Match-o-Matic

A former co-worker/poker player buddy is in town this week and I offered him up a seat in my Thursday night home game. He accepted, and with the agreement of the regular round of players, Thursday promises to be another good night. You see, this former co-worker had a nickname:

"Match-o-matic."

We have a game called Criss Cross where you lay 5 cards down in a cross-shape and deal 4 cards to each player. There are no wild cards, and after each community card from the cross is flipped there is a round of betting. The catch is that if you stick around to see the middle and final card but lose, you have to match the pot. We usually limit the amount of the match to $20 so as not to get too carried away.

My friend the Match-o-matic used to call and see that final card way too often. The times he'd catch his 4 or 5 outer would invariably piss someone off and he'd be proud of his play.

Unfortunately for Match-o-matic, he now has an account at Party Poker. He's what you'd now call a Calling Station or River Chaser. Regardless, the Match-o-matic is down several G's with his style of play. I'm not sure he plans on changing it, nor if he knows something is amiss with his strategy.

What I do know is that he will have a lot of fun at our home game, and the other players will have a lot of fun having him around. My prediction is that he'll catch his outers against me and I'll regret bringing him.

If he does, he'll be buying several rounds of you-know-whats at Nepals.

Postscript: I believe I've ended several posts with references to Nepals. If you've been, you know why. If not, you need to go.