Live poker!

So, the career as a poker professional is officially over. Nothing too massive to report on that front, just a combination of an epic downswing with a lack of enthusiasm for the game, the grind, the variance, and the uncertainty. I began searching for a real job (i.e. one that utilizes my degree and experience) - "I decided it was time to get a grown-up job again" is my line to my friends and coworkers - and started some contract engineering work for a packaging company based in Canada. It's not the most scintillating of work - controlling a bunch of conveyors, mostly - but it pays the rent and is steady money, and still affords me decent stretches of free time. The goal is to get into full-time employment, but until then I'm in a pretty good spot. I've moved back up to the Fox Valley in Wisconsin, where I spent three years from 2001-2004, which I can say without reservation was the happiest I've been in my post-college life.

There are also a few casinos in the area, and in this most recent stretch of downtime, I found an opportunity to make the half hour drive up to Green Bay and sit in the $1-3NL game at a local Indian casino.

I've missed live poker. It's something that I pretty aggressively eschewed while I was trying to make a living at the game, since I didn't have the bankroll to play at any stakes that really could have made up for the slow rate of play and lack of multitabling, but I always did enjoy it. For one, the quality of play is just abysmal. Even the more competent players pretty much suck, and would get torn to pieces even at 100NL online.

So I get my seat at the table at around 1pm, seat 6 at the 1-3 table, buy in for $300, at take note of my opposition. Nothing to be worried about. Only the kid to my left, in Seat 7, a geeky-looking kid with a quiet demeanor, seemed to have any competence whatsoever.

Seat 1 was an absolute whale, a fat, jowly, quick-to-tilt businessman who was constitutionally incapable of folding any hand that made any contact with the board, for any price.

Seat 10 was a young, aggressive (read: maniac) Asian kid who berated Seat 7 for folding JQo UTG. "What are you waiting to play, aces?" he asked. I chuckled.

Seat 2 was another maniac, a young white kid, probably early 20's, with Ray Bans and an intense demeanor. Terrible player.

Seat 5, to my right, was a genial and intelligent man that was cracking whip-smart jokes and who was also an absolute calling station. Some people are just too nice for poker.

In any case, one of the first hands I witnessed involved Young Asian Kid 3betting Ray Ban to 120 from the big blind - he was a fan of enormously-sized 3bets. Ray Ban snap-called pre and called a $50 cbet on a K42 flop, checking behind on two more blank streets. Ray Ban tabled K7s. "King's good," Y.A.K. pronounced, a bit disgustedly. I could only chuckle. While there's some merit, at times, to floating a 3bet from position with the intent of stealing a pot from an aggressive player, and changing the plan once you hit some showdown value, it sort of loses its luster when the 3bet is 2x pot and for more than 1/3 of your stack. Everyone congratulated him on his good call. I salivated.

The whale in seat one won a $400 pot where he called down enormous value bets from Ray Ban on the flop and turn with bottom pair, rivered two pair, led out a tiny value bet (like $10 into almost $400), and cackled for being "paid off" when Ray Ban disgustedly called with TPTK. Ray Ban proceeded to go on complete and total monkey tilt and blow through nearly $1k.

I couldn't do much of anything as I was completely card-dead, calling with a few pocket pairs here and there to set mine and folding overcard flops. I drifted down to a $200 stack, then made most of it back on successive hands where I raised a limped pot from the button with 77, got 4 callers, and cbet an AKQr flop after everyone checked. They folded. I also took down a pot with AK, cbetting an ace high flop, getting me close to up to even.

The next interesting pot I was involved in was K6s from late position. The whale limped and everyone folded to me. I decided this was prime time to isolate, so I raised it to $20. Everyone folded and I was heads-up with the whale, who donked $15 into me on a K87 rainbow flop. I called. He donked $15 again on an offsuit deuce, and again I called, thinking he would certainly overvalue a lot of his one-pair hands and draws. The river was not pretty, a 9, and this time he bet $85. I reluctantly folded, thinking there was maybe a 25% chance he was value-owning himself with a worse one-pair hand.

That took me down below $200 and I rebought back up to 300. The whale left the table, up about $600, to everyone's disappointment. He was replaced by a young overweight player with a better-than-average grasp on the game, for the table at least.

