Tommy Angelo

The other day I was in a conversation with an old friend, and some new acquaintances who I would most likely never see again. We were jawing away about rock and roll. Twice I tossed out bits of pertinent trivia, and twice I was quickly told by one of the acquaintances that I was wrong. Both times I knew I was right, and both times I backed off immediately.

The next day I was walking with my friend. He had done some research since the day before. “You were right. Joni Mitchell did write the song ‘Woodstock,’ and Bill Bruford did drum for Genesis on their first post-Gabriel tour.”

“Yup.”

“So why didn’t you call that asshole out yesterday when he said you were wrong the only two times you even said anything? You’re always avoiding conflict. You should show some balls when you know you’re right.”

“Okay, as a favor to you, I’ll give you some conflict. You’re wrong.”

“That’s more like it! [laughing] Please hammer me some more!”

“I don’t avoid conflict. Actually what I do is just the opposite. Avoiding conflict is easy. What I do is much harder. I end it.”

“Oh please do explain.”

“Avoiding conflict is what a bullfighter does. He sees the conflict coming, and he moves out of the way. If a bullfighter were to stand still, and face the bull as the bull charges, and allow himself to be impaled and killed, that would be ending the conflict. When a person charges at me with words and ideas that are in conflict with mine, I just stand there. But it’s different than bullfighting in that words and thoughts don’t draw blood, so when I end a conflict, nobody gets hurt.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

I was had.

My friend Jack is from China. When he speaks English, he does so with a very heavy accent, and his word selection has on occasion caused me to reach for my pen to capture the moment. Like this one time…

We were playing shorthanded $40-80 limit hold’em in the middle of the night. A hand came up where I raised before the flop, and I raised on the flop. On the turn, it was headsup, me and Jack. Jack bet the turn and I called. On the river, Jack bet and I folded. Jack showed his cards. He had a very strong hand.

A little while later, the same thing happened. Jack and I played a pot, and on the river, Jack bet and I folded. Again he showed a good hand.

Soon after that, Jack raised from under-the-gun, and everyone folded around to me in the big blind. I folded. Jack showed pocket kings. What he intended to say to me was something that meant “You have a good nose for sensing when I have a good hand.”

What he actually said was, “You smell good.”

Here’s a decision I made in the $10-10-20 no-limit hold’em game at Lucky Chances in the spring, when the minimum buy-in was $2,000. The lineup — what we lovingly call The Breakfast Club — was playing tight and tough, as it so often does. Inevitably, the cards slice deep cuts into some of the stacks, which causes blood to flow, and that gets the chips moving, sometimes, depending on whose nuts get cracked.

When this hand came up, the game was two hours old, and there had been no major wounds. The two biggest pots of the day had been in the $1000-2000 range, and neither of them went to showdown. On this hand, I was under the gun. I opened for $80 and only the button called. The pot was $190. On the flop, I bet $200 and he called. On the turn, I bet $500 and he called. At this point the pot was about $1600. On the river, I checked, and he went all-in for $1600. (I had him covered.)

At this point, his hand was polarized. I knew he either had me beat, or he didn’t. If I called, I would be getting 2-1 on my money which meant that if he had me beat twice as often as he didn’t, then it didn’t matter what I did. And as best as I could figure it, within the image of reality that exists only in my mind, which happens to be the only version of reality I have access to, that was how it was: the EV of calling was the same as the EV of folding.

So, what to do?

Well, that’s an easy one: move to an outer shell of parameters and weigh the decision from there.

My opponent was a player who often plays pretty snug for long stretches, and then, when he plays a big all-in pot, he will sometimes play somewhere between reckless and rukus for a while. And it doesn’t matter if he wins the big pot or loses it. He tends to get spunky either way. And when the spunkiness comes over him, his spunk can cause a few others to spunk it up, and now we’ve got a game. And let’s just say for the sake of parameter thinning that I thought I could rely on myself to be equally steady, win or lose. So now we have determined that after looking at the meta-game, the decision was simple.  Call and maybe rev up the game, or fold and keep it the same.

I asked myself: Do I feel like playing? And what kind of game do I feel like playing in? My choices were:

Fold and continue playing in a tough-tight game. (I like tough-tight games during those times when I like that kind of game. It just depends.)

Fold and quit a tough-tight game. (Never a bad idea.)

Call and play in a loose-ish game ahead $2400. (Sometimes I keep playing because I’m ahead, and independent of that, sometimes I keep playing because the game got looser.)

Call and quit a loose-ish game stuck $2400. (Sometimes I quit because I’m stuck, and independent of that, sometimes I quit because the game got looser.)

This was a difficult decision for me at the time, and I took way longer than usual on it.  And then a big grin crept over me inside when I realized that the reason I couldn’t attach to one of the options was because I was unattached to all of them. So I pulled out my most trusted scale tipper, my protector, my net. Remember when I said I thought I could count on myself to stay steady if I called this hand, win or lose? Well, that’s not actually true. Usually I can. But sometimes I can’t. And I never really know for sure which way it’s going to be. And even when I am perfectly unflustered by a big pot, it nonetheless increases the probability a little bit that the next big pot might knock me off balance.

