Playing poker with Alfonse...

...is a one-of-a-kind experience. The Alfonse I am talking about is of course Alfonse Silvestri, one of the stars of last year's New York-Boston Poker Challenge. Here is a clip of Alfonse muttering about busting out of that event. Alfonse seems to spend all of his time in one of the many underground New York poker clubs (he used to focus his playing energies on beating the games at Playstation, but most recently I saw him at the new club Broadway), providing a running commentary of every hand and losing all of his chips at least three times every night.

One hand a couple of nights ago was particularly interesting for the manner in which Alfonse tried to flaunt the generally accepted rules of poker. This took place during the $1-$2 blinds no-limit Texas Hold 'em game. The pot was around $25 and a flop of AKx was checked around when a J came on the turn. One gentleman bet $15, when Alfonse, next to act raised to $85. Everyone else folded, and the original bettor reluctantly called. The river was a total blank and it was checked to Alfonse, who fired in a bet of $75. Now, the other player clearly did not want to call this bet, but he took his time in thinking about it, to the point where Alfonse started offering to lower his bet to $50, then to $25! Of course everyone else at the table objected to this bargaining, so Alfonse then told the other guy to throw in the whole $75, but then he would give back $50 to his "friend" after the hand. And this was what transpired, as Alfonse quickly turned over QT for the nuts and scooped the pot before paying his "friend" back. Even though he clearly had the nuts, it would have been awesome to see Alfonse turn over a pair of jacks or something...

One last poker comment I want to make is about the propensity for people at a table to say "nice hand" to other players when they are not even involved in the hand. It's one thing to say this when someone truly makes a smart play, but another thing altogether to say it after someone gives another player a bad beat. Anyone who plays in card rooms has surely heard this kind of thing very often and it is a pet peeve of mine...