I took along my brother and my mother to the Medieval Wednesday tourney. There was a table of 11, who mostly were on their best behavior for the senior citizen. I think the language got toned down a notch from other evenings, and nobody got sloppy drunk.
Mom was given the respect one gives an elder, and eventually, the surviving players learned to give her respect as a cardplayer too. After the first hour, anytime Mom was in a hand, the whole table seemed to proceed with caution.
The player that everybody else at the table seemed to fear and respect came just in time for the first deal. He started out swinging for the fences. In one of the first few hands I caught pocket smalls from early, and was allowed to limp over to the big swinger on Big Blind, who let me see the flop cheaply. I caught my third early, but went with caution, knowing how dangerous a set of low trips can be to one's own welfare. On the river I flopped full, and took a sizeable pot from the Big Swinger. He asked me why I didn't raise on a boat, and I responded that the boat was not made till the river, and I knew that if I re-raised, I wouldn't get to showboat.
The exact same big swinger continues to play agressively, and less than 30 minutes later he's in a hand with my Mom, and he's trying to buy the pot. Mama don't go for that, and she called him all the way down with a decent hand, and left him with about 4% of his original stack, or about 1.8 BB at that time.
The very next hand, big swinger goes all in on a marginal, but he doesn't have enough chips to scare away the big blind, and he's out in record time. He storms out, clearly pissed off at himself and the world, doesn't even finish his beer or say anything in terms of parting words.
His punishment was to be mocked by the entire table for the rest of the evening.
As I said, after that, everybody had a healthy respect for Mom's calls, and when Mom raised, only the foolhardy stayed. The best laugh of the evening was when somebody asked her why she made a particular decision, and she said 'That's what the book told me to do.' Referring to the Caro she had skimmed just before we left the house.
Mom's been playing six weeks less than I have. This was her first tournament with players who take the game seriously.
As a family, we held our own. Mom was about the fifth or sixth eliminated after 150 minutes of play, by a suck-out if I recall correctly. My brother was the fifth place survivor, and I was the fourth place survivor. My brother lost to a suck-out, and I lost to a coin flip. My opponent had AT suited against my all-in pocket 3s. According to the calculator, AT suited had a 50.4% chance to win.
And it did.
