That is awful, reminds me of the guy in a nice restaurant talking on his phone and ruining the table experience for everyone around in the surrounding tables just trying to enjoy themselves. Hopefully Druff has learned what terrible and ghetto behavior that is. I mean are you so fucking self important you cannot get up and go into a quiet area and make your call and return? I was at an Applebees a few weeks ago sitting at the bar for lunch and some Indian guy decided to face time at the bar with his wife, give me a fucking break, that accent blaring on the phone. I made it clear when I asked for my check I would stay longer but I am sick of hearing about this fucking guys conversation with his wife. He heard it and looked up and went right back to his face time. It's just unreal the lack of class people have nowadays. Like I said hopefully Druff has learned just how obnoxious that conduct is.
"Birds born in a cage think flying is an illness." - Alejandro Jodorowsky
"America is not so much a nightmare as a non-dream. The American non-dream is precisely a move to wipe the dream out of existence. The dream is a spontaneous happening and therefore dangerous to a control system set up by the non-dreamers." -- William S. Burroughs
Live poker is very slow. Once you get a feel for the table, being on your phone is fine.
Some days I play live and feel social, and almost never use my phone. Other days I just want to play and not talk to anyone, so I'm on it constantly once I'm there.
In the Kalam situation, I must have been on an important call, or I would have hung up with the person after a short time. I wonder who it was.
Also, in limit holdem there's less to worry about missing, as each decision is of a fixed bet size. I find it more important to observe the players closely when I play an NL tournament, or even NL cash.
I told Kalam when he DM'd me later (I think weeks or months later) that he should have just interrupted what I was doing and said hello. Would have been happy to meet a longtime PFA member no matter what I was doing.
BTW, my PFA hat got me a regular radio listener at a Commerce limit game in 2019. A guy next to me asked about the Poker Fraud Alert on my hat, so I told him. A few months later he saw me at Commerce again, and he told me that he checked out the show, loved it, and never misses an episode. He still listens to this day. The way the show gets most of its new listeners is from either search in podcast apps, or people who find it because I'm covering a large controversy.
I don't know what I did back then, but these days I will jump up from the table and step away when on the phone. At worst, I'll put the person on hold while I play hands, but otherwise jump up between them and move away, so nobody has to be stuck listening to me.
I did this a few months ago while at Commerce -- when it was an important call, but someone who knows me personally, so they could wait during the (short lasting) limit hands I was playing.
Obviously if on with a business I have to just leave the table.
Oh, this phone story reminds me of another game from 2021. I know I've told this story before, but I'll add an additional detail I don't think I posted.
I was playing 40-80 at Bellagio in June 2021. WSOP was not going because it was delayed that year, due to COVID. I ran awful, and was down $4k. Then the game broke. I was about to dejectedly walk back to my room, but then a young dude showed up and asked if I wanted to play heads up. I had no idea who he was, but figured my heads up skill had to be at least equal to or better than his, so I said yes.
He then said, "Okay, great! I'm going to drink a lot, so I hope you don't mind!"
I thought to myself, "Oh shit. It's probably a fake drunk who probably holds his liquor well, and is going to feign drunkenness in order to throw me off with judging his play."
The only reason we were able to get this table started was because the dealer hadn't left yet. So we got going, and indeed, the guy ordered drinks and was downing them. However... his playstlye was NOT aggressive at all. In fact, he was overly tight. He wasn't bad, just very tight. At this rate, I could probably step up the aggression and grind him down for a small profit, but there was no way I was going to get $4k back! He just didn't like putting chips in the pot. Totally NOT what I expected. He said he was from Arizona, by the way.
About 2 hours passed. We were close to even with each other the entire way. He had knocked back SO many drinks, but nothing changed. Still tight. Still softspoken and polite. It was like he was drinking water.
Then, just as I was considering giving up and calling it a day (it was like 5am and I was tired), suddenly a switch flipped in the guy's brain and he completely changed. He started slurring his words, playing hyper aggro, and having trouble handling the chips. At first I thought it was an act, but no. For whatever reason, he had huge alcohol tolerance to a point, and then suddenly the dam broke.
About 15 minutes later, a young Asian guy showed up. He asked if he could join us, and I said sure. The Arizona guy asked, "Want me to order you a drink?", and the Asian guy responded, "No thanks, I don't drink."
