My first encounter with Clonie…
Tuesday, September 22, 2009 - Matt Graham
So I have never met or played with Clonie Gowen through my years of playing poker. I had my first chance at the Gulf Coast Poker Championships last week. I have obviously heard the horror stories about her through gossip so when saw that I was at her table I figured it would be interesting. It was… For the first few hours nothing negative happended at all. Clonie even helped me get the channel changed in the poker room. I had tried to ask the floor person, but was blown off. Clonie saw this and used her “fame” to get the channel changed. I was starting to wonder why people love to gossip about her so much. She seemed nice enough.
Finally to the incident. So I am in the cutoff and raise to 600 at 100-200 with 78d. Action folded to Clonie in the BB and she called. The flop comes out 7AK with one diamond. We both check the flop. The turn is a 3d giving me a flush draw. Clonie leads into the pot for 1000, I call. The river is a 7. Jackpot!!! Clonie bets 1500 which was a relatively small bet. I had hoped she would bet more but what can ya do? I knew any raise from me would look super strong, but at the same time I had been the most active player at the table by far so I figured there is a good chance that she would hero call me, thinking I was bluffing. I throw out 6500. The dealer pulled in the 1500 from each of us, leaving my single blue 5K chip as the raise. Clonie thinks for awhile and finally flips her wrist to throw in what one would assume was a call.
But no, she had actually thrown two blue chips into the pot meaning she raised me an additional 5K. I quickly call and flip my hand and Clonie looks disgusted. She said she meant to just call. I figured that was the case, but hey its not my fault she threw in the wrong amount. For a moment it appeared she was ready to move on and that she had made a mistake, but this was not going to be the case. She looks a bit confused trying to make her case for the bet being a call, but was getting nowhere so she decides to call the floor. The floor person walks over and asked what happened. I attempted to tell him, but since Clonie was the person who called him he wanted to hear her version first. To my shock she tells him exactly what happened accurately! The floor says that if she did not say “call” that the chips have to stay in the pot. Clonie then starts to claim she said call… The whole table is now looking around at each other since none of us heard it and it was clearly a lie. She starts yelling at me that I knew what she meant to do. I told her that I knew she wasnt shooting an angle and meant to call, but there was nothing I could do about it. I cannot give someone a break on something like that, especially in a tournament.
So I obviously tell all of my buddies during break about what happened. We all laugh a little and talk about other interesting hands, when she comes up behind me and starts calling me a liar and that if I am going to tell the story I should tell the truth. I blow her off at this point since her tilt is not worth my time. I simply told her she was lying and that its not my fault she can’t throw in the proper bets. Anyways I hear from a few people that she was walking around telling people that I shot an angle on her. God knows what story she told but, I just hope this story gets around a little bit. I have never shot an angle in my life and I didnt in this case. If you read this Clonie, maybe you should take responsibility for your mistake and stop looking for someone else to blame.
