Nightmare Session With Hal

Lowball is generally a tame game, but every once in a while a complete maniac sits down. If the cards turn against me, it's a recipe for a nightmare session. It got to where I said to a friend, "It's raining chips, and my bucket's got a hole in it."

The action started in the must-move second game. At one point, the floorman said to me as I went to the refreshment station to get some water, "When's the last time you saw a game like this?" Not since the "good old days" when there were only lowball and draw games. What made things good was that Hal came into the club where I was playing lowball. I didn't know who he was at first; I just knew that someone whose play seemed very live was in the game already when I sat down. As soon as I figured out his play, I moved to just behind him, but that didn't last long, because soon he was moved to the main game. He seemed to have no conception of how to play lowball, although I discovered later that he's been playing the game for decades. Every time it was his turn, someone had to tell him it was up to him, what it would cost, how much if he wanted to raise, and so on.

Finally, I got moved to the main game, in seat No. 1, with Hal in seat No. 3. I immediately asked the floorman to put me on the seat change list, and started closely observing Hal's play, although I still didn't know who he was. I saw that I was second on the change list. Hal raised almost every pot he was in, and played more than three-fourths of the pots. The player in seat No. 4 went broke. I asked the guy who was up for the first change if he was going to take the seat, and, remarkably, he said no. In fact, when he finally did move, it was to seat No. 2! At some point, a new player sat down and introduced herself to Hal, and he said his name. Then things clicked. I hadn't recognized Hal because I had never played with him. I just remembered what my friend had told me. I hadn't played in the games my friend played in because they were too big for me. I asked Hal if he used to play at the no-limit place farther north, and he said he had. Hal used to be a regular in the biggest no-limit games there back in the early '80s and earlier. My friend had told me about this player named Hal who would come in with $2,000 or $3,000, often lose it in a few hands in the biggest game, and be on his merry way. Hal doesn't play limit regularly, or my friend, who had made a good living at the no-limit club for years but now works at a chip company and has no time for cards, says he would start playing cards again. I'd never seen him at the place I was in, but my friend says he saw Hal there once about three or four years ago.

Here's how Hal played: He always indicated ahead of time how many cards he was drawing by either pulling them right out of his hand or at least separating them. Knowing how many cards a lowball opponent will draw is a huge edge, particularly if that player keeps raising. He spread his cards out in front of him so that the players on either side couldn't miss seeing the whole hand. In fact, probably four players, two on each side, could see his cards. If someone opened, he almost always raised. If it was already raised, he reraised. On more than one occasion, he put in the fourth or fifth bet, almost always with this predeclaration of how many cards he was drawing, and it was often two or three. I heard that before I got there, he had beat someone's pat 7-5 by drawing three cards after first putting in four bets. He kept pulling a bankroll out of his pocket that would, as the saying goes, choke a horse, to buy more chips whenever he got below $1,000, and he'd get annoyed at the chip runner if the runner gave it all in $5 chips. I told the runner to give him half in $100 chips.

Here was the torture: He beat my pat 7-5 after putting in four bets and drawing two to make a bicycle. When he bet after the draw, I had a bad feeling and just called.

One pot in which I saw he was going to draw three cards, I had a one-card draw to a 6. He put in five bets before he quit raising – I wasn't going to quit. He drew three and I caught a 7. His three-card 7-5 beat the 7-6 I made. And, oh yes, these were all killed pots.

He had a pat 8-4 when I had a pat 8-5 and someone else was drawing to a 6. Since he wasn't indicating a draw, I stopped the raising at six bets just in case he "woke up with a hand," and just called his bet after the draw. The one-card draw had made an 8-6 and overcalled, generating an $840 pot.

I had a 9-6 when I saw Hal would be drawing two to a 7 – he had a 7 prominently displayed in the door and had already set his two draw cards on the table. But when I raised, Hal reraised on general principle. I kept raising, and Gus, the guy who had opened – yes, there was someone else in the pot – kept calling along. I knew I wouldn't get him out, and, despite knowing I had the best of it, didn't want to lose that much on a 9, so I stopped raising at six bets. Gus fooled me and drew two cards, however, as did Hal, so I didn't even have to think about whether to break the 9. Nonlowball players need the slight explanation that against a one-card draw and a two-card draw, whether to stand pat on a 9-6 or throw the 9 and draw one to the 6 is a close decision, but against two two-card draws, breaking a 9 is by far the worse choice. After the draw, everyone checked, and I loved it as I spread my 9-6-5-4-2. But Gus had made a two-card 9-6-4-2-A. He had been drawing to what he claimed was his "favorite hand," 6-4-joker. Hal missed his hand completely, but I still didn't get the pot. Lovely. Hal indirectly cost me an extra $200, because in a "normal game," Hal would not have opened, so I would not have raised, and Gus would have just called with his two-card draw in the middle blind and checked after the draw, and I still would have shown down the hand. I'm happy for players to make those lucky draws, of course, because it gives them the confidence to put in lots of bets on other occasions on the same attempts, but of course I'm not that pleased when it happens against me. And Gus won two other monster pots from me when I had by far the best of it. Gus is obviously another live one. Putting in six bets to draw two cards is not an optimal lowball play.

