Lifetime - Staked: 892.4u, Profit/Loss: +12.04u, ROI: 1.35%, Parlay Suggestions: 171-67 Dog of the Week: 13-16
2024 - Staked: 245.3u, Profit/Loss: -21.32u
As always, scroll down for UFC Vegas 92 Breakdowns. The following is just a recap of last event’s results.
~UFC St. Louis (PREVIOUS CARD)~
Staked: 15.75u
Profit/Loss: -15.75u
Parlay Suggestions: 3-3
I’m not really sure how to write a review of a card where you go 0-11 in bets and lose 15.75u. All I know is I’m currently going through an awful year and results have been shocking, and mentally it’s becoming quite taxing. The records are cool and all, but I’m obviously losing money here also and suffering that much of a loss just doesn’t sit well. Mentally I’ve taken a bit of a hit, I can’t lie. Thankfully I’d done most of my research for this upcoming card before UFC STL took place so it shouldn’t cloud my decision making too much. Grateful we’ve got a break week coming up, I need some time to lick my wounds after this one.
I’ll save characters and just direct you to last week’s post if you’d like to see the disasterpiece that was my betting slate for that card.

~UFC Vegas 92~
Bang average card, and even worse from a betting perspective from the looks of these money lines! Honestly I don’t even know why anyone would read this from someone who just took as many consecutive Ls as I just did, but thanks for sticking around if you did. It probably won’t be a massive slate for me here anyway.
(also all breakdowns were written before UFC STL so the self-loathing stops here)

~Edson Barboza v Lerone Murphy~
Full disclosure, all my betting life I have been very keen to fade British fighters, despite being from the UK myself. The talent pool is just objectively smaller, the lack of combat sports in our school curriculum means fighters have less overall experience and years in competition, as well as the media’s and the UFC’s infatuation with hyping up any fighter from this country overall means that fading has been a net positive investment over the years. When it comes to betting lines, the oddsmakers in this country always hang the UK fighters out at slightly shorter prices too, because obviously that’s where the money is almost always going to go. I know I always did that.
Whilst we’re talking about betting, I’ll take the opportunity to get in a quick victory lap about Edson Barboza, who I confidently bet as an underdog to Sodiq Yusuff. The reads I made in for that fight almost looked like I’d seen it before, and it was probably my best bet of 2023 from a pure analytical perspective. Good times.
Edson Barboza has managed to turn incredibly underrated in recent years, mostly due to the fact he’s old and has been mauled a few performances lately. The blueprint to beat him is very clear - you either to go balls to the wall, crowd/pressure him and finish him early, or you cardio-wrestle him for 15/25 minutes.
It sounds quite simple, but both of those lanes require quite specific skillsets. They are obviously skillsets that Khabib, Tony Ferguson, Bryce Mitchell, Kevin Lee and Gaethje possess naturally, which explains 5 of his eight losses in recent years. The losses to Dan Ige and Paul Felder were scored terribly and should have been wins for Edson…and the remaining loss was to Giga Chikadze, which is the only time I think he’s been outclassed in what could be called an “even” fight on paper. Another key thing to note is that Edson is so explosive and dangerous that he has also managed to still score wins against fighters that do fit the stylistic blueprint to be able to make life difficult for him. People like Benny Dariush, Shane Burgos and Billy Quarantillo. But he finished all three of them. Another thing to note is that the calibre of every single name mentioned is very high.
So how does Lerone Murphy measure up against these blueprints? Well right off the bat his record shows he’s capable of a KO win, but it’s not a super reliable method and isn’t particularly process driven (IE it doesn’t come from him smothering his opponent with suffocating pressure early). In fact, his finish of Ricardo Ramos came from some surprisingly effective ground and pound, and the knee against Amirkhani was a fortuitous impact, in a fight where he was expected to find the finish against a guy with the ‘1 round of resilience’ curse.
So how about the wrestling/top control route? Well as previously mentioned Murphy showed some dangerousness in the way he finished Ramos in a grappling position, and his performance against Josh Culibao also shows that it’s his best chance of beating Edson. I have been impressed with his grappling ability in the UFC so far. He’s not a pure takedown artist though, and has averaged just 1.29 takedowns per 15 minutes inside the UFC. In that Culibao fight he was keen to clinch up, but took advantage of Culibao turning his back in the second. The third round was dominant for Murphy in regards to the grappling, but it all stemmed from him landing a body shot that pretty much compromised Culibao and turned him into a ragdoll for more than three minutes in the round. If all you do is look at UFCStats for that fight, then Murphy looks like Khabib…but the tape shows a very different story. He also probably should have gotten the finish there if we’re being critical!
I understand that Lerone Murphy is undefeated (although if you ask me he lost that Tukhugov debut, not that it matters), and has shown good moments from top position, but does doing that against a compromised Josh Culibao and Ricardo Ramos really justify you being the favourite against Edson Barboza? Edson’s fought the cream of the crop in the UFC since day one – his three most underwhelming results were losses to Jamie Varner, Donald Cerrone and Michael Johnson…that’s how ELITE the competition he’s faced has been. And even though he’s a bit long in the tooth he’s showing that he can still hang with guys at this level, like he did with Sodiq. Personally I think Yusuff is a more dangerous fighter for him than Lerone, who doesn’t appear to have that kind of imposing and dangerous striking style.
I think this betting line is putting so much unwarranted faith in Lerone Murphy. Yes, he could turn out to be a great prospect that enters the top 5 of the division one day, but we have not seen him show anywhere near the level of competence to be expected to beat Barboza more times than not. Stylistically, he doesn’t have anything that gives an immediate advantage against Barboza (at least nothing I could trust him to lean on for 25 minutes), the only angle there is age. Yes Barboza is getting a bit old and shopworn, but he’s still beating younger guys consistently. Also, whilst we’re talking about intangibles, Barboza is very experienced in five round fights, and the extra two rounds allow him back into the fight should his weakness towards early pressure show itself.
I’d say Edson should be around -150 here. The line available feels unsubstantiated and purely based on the age dynamic, as I have not seen anything from tape that implies Lerone Murphy is up to the task. He barely got past Gabriel Santos last year.
I had a great time betting Barboza as a dog last time, so I’m doing it again. 1u on Edson Barboza to Win at +125 or better. The line looks to be moving in Lerone’s favour at the moment so I will wait to bet this.
How I line this fight: Edson Barboza -150 (60%), Lerone Murphy +150 (40%)
Bet or pass: 1u Edson Barboza to Win (+XXX)
Prop leans: None

Khaos Williams v Carlston Harris
Pretty awful Co-Main Event. It’s a fun fight but neither man is really considered one-to-watch and they’ve barely fought once each in the last year. You telling me they couldn’t have found a better fight to go on the poster for this one?
Anyway, both men are a little bit wild on the feet, but Harris is clearly the less technical and defensively sound of the two.
Williams kind of forged his path in the UFC with KO victories, but when forced to be technical across 15 minutes he gives a decent enough account of himself (I’ve tried to fade him twice in that type of bout, against Randy Brown and Matt Semelsberger). He’s clearly going to look much better when he can find finishes, but I think I still expect him to be the more eye-catching fighter if this one is a 15 minute kickboxing affair.
But that’s the problem here…Carlston Harris’ grappling game is the strongest skillset that either man possesses, and it’s whether or not he can get it going that will likely determine who wins this one. Unfortunately, we have only seen Williams taken down twice in the UFC, both times by Michel Pereira (who isn’t even much of a wrestlegrappler himself). To make matters worse, they both came in the 14^th and 15^th minutes of the fight and we barely got to see anything, so they really are low quality examples.
I’ve been watching MMA long enough to know that a guy like Khaos Williams probably isn’t a particularly amazing grappler, but of course that’s still a huge assumption to make. With no knowledge of how Khaos is going to fare working off his back, I really do not think this fight is one that you can have any degree of confidence in. The books had initially lined it around a pick’em, which could well imply that they feel the exact same way. It’s unfortunately a pass from me, because a Williams with great TDD and process on bottom could end up being -300…but white belt Williams could look +300.
How I line this fight: Impossible to line with any confidence, so a pick’em is fine.
Bet or pass: Pass
Prop leans: None

~Angela Hill v Luana Pinheiro~
After chasing it for quite some time, MMA bettors finally managed to catch the fade on Luana Pinheiro. When she entered the UFC she was discredited for her exclusively R1 finishes, with people predicting her cardio would not be up to scratch. Things got worse when she took the coward’s way to a win against Jessica Penne – seemingly blowing her gas and then milking the extent of the damage done from an illegal strike and winning by KO. As we know from the MMA community, doing stuff like that will make you one of the most hated fighters on the roster. She then moved to 2-0 with a split decision win as a favourite against Michelle Waterson…which many people think she lost. Basically, not a very impressive stint in the UFC so far.
Finally she went up against Amanda Ribas, who went on to expose that dodgy cardio of Pinheiro, melting her in the third round with a beautiful wheel kick when Pinheiro was death gassed. Now we know it’s possible, the third round of Pinheiro’s fight against Waterson-Gomez makes a bit more sense, seeing as Waterson took over and clearly won it.
Nothing kills a hype train quicker than realising that a fighter has bad cardio, and it’s safe to say that whatever hype there was on Luana (minimal) is dead…because she’s a +125 underdog to Angela Hill here.
In my opinion, Angela Hill has been an incredibly underrated fighter for such a long time and absolutely deserves her flowers as one of WMMA’s most respected journeywomen. She’s had 24 UFC fights, and she’s still showing up better than fighters much younger than her and doesn’t appear to even be slowing down.
The blueprint on Hill has been pretty clear for some time – if you want to beat her relatively easily, you take her down. Otherwise, you’re going up against technically impressive striker that has the durability, a sneaky bit of power and seemingly limitless cardio to keep you honest. Really, if you manage to have success against Angela Hill on the feet, the best thing you can really hope for is about 55% of dominance (typically where two judges score one way, and another goes the opposite).
As I often say, statistics for MMA are best used when comparing WMMA strikers, and the figures here are quite eye-opening. Hill’s strike differential is vastly superior, and their defensive rates are very close. In short, if they stay on the feet for 15 minutes I think Hill should be expected to out-volume her opponent. When you factor in Pinheiro’s cardio deficiencies, that’s even more likely.
Therefore, Pinheiro has two routes to success here in my opinion – her typical R1 finish, or by going the grappling route. Firstly, Hill has never been finished via (T)KO in 29 professional fights (most of which have come at a high level), so I think it’s fair to say she deserves trust in being able to stay safe. She’s also quite an intelligent fighter, so I assume she’s going to be aware that her success will come in the latter half of the fight.
In terms of the grappling, Pinheiro landed five takedowns in the opening round against Markos, and that’s what forced her to gas out…so I don’t really think she’s going to be comfortable enough to lean on that skillset for 15 minutes straight. Hill is defensively quite sound on the mat as well, so as long as she can avoid getting stuck in a position I think she’ll be fine.
So in short, the only skillset I think Luana Pinheiro deserves credit for at this level is her R1 explosiveness, and Angela Hill is one of the worst opponents to pit that style against. Hill’s last victory proves that, as she survived the early barrage of another R1 finisher and took over in R2/3. I think the exact same mission statement applies here, and I think Angela Hill should definitely be trusted to do that. I’d personally line Hill somewhere like -175 to -200 here, so the -137 available at the time of writing was an easy bet to make. Let’s go Angie! 2u Angela Hill to Win at -137.
How I line this fight: Angela Hill -188 (65%), Luana Pinheiro +188 (35%)
Bet or pass: 2u Angela Hill to Win (-137), 0.25u Angela Hill to Win by Decision (+125 or better)
Prop leans: Hill couldn’t finish her dinner, so the decision prop will be one to look out for.
Live Betting Leans: If Pinheiro wins R1 and goes a bit crazy in trying to find a finish, betting Hill on the stool before R2 is a good move as the cardio fall-off could be live.

