It has been a while since your have had a playable hand, and your supporters are antsy. But now you have a low pocket pair- the six of diamonds and the six of hearts. You push the betting pre-flop, and then it happens- the House flops an AK of diamonds and a K of clubs. You did what you could with your hand, but events beyond your control have left you in a really weak spot right now.
You are now out of position, you don’t have many outs, but the crowd is not cutting you any slack. Do you check, and try to limp into the turn to see what the Senate does there and on the river? That would be the smart play- the pot payoff is too low, the stakes are too high, and you need to get to the final table before you are in the money. Additionally, you don’t have much of a chip lead, as you spent the last few hours whittling away a really tenacious opponent, and while you eventually knocked her out of the game, others around you were growing strong as well, so you have to spend your chips wisely. But who knows, maybe something game changing will happen on the turn (a Feingold filibuster is sustained?).
Or do you, inexplicably, go all in? Just on the principle, and nothing else, because you really have no control over what the other players do and what happens on the turn and the river. That is what the crowd wants. They are catcalling and jeering, telling you to do it.
Choose wisely. Losing the hand will be bad, but knocking yourself out of the game before the final table would be worse, even if the crowd does not understand it.
Consider this an open thread, and no doubt one which will be marred by the inability to separate the politics of the FISA situation from the contents of the bill.
*** Update ***
Bonus poem my mother taught us all as we were learning to drive:
He was right, dead right
as he drove along.
But he is just as dead
as if he’d been wrong.
