Poker Bat Battles the Riff-Raff Mailbag August 2010

The Bat gets some emails ,some of them touting the Bat’s innate ability to play poker and some of them questioning it.  You don’t have to be a 300 pound man chained to computer monitor to understand the Bat’s greatness but apparently some of these scum-muffins can’t recognize the obvious, that the Bat is poker’s gift to the world and the Bat’s gift is poker.  Wrap your heads around that one but understand this if you have a Texas Holdem game you don’t want the Bat sitting at it.

Enough of the enough, let’s get to the mailbag:

Gamey in Vicksburg writes: I understand some of you GCPers have dropped by our local casino. Do the rest of the folks on that site play as bad as it sounds like you do. I love reading your blog to laugh at what a self-centered, self-absorbed, self-delusional idiot that you are. Do you have any clue how to play poker? My favorite player is John Juanda and I prefer the term flapjacks to pancakes, you?

Gamey, the Bat thanks you for reading. The Bat has no idea what you are talking about, but excels at poker and if forced to chose between the two would eat both pancakes and flapjacks.

Orney in Orlean Parish: Dear Poker Bat, I think the Budweiser Real Men of Genuis should do a song about fat guys from upstate that think they can play poker but really are just dead money, fish at the table, donkeys off it, and talk about themselves in third person. My favorite player is Fred Berger.

Hey Orney, the Bat agrees with you. The Bat plays upstate and sees a lot fat guys that think they know what they are doing but are just donators you know. If you read the Bat’s blog you should know the Bat doesn’t like terms like fish or donkeys but the Bat will give you a pass because you make a good point. Only murkey area is the Bat doesn’t know any players that talk in third person.

Eager in Iberville writes: Hey Bat, you sloth paced, owl faced, feeble-minded ingrate, stop polluting the internet. Your blog is like an oilspill on humanity, and like BP all your ineptitude has done has made things worse rather than better. A player reading your blog for strategy has a better chance to squeeze a can of Crisco in their ears, something you probably tried when your mouth was otherwise occupied squeezing two cans of lard in it, than they do at learning anything slightly useful as it comes to poker. Do you even know how many cards are in poker deck? Just do us all a favor and stop writing. Sometimes you watch a movie because it’s so good, sometimes you can’t stop watching because it’s so bad you start to enjoy it, reading your blog is like neither, it’s like watching a car crash in morbid curiousity and then being repelled by the death and destruction it causes. My favorite player is Walter Chambers.

Dear Eager: I wish you a freak accident lightening stike that melts your IPod headphones into your earholes, permenantly charges your iPod to last forever, and to be stuck on any song by Shakira until you die a slow, painful and embarrassing death maybe slowly getting eaten by escalator. I wish you a lifetime of early poker success only to be eliminated on every bubble you make it to, and only for you to get stacked on every big pot you play in when you were thinking about picking up in cash games.  And thanks for reading!

Monty in Hockessin, Delaware writes: Poker Bat! Keep up the good work, you are my idol. My favorite poker player is Jennacide.

Thanks Monty, that made my day. Haters are going to hate, but as long as some readers like you are out there it makes it all worthwhile.

Monty in Hockessin, Delaware writes: Actually you suck! My favorite player is still Jennacide. That’s a blue hen!

Til next time.

Poker Bat Back in the Game

The Poker Bat will take a post or two off from complaining.  The Bat can’t help but feel a bit like the a whiny 5-year-old so on to something new, which is something old;  the Bat slaying his opponents and crushing the Internet.  The Bat fires up his computer to play online poker and feels like a pilot of a jet about to launch from an air craft carrier.  Get ready for the ride boys because it’s going to be a fun one.  The Bat don’t fly with a wingman and even if he did the wingman wouldn’t be able to keep up.  His goose would be cooked so to speak (Top Gun reference for those that are movie illiterate–watch it), but the Bat will talk about the dogfight here and you get to read and learn some online poker strategy.

Sorry for the Top Gun reference, the Bat don’t like to quote Tom Cruise movies, Tom Cruise in general, or even refer to that Batpoop crazy Scientologytard but after watching Tropical Thunder Cruise, gets a bit of a pass. Les Grossman is a funny character.  That’s a bit like the Bat in real life, a thick man, with more dance moves than a slightly off black Michael Jackson.  Slighty off black?  Yeah, that’ll put Jacko somewhere in between Thriller and Bad when that guy was at his peak.

Ever seen a large man moonwalk? When the Bat wins his first televised final table that’s exactly what the Bat will be doing. The last time the Bat was online… um about 10 seconds ago the Bat was crushing souls and mindfarting on the faces of the pimpled online elitists that play this game for a career. You want to hear a hero call?