Y.A.K., whose stack at one point had been over $1k but had dwindled to about $150, made it $10 from UTG, and every single player at the table called the bet including me on the button with Qd 9d. The flop comes 6d 5d 2s and he checked. The whale replacement in Seat 1 led out for $40 and I called, as did a player behind me. Y.A.K. then check-shoved for the remaining $100, the Whale Replacement called, the player behind me folded out of turn, and I knew I was hopelessly priced in if I thought my flush was live. I called. Y.A.K. had 63o (lol!) and the Whale Replacement disgustingly revealed 7d Td for the lower flush draw. Unfortunately the turn and river completely bricked out (a 6 and a deuce), Y.A.K's monster held and I won a tiny side pot with queen high.

My next big hand occurred when I was at about $265, there were two reluctant late position limps from weak tight players, and I made it $20 to go from the big blind with ATo. One caller, the button, and the flop came the beautiful rainbow TT5. I led out $35 and the button, who was a nondescript middle-aged weak-tight player, quickly called. I noted that he seemed very comfortable. The turn was an unhappy 9, but no card would have changed the plan of setting up a reasonable river shove. I bet $75, and the BTN sat back and pretended to think. I recognize a good Hollywood when I see it, and was only hoping he didn't flop the joint with 55 or turn it with 9T. Eventually he min-raised. I had about another minraise behind (I was covered), and declared "okay, let's get the rest in." He grumbled, "ace-ten?" which was a weight off my shoulders. He called and showed KT. The river brought a scary paint card, but it was only a queen, and I doubled up to a very healthy stack.

A few hands later I caught QTo on the BTN and was like the 45th limper into the pot. The flop came AKx and we checked around. The turn was another brick, it was checked around again, and I decided to take a $10 stab with queen high. Everyone folded except for the player in seat 5, who had replaced the genial station, who had gone broke. He had a $100 stack. The river came a beautiful Jack, giving me the nuts. He checked, I made it $40, he shoved, and I turbo-called. He said "your straight is good" and tabled AQo. WTF! I'm sure he felt very unlucky about that river. I wonder if it would ever occur to him that it would be a good idea to play the hand differently...

That brought me to a very healthy stack, but I proceeded to go completely card dead for the next four hours or so. Barely a single playable hand. I did manage to catch kings at one point, and shove over the top of an undercard flop against a middle-aged black woman that was a terrible calling station, but she didn't pay me off, nor did the station three seats to my right that balked after I turned the nut flush.

That didn't quite make up for the spec hands I was seeing flops with in huge multiway hands against players to whom any top pair is the immortal nuts, and whiffing completely.

Eventually the table almost broke - we got down as low as 4-handed, as a tournament started that I had wanted to buy into but was told I needed a membership card for that. I'll look into getting one the next time I visit the casino. Playing short-handed was great as I felt empowered to open up my game a bit and put pressure on my mostly weak-tight opponents.

And, as it turns out, sticking around in the 1-3 game as the tournament is going on is incredibly +EV, since the people who bust out of the tournament right away are a) more likely to be awful, b) very likely to be on tilt. The table started to fill back up and we got a taste of that right away:

The player to my left, who had replaced the competent kinda-nerdy kid, was acting as Table Captain, not so much in his play as in his commentary. He was one of those perpetually angry know-it-alls not playing so much for money as to demonstrate his own superiority.

To his left was a very, very, very well-built white boy who was maybe the worst poker player I've ever seen.

Yeah, that's a recipe for some fun.

Sure enough, Table Captain raised from UTG, Built White Boy called as did the rest of the table, including me with QTo. The flop came Ts 6d 5d and it was checked to a Very Large Black Dude (from his table chatter with the dealers, it appeared he was a personal trainer and a regular. He was a decent player, too. He led out for $20. Two players to my right called, as did I, somewhat reluctantly. Table captain immediately shoved for $200. The Built White Boy insta-called, as did a short stack on my right. I actually considered a call, as it seemed to me like Table Captain was on some sort of combo draw and because Built White Boy could have almost anything. Eventually I wussed out. Table Captain indeed had 9d Td, and Built White Boy has Ks 5s for bottom pair no draw (the third guy had a straight draw).

Needless to say a king came on the turn and we all braced for the Phil Hellmuth style rant.

Instead we got a much more sinister needling, with Table Captain incessantly asking Built White boy if he thought his five was good, if he's rich, if this is his first time playing, basically those three sarcastic questions for the next full hour.

