Donkey Socialism

Tax the rich, and give it the poor. It’s never really been my motto, but since I was team captain at the Loose Cannon team event last night, I used this as an excuse to reallocate chips between my squad members with the fervour of Denis Healy on a 1970s budget day. The “lucky” subjects in my kingdom were Shazbo, Volcano and the Big R.

The rules were as follows: All members would be on a separate table, and those tables would play until there were 5 players remaining. At a break, if any of your players had been resourceful enough to gather any excess chips, a captain could redistribute funds to the underachieving members of the team. It was a £40 buy in, £20 going to the team fund and £20 to the individual fund. All clear? Off we go…

Hands 1-3
I lose a succession of hands to the wise old owl Houghton with top pair but being outkicked. A valuable lesson in not playing such garbage as K9, K5 and J7 ahead of WSOP. Hmm - maybe I shouldn’t have read the Gus Hansen book Fluke lent me - down to 3k.

Hand4
1 limper UTG and I flat call in mid position with AQ, blinds are 100-200. The blinds come along for the ride.

Flop Q, 2, 3 rainbow

I bet 600, and the UTG raiser pushes for 1300 total and I have to call and get shown a set of 3s to be drawing extremely thin.

What’s this though? It’s break time, and with a combination of resourcefulness and hard work the Volcano has worked his way up to 13k in chips in the first hour. Since I am only on a thousand, I move straight into Denis Healy mode, and go over to correct this social injustice. In the blink of a tax inspector’s eye, both myself and the Big R are back up to our original starting stacks. Shazbo has climbed to 6.5k, but I deem this to be just below the tax band.

A number of hands pass through uneventfully, and I am back down to 2.8k when this happens:

Hand5
There is an early limper and I go to limp with J7. However, since I am a layabout and general unproductive member of my mini poker economy, I am not concentrating properly and throw in three 500 chips in error, hence accidentally raising to 1500 with my dreadful hand. The limper goes to re-raise but he screws it up as well and it goes as a call. High class poker…

Flop 8, King, Ace

I have no option but to push for my last 1300 and try and carry off my pre-flop agression. Hallelujah - the early limper has a set of 8s and I get ready to leave the table as I only have 300 chips left.

However, very next hand, two big stacks go head to head and we are down to 5 players and action on our table stops. I cast my beady eye over to Volcano’s stack, and notice he has played well once again and is back up to 13k. I lick my lips and the prospect of my imminent new found wealth. The Volcano looks resigned as I approach his table and reward his endevours with another thumping tax.

Shazbo is out to a very bad call - she moved in with KK and was called with AJ. When the Ace hits, the villain fist pumps and shouts “Yes - Good Call”. I guess we could all make “good calls” if we knew what was coming on the flop mate.

My all seeing eye also notices that the Big R has also built himself up to about 9k, so I go and take a few thousand off him as well to balance the social scales. All is well in the layabout leader’s world, as I have 5k to take into the next session, whilst my subjects for some reason seem slightly demotivated.

Blinds are now 300-600

Hand6
Folded to me in late position and I push with 9♠4♠ to pick up the blinds. BB calls with AK but I hit a 9 on the river to cripple him…oh yeah I’m playing well tonight. ;)

Hand7
I sit out a couple of orbits, and miss a few flops and the blinds are now 400-800 and I have about 8k. I raise UTG+1 with Kd10h to 2.5k (we are playing 6 handed). Jody pushes all in for 18k. I know I am losing, but the blinds are so big and there are still about 30 players left. I decide I have to gamble or I am a sitting duck, and Jody caps my great night by flipping AK which dominates me. It holds up.

So it came to pass…with a starting stack of 4k I exited the tournament having burned through 13k. For the Volcano it was the evening of discontent…