~Adrian Yanez vs Vinicius Salvador~
This feels like a weird mismatch and I don’t know why it’s happening.
Adrian Yanez is a classy and technical striker that I feel has become a bit overrated. The fans love him and put him on a pedestal as some sort of elite fighter’s fighter – I get that he’s fun to watch and a good boxer, but I’d argue he’s had more underwhelming performances than good in the UFC. He got styled on by Font and Martinez, was competitive against Davey Grant and lost more minutes than he won against Randy Costa. There’s not much shame in that and I’m not trying to say Yanez is bad, but I don’t think those performances warrant him being regarded as one of the most popular unranked fighters on the roster.
He faces Vinicius Salvador, who looked like an exciting fighter from his DWCS victory, but there was always a suspicion that he would have very little to offer outside of barn burners and very early KOs. The UFC pissed away the chance for a fan-friendly prelim guy by putting him up against two of the scrappiest and most durable guys at Flyweight – Victor Altamirano and CJ Vergara. The path to victory for both men was very clear there, and they grinded out long-distance victories after Salvador had nothing to offer after five minutes.
The UFC should have instantly viewed Salvador the same as they do Trevor Peek. Someone who is hilariously flawed but scrappy and entertaining to watch nonetheless. His striking style is unorthodox and weird, which looks great when he’s the hammer but awful when he’s the nail. Against a fighter as scrappy and technical sound a boxer as Yanez, this obviously seems like a tall order.
But ironically, whilst this is the toughest opponent Salvador has faced so far in his career, it’s probably his most winnable fight too. Yanez will oblige him in providing a war for the fans, which will give Salvador his chance to land that early KO. Yanez also been pieced up twice in a row so durability could also be a bit more questionable. Yes there is a massive gap in technique and overall skill…but one clean right hand can trump all of that, and Yanez can be hit by one.
Yanez is a -350 favourite here, which is a very easy way to put that final nail in the coffin of considering betting him. Whilst I do think he probably deserves to be close to that number in terms of his overall winning probability, it really won’t take much for the tables to turn massively here, so risking -350 seems like a terrible idea.
A bet on Salvador on the return is too ugly to stomach though, because he could also get absolutely styled on. It’s an easy pass all round.
How I line this fight: Adrian Yanez -250 (71%), Vinicius Salvador +250 (29%)
Bet or pass: Pass
Prop leans: FDGTD very likely but doubt the price is at all playable.

~Oumar Sy v Antonio Trocoli~
We’re all jealous of Antonio Trocoli, AKA Mr Mackenzie Dern. I’ve probably got more to say about her than I do about this fight.
I’m obviously not going to do any tape for this fight, so the only thing of note from their records is that Trocoli has regional loses to Dhiego Lima (pre-UFC) and Jacob ‘Christmas’ Volkmann (post-UFC), both of which are pretty concerning losses. He also popped for steroids on DWCS, so who knows how good he actually is when he’s clean.
Sy is a terrifying specimen of a man, with a 9-0 record by KO/SUB/DEC. I suppose this is a good time to remind you that William Knight also looked like a god.
Why would you bet this fight? Just pass and take the info we get here into their next appearances.
How I line this fight: I’d have more confidence in my ability to hook up with Mackenzie Dern than my ability to accurate cap this fight.
Bet or pass: Pass
Prop leans: Over 1.5 Mackenzie Dern sightings (-200)

~Emily Ducote v Vanessa Demopoulos~
Two very middle-of-the-road WMMA fighters that I am quite familiar with.
Demopoulos got to the dance via her grappling and submission ability, but has spent time honing her skills on the feet that she actually seems to have abandoned a grappling based approach entirely, having landed an average of 0.49 takedowns per 15 mins in her UFC/DWCS career so far. On the feet, she’s scrappy and actually does hit kind of hard, but the technique is still very much a work in progress. She makes up for the lack of finesse with pure enthusiasm and grit, and will stay in her opponent’s face and swing until the final bell. She’s also pretty durable too, having never lost by finish in 15 fights with striking that’s that sketchy.
Emily Ducote is kind of the polar opposite. She’s a dedicated striker that has decent enough grappling defence. She has little to no power in her hands, but she’s reliable to rack up decent volume and can keep it up across 15 minutes. She has landed 100+ significant strikes in 3 of her 4 UFC bouts, but she’s also absorbed 100+ in 3 too.
The summary of this one is that Ducote is just the cleaner striker of the two, but I think this -330 price tag is a bit ridiculous. Yes, comparing the stats makes it seem that Ducote will win easily, but Demopoulos has faced quite a few opponents that have wanted to grapple her, and her Strikes landed per minute figures are skewed as a result. Given that Ducote absorbs a similar number to what she lands, I think Demopoulos’ enthusiasm should see her land far more than she has done before. Also, Demopolous’ fight metrics are often inferior to her opponents in all of the fights she loses, so the stats do her a major disservice to how competitive she can be.
I always say that there’s a real ceiling in regards to how much you can favour a striking based WMMA fighter if they have no power or finishing ability. The judges do not score technique, so the 50+ pitter patter punches they land can easily be trumped by any instance where it looks like they get hurt on the return, so in this instance I think Vanessa’s power and forward pressure could be enough to make rounds closer than the odds suggest they should be.
In short, Ducote price is nuts but she should probably win so definitely deserves to be favoured. I wouldn’t bet anything here other than FGTD, which could be a decent parlay piece anywhere less than -400. I’d be interested to see what Ducote by Decision looks like because I do rate Demopolous’ durability and see it going the distance quite frequently…so +100 or better would get my money.
How I line this fight: Emily Ducote -250 (71%), Vanessa Demopoulos +250 (29%)
Bet or pass: 1u Emily Ducote to Win by Decision (+100 or better)
Prop leans: See above

~Ramiz Brahimaj v Themba Gorimbo~
Stylistically this is a very funny fight, because it’s between two guys whose strengths and weaknesses are exactly the same. They’re both aggressive grapplers with average to bad striking, and they’ll hunt for the finish from the opening bell…and fall off a cliff at the halfway point if they can’t find it.
Themba Gorimbo is unfortunately completely unbettable at this stage in his career, I think. He’s obviously got this narrative with The Rock going on, and it’s somehow managed to turn him from a sub-par, barely UFC quality fighter that can’t beat AJ Fletcher, to someone whose fame actually manages to transcend MMA a little bit. Just goes to show how important those post-fight interviews can be! That popularity obviously swells his betting line as he’s likely to garner more money and attention from bettors, whereas Brahimaj is a nobody unless you’re a hardcore with a good memory. Couple that with the fact Themba’s style is not sustainable across 15 minutes, and you’ve got a fighter with a very limited path to victory that you can rely on, who comes with an eye-watering price tag.
Whilst Brahimaj’s betting line would lean towards the value side due to Thema’s popularity, this is the first time we have seen him compete in over two years. He was a fighter that came in during COVID times, and immediately got thrown into the deep end when matchmaking was difficult. I bet Max Griffin against him due to Max’s durability (IE my bet was ‘Max to survive and turn the tables’), and it resulted in Griffin slicing Ramiz’s ear in half with an elbow (one of the more gruesome moments we have ever seen in the cage). Ramiz managed to hit is PTV against Micheal Gillmore (the runt of the litter in a season of TUF who had no right competing in the UFC. The only interesting thing about him was that his parents couldn’t even spell his own name ), as well as Sasha Palatnikov. When facing a veteran grappler like Court McGee, I also won a bet backing the experience and durability of a guy like Court (which is ironic given I’ve bet on Court to be KO’d in his last two).
So basically, my summary here is that Thembo deserves to be favoured simply by being more proven and in the better recent form. He’s got good enough grappling all round to be able to stop Ramiz from being so dominant as a round one buzzsaw, and unless Brahimaj has made some major changes in the two years off, Themba’s probably got the slightly superior cardio (by a bit) and therefore should still be around once his opponent fades.
The -275 betting line is absurd though, as I mentioned earlier, because there’s a likelihood that Themba gasses out himself too, and it could easily be Brahimaj that’s fresher in the latter stages, should we get there. Therefore, it’s a very easy pass. I will take a look at the round props as there could potentially be an angle on some sort of combination, but we will see.
How I line this fight: Themba Gorimbo -200 (67%), Ramiz Brahimaj +200 (33%)
Bet or pass: Fight to End in Rounds 2 or 3 (price dependent), or something like that
Prop leans: See above

~Tom Nolan v Victor Martinez~
I’m bored of saying it, but Jesus Christ the calibre of a ‘UFC Fighter’ is just so low these days. Tom Nolan just got knocked out in 63 seconds as a -350 favourite to Nikolas Motta (shoutout to me for sort of predicting that), and Victor Martinez’s UFC debut saw him get knocked out cold by JORDAN LEAVITT.
So what do you do, bet at -350 on an unproven fighter who shat the bed at the exact same price tag last time? Or trust a guy who got put to sleep by the hands of Jordan Leavitt?
Obviously, you pass. If I see a single parlay screenshot with Nolan in it this weekend I will lose all hope.
How I line this fight: I like my chances of pulling Mackenzie Dern for a second time, more than I like my chances of lining this fight accurately.
Bet or pass: Pass
Prop leans: See above