Then, of course, Table Captain calls my UTG raise (bear in mind that I am the tightest player at the table BY FAR) with 8Jo, flops the second nuts on a 9TQdd flop (I had AK), gets all-in with two players. He whines incessantly about what was admittedly not an ideal turn (the 8 of diamonds) as nobody had turned their hand up yet, but still scooped the entire pot when the river bricked out and he was up against two players with two pair.

Then, even AFTER he scoops the pot, he's still berating the dealer for that crappy turn card! [i]Dude, you scooped the fucking pot![/i]

And then, of course, he immediately gets up and leaves. I guess if you're going to represent the worst there is about poker players - poor quality of play, atrocious table manners, incessant fishtank-tapping, hit-and-running, and general failure at life - you might as well go for the Perfect Storm.

I stayed for several more hours and eventually got pretty stuck. We were down to 6-handed when my next interesting hand happened. There was one limper to my CO, the decent overweight player in Seat 1, and I decided I was going for it this hand with 2d 5d. I made it $15 to go, the BTN called (a well-groomed guy in his late 20's with a very crisp goatee, who was quite a poor player) as did the limper. I was hoping to isolate it heads up against a player that can actually fold, but no such luck.

Still, the flop gave some hope with Ad Qd Jc. Interestingly the competent limper led out for $25. At this point I had a little over $200 in my stack, and his lead-out seemed kind of weak, so I popped it to $95 hoping to end the hand here and now. Instead, the well-groomed man on the button flabbergasted me by cold-calling! The competent limper had looked like he was ready to fold, but then the cold-call seemed to change his mind, and he called as well.

Suddenly, needless to say, I'm not looking so much for a diamond anymore.

The turn gave the 3s, and interesting brick since I now actually have a hyper-concealed gutshot. Limper checks, and I have $105 remaining with almost $400 in the pot. No way does either of them fold a draw here, I think, so the best I can do is check and hope for the best. The button quickly checks as well, and I notice him staring intently as the river card comes down.

It's an offsuit queen, one of the better cards in the deck for me I think, and the big blind looks positively disgusted at it. Not in any fake, performance way, just in his breathing, the way his jaw is positioned, and the glare in his eyes. He doesn't notice I'm staring him down.

The limper is doing a better job of concealing his emotions, but the two straight checks are a pretty dead giveaway that he's not particularly strong either, so on a wing and a prayer I shove my last $105 in. The button immediately folds and the limper thinks for a minute, playing with his cards and staring me down as I stare blankly at the board, trying to think of a name for a character in a short story I'm writing. The playing with his cards is a good thing. He doesn't ever really cut out any chips. Eventually his cards hit the muck and I'm back in black, baby. I breath an exaggerated sigh of relief and show the bluff face up. Everyone at the table is a bit taken aback.

The button is just staring at me, mouth open, shaking his head. "The queen was a good card to bluff," I said by way of explanation, meaning that it made my story a bit more believable, in that I maybe had QK or QT or some sort of flop semi-bluff. Obviously the button had diamonds (some people are just constitutionally incapable of folding a flush draw for any price), and I think the limper had either JT or JK, for a pair+gutshot, or possibly diamonds himself.

He seemed to take offense to my comment. "I don't mind the needle," he said, "it's part of the game, but karma's a bitch."

Damn. I was unaware that my actions were jeopardizing my karma. "I didn't mean anything maliciously," I clarify, but he's not interested. I decide to shut up.

There's not much more action until very late in the night, a pleasant woman has joined the table and moved to the "lucky seat" two to my right, where a few lucky double-ups have occurred. I chuckle. Two seats to my right, I venture a guess to myself, is not likely to be that lucky. The truth of that is borne out a few hands later.

The woman, who for her part was fairly competent, and at least would talk about how she was getting "three-and-a-half-to-one" on a call, limped, and I bumped it to $15 from the button with Ad 4d. Only she called. The flop came Ks Js 6d, she checked and I made it $25 to see another card. She obliged, to my disappointment.

The turn was an interesting card, the 8d, which was made even more interesting when she led out into me for $50. Such a bizarre card to take the lead on, and I'd been more and more active as the table got shorter, so it seemed like a fairly obvious bluff, and if it wasn't I had the backdoor flush draw to fall back on. I call, mostly to float.

