Table Types. Part One – The Bulldog
I love trying to weigh people up. I believe it to be an extremely important life skill and it’s probably the single biggest strength I have in my day to day job. I don’t want to sound like a slimy bastard but I find myself slipping from one persona to the next in the blink of an eye dependant upon the person I have sat across the desk from me. The thing is, acting in an appropriate manner under certain circumstances is one thing, but if you misjudge the situation and the company that you’re in then you can make a right royal cock of yourself very easily, as one of my local golf club members found out recently when he made a joke at the Captain’s dinner that Bernard Manning would have been proud of.
Anyway, I digress, how does this fit into poker? Well despite being able to get drunk and talk about subjects that my wife believes me to have no knowledge of; the one the obvious advantage of live over online play is the human element of poker which enables us to come across such a wide and varied type of person that you might not otherwise have met had you not shared a common interest in a game of cards. I do try and peg people in the TAG/LAG/Passive/Station categories as soon as I can when I sit down, but better than this I love finding those that fit into comedy stereotypes as the same type of characters can be found at poker rooms, up and down the country, and I know this from experience.
The theme of this series of articles, is to explore this stereotypes, to identify them, to cherish them and to bring them to you attention the next time you take a seat at the felt and see them staring right back at you.
The first character we’ll discuss is someone that we’ll call ‘the bulldog’.
You might be surprised to know that the bulldog is a female. I use the term ‘female’ loosely here as the bulldog is often a female with a voice like Bernard Manning and language to match. The bulldog is clearly identifiable by the fact that you will find it hard to see her fingers. This is because that they are usually adorned with so many Sovereigns that they look like a walking advertisement for the exclusive ‘Elizabeth Duke’ range from Argos. We must remember, however, that the purpose for this high end jewellery is usually to cover the ‘luv’ & ‘h8’ tattoos on her fingers that remind the bulldog of her time spent in the young offenders institute back in ’73 and so really they’re an attempt for her to better herself and we should try not to mock her.
At first sighting I usually find a glimmer of sadness for the bulldog. I imagine her sat in front of her three bar electric fire in her bedsit, drinking cans of strong Aldi cider and just waiting for the Monday night £2 rebuy. I imagine that the only love she’s ever felt is when Fat John said cheers for a knee trembler behind the bins at the Red Lion. As I sit and ponder the sadness that she must have felt during her teenage years the action gets back to me and she gets my attention with a classy line like “check or you little dickhead”. My pity soon vanishes.
Bulldogs also love denim, the really love sleeveless denim jackets, especially those with naval based sew on badges for added toughness. Their real passion in life though is smoking. The only thing they love more than smoking, is finding cheap fags. I’ve spent twenty minutes at a table with a bulldog listening to here extol the virtues of a known scumbag, simply because he always gets her dirt cheap Superkings whenever he goes to Benidorm.
So now that you have the tools to spot the bulldog, how do we deal with them as poker players? Easy, they’re fuckin useless.
Bulldogs are old school; they have no concept of strategy, odds and situational awareness. This isn’t always a bad thing providing you’ve got some common sense and instinct to counteract it but bulldogs are usually the worst type of player. They’re aggressive; they blame everything on bad luck and can see no wrong with regards to their own play, but everything wrong with everyone else’s. If you call down a bluff you won’t get a congratulatory ‘good call’, you’ll get a confrontational ‘How the fuck can you call that’. They’ll play marginal hands freely and will bet them all day long. They’re also happy bluffing when they miss but you’ll probably only get one street of value from them.
So how do we counteract them? Personally I don’t like getting involved without a hand and position as although these players aren’t much good they’re impossible to get off a hand when they hit and will do all the betting for you. They’ll also bluff big if they sense any kind of weakness because their idea of poker heaven is to get a bluff through and proudly show the table how they’re more of a man than you are. Personally, I like to get plenty in the pot pre flop, then call down the inevitable bets post flop, no need to raise, and no need to bluff.
So now that we’ve identified the bulldog, keep your eyes open for the ugly women across the table with bad hair, bad breath, bad teeth and all the elegance of a builder.
Next stop, the peacock…….
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[...] here: 2008 Golfweek’s Best Residential Courses (GolfWeek) Golf! – bobafred.com 08/24/2009 Table Types. Part One – The Bulldog – ukpokerinfo.co.uk 08/24/2009 I love trying to weigh people up. I believe it to be an extremely [...]
Where on earth have you been to play with Women like this?!? Lulz