~Abus Magomedov v Warlley Alves~
Abus Magomedov needs to fire his manager. He started off his UFC career with a highlight reel KO inside 20 seconds, and had the world at his feet. Then he gets a main event spot against Sean Strickland. Fair enough taking an opportunity, but trying to speed run the rankings is a terrible idea when you consider all they want to do these days is play monopoly and generate stars. It’s much better to KO bums in the prelims and get paid a 50k bonus a few times than do what he did against Strickland…because look who he got for his third fight after losing in embarrassing fashion - Caio Borralho, who is lowkey one of the best prospects in the UFC at the moment in my opinion. Abus basically went from prospect to fodder when he lost to Strickland, and I wouldn’t expect him to stick around in the UFC for too much longer if he doesn’t start delivering early KOs again.
He should be able to get the better of Warlley Alves though. Alves looks hella old and shopworn, despite only being 33 years old somehow. He has ridden the coattails of having a win against Colby Covington on his record for his entire career, because he’s done nothing remarkable with it since. His loss to James Krause was the fight where it was apparent Alves was on the decline, and a ‘loser leaves town’ win against the equally old and frail Sergio Moraes was the only thing keeping him afloat. He scored a shock upset KO via body kicks against Mounir Lazzez (who turned out to be a bit of a fraud anyway), but the writing has been on the wall for Warlley for some time. Fast forward a few years and he's on a threefight losing streak again, having been beaten down pretty badly and finished in under 1.5 rounds in four of his last five losses.
That’s a key piece of info for this one, because we know Abus’ limitations revolve around him being a great early fighter with terrible and unsustainable levels of cardio. When looking at Abus’ fights, you need to decipher the chances of him winning early, and that will explain the rest.
Given Alves’ frailty, I think this is a pretty generous fight for Magomedov – possibly the most appropriate and tailor-made matchup they could have found for him!
His winning probability relies heavily on doing work early, so naturally betting Abus R1/2 KO would be the obvious go to. I’m not sure there will be any value on that prop though, because it’s a pretty obvious angle that everyone’s going to try and take. However, I’ve long known that Bet365’s Bet Builder product is broken when combining Winner + Total Rounds, especially before they release the rest of the props as it’s completely out of context…so Backing Abus to Win and Under 1.5 Rounds at the right time could produce a valuable price before it gets corrected. That’s all I’ll be looking to play for this fight, assuming those early Abus props are rubbish. Be careful what price is available if you’re considering this, it’s going to be much shorter than normal and it’s a very limited window to be betting on.
How I line this fight: Abus Magomedov -250 (71%), Warlley Alves +250 (29%)
Bet or pass: Abus Magomedov to Win & Under 1.5 Rounds (+125 or better)
Prop leans: See Above
Live Betting Leans: I’d take a look at Alves on the stool after R1, but I don’t think I could trust him really.

~Piera Rodriguez v Ariane Carnelossi~
Ariane Carnelossi returns after two years on the sidelines. I’ve always jokingly been a fan of her, because that fight against Na Liang (the first UFC Fight back with fans after COVID) was genuinely one of the highlights of 2021 and it was such a fun fight with a crazy energy. Also helps that I bet her heavily in that.
Carnelossi’s a decent striker that actually hung with Angela Hill back in the day, but her wrestling defence is a clear weak point. She got absolutely ragdolled in one of the best UFC performances I can remember when she faced Loopy Godinez, and even Na Liang had some success in that opening round. She’s not a fish off her back or anything, but if you can’t defend takedowns and your opponent has the cardio and ability to chain takedowns together…you’re going to struggle.
Piera Rodriguez is a pretty well-rounded fighter, she’s decent enough in the striking realm and has a diverse arsenal with kicks and a whole lot of feints, but she’s also a decent enough grappler that can commit to that multiple takedown approach. She’s landed three or more in each of her UFC/DWCS victories and just generally does a good job of showcasing herself to be a well-rounded mixed martial artist. My biggest criticism of her is that she does look to have slight signs of bad cardio, as her third rounds against both Hughes and Hansen were a bit laboured and slow.
So initially this fight was lined as a clear pick’em, which I didn’t agree with at all. Whilst Carnelossi should be able to show some competitiveness, her inability to defend takedowns should see her on the back foot for a fair bit of this fight, and her desire to land the knockout with every punch she throws could even see her lose moments on the feet to Piera’s kicking game and more technical style. Carnelossi does have a bit of a cardio advantage though, which Piera will have to navigate, but other than that I think the Venezuelan should be given the nod as a moderate favourite, probably around -175. Considering I got Piera at -120, I thought that was worthy of a 2u bet. If the line continues to move though, I may arb out as I think -175 is a very fair number.
How I line this fight: Piera Rodriguez -175 (64%), Ariane Carnelossi +175 (36%)
Bet or pass: 2u Piera Rodriguez to Win (-120)
Prop leans: Probably a decision win for Piera, Carnelossi is dedicated and Piera not much of a finisher.

~Alatengheili v Kleydson Rodrigues~
I write the same synopsis for Alatengheili because the guy never changes. Here’s a paragraph from his last fight that I wrote:
Alatengheili is one of the most frustrating talents I’ve seen in MMA in recent years. He was once the number three freestyle wrestler in China and looks to actually have a really promising wrestling game…but he just doesn’t fight like it! In his UFC debut, he faced a clearly superior striker and waited until round 3 to start shooting religiously (no attempts in R1 or 2, 7 attempts in R3). After that, he did exactly the same again in a split decision win against Ryan Benoit (1 TD attempt in R1, none in R2, and 12 in R3). He then faced Casey Kenny, who is a great defensive grappler…and decided not to attempt a takedown. Then he faced Gustavo Lopez, who took HIM down three times from eight attempts, and none from Alatenheili. He went on to beat Kevin Croom in under a minute on the feet, then went back to his regular style of waiting until R3 for takedowns when he beat Chad Anheliger. In the Gutierrez fight that followed, he attempted four takedowns and landed two. These all came in – you guessed it- round three.
So I think it’s fair to assume that we can’t call Alatengheili much of a wrestler anymore. When he’s striking on the feet, he’s clearly got some power in a big wind up shot, but other than that it’s quite flat footed and low volume stuff. Those aren’t particularly good qualities, as he’s hardly demonstrating a clear killer instinct that makes up for bad minute winning fundamentals.
Kleydson Rodrigues is a guy I was quite excited about when he got to the UFC. He looked great on DWCS, but immediately had a tough test against CJ Vergara in his debut. I do personally think he won that fight, but CJ’s pace, pressure and tenacity got the better of him down the stretch and made that fight close. He returned and obliterated Shannon Ross, before being steamrolled on the mat by Farid Basharat. A real mixed bag of results, overall.
The thing is, I don’t exactly think that the losses Rodrigues suffered are directly relevant here, as Farid’s topside grappling is way way better than Alateng’s. The Mongolian also doesn’t have the forward pressure or pace of CJ Vergara, due to how flat footed he is.
On the flipside, Alatengheili has struggled against fighters who technically outclass him on the feet, or those with good takedown defence. The Mongolian has proven to be a tough fighter to put away, which should give him a chance to take over at the midway point.
Comparatively, I think Kleydson Rodrigues has shown himself to be a higher calibre striker than Alatenheili, and clearly the more diverse one. Kleydson also throws a lot of low kicks, which are a key weapon when trying to nullify the grappling threat of the already flat footed power puncher.
In conclusion, I just think Kleydson Rodrigues outclasses Alatengheili in the striking, whereas I don’t think the Mongolian outclasses him anywhere on the return. The Mongolian has proven he is keen to stay on the feet for the majority of fights, which should leave the door wide open for Kleydson to win minutes. The cardio advantage does lie with Alateng, but I don’t think he pushes enough of a pace in the grappling or striking department to make Kleydson fade like he did against CJ (who is one of the more suffocating guys in the division). Also, Alateng’s grappling threat in R3 may well be nullified by the 10 minutes of leg kick investment that Kleydson has already made.
So as you can probably tell, I favour Kleydson Rodrigues in this one. I personally thought he should be a -200 favourite, so I was expecting to pass on this one…but it looks like the BetOnline moneyline is moving towards -150. For some strange reason the fight is barely available in the UK for now, but I’m hoping that -150 would be available for me to bet for 2u.
How I line this fight: Kleydson Rodrigues -200 (67%), Alatengheili +200 (33%)
Bet or pass: 2u Kleydson Rodrigues to Win (-160 or better)
Prop leans: None
Live Betting Leans: If it’s 1-1 going into the third and there’s been a pace…I’d recommend betting Alatengheili.

