Ship it.

Is that something normally said at a poker table? Am I getting so old that I'm out of the loop? And here I was under the assumption that a humble smile and a sheepish "thank you" would suffice.

A few nights ago I was sitting at the blogger's $25NL table, when a new face sat in the 7s. I can't remember his name, but I know I have him tagged as a fish, but now I'm rethinking chasing him down. I do, however, remember that his name had "punk" in it. Boy, how that was the truth.

This kid was a punk. In a few hands, he'd built his stack up to about $140, all with suspect play. His 1-3 outers would hit without fail, and right before raking a pot, he'd type "Ship it!" in the chat box. Ship it. He had Iggy and Al, who was on the waiting list, licking their chops, about to prey on this unsuspecting rube. Unfortunately, he left before anyone could dent his stack.

Now that I remember it, he left the table with $140, and came back a few minutes later with under the minimum buy-in, but bled that away in a few hands.

Right before he left for the second time, he asked me if I'd ever been to Canterbury, which is a half hour from my house. He must've noticed that my contact info listed Minneapolis as my location. I haven't been to Canterbury, but replied with "And what if I have?" He said that he'd be driving through the area on Wednesday and would be at Canterbury with some friends.

I remember reading, through Halverson's site and Twoplustwo's B&M forum, that there was to be a 2+2 gathering on Wednesday night. I did a little addition of my own and deduced that this guy might be from the TwoPlusTwo forum, but before I could type in the obligatory Brown Trout secret handshake, he was gone.

I didn't think much of it, until this morning. My morning at work started much like it always does--I came in through the side door, that way Lumbergh can't see me. And I, uh, just sort of spaced out for an hour. Interspersed with this highly focused spacing out, I looked through the 2+2 B&M forum thread about the Canterbury meet-up last night, and noticed this post. Go down to the bottom of the page to the last post by a guy named "Bicyclekick". He normally plays 15/30-30/60 at Canterbury, I guess. Read down the end of his trip report, and what does it say?

Ship it.

Hubba-huh?.

Now, I'm not 100% sure that this guy is the "punk" guy from a few nights ago, but there's a good possibility that is. What are the chances that there are two guys that use "ship it!" each time they drag a pot, and that just happen to be going to Canterbury on the same night? If it's not the same guy, then it's likely they're friends.

Unless I find out that bicyclekick isn't this "punk" guy on Party, I'm going to trail him to see how he plays and at what levels. I'm guessing that if it's the same kid, he was just blowin' off some steam at our micro-limit tables, and has a bankroll to toss $25 buy-ins around all willynilly.

It makes me wonder how many times players get falsely labeled as an ATM, when in actuality they're just toyin' around with limits far under their superior abilities. Or, for that matter, how many people purposefully play like a maniac in spurts, knowing full well that the little hit their bankroll might take in the short-term will be far outweighed by the money they'll make in return by the real fish chasing them, as a pseudo-fish, in the long-term. How do you know a fish is truly a fish?

Huh, not that we don't have a few of them amongst our ranks, though. Personally, I'd label myself as a fish in group amongst shark-eating bears.

Edit:Now that I look at my PT DB, his name had nothing to do with anything "punk". That's what my mind read, though.