The turn gave the Tc, not the greatest card, but a long way from a disaster. I felt like maybe she had 9T and decided to float the flop with a gutshot and lead out when it became open-ended. Now she checked, and a quick glance in her direction confirmed that she was apprehensive and would likely be unwilling to call a big bet. I cut out $150 and stuck it in. She grumbled to herself for a few seconds, but folded.

This one I didn't show, not wanting to be the asshole that just bluffed the only girl not just at the table, but in the entire poker room.

That hand gave me a measly profit of about $50, and I eventually took my leave. It was past midnight, and I had a half hour drive in front of me.

I'm definitely going back, and soon. Playing live is an entirely different atmosphere, and against these players it should be a nice little boost to my bank account in stretches where I'm not working.

Still alive

Some interesting hands, all at NL100 rush poker at FT.

Late position open from an 8/5 meganit. I'm in the SB with JJ and elect just to flat call. BB, who has nitty stats but seems to have fishy tendencies, calls also. All three players are ~150bb deep.

Flop comes TJK rainbow, giving me middle set.

I lead out for near-pot, and BB gives an insta-3x raise.

Opener then tanks and shoves.

I tank and fold.

BB insta snapcalls and both show AQ.

95% I made a correct fold. I don't see either player showing up with AK or a random spew hand, and even one of them having TT is unlikely. Interestingly, if I can see their hands, both of them having AQ makes it almost a call.

Hand 2:

UTG, a player who runs about 14/11 and is 100% fold-to-3bet over ~500 hands, opens to 3.5bb and I decide to 3bet to $12 from UTG+2 with 6c 7c. I felt like he was opening all pp from all positions and folding probably anything but AA/KK/AKs to a 3bet, so it should be a profitable move. May have been tilting a bit but the move is probably justifiable.

MP2 then COLD-MIN-4BETs me, a move I confess I've never seen before. Raises to $20.50.

The cutoff then COLD-CALLS the COLD MIN 4BET. WTF?

Both players are complete unknowns.

Original opener folds and I'm left with an $8.50 call into an over-$50 pot, all three players full-stacked at 100bb. Easy call. Plan is to flop trips, two pair, or a straight, and stack off any flop that doesn't have an ace or a king, because it really feels like I'm up against AA/KK.

Sure enough flop comes 668 with spades. I do a little dance and check, MP2 bets like $20, CO shoves, I call, MP2 calls. They show AA/KK, I drag a 300bb pot. Well played good sirs.

Greenlight!

To GRRM: we must know
Is this series thing really a go?
Even if we must wait
'Til 2008
We all now must get HBO

There's a Limerick I posted over at westeros.org in about 2005, when the news first broke that HBO was optioning George R. R. Martin's fantasy series (and official Best! Books! Ever!) A Song of Ice and Fire for a potential series. It wasn't the favorite of my ASOIAF-inspired Limericks. That would be a tie between:

Having harried the Harrenhal host
Brave Beric breathed boisterous boasts:
"We wither like wind
And attack once again
Gallant Gregor is gunning for ghosts!"

and

Lady Cersei, well she's quite the prize
(Though she's never been overly wise)
She's gaining in girth
But at least knows the worth
Of the weapon she has 'tween her thighs

and

King Robert, the monarch of steel
To whom all Westerosi would kneel
Said "Ruling is boring,
I'd rather be whoring.
Just give me a wench and a meal."

The first because of the gratuitous alliteration, the second because it's a good encapsulation of the character of Cersei Lannister and because, like all the best limericks, it turns dirty at the very last word, and the final, because it again perfectly encapsulates the character of King Robert without making any sacrifices to the metre of the poem.

Now the first one is my favorite, because HBO has now officially motherfuckin' greenlit Game of Thrones for a full season. The one Production Still they've released so far looks like everything I thought it could be - you can feel the cold radiating from the picture, of the forests north of the Wall, where Ser Waymar Royce meets his unfortunate end in the prologue - even though you know that the extras on the ground must have been unbelievably warm, as nothing is more uncomfortably hot for an actor than bundling up in warm clothes and lying down in fake snow, which is essentially like being underneath a blanket of styrofoam.