~Tamires Vidal v Melissa Gatto~
Melissa Gatto is a competent and well-rounded fighter. She went to competitive decisions with Tracey Cortez and Ariane Lipski. She is UFC quality.
Tamires Vidal is a plodding fighter that doesn’t appear to be very good at defensive grappling. She went to a competitive decision against Montserrat Rendon. She is not UFC quality.
Gatto is -400. It’s a very steep price to pay but I don’t think it’s too far off where it ought to be – she should be able to point strike on the feet and have very decent grappling success, where she can definitely fish for a submisison. I’d be interested in seeing what the price on Gatto by Submission is though, so I may be looking to play that.
How I line this fight: Tamires Vidal +300 (25%), Melissa Gatto -300 (75%)
Bet or pass: Xu Melissa Gatto to Win by Submission (+300 or better)
Prop leans: See above

Bets (Bold = been placed)
2u Edson Barboza to Win (+130)
1.6u Themba Gorimbo to Win (-137)
0.3u Themba Gorimbo to Win in Rounds 2/3 (+380)
0.1u Themba Gorimbo to Win by Submission in Rounds 2/3 (+1150)
2u Angela Hill to Win (-137)
2u Piera Rodriguez to Win (-120)
2u Kleydson Rodrigues to Win (-150)
2u Abus Magomedov to Win & Under 1.5 Rounds (+130)
0.5u Melissa Gatto to Win by Submmission (+225)
0.25u Parlay Pieces (+699)
Parlay Pieces: Angela Hill, Emily Ducote, Abus Magomedov, Kleydson Rodgriguez, Melissa Gatto
Dog of the Week: Edson Barboza

I finally finished the first chapter of this fanfic i wanted to make here is the post that i said how i planned the series *Some spoilers* https://www.reddit.com/MurderDrones/comments/1cn55sh/ideia_for_a_fanfic_about_tessa_being_a_synth_part/ i changed a lot of things from that version to the current version The fanfic has 2700 words. we are still on the start of the fanfic
i know this is not the ideal way to read it but i'm still waiting for my Archive of our own account ):
“Their little girl Or is it?”
Dark…. Why is it so dark? You needs to know…. You try moving your legs but nothing happens, you just noticed how claustrophobic you felt. And that smell…. Is it oil? And why is it so hot too here?
You tried screaming but nothing came out of your mouth, only a warning showed up “Critically low oil levels all system are powered off to keep processor functional”, you start thinking of how to escape this situation. you try remembering any past event but nothing came up.
You start losing hope, that how I’m going to die huh. . . . . . . suddenly You felt a pleasant feeling coming from you mouth and into your entire body, it was so sweet..
Oil levels: 4.6%... Oil levels: 21.4%…
Oil levels: 39.7%…
Oil levels: 58.1%…
Oil levels: 72.6%…
Oil levels: 100%…
“No longer critical oil levels, starting all systems. . . . . . Success! Welcome back! Cyn”. Slowly opening her optical sensor Cyn takes a look around then she notices 3 figures around her, and one that is carrying her and the rest following behind her. Finally her optical sensor adjust for the brightness and she see its actually a human carrying her. And the human immediately notices that she is awake
“Ohh she woke up guys!” she heard a pretty emotionless “yay…” then followed by a super excited “yay!”. She lifted her head and saw 3 worker drones around her and the human. each one with a different hair style, at that moment she felt being lowered to the ground into a sitting position.
“Hi! How are you doing little one? Whats your name?”, after hearing this question Cyn face emotes immediately changed into distress because of her inability to remember her own name, then she remembered what the warning said, that must be her name.
“My name is Cyn” she said with a broken way of speech.
“Hi Cyn, my name is Tessa james elliot but you can just call me Tessa. The others drones are N, V and J” each one making a greeting sign after having their name mentioned together with a “Hi”
Tessa then explained to Cyn how they found her, overheating and damaged lucky the damage was just external and the overheating part was easy to fix with some oil.
“Lets go guys back to the manor, its getting late and you know how mother acts when I arrive late” everybody gave a nodding motion, but when Cyn tried moving everybody noticed Cyn weird and somewhat slow way of walking. Tessa broke the ice by saying “Oh I was not expecting that, if you want I can carry you on my back”. Tessa crouching down to Cyn level to allow her to climb her back, the robot without hesitation accepted the invitation and climbed onto Tessa back. While describing every action “Climb, embrace, holding on”.
Cyn quickly noticed Tessa’s unique smell she even gave a quick lick behind her neck
lucky nobody noticed the lick, Tessa’s taste was unique to say the least.
The other drones just stared at the scene, J getting jealous. “Hey I’m the only one supposed to do that!” said J, Cyn giving her a stare before popping her tongue out in a provocative manner, J happily reciprocated the act.
Finally after arriving at the front porch, Tessa tried putting Cyn down but the little drone refused to comply and just showed a message at her visor “Nuh uh”, Tessa just gave a bit of a sign and gave in for the drone wishes, too say that J didn't like it, would be a understatement. she needs to put some discipline into that drone later. . .
Tessa took her shoes off and tried to pat down off the dirt in her skirt then started making her way back to her room to add some accessories into Cyn hairless head and put some clothes too.
Sadly for Tessa she was intercepted by her mother in the corridor, immediately noticing her daughter messy state, she screamed “Tessa james elliot! what type of estate you think you live on? Look at how dirty you are right now”. Tessa started shaking and just said “Sorry mother I was. . .” Tessa gets interrupted before being able to say anything by a slap to her face, she stood shocked for a second before recovering.
Her mother finally noticed the drone in her back
“Oh god what is that on your back?! Did you bring another dirty toaster from that old scrapyard?”. Tessa stood there thinking of a answer to provide for her mother before feeling the drone in her back starting to climb down while the rest of the drones in the back just watched, Tessa's mother oblivious to the drone action.
Tessa finally managed to say “I was… walking outside when I accidentally tripped this estate drone and myself into some uhhh…mud with old oil! so I’m bringing it so a can take a bath and clean the drone too” while she said that the drone slowly walked behind one of Tessa’s drones. if she remembers correctly his name was N?
Tessa just managed to finish her statement before getting kicked in the stomach, Tessa giving out a gag before falling to the floor in pain, “HOW DARE YOU TRY TO LIE TO ME, go back to you room while think of a punishment for you insolence”
J quickly went to Tessa’s side to comfort herwhile V, N and Cyn watches with fear indicators on their screen excluding Cyn, she is still thinking of the situation and the relationship of Tessa and her mother, its definitively not pretty.
With that Tessa’s mother gave a quick sign and a disappointing look before leaving Tessa in the floor N and V watched she leave before approaching Tessa in the floor.
Cyn just stood there thinking why did Tessa take most of the blame. Cyn processor finally clicked and she started to understand the relationship between Tessa and her drones.Its pretty clear that Tessa is not the most normal human, if she was why would she have 3 drones following her, and be searchinga scrapyard for broken drones like Cyn?, its clear that she likes the drones to the extend of giving them human features like hair plus its clear that Tessa is from a high status family, does she even have human friends? - wait why is she analyzing it so deeply?
Suddenly she heard a voice in her processor and a weird feeling came with it
Interesting…
Befriend her
She is very interesting.
The voice left as quick as it came. Then Cyn suddenly remembered
“Hey ~robo bitch~”
~She~ turns to the source of the voice, there stands a ~man~ with his face blurred and
as ~she~ finishes turning around ~she~ was meet with a straight bullet followed by laughter then everything went dark. . . .
silly me *giggle* how could I forget it
She returns back to reality seeing Tessa in the floor, she decided to follow the what the voice said.
She look at the drones trying to comfort and help Tessa, she wants a piece of the pie
She approaches Tessa on the floor “Crouch pet Tessa. Sorry Big sister Tessa I should have helped you sooner” this helped Tessa mood a bit
Tessa gets up using the drone in her side as support and lets out some coughs and a sign
“Thanks. lets go to my room, I want to take a shower and get Cyn some hair and some clothes too”
Everybody nods and starts walking to Tessa’s room, while walking J tries starting some small talk to get the mood up a bit
“If you want Tessa we can bring you something to eat or drink, you are not alone here we are always going to stand by your side and you should remember that always. We can play some games after you finish Cyn hairstyle or you could skip that and go directly to bed if you feel tired”
N finally decides to say something “Sorry for not saying anything, I really don’t know what to say to be honest, this situation that you are in Tessa just bothers me”
V decides to join in “I personally think you are the best Tessa and I mean it! Look how good we look after you used your talents on us, don’t let the abuse bring you down”
Tessa replies “Thanks everybody, but I really want to give Cyn a new look too, I enjoy adding somebody to our family! And that brings me joy more that anything“
after Tessa says that she looks at the floor and starts making a worried faced.
They finally arrived at Tessa room after the conversation, Tessa takes off her socks skirt and shirt leaving she only with her underwear N and V turns away in a blush only Cyn and J keep watching. J is with a blush while Cyn just stares at the weird interaction and gives out a “Giggle”, as Tessa gets into the bathroom closing the door behind her
Cyn decides to tease J a bit “Are you guys really that close to Tessa. And J why didn’t you look away from big sister Tessa *Giggle\*”
J visor light you with a massive blush as she covered her face with her hands.
“ITS NOT LIKE THAT, I was just uhhhh….. wanting for her to request help, yeah! I was just waiting”
Cyn just continue to stare J with the biggest raised eyebrow she ever seen.
N and V just give each other a look of disbelief before returning their gazes to the two.
J mood quickly shifts from embarrassment to anger, she pins Cyn to the wall and gives her a stare, “You need to start having some manners here, Tessa is mine OK?
I was the first and I’m her most beloved drone so I have the right to keep lookingat Tessa’s body”
Tessa had finished her bath when she started hearing a argument outside so she decide to give a peek trough the door. She saw J pinning Cyn into the wall and saying something that she couldn't make out, are they fighting?
Cyn quickly noticed Tessa peaking trough the door and she quietly signaled to J.
J quickly turned around to Tessa, holding Cyn in a friendly way, Tessa knew her cover had been blown so she swinged the door open with the towel around her waist
“Finally took a nice shower, I’m going to b- wait one minute. . . . oh! almost forgot about something” she dropped the towel and immediately grabbed J still holding Cyn in her arms. N immediately turned around from embarrassment while V just keep looking with mouth agape from the scene in front of her, getting permanently burned into her optical sensors.
Tessa quickly noticed the behavior from the drones in the corner, getting a evil grin with very malefic intentions, Tessa settled J with Cyn onto a seat and started walking to both the drones in the corner, V immediately felt true primal fear for the first time ever in her programming, and N still clueless of Tessa’s evil intention.
Tessa pounced on both of them putting them in a unbreakable bear hug, while Cyn and J just watched the horrors of suffocation. Both of them started started praying for the two (Unlucky?) drones, J bitting her lips she is kinda jealous from the affection.
Tessa finally let V and N from her “Patent pending Bear hug” letting the drones get a breath of fresh air. “Thank guys for making my day actually bearable, I love you guys” Tessa said to N and V in her lap giving them a quick kiss on the visor, N turned into a lantern by the size of the blush in his visor, V gave Tessa a smile and just said “I Love you too Tessa!”
Tessa putted the drones down and went into the other two drones at the corner and gave them a bear hug too, and a quick kiss on the visor. “Ok Cyn lets give you some hair shall we? I have a idea for a hairstyle already” Tessa took a wig from a drawer and started working on the drones hair when she finished 15 minutes later. Cyn hairstyle was pretty much identical from Tessa’s own.
J glowing red with jealousy from the hairstyle, Cyn gave her another provocative tongue gesture. After Tessa finished Cyn hair she quickly gave the drone some clothes. Tessa letting out a Yawn “Finally I finished Cyn hair, I’m feeling really sleepy I’m going to bed”
Finally Tessa jumped into bed, quickly followed by J taking a spot beside Tessa
Cyn quickly caught on and walked into the spot beside Tessa followed by N and V.
Tessa quickly got comfortable in the bed and wrapped J in a hug using her as a personal heater. And started to drift off to sleep with her drones quickly following her step. Soon everybody was sleeping except one drone, Cyn started caressing Tessa’s head, she was pretty interested at Tessa because of her unusual behavior towards drones but she quickly felt a weird change in sensation when passing trough a part from Tessa’s head it didn't feel the same as the rest of head, She quickly found the specific location of the sensation and lifted the hair just above it, she found a weird patch on Tessa’s skin with a slight difference in color from the rest of her head. She started playing with it until she managed to open it, wait open it? She looked and she saw some type of port in the back of Tessa’s head, Cyn quickly analysed her internal database for what type of port it was. She quickly found it was a “Firewire” port.
Firewire was discontinued as a standard for general connection, now its exclusively used by drones as a way of data link, wait why did Tessa have that? Curiosity overwhelmed her, but that weird feeling happened again Cyn already knew what that was linked to. . . .
I said she was interesting. . . Connect to it. . .
the feeling again went away as quick as it came.
Cyn immediately complied withmasterthe voice, she pulled out the standard connection cable from her arm and plugged it in, immediately a menu appeared requesting authentication for model T.E.S.S.A synth. Cyn just stared at it for some seconds and took the courage to try a random combination.
After inputting and pressing enter Tessa body gave a quick jerk and a Error message showed up. “Wrong password! If you forgot the password, T.E.S.S.A manual provides a unique master restart code”.
Well that is a convenient piece of information the system just gave up, Cyn tought. After closing the warning she noticed a “About” button that was hidden on the upper right corner, after clicking on it
It showed a butch of information about the model and its capabilities
1-Identical human mind replication
2-Human like growth and simulated organs
3-Ability to consume organic material for feeding
4-Combat mode (Unstable)
5-bla bla bla do you even read this?
Legal warning!
JcJohnson does not take responsibility for ( usage of the unstable Combat mode, synth usage, damages, child support and possible unexpected behavior )
Cyn quickly copied the information into her storage and sneaky unplugged herself
Making sure to close the port after.
As Cyn laid out on the overcrowded bed she wasracing with her toughs about the whole situationshe was not expecting to find such a mind blowing discovery by accident as she look at Tessa’s back, she tough “Its kinda hard to believe that she is a synth. Not even her taste test worked to detect it, I should learn more about Tessa before doing anything, I would happily learn any information on her, she is so interesting and full of mystery ” thinking about that sended bolts of energy trough Cyn body from the excitement of her discovery
Cyn tough “I should probably go to sleep. . . oh God why is this bed so comfortable”
Cyn finally letting the sleepiness get to her, as she entered sleep mode she just whispered “a Giggle for Tessa”.

