets, and the Bat flattened like a human pancake in the wake of a runaway steamroller.  Flop a set, overbet to protect, get a terrible call for all of a gentleman’s chips and watch runner runner flush the Bat down the toliet like an after coffee grumper.  It’s been so bad, the Bat is thinking about giving up the online game.

In the Bat’s local home game, it’s been no better.  The Bat feels like the local Phil Hellmuth, the Bat used to chew up these brokeasses and spit them out like a sunflower seed casing, now they are the ones doing the breaking.  Let’s take a look at a hand.

Bat is playing an older gentlemen, you know the type, the guy who shoves all in and says well I gotta go home anyway, and everytime he does that he’s got the nuts.  Seems somebody tipped him off that because the Bat watched him try that play (and the regs always fold) and espied the grey-haired greaser’s cards… absolute garbage.

So, later like the sucker buying rolexes on the street in Manhattan, the geezer tries the same play with the Bat.  Bat eyes him up and down and says this guy has been doing this with a bluff earlier, and must be doing it again, so the Bat makes a hero call.

STONE COLD NUTS.  The table rolls their eyes and of course expects the Bat to show a hand like second nuts.  Used to be you didn’t call the old man with anything but top two hands.  Course the Bat saw the old guy change things up and then the Bat was fanning at the double-reverse.  The Bat hates poker sometimes.

Bat’s Rant

The Beau went black for the night.  That wasn’t fun.  I headed to the Isle of Capris and locked horns with a fellow cowboy still livin’ in the old west.  I shipped it like a runaway stagecoach in one memorable pot I’ve already forgotten.

Apparently, there was a power outage.  Methinks somebody ran a little too hot on the craps table and somebody hit the switch.  Or not.  Nobody was running hot on the craps table, and I should know I play craps online.

Also, they had a two day event where after you bust on day one you can come back on day two and buy back in.  Then they merged and everybody got together for an in the money party on day three.  Only problem some folks didn’t quite make the money and had to return for nothing. 

They didn’t quite get there ducks in a row.  The Bat has the solution because the tournament was a good idea though maybe not quite executed the right way.  Here’s your fix tournament directors straight from the Bat’s mouth.

On day one you play until there is only 10% of the field left.  On day two, if they reach 10% of that day’s entrants earlier.  The money bubble has popped and they keep playing until they reach the time it took for day one’s bubble to pop.  Yes, they are first ones out but because of the nature of the event if this is stated before hand it is kind of like a penalty for the rebuy.  For the players who only bought in on day 2.  It’s their problem.

Now, if the tournament hasn’t reached 10% by the time day one did.  They keep playing but they STOP the clock.    Then when the bubble breaks they bring everybody back.  Feel free to mix the two groups or don’t.  No sweat.

Easy, easy fix.  Yet, somehow, they ended up paying too many and some people didn’t get paid when they came back two days later.

Anyway, the rest of the Bat’s trip has been fun.  It’s a great casino, and the Bat who likes to play casino online, had fun playing blackjack, roulette, and 3 card poker.

The Bat’s Bad Beat

The Bat has travled to the GCPC undercover.  Found some interesting articles about poker and travel over at Bet and Win Poker.  Course this time the Bat was driving so they didn’t apply so much, but if you travel you might want to read them.

In Event 1, the Bat bubbled.  The Bat hates to bubble, hates bubbles in his drink, hates the NCAA tournament where they talk about the bubble being on it or off it for three weeks every year, hates the movie the bubble boy, and finds bubble gum to be repugnant.

So for the Bat to bubbble is a bit like Phil Hellmuth getting donked out of a tournament by a spewtard from Holland overbetting 3-7.  The Bat was irate.  Inside the Bat considered tossing a chair at the big t.v. screens all over the Beau.  That’ll teach them to put a cooler like AK v. AA on the Bat.

Here’s how the hand went down.  The Bat was sitting on the button, THE BUTTON! in an unopened pot.  His opponent in the BB was sitting over a massive chip stack like he was the Godfather of poker and riding the table like he was a jockey and we were Secretariat.  The Bat don’t like that.

Anyway, the Bat thinks he’s going to snap off Willie Shoemaker (famous jockey) this time.  The guy can’t help defending his blinds.  The Bat fires out a 4k raise.  The Small Blind a mousey little fellow from Panama City folded and the Big Blind completed.

Now, the Bat’s done told you the end of the story so these details don’t mean a hill of beans, but bare with the Bat.  The BB calls.  You can decide if it was a smooth call, a flat call, or a value call, but it was definitely a call.

The board flops out K high.  The Bat is salivating.  The BB puts out this wussy 1/8th the pot bet and the Bat is ready to double up.  No flush or straight draws let’s let this silly bastard get a cheap turn card.

The Bat calls.  The turn is a K.  It’s the Bat’s day.  Obviously, the BB fires out another small bet and the Bat calls him.

River is an Ace.  The Bat might just get paid.  Out of nowhere the BB shoves and the Bat insta-calls.  Hello Aces, goodbye cruel tournament the Bat goes out in 61st.

The Bat Sense

Sometimes when the Bat steps into a dicey situation be it on the felt or off, the Bat gets this tingle up his spine, it starts in the balls of the Bat’s feet and runs up the spine, right into the base of the cerebellum, and the Bat knows, the Bat done wrong.

Let the Bat give you, intrepid reader, some examples:

The Bat walked up into line at Target, the Bat knew, the Bat picked the wrong line.  A fat dude, by the way the Bat is fat, so the Bat can call another man fat,  anyway fattie started peeling off something from his murse, and the Bat’s sense went tingle, tingle.  Sure enough it was a stack off coupons.  Before the Bat could act, the other line had lengthened by two.