I want to see Bran climbing outside the walls of Winterfell, to stumble on Jaime and Cersei; I want to see Tyrion in the sky cell at the Eyrie, contemplating the jump; I want to see the duel between Bronn and Ser Vardis Egen; I want to see Daenerys, scared shitless on her wedding night, surrendering Khal Drogo's touch; I want to see Viserys Targaryen crowned with molten gold; I want to see Arya in the cellars of the Red Keep, stumbling upon Illyrio and Varys; I want to see Littlefinger deliver the line "I did warn you not to trust me, you know." As a particular girlfriend would communicate to me when a particular activity was about to commence, "I want."

I've been giddy at the news for the past several days now. I can't ever remember being this geeked out.

GRRM, fandom culture, and the "Finish the book, George" mentality

Like most fans of good literature that are familiar with it, it seems, I am a tremendous fan of George R. R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire." Much of my youth was spent reading books that were sequestered to the "Fantasy" aisle in the bookstore, of which I became quite familiar. Most was bad, some was good, but all of it, bad and good, was attached a label that was synonymous with "Young Adult." Much of it was rather puerile geek wish fulfillment trash, some of it was amusing but had the depth of crepe paper (Dragonlance and Eddings come to mind), some of it was shamelessly derivative trash (I still have some Dennis L. McKiernan books floating around in my house), but by and large, in retrospect, the label was not entirely inaccurate.

As years passed, I did the Robert Jordan thing, and gave up at around Book 11 (good god that man could simply not make choices in his writing - he was compelled to include EVERYTHING), before finally giving up on fantasy for some 5+ years, focusing on other forms of entertainment.

Then I found George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, which effectively rekindled my interest in the genre. This was what I'd been looking for those past several years, fantasy that wasn't about the fantastical; low fantasy, a gritty, realistic world that pulled from history on more than a whimsical basis, where good and evil were not so conveniently defined and where things were messy and happy endings were not a foregone conclusion. Some time around 2001 I picked up A Game of Thrones (in a fit of poetic karma, I picked up Wizard's First Rule in the same trip to the bookstore, having heard good things about it from a friend whose literary taste I no longer put any faith in whatsoever; for years I used as a signature quote "Testament to my fortitude: I made it 87 pages into Wizard's First Rule before I began to bleed profusely from the eyes).

I devoured that motherfucker and needed more. Books 2 and 3 of the series were out, though A Storm of Swords was not yet out in paperback, so I eagerly picked up the hardcover. The two novels were devoured in a matter of days, and as I closed the novel, tingling with anticipation at the beautiful - not cliffhanger, per se, but simple game-changer - of Merret Frey dangling from the noose as a pair of eyes we'd previously thought dead stared up at him. I immediately started a reread, and then another. I became active in the online community. I discovered that one of my best friends, Chris, separated now by several states, had picked up the books on his own accord and that we had each independently contrived the theory that Jon Snow was in fact not the bastard son of Eddard Stark but instead the son (perhaps legitimate) of Ned's sister Lyanna and her supposed captor and rapist (more likely consensual lover, possibly eloped-with husband) Rhaegar Targaryen. We discussed the minutiae of the books, went online and discussed it with the crowd at Westeros, and waited for the 4th book.

And waited. And waited.

When Martin announced in his not-a-blog that he was scrapping over a year's worth of work, abandoning the now-infamous five-year gap plan, and starting over from scratch, I was disappointed, but the quality of the first three novels left me with the good faith leaning that this guy knew what he was doing.

Finally, at last, the 4th book came out, in 2005; I picked it up immediately and devoured it. Like many, I found it something of a disappointment at first, but like many, over time it's truly grown on me. After the orgy of action and cataclysmic action surrounding the final 1/3 of volume 3, we were due something of an adagio interlude, and that's exactly what we got. It was setup for what's to come, particularly in Dorne, the Iron Islands, and King's Landing, and I realized after my first reread that it was beautifully done.

George wrote, now somewhat infamously, that he hoped that A Dance with Dragons, volume 5, would be released the next year. And as everyone familiar with the series now knows, five years later, we're still waiting.

Many other factors have no doubt contributed to the delay. The announcement, and GRRM's involvement with, the HBO series (still hoping for a greenlight on S1 in March) no doubt put a delay in the writing. His writing of additional Dunk and Egg stories, the prequel novellas set in Westeros, took another bite. Side projects, his editing of compilations, signed volumes, swords, and miniatures more frequently accompany updates to his Not-a-blog than does progress reports on Dance, and that has left for some antsy fans wondering if the book would ever be completed.