The Bat just made one. In the big blind with Nine Deuce a hand the Bat likes because it can only improve (except when it doesn’t) there are a couple of limpers until the button min-raises. Really? The Bat giggles. The min-raise is a bit like moving the limbo bar down to your shoulders when only midgets are playing. The Bat clicks call quicker than a Gator will eat a Marshmallow on a swamp.  Get yourself to the Bayou if you don’t know.

The flop isn’t pretty.  The Bat has two flush draws, his deuce is a heart and his Nine is a spade.  Neither improved as it came diamond, diamond, club.  The Bat wasn’t worried about ranks, none was a face card so the Bat determined to lead out blind.  Hmmm… let’s go pot.  The other guys in the hand folded like a hammock under an elephant and it was just the button.

The Bat had reckoned a few things about this player.  He was smart, aggressive, and a piss-ant.  He like to chat it up when he played, and this time he fired out “Look out!” and repopped the Bat.  Now, the Bat looked a little closer at the board 765.  What to do push and get the idiot out of the hand or let him posture at the pot on the turn and just take it down there?  The Bat opted for the slow-bluff (yeah, it’s a new term but feel free to use it) and represent he had a big hand when he bet it on later streets.

The turn came a 10, and the Bat knew his hand was good enough to beat the dreck in the piss-ant’s hand.  The Pissant bet again and the Bat continued the slow-bluff with a call.  Sure, there were a lot of scare cards that could come on the river but the Bat didn’t care.  When an 8 ball hit it was gin city.  The kid raised and the Bat shoved.  The kid stalled and called with his set of 7s.  Pay the Lion!  The Bat scooped the pot and exited the table having showed those math geeks how to be the poker.

The Poker Bat Ain’t No Poker Brat But Still Whines (more)

Next in the batch of ten things that piss off the Bat at a Texas Hold’em poker table. Suppose the Poker Bat could have numbered this thing a multi-parter but the Bat ain’t much for counting so he’ll just continue to bitch about the things and people he sees at a poker table that annoy the tiddly winks out of him. If you have kept count let the Bat know where he’s at and he’ll up date it to reflect the order. As for now, if the Bat goes past 10 or doesn’t get there the Bat doesn’t care and nor should you. This latest in the list of things that tick off the Bat is those fake emoters and befrienders that squirrel up to the person beside them at poker table, only to immediately talk bunk after they’ve been eliminated. You know who you are.

The Bat sees many of you playing a string of Online Sit and go poker tournaments at your favorite poker site or in the lobby area of your favorite casino. Many of you are also those secretive talkers whose only conversations are clandestine hand whispers to your neighbors and once they get eliminated you strike up a new bogus friendship to berate the rest of the table. Don’t rub elbows with the Bat literally or figurative. It’s bad enough the Bat has to buy two seats when he flies on an airplane like Kevin Smith, and even worse the Bat has to sidle up to a poker table and immediately have less room to operate than Manute Bol in a hatchback, but it’s the absolute worst when the Bat sees his tablemates not give an inch. Least let the Bat get a meaty paw in there… come on fellas. Don’t be that guy that sees the Bat has nowhere to put his excess tricep flesh and wont slide your elbow over at all. But hey, end up the day you want to rub elbow to sweaty elbow so be it.

The Bat gives no quarter, but don’t get all fake friendly to the Bat like we could be boys outside of the poker room. When you are running to the parking lot like it’s 4:20 every break in between levels the Bat is enjoying a brew. The Bat gave up the whacky-tobacky back when people used to say whacky-tobacky and just because the Bat looks like the Blues Traveler singer when he was fat (or is he fat again he yo-yos like Oprah) doesn’t mean the Bat is going to toke the peace pipe.

Toke all you want though. The Bat is all for personal freedom, but the Bat isn’t for poker buddies that try to chat him up. The Bat doesn’t care about how you feel about the game on television, nor does the Bat want to cheer you on in the chatbox. The Bat ain’t going to be your real friend or your fake friend, and don’t mistake the Bat’s politeness for a general warmth toward you. It’s incidental because the Bat is just a magnetic personality. People perceive a Teddy Bear even though a grizzly lurks underneath, the Bat is solely playing poker to take your money over the long haul. Good thing to remember because most of your other poker “friends” are also after your money.

Other polite people, you know what, you the Bat likes, and one day after enough exchanges of genuine niceties the Bat might want to be ya’lls friend but you fake guys that butter up the people that will be raising your blinds or those that have position on you, just say your hot air away from the Bat. Bat’s got enough friends and got plenty of hot air, so much so, the Bat’s willing to share it in return. You gas too much with your upper hole the Bat will gas too much with his lower one. You catching the Bat’s drift? If you don’t, when you are seated next to the Bat you will.