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Marcus felt his throat bulge with an intake of Fleapit's dank air as he watched all his efforts over the last few weeks vanish, literally, into the air.
The ratmen he and his captor had left behind saw them, too, and he realized that this operation was more sophisticated than even he had given the Yokun credit for.
In the distance, floating up harmlessly to the black abyss above Fleapit, were all the Glitterpaks that had been corralled from the outlying farms in preparation for their final, simultaneous strikes on Skegga's last remaining forts in the North. A fleet of two-hundred, simply floating away, deaf, dumb, and ignorant of the promise of victory they represented. It was like watching the ratmen's chances of winning literally fly away from their grasp.
And he heard the snake-woman's biting laughter echo in his ear as she led him on, watching as the ratmen's secret weapon vanished before their eyes.
Chaos erupted next. The castle alarms were rung, and warriors jumped to the tallest towers they could to try and grasp at the disappearing Glitterpaks. Meanwhile, the citizens of Fleapit were crying out in fear lest someone strike even the smallest torch. Such an act would send the entire Capital up in flames in an instant.
With this chaos it would be a piece of cake for the serpent to sequester herself amidst the packs of rampaging rats that crowded the dark streets and exit the city with ease. Marcus would've once again remarked on the prowess of his sneaky captor, were it not for the fact that he had no intention of letting himself become the sacrificial lamb of some snake-cult. These rats might be barbarians, yes, but they were barbarians that at least saw him as a hero. Who knows why these sly serpents wanted him.
So, as the snake forced him down a dingy back-alley amongst the bustling, panicked crowd, he inclined his head an inch to the little creature that was standing atop Castle Carfaxx's tallest battlement, holding a longbow in his tiny hands.
Marcus didn't have to worry about the archer's line of sight. He saw, alright. Those little eyes would be able to spot a pin drop from a distance of ten-thousand feet. He'd relied on those sharp eyes before, and he'd do so again, now.
"On your knees, monkey," the Yokun snarled at him. "We're leave-"
Marcus's sudden headbutt stopped her words.
The pain reverberating across the back of his head told him that his impacting her scaled skull had done more damage to him than it did to her, but the intention was not to subdue her. Instead, Marcus felt her reel back and threw his neck to the left, creating an opening for the arrow that had been launched from the castle battlements to find its mark in the Yokun's shoulder.
Her shrill scream of pain was enough to almost paralyze Marcus's limbs, but as she stretched out her scaly hand to reach for the sleeve of his coat he stumbled forwards, fell into a mud-bath in the middle of the street, and began scrabbling through the dirt towards the safety of the castle walls.
"The Shai-Alud!" he heard the ratling civilians scream from their hovels around him.
"Protect him! Be kicking the tail of the snake-snake!"
"Idiots!" he heard the Yokun scream behind him as she tore at the throats of every raggedy ratman that threw himself at her to stop her way. Marcus looked back only momentarily to see her drowning in a sea of vermin, her blade skittering away as the swam took her.
You got cocky, he heard himself say in his mind. You underestimated your opponents' devotion for their precious Shai-Alud. And now, I don't even want to think about what the little ankle-biters will do to you.
He saw the iron gates come back into view before him and quickened his steps, spurned on by the calls of the people – many of whom had scaled the castle walls and were pouring into the courtyard, ordering their King and his warriors to get the get opened.
But, to Marcus's surprise, the iron bars remained firmly shut.
He stopped before them and grabbed two of them with both hands, wringing them like a madman and finally tearing the gag from his mouth to scream.
"SHRYKUL!" he called "OPEN THE GATES! OPEN -!"
His voice dimmed when he realized that the rats had abandoned their posts long ago at the foyer, instead chasing after the still departing Glitterpak fleet high above, obsessed with their perfect weapon sailing away on the still winds and being lost forever in the abyss of the Underkingdom's skies.
But one rat remained – the gate-guard himself. And it was those crimson eyes that stared down at Marcus from his post, and the General of the ratmen now knew, too late, who it was that had led the Yokun right to him.
The familiar face of Redwhiskers, Skeever's right-hand lieutenant, glowered down at Marcus.
"T-traitor," Marcus spat.
The snarling maw of the rat grinned right back at him before the world went black, and his senses filled with a cloud of poison smoke.
"Is that how you are addressing your captor, Shai-Alud?"
Marcus heard shouts from the courtyard as the King's retinue finally caught on to the distraction that had just been sprung on them.
But his world was now bathed in nothing but the inky darkness of something that was seeping into his nose, into the tear ducts beneath his eyes, and sending him off to oblivion.
"You will be speaking to me with more respect," the fading voice of Redwhiskers told him between the bars of the gate. "Or that word will be your last."
…
Marcus woke to the sound of raised voices and hissing that pierced his skull.
He groggily rose, eyes adjusting to the dark interior that stretched before him – a cobweb filled house. Judging by the lack of décor and cracks in the wooden floorboards, he guessed he was in the residential district of Fleapit, probably sequestered in some hidden hole the Yokun had prepared in the case of failure.
He felt the unpleasant, squelching feeling of ratman blood pooling between his toes, and looked down to see the dead bodies of two ratmen covered in rags, their stomachs opened and eyes glazed with the specter of recent death. Only now did he try to move, feeling his arms struggle against the thick ropes that bound him to the wall.
"He is up!" someone whispered before him – a feminine voice
"Leave him where he sits," another replied – another woman. "He is harmless, now."
"How do we know he does not possess incantations of his own?"
Marcus strained his eyes as two lithe shadows walked forward and knelt before him, staring at him with the eyes of hungry serpents.
"I am telling you!" a third voice cried. "He is just base human. He is being nothing without my Brothers, as all human are!"
Marcus saw both snake-women distinctly roll their eyes in annoyance at the third voice, ignoring it completely as they inspected Marcus for wounds.
"Sister?" one of them – the one to his left that Marcus assumed, by her greying scales, to be the oldest of the Yokun. "How do you fare?"
A third Yokun came into view from behind, leaning against the doorway of the house and peeking out every now and then to observe the streets outside. By the distant sounds of panic he could hear, Marcus knew the outside must still be in the grip of chaos.
The Yokun guard's hand flew to wipe at her shoulder, coming away with a spattering of her plumb-purple blood.
"It will take more than a rat's poisoned arrow to fell me," she replied to her 'Sister'. "These rodents do not yet seem to understand our blood's innate resistance to their poxes and poisons. Though I admit, the little beast made a good shot."
Marcus struggled against his binds, trying to shout that it was a Kobold that shot her – a talented little Yip by the name of Ix.
"He stirs," the old snake said. "Should we send him back to dreamland?"
"No need," the snake beside her said. "Let him see what awaits him with his own eyes. The Pale Matriarch's orders were to be gentle with him, after all."
Marcus felt the barely restrained desire to slit his throat radiating from the two younger snakes, especially the one hanging by the door.
But more even than they, he could feel the fury bubbling in Redwhisker's seething little form.
"You are failing!" he said with a stamp of his feet, coming to talk directly to the elder Yokun. "I am being forced to reveal myself to stop him escaping. Why are you not killing him now?"
"That wasn't the deal, little rat," the grey elder said from her dark veil, not even deigning to make eye-contact with the seething creature. "We take him alive, tonight."
"And what about me?" Redswhiskers stamped again like a rabbity old crone. "Where is being my reward? I am being promised riches of Yokun. I will be needing help to escape to new Clan. You will be taking me!"
"Out of the question," the wounded Sister by the door replied coolly, calmly. "The situation has changed. This Underkingdom is grown too hot for our blood, little rodent. We make for the surface tonight. You can come with us, or you can stay. But go we shall."
Both the other Yokun nodded and got Marcus to his feet.
"Possible exits?" the elder asked.
"Industrial sector," the snake door-guard replied. "Cover of smog shall be our advantage. The integrity of the walls on that side are structurally weak, and security detail is focused on the Palace district."
The snake women nodded sagely. "Then let us wait for a lull in the sentries."
Marcus was forced to marvel at the professionalism on display from the snakes. Their plan had backfired – they had wanted to get him out without a struggle. That must have been the point of enlisting Redwhiskers for help as the castle gate watchman for the night. How they knew that rat in particular harbored hatred towards him was anyone's guess. Perhaps they had more spies in the Underkingdom than even Shrykul thought.
One thing was certain though: they had clearly taken steps to ensure they had a backup plan in place and were now executing an entirely new escape plan on the fly. And they were good at it – Marcus had to admit.
These were trained agents. Focused and ever-present.
So, of course, as they moved him towards the door of the ramshackle hut and made ready to slip back out into the streets, Marcus had one question burning in his mind:
Just who the hell had sent them?
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Chapter 17: The Escape Plan
Gribble huddled in the corner of his cramped, gloomy cell. The damp stone walls seemed to close in around him, making him feel even smaller than he already was. A chill seeped into his bones, causing him to shiver and wrap his arms tightly around himself. The only sound was the steady drip, drip, drip of water echoing in the dungeon.
The heavy iron cuffs clamped around Gribble's wrists felt as cold as ice against his skin. They weighed him down, a constant reminder that he was trapped in this awful place. Gribble's mind raced with frantic thoughts, zipping around like angry bees in his head. He knew he had to find a way out, and fast. If he didn't escape soon, the wicked goblin king Grimrock would surely snatch him up.
Gribble squeezed his eyes shut tight and tried to calm the whirlwind of worries swirling inside him. "Come on, Gribble, think!" he muttered to himself, his voice small and shaky in the gloom. "You've got to come up with a plan. You can't let Grimrock win!"
As Gribble sat there, his back pressed against the rough stone wall, a tiny flicker of an idea began to glow in his mind. His eyes popped open wide as he remembered his special power - the ability to create itty-bitty flames no bigger than a seed. A surge of hope bloomed in his chest, spreading through him like a warm sip of tea on a chilly day. Maybe, just maybe, his little flame seeds could help him break free!
Gribble took a deep breath, trying to steady the nervous fluttering in his stomach. He knew he had to be extra careful and sneaky if he wanted his plan to work. The guards couldn't catch even a hint of what he was up to, or else he'd be in even bigger trouble.
Moving as quietly as a mouse, Gribble inched his hands towards the lock on his cuffs. His heart thumped wildly in his chest as he peeked around the cell, making absolutely sure no one was watching. The sturdy metal of the cuffs seemed to mock him, daring him to even try to break free. But Gribble set his jaw in determination, refusing to let a silly old lock get the best of him.
With trembling fingers, Gribble brought his hands close to the lock, so close he could almost feel the chill of the metal against his skin. He took one more quick look around the cell, double-checking that the coast was clear. "It's now or never," he whispered to himself, gathering every scrap of courage he had.
Gribble closed his eyes and pictured the inside of the lock in his mind, like a tiny metal puzzle waiting to be solved. He focused hard, calling forth the tiniest flame seed he could muster. The little spark danced on his fingertip, no bigger than a grain of sand.
As Gribble was concentrating, he wondered for a moment, a little question began to niggle at the back of his mind, like an itch he couldn't quite scratch. Why hadn't the magic cuff stopped his own special powers from working? Gribble tilted his head to one side, his brow furrowed in thought. "Hmm, maybe what I can do isn't really magic after all," he mused, tapping his chin with one finger.
But then, quick as a wink, a big grin spread across Gribble's face, and he gave a carefree shrug. "Ah, who cares about all that complicated stuff anyway?" he chuckled, his eyes twinkling with mischief.
With the utmost care, Gribble guided the flame seed towards the lock, his forehead crinkled in concentration. The bitty flame twirled and spun like a playful fairy as it slipped into the nooks and crannies of the cuff. Gribble held his breath as he watched it work, his heart thumping in anticipation.
The flame seed nestled into the lock like a baby bird in its nest, its soft glow casting eerie shadows on the dungeon walls. Slowly, slowly, it began to heat the metal from the inside, sapping the strength from the cuff bit by bit. Gribble felt a flicker of pride as he sensed the metal starting to yield to his clever little flame.
"That's it, just a little more," Gribble whispered encouragingly to the flame seed. He kept his eyes glued to the cuff, watching for any telltale signs of weakening. The warmth of the metal seeped into his skin, a tangible reminder of the progress he was making.
As the flame seed worked its magic, Gribble's ears perked up at the sound of distant footsteps echoing down the dungeon corridor. His whole body tensed, and he fought the urge to yank his hands away from the cuff. "Steady, Gribble," he told himself firmly. "You can't stop now."
The footsteps grew louder, the clomping of heavy boots against stone getting closer and closer. Gribble's heart raced like a galloping horse, and beads of sweat formed on his brow. He silently pleaded with the flame seed to work faster, knowing he was running out of time.
Just as the footsteps reached a crescendo, the metal of the cuff finally gave way with a soft, barely audible click. Gribble's eyes flew open wide, hardly daring to believe it. The flame seed had done it! The cuff was weakened, compromised by the heat.
Gribble quickly extinguished the flame seed and tried to arrange his features into a look of hopeless defeat. He couldn't let the guards suspect anything was amiss. The cell door creaked open, and two burly trolls stomped in, their faces twisted into sneers.
"On your feet, prisoner," one of them growled, roughly hauling Gribble up by his arms. Gribble let himself hang limp in their grasp, playing the part of the beaten-down captive. Inside, though, his heart soared with a flicker of hope.
As the guards marched him out of the cell and into the winding dungeon corridors, Gribble's mind raced ahead, already plotting his next move. He knew he had to bide his time and wait for just the right moment to make his escape.
The damp air closed in around him as they walked, the guards' tight grips digging into his arms. Gribble stumbled along between them, his bare feet scraping against the rough stone floor. With each step, he focused inward, reaching out with his mind to the slumbering earth vines he knew lay hidden beneath the dungeon.
"Wake up, my green friends," Gribble called out silently, pouring all his strength and will into the plea. "I need your help to bust out of here!" He felt a stirring deep in the ground, a faint pulsing of life answering his summons.
The guards, completely oblivious to Gribble's mental conversation with the earth, trudged onward, their heavy boots thudding against the floor. They yanked him around corners and down narrow passageways, the labyrinth of the dungeon seeming to close in around them.
As they walked, Gribble sent tendrils of his thoughts snaking through the cracks and crevices beneath the dungeon, coaxing the earth vines to follow. He could sense them stretching and unfurling, their roots creeping through the soil like a thousand tiny fingers.
Gribble's heart hammered against his ribs as he gathered his power, readying himself for the crucial moment. Just as they turned down a particularly dark and dank corridor, he unleashed a silent command to the earth vines, urging them upward with all his might.
The vines burst through the stone floor in an explosion of dirt and rubble, their green tendrils writhing and twisting like angry serpents. The guards cried out in shock, their grips on Gribble's arms loosening for a split second as they tried to dodge the sudden eruption.
Seizing his chance, Gribble wrenched himself free from the guards' slackened grasp. He summoned the earth vines to his aid, directing them towards the weakened cuff on his wrist. The vines surged forward, their strong fibers seeking out the cuff's vulnerabilities and latching on tight.
Gribble gritted his teeth as the vines constricted around the compromised metal, their grip as unyielding as iron. The cuff groaned and strained under the onslaught, hairline cracks spiderwebbing across its surface.
The guards, recovering from their initial surprise, lunged for Gribble with outstretched hands. But the vines held fast, anchoring Gribble in place and fending off the guards' grasping fingers. Gribble poured every ounce of his strength and focus into the vines, willing them to crush the cuff once and for all.
With a final, wrenching twist, the vines shattered the weakened metal, sending shards of the cuff flying through the air like glittering confetti. Gribble's hand was free at last! He flexed his fingers, marveling at the rush of liberation that flooded through him.
The guards, their faces contorted with rage and disbelief, redoubled their efforts to recapture him. But Gribble was too quick, too slippery. He ducked and wove between them, his small size and agility working to his advantage in the narrow confines of the dungeon corridor.
Desperation lending speed to his feet, Gribble raced down the passageway, the earth vines slithering along beside him like loyal companions. The guards gave chase, their angry shouts and pounding footsteps echoing off the stone walls.
Gribble's lungs burned and his legs ached as he ran, but he pushed himself onwards, knowing that stopping meant capture and a fate worse than death at the hands of Grimrock. He had to find a way out, had to taste the sweet air of freedom once more.
Just as the guards began to close in, their hot breath panting at his heels, Gribble made a snap decision. Gathering every last scrap of power within him, he focused his mind on the one place he longed to be more than anything - outside the dungeon walls, beneath the open sky.
With a blinding flash of light and a rush of displaced air, Gribble vanished from the dungeon corridor, leaving the guards grasping at empty space. He materialized in a sprawl of limbs on the soft grass outside, the sudden brightness of the sun making him blink and shade his eyes.
For a moment, Gribble simply lay there, his chest heaving as he gulped in lungfuls of fresh, sweet air. The vastness of the sky stretched above him, an endless expanse of blue that seemed to welcome him into its embrace. Gribble felt a grin spreading across his face, a bubble of pure, unadulterated joy welling up inside him.
He had done it. Against all odds, he had outsmarted the guards and won his freedom. Gribble pushed himself to his feet, his legs still shaky from the wild rush of his escape. He knew he couldn't linger here for long - Grimrock and his army would surely be searching for him, eager to drag him back to the dungeon and make him pay for his defiance.
But for now, in this one perfect moment, Gribble reveled in the feeling of the moonlight on his face and the earth beneath his feet. He had proven to himself that he was more than just a small, insignificant goblin - he was a force to be reckoned with, a master of his own destiny.