Sometimes that fandom gets way out of line, though, and it certainly has over at Pat's Fantasy Hotlist where his Exclusive Excerpt from "The Mystery Knight" brought the trolls of the woodwork and, well, lines were crossed.

I hate to be the one to drag out dead horses, and I'm far from the first to do so regarding this conversation, but the spot-on accuracy of Neil Gaiman's now-famous George R. R. Martin is not your bitch rant strikes truer than ever.

There are, really, two schools of thought when it comes to the creative process. One is that deadlines are to be met, no matter what, and that their importance is such that nothing else matters.

The other is that shit is done when it is done, it will be as good as possible, and that anyone waiting for it is just going to have to wait.

Followers of the first philosophy include basically any of the producers of garden-variety, stupid derivative crap of any medium in history. Pick a movie at random, and understand that chances are very high it was written on a very strict deadline by an overstressed writer with no emotional attachment to the project other than the paycheck it grants him. Pick that same movie again, and you'll see something of no particular creative note whatsoever that nobody remembers and nobody cares about but for a few actors with hopes of a single reel clip and a few executives that hope to scrounge a bit of profit.

Followers of the second philosophy include GRRM, Tolkien, most every major author whose name you actually know, James Cameron, and video game developers Blizzard, Bioware, and Valve, who have between them produced about 95% of the video games actually worth playing in the past two decades.

It's interesting to see, though, just how quickly fans can turn. In a way it is reminiscent of a stalker mentality, where an imbalanced positive obsession (at least in the mind of the stalker, who inevitably sees it as "love" of a sort) turns ugly at perceived "betrayal".

Maybe the obsession with Martin hasn't gotten that bad, but in some cases it seems close. People want to have their cake and eat it too; they want the next book to come out, but they want it to be as good as what's come before it, and so few of them fail to realize that those are contradictory desires. Good art takes time. If you want your books to come out like clockwork, you'd best stick with Harry Potter.

The book will be done when it's done. Acknowledgment of that fact does not make one a "sycophant" nor a "bootlicker" nor any of the infantile names we're getting called. It simply makes us people that have not fallen victim to the instant-gratification craze that if seen to its logical conclusion would deny us much of what is good entertainment to begin with.

Closing on Busto

So, the month of January ended poorly. Not poor as in, meh breakeven, but poor as in, I experienced an uninhibited freefall the likes of which I've never even imagined. Feb of '08 was bad. This was much, much worse. On top of that, I found out I owe $2400 on a car I thought was paid off (don't ask). When it rains it fucking pours. Dropped down to 50NL at the moment, trying to rebuild the tatters of my bankroll. Ugh.

One week

Not much going on this past week in teh pokers. Been playing a lot of CoH ... up to level 12 in 2v2 americans, and holding steady @level 10 in 1v1's. Getting better.

Had to get up at 6 this morning to drive Brian & Cam to the airport. Okay, I wasn't actually their ride there, but I was their car's ride back. Replaced my shovel for the driveway, so I can clear that out at some point, and finally went shopping post-Florida trip.

Rerolled a new character in Dragon Age, a city elf rogue. I think I'm gonna try a main group of rogue x2, tank, healer. Should be interesting.

Freeroll!

Cashed in the gold level freeroll, then got knocked out with TT against 67 on a 58J4 board. Knew I should have repopped him pre. Low skill tournament, really - very fast levels. Some jackass at my table was stalling from 210 players (180 spots paid); it was pretty sweet knocking him out in 182nd. Won't complain about $50 from a freeroll, though.

Played about 6 games of CoH today. Won all but the first, including a standard 4v4 where I had double anyone else's score (buncha noobs! nobody retreated anything!) and a 2v2 on Rails and Metal where my opponent whined about how I "spammed" rangers (I had 4 squads). Well, gee, the dude on my side built nothing but PG's with the first rifle upgrade and tank hunters, both of which upgraded rangers act as a hard counter to. Finally towards the end of the game he builds a single IST (yay for counters) and then sends it directly into my blob (d'oh!). It gets two shots off and gets raped by my 8 bazookas. Then he starts whining, to which I say "I'm sorry I was able to out-produce you", almost getting around to mentioning that I might not have spammed them if he had actually built an effective counter.

Time for Einherjar, and then my first limbus in quite some time.