The Bat sense got riled up online the other day, when the bat was multi-tabling, watching TV, and sucking the orange grim of cheetos of his fingers, when bam, blam, bizow it’s AA, KK, AQ, and J10 suited on the Button.  Because the Bat isn’t Patrik Anotonius, the Bat froze up, yet the Bat sense was on haywire. 

 The Bat raises AQ, limps with AA, raises KK, and raises J10 sooted.  Nobody raised the limp pot and the Bat was staring at 6 opponents with AA.  The KK got two callers.  The AQ got reraised and called preflop.  The Bat disposed of that hand, and saw a flop with J10.  8QA.  The Bat mucked in the face of a raise (missing the the double belly buster).

Sure enough, the Bat got stacked with AA and KK and would have won with  AQ and J10.  The Bat’s sense is not to be trifled with.

So today with the Bat sense on full blare but sittings at a red light, the Bat wondered why the tingle was afoot.  The Bat looks left, looks right, and finally glances in the rear view.  A truck is barreling full steam at the back of the Bat’s vette.  The Bat blew through the red and the truck skidded to a stop… in the middle of the intersection.  You want to learn how to avoid accidents?  If you lack a Bat Sense go here.

The Bat sense is good to have.  So what’s the Bat to do?  Head to the casino and play some blackjack?  Sounds like a winning plan.   Or so, the Bat thought.  The dealer got none of his good Bat sense before a heand.  Okay, the Bat headed home and decided to play online blackjack.  That went a little better.  Online blackjack, despite the human touch treated the Bat right today. 

The Bat plopped $200 down and 2 hours and 23 minutes later was staring at $1025.  The Bat dipped below $900 but got back to 1k and ended the session up $800.  The Bat’s sense might have been off at the casino but was all right at home.  The Bat loves to play blackjack online.

The Bat Knows Better

Playing a high stakes online poker game The Bat got involved in a hand that really  chaps the Bat.  The Bat has A5 suited and has raised an unopened pot from late position.  The Big Blind, a tricky player, calls as does the button (any two cards is being generous, if this guy held only one card and it was a 10 or up he’d be in the pot and probably raising).  The flop came K85, two spades. 

The tricky player checked.  The Bat put out a little bet, trying to mislead more than anything. 

The button folded.  The tricky player called.

Turn was a red 5.  The Bat now had a pair.  That’s good right?  It’s good enough with a flush draw when the Bat wants to play poker online.

Tricky player checked and the Bat led out with a little bit more aggressive bet.  Tricky player called, smoothly or flat or whatever needless adjective you prefer to put in from the word call.  Besides maybe float call, which the Bat has never seen written before but is happy to coin a new phrase for you avid readers and possible Robins, adjectives before call are as worthless as describing a pregnancy with terms like little or a lot or mostly or partially.  You are either pregnant or you ain’t and you either call or you don’t.

The Bat is dejected on fifth street.  Brick city.  Suddenly the tricky player fires out a bet which is big.  It’s a don’t call me bet.  The Bat stews.  It don’t make sense.  Is it a missed draw?  Maybe.  Is it 2nd pair and trying to bet out a weak king or a pocket pair smaller than a king.  That’s probably what it is.

Hmmm.  The Bat doesn’t think he has enough chips to make the Tricky player fold by shoving over the top.  The Bat can’t even beat an 8, but truth be told the 8 didn’t make sense.  The only flush draws that made sense were QJ or J10 and those didn’t make too much sense.

The Bat types U got 1010. 

Time is almost up (no response).

The Bat calls.

The opponent shows 1010.

Anyway, nice read.  Bad call.  The Bat plays as bad as a noob.  The Bat will need to go back to poker school before hitting the felt again.

No Robins as yet…

-Not that the Bat hasn’t had a ton of applications.   In fact, if the Bat wasn’t so discriminating he’d allow

some of you former waitresses to become the Robin of my dreams, but the Bat is setting his sights a little younger and more qualified.   It’s one thing to sling waffles at the waffle house it’s another thing to serve the Bat drinks as he crushes online poker.  Keep the photos coming and if it’s Black and White that’s fine if you are artsy, but it better not be black and white because that was the only kind of camera when you got the photo made.  The Bat ain’t no spring chicken but you better believe his Robin will be.

Look folks, the Bat is offering the opportunity of a lifetime.  The robin, not the eagle is actually the bird keeping an eye on the White House.  It’s a big honor in the States of America.  Being the Bat’s robin is an even bigger honor.  It’s a chance to educate yourself at the feet of the Louisiana poker star is your lucky day.  The Bat will show you how to outdraw your opponents, how to peer into the soul (through the intertubes, through their monitor, through their eyes, right above their kidneys and into their soul), how to stop suckouts (sounds impossible here’s a tip you know the code for Contra to give you extra lives try a similar one next time you got AK vs. AQ and it’ll hold),  and how to hold my liquor.  Actually, you should already know how to hold the Bat’s liquor–keep it close by at all times.

-The Bat recently was stateside and ducked into a casino.  For the first time in the Bat’s short life and poker career he ran into quads three times in one evening.  This wasn’t on a computer this was in a cash game.  The Bat lost all three pots obviously.  Here’s what to do when the board is paired and your opponent holds the other two cards that match.  Fold.  Or pay the man his money.

The Bat is itching to get over his latest downswing and play some more online Texas Hold’em.   The Bat can be seen crushing all over the internets.  Next time, the Bat hopes to have a photo of his new robin.  She’ll be playing online poker and loving it.   The Bat needs his own lady gaga.