To edit, this is how any multiplayer online game should be.
I'll prefix this with I've been a fallout fan for many years but I was put off by the pvp aspect when 76 came out. But, with the tv show bringing it to others, it appeared in my Facebook feed that updates made it more pve friendly.
So, I loaded up the game. Feeling that familiar fallout atmosphere. Muddled way through the vault to the wasteland.
Emerging from the vault I headed down the path, worked my way to the little bar at the lake... and there it was.... a level 190.
I dashed and crouched behind a bush, watching them. Meercatting my head up and down to see if they moved. Sneaking along the river bank, watching. Waiting for the inevitable crack of gun fire.
This little game of me moving away, them turning to watch this odd little low level circle them carried on for 15 minutes.
Finally easing my way near to the bar entrance.
Then a mad dash in to continue the main mission.
Now clearly I was too quick, too sneaky and to smart for them, otherwise I'd have been peppered with bullets and had my valuable little treasure trove of 50+ caps and several berry's I had accrued taken away from my corpse on the roadside.
I kept logging in, doing missions. Exploring the word. Avoiding camps like the plague.
And i was slowly leveling and keeping my distance from all those untrustworthy high levels till I reached around level 35.
(At this point I was doing some "working from home")
I seen a public even pop up and thought, I'll give it a try. If anyone shoots at me, I can slip off while what ever spawns in distracts them.
I believe it was the powering up possiedion event. So, over we go!
But it was worse than i thought! A Level 267. With more higher levels spawning in.
But, I want that exp. I want good drops. I'll risk it. I'll do the crappy bits of repairing the reactor stations and let them fight the hordes. They might not even see me.
I begin, working my way through the power plant. My own little battle with robots.
Then the event ends and I step out the reactor, i see them. still keeping my distance. Peeking through a burned out car.
After 10 seconds I think, OK. They haven't noticed me. I'll move around and when they leave, ill scavenge everything.
I turn... this power armour, heavy weapon wielding high level is behind me. His gun just filling the screen.
I wait... "balls..."
Then he waves, does a little dance and invites me to join his team. He and 2 friends run through various events, always emoting the come here and then off to the next.
We don't even talk. It's literally just give thumbs up, come here and revive me once or twice. And I build up a few legendary weapons. They cover my back, protecting me from the bigger mob attacks.
Then my boss video calls me and I have to quick drop out the game.
I never got to say thank you. Not just for the events and getting me through the events. But thanking them for changing the experience. I'm normally an introverted gamer, solo or no chat. They didn't push or take advantage.
Every mmo I've played has the bad toxic overpowered d**ks who just enjoy stomping on others.
That team made me more open to jumping in to any event and do my part without thinking I'm going to get back stabbed.
(Also I know now about how the pve pvp switch happens)
Only issue I've had is other lower levels such as myself having that same trepidation or just shooting at me for being near them.
I feel bad for the vets who are trying to help but then have the bad experiences with newcomers (like myself)
Looking back I just think how stupid and kinda self involved that start was. Who is killing someone for a few caps.
I'm only level 50 but I'll keep at this awhile I think. I loved warframe, up until this point. That was the best gaming community I have been in. And even then there were a lot of scammers afk players, so it wasn't idealic.
Anyway.
Thank you to whom ever has been at events with me and been just dam right awesome.
Evil Semajtteb. Xbox.