And, oh yes, a little while later, Hal beat another 7 for me on a four-card draw.

Hal kept buying more chips, finding a new stash in his pocket each time. His last buy-in was with a huge stack of twenties. During the span of a few hours, he bought $5,000 worth of chips. He was cussing everyone out except me and Bob, that guy who had moved to seat No. 2 but eventually got so fattened up (partly by me) he had to leave. We were both patiently helping Hal, telling him all of his options every single hand. Hal also could not distinguish among the various chips. He kept winning huge pots with various denomination chips – hundreds, twenties, fives intermingled – and we both helped him separate them into appropriate stacks. For a long time, Hal didn't kill pots, but he suddenly realized he could. In this club, you can look at the first two cards, and if you like them, double the stakes. Ace-Joker are two nice cards to start with, and if I get them, I usually kill the pot. Hal didn't want to be confused by seeing his first two cards, however, and said to the dealer before the cards were dealt, "I want to double it." He killed about every other pot that way. I had three pat sixes during the session, and I did win nice pots with two of them, although never as big as the monsters I was involved in and lost.

Bob, who is reasonably tight, gives no action, and spends all of his time whining about his bad beats, had won a few pots and killed the pot on the button. Gus opened. Hal called from the middle blind. I had a pat straight 6 (6-5-4-3-2) in the big blind and raised. The action then went to Bob, the killer on the button. He reraised. Gus, the opener, one of my nemeses for the evening, called. Hal must have had a four-card draw, because he folded. I reraised. Bob reraised. Gus called two more bets. Now people tell me I made a mistake. I wasn't familiar enough with Bob's play. I should have just called at that time, but I thought Bob would make that play (putting in the third bet) with a 7. According to some of the game's regulars, though, he wouldn't. I reraised. Bob reraised. As Bob put in his last raise, he said, "I guess we all have sixes." That worried me. I knew I was in trouble. Gus called two more bets. I called. I was pat. Gus took one. Bob was pat. I seriously considered checking, but I didn't want to look like a wuss by checking a 6 if he had a 7, so I bet. Gus folded. Bob, of course, raised, and I unhappily called. I lost three more bets than I should have had I been more familiar with his play. And, of course, Bob had a pat wheel – and he left a round later. He couldn't stand prosperity. Myself, I'd've stuck around at that point to see if I might win something. The killed pot, seven bets before the draw times three, one extra from Hal, and four bets after made it a $1,040 pot, one of the biggest I've been involved in in a $20-limit game.

When Hal got down to $300, he got angry and asked to move to a $6-$12 hold'em game. One of the lowball players followed him over, and said Hal tried to buy $1,000 worth of $2 chips, on top of the $300 in chips he brought over. The dealer insisted he did not need that many, and finally they compromised on Hal buying two racks, $400. I don't know where the extra $1,000 in cash came from; I had thought the wad of twenties on his last lowball buy-in was the bottom of the barrel.

Hal didn't like that game, and soon I saw his name second on the waiting list for lowball. Everyone in my game, which continued to be good with the stimulus of Hal's money, was drooling, but I didn't think he'd make it. He didn't. His nephew had driven him to the club, because Hal was too drunk to drive. The nephew had dropped by the table every hour or so and tried to get Hal to leave the game, the first two times to have dinner in the restaurant, and thereafter just to go home. Hal kept telling him to go away, and ate a meal at the table. All along, he was tipping waitresses $10 to $25 for service. When he liked a dealer, he gave that dealer $20 at the end of the dealer's down. I think that was just females, because he kept complaining about the male dealers' nitpicking adherence to rules, such as trying to tell him not to expose his cards or to fold in turn. At one point he said, "I can do whatever I damn well please." I truly think he felt it his mission in life to spread money around and make himself unpleasant, and I think he knew people would cater to him because of the largesse. He asked me about four times if the club we were in closed at 2 a.m. When I said no, and that we'd likely play all night, he said that was great and he wanted to play all night, too. Yummy. His nephew finally dragged him out at about 2 a.m. or 3 a.m. When I later told my electronics friend about the evening's adventures, he said he thinks the nephew was sticking around because he wants to get his hands on Hal's money. Hal at one point remarked that he used to shoot people like one of the dealers. That seemed sort of an off-the-wall statement, so I countered by asking if he was a professional assassin or hunter, and he said that he had been with the 44th in World War II, and volunteered his age, 79.

The nightmare? All told, I was involved in six or seven pots that together added up to more than $4,000. Except for my 6 against the pat wheel, I had the best of it on all of them, and even there, the a priori situation was still in my favor. Had I won 75 percent of those pots, which is not unreasonable, instead of losing $140 for the night, I would have won $3,000. Maybe I need to play in more tight games.