Oh, What a Tangled Web We Weave…
In this week’s column I’d like to take a look at the time honored tactic of being a deceitful, scheming, manipulating, all-around scallywag and scoundrel, which in everyday life would not tend to make one a really…well…nice person. Yet in the wonderful world of poker this same tactic can, and sometimes does, create legends.
Pretty much every poker player is fully aware of what a bluff is. Almost everybody has tried one or two, and either gotten away with it, or got busted. On the other hand, just about everybody has been a victim of, or busted somebody else in the act of bluffing. Yet when you get down to brass tacks, setting up and carrying through a good bluff is basically creating a deception. It is with the deception aspect in mind, that I am sharing a “bluff” that I was once the victim of, and since that game (about a million hands ago) have also used a time or two.
At the outset, I must warn you. Though this particular bluffing scenario is legal, it is a dirty, low-down sneaky move that can only be used once in any given game or tournament, and will sometimes make people seriously mad. So I caution you to only use this particular “trap,” if you have, (in the immortal words of inveterate and legendary gambler Doc Holliday) “a good partner, a comfortable saddle, and one hell of a fast horse.”
In some circles it is called, “The Limping Duck.” As previously mentioned, the first time I became aware of The Limping Duck, was when I was a victim. At the time I was just learning to play poker, and as we all know, those lessons can be quite expensive now and then. When I first realized I had been caught by the Duck, I was pretty darn angry. I confronted the player who pulled it off, and after a good ten minutes worth of listening to my theories on his honesty, integrity, physical appearance, family lineage and suspected sexual orientation, he chuckled softly, offered me breakfast and then gave me one of the most important lessons in poker I have ever had. It was in Deadwood, South Dakota, and no, I won’t tell you who it was, but yes, he is a famous poker player.
All this being said, I will add a critical element. Though the Duck will work in just about any single game or tournament, it will only work at it’s most effective once, and works best in a high-stakes or no-limit games. Please, do NOT try this either more than once in any one situation and NEVER on TV. Of course, unless I’m the one playing your chips, I can’t tell you what to do, but for reasons that will become self-evident, this paragraph will make much more sense later. The Duck works like this:
First, you need to be playing “in persona”. Preferably in a casino, or other “brick-and-mortar” situation where there is a separate poker room that serves drinks. Second, a little scouting is in order. You need to find a table with tight, aggressive players, a fairly loose complexion with a lot of “chippage” exchanging stacks on good hands. And third, you need to find out who is the head cocktail waitress for the card room. Once you have found out these three bits of poker “intel,” you are ready to proceed.
Next, you need to get yourself situated into the card-room, the aforementioned game and buy yourself a good stack of chips. Since you’re only going to be doing this in very limited circumstances, you want to maximize the take.
Prior to sitting at the table, you need to have a private talk with the person who will be servicing the drinks at the table upon which you will be playing. A $50 tip will usually suffice for most situations, but don’t be miserly. If the projected take is going to be of substance (as it should be) adjust your tip accordingly.
Ask your server to remember you and/or pass the info to whomever may relieve that server in the next few hours, and give them the following instructions: Each time they come through asking for drink orders, and you order a “Double Wild Turkey with a Water Back (substitute any high-test straight whiskey drink along with your personal preference of drink choice) arrange for the server to put a tablespoon of cola syrup into a double glass with two shots of plain water and a regular glass of whatever you want for a backer. To everyone else, this will look just like high-test whiskey doubles.
Play conservatively for the first hour or so, all the while ordering your Double Whatever about every ten to fifteen minutes. Or faster if you choose, since you aren’t going to be getting drunk anyway. And slowly loosen your game a bit as each double-shot is consumed.
Inside of an hour or so, you are going to “appear” to get rather inebriated, and those tight, aggressive players are going to do their darndest to take advantage of this “fact.” You need to be quite patient, because you are looking for a specific scenario to develop. Don’t “over-act” your level of inebriation. This would be similar to the tired old hustle that starts out with, “Now how much are these chips worth? I’ve never played this game before.” That’s a bluff, too, but mostly everybody who’s anybody has already heard that one a few hundred times or so.
As you deepen your involvement in the game, you are waiting for a hand, (or two) that has all the aggressive players in a lather, with you calling right along, while you have NO CHANCE IN HELL of catching up. If its not too spendy, you might even take your “drawing-dead” hand and raise at the end. When the showdown comes and you are (quite naturally) beaten every which way from Sunday, throw your dead hand face up on the table with authority, then look blearily confused when you have the worst hand in poker history. The bobber’s in the water, and the sharks are now sniffing hungrily at the bait.
Now is where your skills as a poker player truly come in to play. For the next couple of hours, you need to rely on all the acting skills any good poker player develops, because you are going to play tight as a drum, but on any made-hand flop, raise with abandon! Because to those wolves there at the table waiting to pluck and feather you for being stupid enough to play when you’re drunk as a lord, you look just like a limping duck out on the lonesome prairie, you cannot run a bluff. They will call any raise you make, especially after your “set-up” hand.
Again, once you’ve set yourself up as The Limping Duck you cannot bluff anymore. Unless the wolves need a little refresher, avoid the bluff from this point on, and ONLY play hands that begin with premium cards and are made on the flop. Tossing a bunch of hands away in “drunken” disgust will not depreciate the value of the appearance you have created. When you do get dealt premium cards, then flop the nuts, you are still going to get lots of opportunistic individuals just slavering to take advantage of your “debilitation.”
Sure, you might get rivered a time or two by the suck-out artists, since collusionary calling is going to be the order of the day whenever you bet wildly, but on those times a bit of feigned “drunken disgust” just adds to the deceptive appearance. Or “bluff” if you prefer.
Within the next couple hours, by playing only premium hands made on the flop, hands that are the nuts on the flop, and avoiding marginal hands altogether, with a bit of luck, skill and patience this particular game should pay off extremely well. No matter what, it is going to be very educational for you as well as for the opportunistic wolves themselves.
If you, like me, are one of those sorts of people who just can’t let the bad guys get away, once you’ve “colored-up and amassed your impressive stack of racks of chips, you stand suddenly stand up, rake in your last gigantic pot of the game, then sober as a judge, look at the wolves and other players, and say, “Thank you ladies and gentlemen, it’s been a very educational evening!” Of course, now is when you need a good partner to slow up any of the wolves who have a hard time with getting hoist upon their own petards while you head for that aforementioned fast horse with the comfortable saddle. Make sure you make it, safely.
If they are anything like me, they’ll shake their heads and ruefully laugh about it in a year or two. Or so. Maybe. And from a one-time victim to a once-in-a-while perpetrator, I can promise you this. You all will have a very educational evening.”
Okay, all…I ‘spect I’ve stirred up enough stuff for this week, so I will close, and do my best to prepare myself for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday. I’m going to be eating a lot of turkey, looking for a few turkeys, and who knows, if I find a lot of wolves, I might even become a Limping Duck for a few hours. Heh heh heh.
Happy Thanksgiving!