DBD TIER LIST - FUN

Purely my opinion after playing all killers in a row based on release date. I have fun with just about all of them. Except Wraith. yawnemoji.tiff
Thought it'd be fun to share and get eviscerated in the comments. One of the first things I looked for was a "fun tier list" and then a sale happened and I figured I'd make my own! Do you agree with any? Disagree? GL HF.

The tier list: https://i.imgur.com/DTnxiQg.png

My Findings -

Trapper - decent, balanced fun

• catching prey in traps never gets old
• especially well placed traps in a loop
• new splendor skin makes me know i look like a boss while doing it
• basement

Wraith - meh, too easy, boring

• being undetectable and nearly invisible whenever you'd like is simply too easy
• strong play style includes hit and run, you go so fast invisible you just hit someone on a gen, scare them off it, go to next
• love the sound of the bell, insane there's an add-on that removes the sound
• easy bloodpoint farm i guess

Hillbilly - vrn vrn vroom grahhhhhh

• running across the map like a bat out of hell is so fun
• curving is a skill that can be worked on
• catching people with the chainsaw is so satisfying

Nurse - shoegaze killer

• fun geting better at blinking around
• the disorienting camera and staring at your feet makes me feel sick
• terrible movement speed to balance it, understandable, but feels awful
• always screaming

Huntress - axe throwing, nuff said

• really fun throwing hatchets in open maps
• relaly fun catching people off guard through windows and such in small maps
• lovely humming, and axe schink sound is beautiful
• bunny mask

Shape - piano sound intensifies

• most fun about him is the music and rp'ing as Michael Myers
• Stalking fits his theme of course but it's not very fun
• Mostly an M1 killer

Hag - spicy traps

• good movement, fun sounds
• like trapper, satisfying to get the traps, but for some reason not as fun
• might just be her aesthetic, i don't hate her, just not that fun

Doctor - huehueheuhue

• fun driving people insane
• makes you really feel like a psycho
• both abilities are satisfying to use
• interesting add-ons

Cannibal - horse noises

• knock off hillbilly
• chainsaw sweep is really fun, goes a bit too far though
• skill ceiling pretty low

Nightmare - wait this doesn't look like Freddy Krueger

• chasing people through well placed dream snares or fake pallets with add-on feels good
• great sound design
• popping like bloody hell out of a generator is fun
• he looks weird

Pig - cutie patootie

• sneaking around with a ridiculous pig mask on is funny
• placing traps on people is satisfying, the animation anyways
• enjoy forcing them into the mini game of removing trap
• and if you're feeling friendly you can let them boopa the snoota
• can crouch

Clown - feel like I'm a rockstar

• throwing stuff is fun
• hitting people square in the head with a bottle is hilarious
• confetti streamer add-on for bottles makes me lol

Spirit - oops pulled you off a generator

• really like predicting a gen outside of terror radius, phasing in and pulling them off of it
• predicting pathing right after spirit walk is satisfying
• feels pretty one note

Legion - become the knife, become the edge

• badass chase music, changes with add-on's
• getting everyone grouped and getting that 5th hit for the down feels awesome everytime
• strategically using frenzy in chase to vault and get right up on someone feels good

Plague - i don't feel so good Mr. Krabs

• puking is funny
• plague mechanic is interesting with it spreading and being able to place it on objects
• "hraah" sound from M1 sounds like that french cat (not allowed to add youtube link, look up french cat meowing lol)

Ghost Face - just wanna look at ya

• can crouch
• spooking people around corners is hilarious
• really good homage to the character
• able to snowball hard off of finding a group and stalking them juuust to 99 before pouncing

Demogorgon - diggy diggy hole

• he hop, he tunnel, he pup
• travelling through the upside down and managing tunnels feels good
• catching window mindgames with the jump is satisfying
• real monster

Oni - oh boy here i go killing again

• like hillbilly, it's fun zooming around like a beast
• amazing design, sound, looks, the power, all of it
• catching people with the club is very satisfying
• blood orb mechanic is cool and adds nuance to a chase

Deathslinger - just you wait for me to reload me musket

• addons are boring do nothing meh
• sensitivity feels weird when using the gun
• satisfying to get hits of course

Pyramid Head - don't need to see you to hit you through the wall

• would be s tier if mouse sensitivity didn't feel wack when using rites of judgement
• i just love skillshots
• torment mechanic is very interesting
• being able to mori, and send people into a cage, awesome

Blight - I AM SPEED

• absolute insane zombie man
• has a cane and hits whipper snappers with it
• does drugs, bouncing off walls is so fun

Twins - what is a shower

• very interesting and unique mechanic
• seeing victor on people's backs is hilarious. and seeing him get kicked
• pouncing is fun
• although parts are fun none of it is very satisfying

Trickster - NOTICE ME

• like huntress, feels great just chucking things at people
• bit too easy making it not as fun, the hitboxes on knives feel too big
• main event is very satisfying

Nemesis - this is what a dude sounds like when he walks

• big fan of the zombie mechanic, would be more impactful if there was 3 instead of 2
• tentacle worm is fun
• foot steps and general audio design is perfect for Nemesis

Cenobite - WHAT'S IN THE BOOOX

• chain mechanic is fun to play with, love the first person projectile
• voicelines are hilarious
• m1 is very satisfying

Artist - would

• great pressure, very oppressive to go against
• i get the mechanic, something about it just kinda feels meh
• some addons are a bit busted

Onryo - would not

• tv mechanic is interesting
• being spooky is fun
• baiting pallets while demanifested is funny

Dredge - peek-a-boo

• animation when scratching door of a locked locker is funny
• creepy ass monster, darkness mechanic is very oppressive
• love their design, would be cool in a movie, gameplay is kinda meh

Mastermind - a very busy man

• absolutely perfect execution on his ability
• uruboros infection adds further variety to virulent bound
• catching jukes feels so good
• design all around is flawless

Knight - luv me sword, luv me 'maginary friends

• some jankiness with where you can use power that makes it annoying
• when it works right, the power of guards feels awesome
• big sword

Skull Merchant - inspector gadget

• love playing with tech
• strategically settting up drones is interesting, whether by positioning or for quick undetectable
• very cool weapon, m1 feels great

Singularity - You're inside my walls

• setting up cameras and using them is really fun
• switching between cameras is clunky, really could use a next camera button
• shattering through pallets when in overdrive is badass
• amazing voicelines, really cool character overall

Xenomorph - I'm inside your walls

• crawling in tunnels is fun and well done
• tail whip feels great
• it's alien, it's done so well

Good Guy - #!?%#$

• at this point feels like i can say all the licensed killers have been captured very well
• slice n dice feels good
• sneaky doll is fun
• voicelines are funny

Unknown - help me

• Getting value out of clones is fun
• Love me projectiles, getting a down with them is satisfying
• Creepy ah mf

🎲Fantasy Grounds Fridays
20th Anniversary Edition
The Latest FG News, Sales, &
Special Guests Doug Davison and John Gregory.
Friday at 2 pm EDT,
Streaming on Twitter, Twitch, YouTube, Steam, & Facebook.
Bring your questions, check out the newest features, and possibly get a sneaky sneak peek of future features.
https://www.twitch.tv/fantasygrounds

I can’t believe the changeling actually found the enclave.
 
“Jen, Boss,” absently corrects Teemo as he studies the updated map.
 
Right, Jen. Not only has she infiltrated the town, but she’s found sympathizers! It doesn’t seem like they’re going to actively fight on our side, but they should be able to keep at least some of Silvervein from joining in the defense. Even more, we have not just the info for where the enclave is, but where the core is, also.
 