I decided to let the first blood spill on someone else’s hand. I decided to wait for a +EV spot to play an all-in pot. And I realized I liked this tough-tight game right now, just the way it is. So I folded and posted my blind.

If life is like a giant river, deep and wide and long and moving, then I don’t want to ride it on a jet ski. That’d be too noisy, and too fast. And I don’t want a cruise ship with extra little boats hanging from it in case something goes wrong. And I don’t want a submarine to lurk around in. And I don’t want a barge to haul tons of crap around with. If life is a river, just give me a raft, and that will do fine. On a raft, I’ll cruise at whatever speed the river wants me to, and whichever way I look, I’ll see beyond my vessel.

Acting last is like taking a drink of water. We don’t have to understand why it’s good for us to know that it is. And the benefits are unaffected by our understanding of them.

(From “Elements of Poker”)

Last week something died. It happened right across the street and I took pictures. One way of thinking of what happened is that one organism of one species was dismantled by several organisms of another, like what hyenas do to a gazelle and what slugs do to a lettuce plant. Another way to think of it is that somebody took out a tree. Either way, the way I think of it is that death happens, and it’s always just fine, no matter who does it, who it happens to, or why.

The first three pictures were taken from my balcony, 30 feet up. The last one is of ground zero.

A few hours before this picture was taken, the tall tree on the left looked a lot like the one on the right. (It’s a little tricky to see what’s going on here because behind the tree on the left (the one being cut down) is a third redwood tree that has had the top half cut off.)

Some fun facts about Coast Redwoods. In a Coast Redwood forest, it’s pretty much all redwood trees. They “compete” for sunlight by growing really tall. The tallest ones are 380 feet. And sometimes the lowest branches are way high. When they stand alone in a city, like the two trees in these pictures, there’s plenty of sun for everyone, so they top out at around 170 feet no matter how old or thick they get, and they have branches all the way up the trunk, giving them a Christmas tree look.

The next picture was taken right after the top came down. The guy tied the top part of the tree to his gondola, then he buzzed part way through the tree with his chainsaw, and he used the crane itself to tug on the tree until the top part split away and fell, but not to the ground. It remained suspended by the rope (as it is in this picture), and then it was lowered carefully to the ground.

If a tree falls in the neighborhood, does it make a sound? (Answer: yes.)

Next came the making of a stump.

I’m a treehugger. And a people hugger. Heck I’d be a slughugger if they had arms and weren’t slathered in slime. Years ago I would have thought there was “something wrong” with the scenes you just saw. Now I don’t see it that way. Now I see every death of every kind as the most inevitable occurrence there can be, and each death serves as a happy reminder as to why I’d best get my hugs in now.

This is an image I made in photoshop that I was going to put inside the back cover of my book and then decided not to.

When I play no-limit hold’em, sometimes I’m a minimum wager wagerer. And I don’t mean minimum wager wagerer as in “one who tries to bet the smallest amount that will get them to fold if they have nothing,” such as when the flop is A-A-6 rainbow and a bluffer bets half the pot or thereabouts. I’m talking here about minimum wager as in the absolute lowest legal limit. Sometimes I do it because I think it’s the best play and sometimes I do it because I’m a silly boy.

Last week I made three minimum wagers in one night, at The Venetian. The first two were about 20 minutes apart in a $2-5 blinds game.

Four players limped, including the small blind, and I checked in the big blind. The pot was $25. The flop was a scattered rainbow. I flopped no pair and no draw. The small blind lifted his hand to check, and I put my thunb on the trigger. As soon as his fingers hit the felt, I frisbeed a $5 chip from my stack. It landed without a bounce, just across the betting line. The script from this point typically takes one of two lines. If anyone raises, I’m out. If more than one person calls, I scrutinize them, and usually I come to the conclusion that they won’t call a big bet on the turn, because history has shown that usually they won’t. Sometimes I’ll get a feeling that a caller is sandbagging with a hand that can stand a big turn bet, such as an overpair or a set or top-pair-top-kicker, but that’s really rare, because 1) they usually don’t have a hand that good, and 2) if they do, they usually can’t stand to just call a one-chip flop bet. It’s an awkward spot for them, but not for me, because I’ve often been down this road less traveled.

Two players called the $5 bet and the small blind folded. So now the pot was $40, and I would be first to act on the turn. As soon as the turn card hit the table, I bet $50, using two backspun green chips. I mucked and tipped in one motion, a few milliseconds after the second guy folded.

So now I was well on my way to establishing my preferred image, which is WET (weird-tight).

One round and two hands later, I was on the button with pocket fives. Several players limped, I called, the small blind called, and the big blind checked. The pot was $30. The flop was K-T-5 twotone. The small blind bet $20, and everyone folded to me. We both had about $1,000. I thought he was more likely to have a draw than a pair/two-pair/set, but I wasn’t sure enough either way to make any big calls or big laydowns based on this inkling.

