True Dat Two Dat

"You see that guy over there?"

"Sure. Couldn't miss him. His face is all flushed and he keeps looking at his reflection in the bar mirror. He's been acting like somebody gave him a big check and offered him oral pleasure."

"That's Otis, dude."

"No way. The way I hear it, every time Otis starts to look like that, something bad happens."

"They call it the Otis Choke."

"Yeah, man. The Otis Choke. That's some scary stuff."

In short, friends, the Otis Choke is the stuff of legend. It's like watching a fawn tread on a hockey rink. It's sort of pretty, sort of silly, and bound to end in ass-crunching disaster.

My lengendary status as a last-minute Choker didn't begin in poker. It reaches back to my childhood, to high-stakes games of House Rules Monopoly, to games of Buffalo Ball in the driveway, to weekend-long Frolf tournaments.

No matter how well I perform, no matter how large my man-parts seem, no matter how strong an opponent I am besting, in the end something painful and heart-wrenching will happen. Something no one expects. I trip and break my nose. My big toes fall off in unison. I get distracted by a passing turtle and cold call a capped bet with 3-6 off.

Keeping all of that in mind, I tempted the Otis Choke Steering Committee with my last post here at Up For Poker. In it I described the sea of fish at True Poker and my recent streak, in which I turned a $20+$2 buy-in tourney into a $196 win, then parlayed that win into $400 playing only $1/$2 limit hold'em.

Simply stating that should've been enough to melt my computer hard drive and get three speeding tickets. I should've been rebuying within 48 hours. And then something odd happened.

I kept winning. And kept winning.

I kept grinding at $1/$2 and built the bankroll to $500. I had no intention of moving up to $2/$4 until I hit $600. That would've been a safe 150 big bets. But yesterday morning my wife got called into work at around 5:30am. I couldn't go back to sleep and hopped on TP. Nobody was playing $1/$2. Nobody.

The Shoulder Devil couldn't sleep either. He'd been up all night snorting coke with Keith Richards. He sat on my shoulder, tapping his fingers on my noggin, and whispering "do-it-do-it-do-it-do-it...where's keith, keith stole my dope, do-it-do-it-do-it."

So, I sat down.

Now, it's not like $2/$4 is some vast wasteland of pirates and sharks. I know that. It's low-rolling just like $1/$2. But simply going up in limits before I intended to was enough to get the Otis Choke Train (by Hasbro) rolling.

Then a funny thing happened. I kept winning.

Between yesterday morning and right now (Sunday at 6pm), I've been winning.

A quick check of my bankroll shows that I have turned my initial $22 buy-in into $939...plus my $2 big blind.

There are three possible explanations for this:

1) The True Poker $2/$4 Fish are swimming in the same water as the $1/$2 fish.
2) The Otis Choke Steering Committee was still sleeping when I jumped limits yesterday and now figures to wait until I prematurely jump to $3/$6 before ruining my life.
3) While inebriated Friday night, I accidentally sold my soul to the Shoulder Devil (I was wondering where he got the booty to buy the blow).

There is also the possiblity that I'm playing a little bit better poker. Since True Poker only allows me to play one table at a time, I'm getting better reads on individual players. There are also fewer players at True, so I'm playing against the same people a lot more than I did at UB. That also allows for better reads. I'm also developing a reputation for strong play and I've found the tight players who will fold to a well-timed raise. Lastly, most people low-rolling at True are doing it with pathetic bankrolls. The $2/$4 table I'm on right now has players with bankrolls of $34, $10, and $60. That's not many big bets and it looks to me like they are playing poker like you might play blackjack at the end of a long night. All of it on two hands and hope.

I'd allow this post to continue, but I hear the Shoulder Devil on the phone. He just called the Otis Choke Steering Committee and suggested they meet for dinner.

Read: The next post from me should be titled "Here's How I Blew It."

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