This morning, I helped start a $3/5 NL Hold’em game at my local club. I noticed a kid sit down in the #3 seat. He had loose-fitting clothes, dreadlocks, and an earring. But there was something about him, a certain vibe, that caught my attention.
A brief tangent: I’m a scuba diver, and one of my favorite things to see underwater is sharks. Why? Because when you see a shark swim over a reef, you’re witnessing 300 million years of evolution. They’re elegant, efficient, and absolutely at home in their environment. They exude confidence, knowing they belong at the top of the food chain.
That’s the aura this kid gave off as he arranged his chips and adjusted his earbuds. He was as comfortable in that seat as a gray reef shark is in the ocean. I wish I could be more specific, but I had this feeling in my gut, sitting in the #3 seat, thinking, “I’d rather be in the #4 seat.”
The game was playing $3/5/10 thanks to a $10 winner straddle, and for the next three hours, this kid demonstrated a clinic in selective hyper-aggression. He didn’t play many pots, but when he did, he was all in—bet, bet, bet. The regulars were clueless about how to handle him.
The $100 chips at this club are oversized and white, and the kid started with five of them (max buy-in is $1k). He quickly grew his stack to ten, and was tossing those chips into the pot with a carefree attitude, like he was tossing breath mints across the table. It was fascinating to watch. The others would call the flop, maybe call one or two “breath mints” on the turn, thinking he’d slow down. Then, bam—four breath mints on the river, and they folded.
I got deep stuck early, but managed to win a few pots by letting BreathMintMan bet at me for a couple of streets. When he checked the river, I’d bet three breath mints, and he’d fold.
After winning two dealer-change bomb pots, I found myself with a $2.5k stack, while BreathMintMan was sitting pretty with $3k. The only difference was that most of his stack was profit.
Then there was the guy on my immediate left, who had been burning money at a rapid pace—$200 (the minimum buy-in) at a time. He’d just doubled up and was sitting on $500. Three people limped, and I made it $70 to go with A♣J♣ in the cutoff. Pyromaniac and two others called, including BreathMintMan.
With $280 in the pot, the flop came down T♣5♦️2♣, a great hit for me. It checked to me, and I bet $150. Pyromaniac snap-called, and the other two folded. I was glad to see BreathMintMan out of the pot—he could easily have check-raised me with a few breath mints, and that would’ve put me in a very uncomfortable spot.
With $580 in the pot going to the turn, the 7♣ hit—making me the nuts. I whispered a silent prayer to the poker gods and checked. Pyromaniac immediately tossed in his “All-in” button. I snap-called and turned up my hand—whatever he had, he was drawing dead. He decided it wasn’t his day and left the table. The game was about to get a lot worse.
Now sitting on $3k, BreathMintMan moved to the #5 seat, directly to my left. I took this as a compliment, assuming he was tired of being on my right and wanted to turn the tables.
I played two more hands, then decided it was time to leave. No, I didn’t even play to my blinds. There was no universe in which I wanted to sit 300 big blinds deep with this aggressive shark on my immediate left. If he thought it was a compliment that I left rather than sit on his right, that’s fine with me.
He was welcome to spend the afternoon tossing breath mints at other players.