I made it $60. He called, and based on the way that he didn’t fold and didn’t raise, I became more sure that he was on a draw, but not super sure. The turn paired the king. I didn’t think this was the kind of player who would call a half-pot-or-bigger bet here with a draw (possibly drawing dead), and I didn’t think he’d be able to contain himself if he had three kings, so when he checked the turn, I was ready. I bet $5 into the $150 pot. There were a couple snickers from the other end of the table, which is a common play from the kibitzers on a hand like this. The small blind took a little while here, I think he was tempted to raise, but then he just called the $5. The river was an offsuit ace. That card made a straight if he had QJ, and it made top pair if he had the nut flush draw, and when he checked, I didn’t get any kind of read on whether he had anything or not, so I went ahead and slung a $100 chip out there in case he did. He folded right away.

Soon after that I moved to a $5-10 blinds game. I bought in for the minimum $400. There was no maximum buy-in. Two rounds later, there was one guy whose stack had gone from $6,000 to $2,000 while I watched. He was frustrated and tilty. During his downswing, which spanned five flops, he had shown two hands to his neighbor before folding while saying, “So you think I’m running good?” This made me think he actually had run good to get up to $6,000, and his neighbor must have said something like “You’re running good.”

On my next button, I made my stack $2,000. I start many tables this way, buying in small and then adding on later. When I have the small stack, I play very few hands, and when I have the tall stack, I play a few extra pots against certain players. I don’t know what sort of image this rates to generate. What would you think?

The tilty guy opened for $40 UTG. Folded to me on the button. I had 86o. I called and both blinds folded. Headsup. We both had $2,000. This was the first hand of the session that I called preflop. (I had reraised preflop a couple times when my stack was $400, and everyone folded.)

The flop was 9-7-5 with two hearts, giving me the okeydokes. My opponent bet $100 into the $95 pot. I made it $300. Right away he said “Call” destitutely, and then he put two $100 bills in. Would he call like that with just two overcards? I didn’t think so. Would he just call with an overpair? I didn’t think so. So I had to put him on a flush draw. I was ready to bail if a heart came and he acted weak and bet strong. The turn was an offsuit deuce. He checked. I bet $700. “Call,” he said right away. Then he put the money out. The river was an offsuit three. The instant it hit the table, he pulled his cards up off the table so that his neighbor could see them and said, “Is this what you call running good?” I didn’t think he had even ace-high. If I had to guess his exact cards I would say jack-ten of hearts. He checked. I bet $10.

On June 19, I woke up in Ohio and I went to bed in California. Meanwhile, there were delays. My flight from Cleveland to Houston was a little late getting off the ground, which gave me only 20 minutes or so to walk from gate E14 to gate C32 at the Houston airport, a distance of eight restrooms and two Starbucks. When I got to gate C32, they were still boarding. I stood in line. I scuffled forward with my linemates. I handed my boarding pass to the attendant. The machine rejected my pass. “Where do you think you are going?” she asked. There have been many answers to this question over the years. Now I understand that there was, is, and forever shall be only one answer. “I am already there.” But I didn’t think that was the best answer in this situation, so I said, “San Francisco.” The attendant said, “Well this plane is going to New York. The gate for your flight has been changed. Your flight is departing from Gate 42. Walk back to the intersection and turn right.” She pointed toward a distant Starbucks.

I started walking like a trotting horse struggling to contain a gallop. Then I remembered. It’s all about just remembering. I remembered that nothing matters, as does everything. I remembered that if I miss my flight, I will retain total control over my own disappointment. I remembered that I have been training myself and taming myself for five years so that the thought of and the act of spending the night in an airport not only doesn’t hurt, but is actually perceived as and cashed in as an opportunity for even more training and more taming. Suddenly, I was walking calmly to gate 42, and I was smiling at people and myself, because I was free. There was nothing to fear at gate 42. So I was naturally experiencing the journey, because there was simply nothing else to do.

As I approached gate 42, I saw a standing crowd, so I knew my plane had not left yet. Years ago, I would have been walking quickly and nervously to gate 42, and upon seeing the crowd, I would have felt a huge sensation of relief. This time, seeing that I had not missed my flight gave me a very small tinge of relief, which I have come to understand to mean that I would have felt an equally small amount of anxiety had there been no crowd. And that’s what this is all about, this mindfulness thing. It’s about little or no anxiety or unhappiness about anything, even major physical damage or illness.

The woman with the microphone told us that the flight crew wasn’t here yet. The crew would be leaving nearby Hobby Airport soon and they’d be here in an hour or two. The crowd produced a collective groan. And now I had a fresh excuse to feel frustrated and disappointed. Which meant I had a new opportunity to put my training into practice. And I did. I stood tall, and I breathed in with full awareness that I was breathing in, and when I breathed out, I sent compassionate waves of understanding and mending to my crowd mates. It’s okay. It’ll be all right. We’ll get where we are going eventually. Let’s just relax together and enjoy the ride as best we can.