I asked the Asian guy where he was from, he said LA. I thought, "Hmmm.. never seen him before, but maybe we play at different times of the day or something."
I assumed he would be good, and probably compete for Drunk Guy's money.
Nope!
The Asian guy was an absolute maniac. He was auto-raising preflop with almost any two cards, and then doing the same on the flop, even if he missed. The drunk guy got inspired by this and started doing the same. Were they secret friends colluding? No. They weren't doing it in a way to knock me out of hands, especially once it was clear I was wise to it and kept raising them back whenever I had something (which I realized very quickly). I kid you not when I tell you that, on some boards, I was 5-betting the flop with bottom pair -- and winning without improving.
But I wasn't just quietly doing this and taking their money. I was loud and boisterous like they were, and forcing myself to smile and laugh when I would take bad beats on the river in huge pots. I would also encourage action by announcing things preflop like, "Okay I know I'm getting this one. I'm like 95% sure I'm raising the flop no matter what you guys do", and then would follow up and do so (and not just when I have obvious hands to do that with, like KK).
Anyway, they were loving it. The Asian guy was an action junkie. The drunk guy loved all the craziness and the banter. And while I took some awful beats for a lot of money, overall I was slowly crushing the game, playing the role of a fellow maniac, but timing my aggression smartly based upon board texture and the playstyle of these two guys. I got my $4k back, and right around then an old guy showed up -- a tight tourist who was used to waking up early, and came down to find a game. He was absolutely shocked by the game, and didn't know how to handle it. I could tell he was pissed off.
But here's where the phone came in. A Bellagio regular showed up, and sat in the game as the 5th player. He also shows up early. I won't name him, because he's otherwise a fairly nice guy and well liked there. But he's very tight and nitty and is sometimes a downer to action games like these. And that's what he was doing here. Well, the drunk guy was having none of this, and was in worse condition than ever. He was sleeping in between hands, but very boisterous in the hands he played. He even had a lot of his cash mixed in with the lettuce in the salad he ordered -- something I took a picture of and kept laughing at during the game. He kept taunting and mocking this nitty reg, and the reg was just taking it. Well, then the reg got on a LONG phone call, trying to help some family friend of his -- an old woman named Trish. I guess Trish was in a nursing home or something, and there was some issue there. The reg made no effort to speak softly or leave the table. The drunk guy started yelling in the background about "Trish" in order to annoy him, and then I joined in, though much less obnoxiously. When the three of us were in a hand together, with this guy STILL on the phone, I said something like, "Come on... win this one for Trish! Don't let her down!"
Anyway, shortly after that, the game became 9-handed, plus the drunk guy was so tired that his action dried up, and the Asian guy busted and left.
Honestly was one of the more fun live sessions I've had in my life. And I ended up winning almost $2k after being down $4k, which at 40-80 live, is quite tough to do.
Whatever happened of putting your phone on silent and once an hour check it to see if you got a text or missed call, calmly get up and take care of your business in a private area? It just amazes me the lack of social awareness and general courtesy people have nowadays. I was on a plane a few months ago, and we got stuck on the tarmac for like an hour. Everyone was pissed, it was hot and you could have heard a pin drop. Then a lady with a booming voice hops on the phone and proceeds to have a 20 minute conversation that the whole plane could hear. The lady next to me said 'you can't buy class', she was right. Of course when she got up when the flight finally landed, it was what you expected, big fat ass, nose ring, etc.. I have never understood what is so important in people's lives they decide its ok to be fucking obnoxious to everyone else. No offense Druff but if you are constantly bouncing up and down from poker tables taking calls, you are far too important and busy to sit with commoners. WTF is going on in your life you can't play three hours of uninterrupted poker?
And one more thing to you uncourteous shitbags out there. When you are in a restaurant, or a relatively quiet place with others, no its not fucking ok to light up a you tube video on your phone, blaring a max volume. WTF is the matter with you? I think I was born in the wrong era, I should have been born in the 1800s.
PokerFraudAlert...will never censor your claims, even if they're against one of our sponsors. In addition to providing you an open forum report fraud within the poker community, we will also analyze your claims with a clear head an unbiased point of view. And, of course, the accused will always have the floor to defend themselves.-Dan Druff
Druff has never talked about his own poker playing and I’m enjoying it far more than the poker twitter drama.
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