The enclave is pretty much right in the center of the Maw’s territory, and the sneaky delving scout group is trying to verify that before we make our actual move. The other scouting parties have been carefully guiding the tunnelbore ants. We’ve been going slowly, not wanting to make too much noise and arouse any suspicion. We also haven’t gotten too close to the Maw’s territory with them just yet, either.
 
We have a rough idea of the range the Harbinger can sense thoughts, so it’s been a tricky thing to guide the ants to dig routes that stay far enough away from the known tunnels and passages. These are going to need to be a bit of a feint, I think, thanks to where the core is: the temple complex.
 
The main temple entrance is in Silvervein, but it’s vast and sprawling, and has a section that goes well into the Maw’s territory. I don’t want to give the Maw credit, but it’s pretty clever. Most dungeons will have their cores deep in their territory, or nearby a valued enclave, at least from the ones I’ve seen so far. The Maw’s is actually not too far from its borders. It’s also in a kind of place that I think a lot of dungeons wouldn’t think to check.
 
I wasn’t expecting it to be there, at least. But from that position, it can have not only the clergy protect it, but easily bring denizens or even scions to bear for extra security. I’d also bet the lion’s share of the iron maidens are going to be in there, along with a healthy dose of denizens to slow people down. The Maw has a lot of those types, so if it can bog down any hostiles, it can bring in other forces to destroy them.
 
The temple complex seems to be… well, pretty complex, with lots of rooms, passages, and probably lots of secret doors to let the clergy and denizens move around freely, while confusing any would-be invaders. We know the rough way to where the core should be, but getting there is going to be easier said than done.
 
Leo, Honey, and Teemo are holding a bit of a briefing with the Stag, Aranya and a few other adventurers, and we’re all trying to figure out just what to do for the battle. We’re looking at probably three major fronts: Silvervein, the temple complex, and the kobold enclave. The problem is the fronts are going to overlap a lot, and we could even consider the Maw’s territory in general to be another wide front, too.
 
Teemo thinks out loud as I think in my own mind, trying to organize the information so far. “Alright… Silvervein itself will be mostly up to the Crystal Shield church with some adventurer and denizen help. Their job is the messy one of urban combat, finding hostiles and eliminating them, and protecting civilians. The adventurers are going to be attacking the temple complex and the ambush areas, generally sowing chaos and trying to keep the Maw from being able to mount any organized defensive effort. The dwellers and denizens, with some adventurer support, as well as Tarl and Berdol, will be going with the tunnelbores to make their own mess deeper in the Maw’s area, and try to secure the enclave.”
 
Leo growls as the others present nod, with the Stag speaking up next. “What will the Maw try to do to stop us?”
 
Honey shuffles some notes while Leo growls and yips. After a few moments, Teemo translates. “We can only guess right now, but the Maw should have two priorities: protect the enclave, and protect itself. It will probably try to protect the town as well, but it will probably be much lower in priority than those. It also definitely knows we’re snooping around, so a true surprise attack isn’t going to be an option. If we attack the town, the Maw will probably be on alert for sneak attacks, especially if it thinks we’re using only a token force there. We might be able to feign weakness at the start and get it to overcommit, sending denizens to try to flank or flood our forces in the town.”
 
Honey gives a rude buzz to that idea, earning a chuckle from those who can understand her, before Teemo continues. “Yeah, Honey isn’t too sold on trying to do that, especially since the Harbinger would probably be really effective in that kind of fight. We don’t know exactly how many least the Maw has spawned now, nor do we actually know what the lessers do, if they even exist. In the winding tunnels of Silvervein, the least would probably be able to flank and overrun our forces in there. So we probably shouldn’t try to specifically draw any attacks there.”
 
Teemo taps the map at the two major entrances to the Maw, the ones that are sure to be the most defended. “These are probably the best places for us to try to engage the Harbinger, or at least the least. They’ll still have their potential large numbers, but at least they should only be able to attack from a few directions. This is probably where the Harbinger will be, if it’s going to be commanding the least. The scouts haven’t mentioned the least much, so either they spawn a lot slower than expected, or they’re keeping them hidden. The other place the Harbinger will probably be is around the enclave.”
 
My Voice gestures in the general vicinity of the target. “The whole area is basically a no-go zone, which would be a great place to keep the least. With how convoluted the tunnels in the area are, they would also give the least a huge advantage in fighting. The final place we expect the Harbinger to be is in the temple complex. Again, lots of convoluted passages, lots of ways for them to slip behind us, could be a very bad place to try to fight. That assumes the Harbinger will want to be with the least, but considering how much more effective they are when it’s around, that’s probably a safe bet.”
 
Teemo grimaces as Leo continues. “The risky bet comes with the Redcap. It could be stationed anywhere. If we force the Maw onto the backfoot by assaulting from multiple directions, it’ll probably have the Redcap protect either the core or the enclave, with the Harbinger at the other. The worst case scenario would be them both at once place, probably the core. Rocky and Fluffles should be able to take them, especially with Slash’s help, but that’d require correctly guessing where they’ll be. Rocky should be able to deal with the Harbinger on his own, but even he isn’t sure he could handle the Redcap solo. He’s a Conduit, after all, so it’s hard to put a number on how strong the Redcap is.”
 
“Can we draw them to us?” asks the Stag. “If you reveal those three scions making a line for the core, the Maw would have to consolidate or be subsumed.”
 
Leo wuffs and looks unhappy, and I don’t blame him as Teemo translates. “Probably, but if either is stationed around the enclave, they’ll probably kill the kobolds for mana before making for the core. We’ve got some heavy hitters, but the Maw has a lot of easy ways to delay us. If we make it clear we’re going to reach the core, the Maw will probably have time to eat the enclave for the boost.”
 
Everyone frowns at that information, and takes a few seconds to digest it. Keeping the Maw occupied probably won’t be too difficult, and would probably keep the scions at or near where we expect them to be. But if we make any actual progress towards the enclave or the core, it’ll collapse its forces without us being able to do much, and probably kill the kobolds, too. Attacking the enclave might make it fight to protect them, or it might just kill them and turn the entire thing into a trap for us.
 
I have a vague idea, and though Teemo doesn’t look like he likes it too much, he voices it to all gathered. “Do you think Nova and I could sneak into the enclave and evacuate them before the Maw notices? I’ll need an enchantment from Thing to handle the heat from her magma, but I should be able to make a shortcut even through the rock.”
 
Leo and Honey consider it, and Aranya speaks up. “I’ll need to come with you. They will probably be suspicious of just you and Nova, but they’ll know me. They’ll listen to me.”
 
Leo borks and Honey buzzes, and Teemo translates. “We’ll have to try to move them quickly, they say. The Maw will probably notice if their numbers start falling, so we won’t have long before it responds. We’ll have to gather everyone before taking the shortcut, and hope we don’t take so long the Maw notices us.”
 
“So we siege the Maw on all sides as a diversion, while Teemo, Nova, and Aranya make for the enclave. Once the kobolds are secure, Rocky, Fluffles, and Slash make for the core,” summarizes the Stag, earning nods from my Warden and Librarian, with a minor correction from Teemo.
 
“We’ll start the siege with Fluffles’ new trick. He’ll probably need all of the Boss’ scions to help combo to make it work, too. Even if he’ll be the main caster for it, me, Slash, Rocky, Thing, Nova, and Queen should help. It’s an incredibly powerful concept from the Boss, so it’ll need a lot of power to make it properly manifest.”
 
“I think the dwellers and I can help, too. It’s powerful, but not especially complicated, if I’m hearing Him right. I think we can help channel our faith to aid in it,” follows Aranya, her hand moving to the amulet at her neck.
 
Even with me still feeling a bit uncomfortable about being a focus for faith, I’m willing to take all the help I can get with this. The last thing I need is to fall to the very concept I’m hoping to hit the Maw with.
 
 
< Next>
 
 
Cover art I'm also on Royal Road for those who may prefer the reading experience over there. Want moar? The First Book is now officially available! There are Kindle and Audible versions, as well as paperback! Also: Discord is a thing! I now have a Patreon for monthly donations, and I have a Ko-fi for one-off donations. Patreons can read up to three chapters ahead, and also get a few other special perks as well, like special lore in the Peeks. Thank you again to everyone who is reading!

I awoke at the crack of 3:30 pm on that fateful morning, April 27, 2020. I had been up all night, and most of the morning, training my new 20 year old Mexican housekeeper on the skills she needs to effectively perform her job. After stuffing her taco several times and serving up some hot cheese dip all over her assets, I fell asleep.
When I awoke the first thing I did was reach for my cell phone to check for any incoming messages. I had 10 missed calls and several voice mails. They were all from my old buddy, Hawg Leg. He is an associate of mine in the Bigfoot field.
It seems that old Hawg Leg went out to investigate a Sasquatch report on his own and got himself into a right messy situation. I gave the sumbitch a call and spoke to him about it. It seems that he has a neighbor, Miss Rita, who has been getting nightly visits from a creature.
It started off rather mundane, with slaps on the outside walls of the house, some howls and huffing noises, and missing chickens. Then the animal got brazenly aggressive and started peeking in her front porch windows at night. But it was when it started fiddling with the door knobs and clawing on the doors that Ms. Rita started fearing for her safety. She was afraid the creature may get into her house.
She called ole Hawg Leg to come over, telling him there had been some prowlers on her property. But when he got to her house she broke down crying and told Hawg Leg what was really going on. She had seen the creature.
One night old Rita was expecting a visitor, you see. She works two jobs, one as a waitress at the local Waffle House and the other as a rural mail carrier. But she still has a hard time making ends meet. So she kind of put out the word that she was available as “company” for men in exchange for pay.
This one night she had an old feller down the way stopping by around 10:00 pm to spend some time with her. It was good old Leroy Perkins who worked on a nearby dairy farm. Well, at about 10:30 pm that night there came a rattling on her front door, so she just assumed it was ole Leroy, late as usual and probably too drunk to find the door bell. She was annoyed because he was late, but she knew he would have the cash, so she went to the front door to let him in.
Rita unlocked her door and whipped it open, expecting to find the old farmer standing there. Instead, she found herself looking into the eyes of a hellish monster! It was standing on the edge of her porch hunched over so it could fit under the porch roof. She said it was as wide as a car, covered in jet black hair, had a ape-like build, and the face of pure evil. It’s eyes were black. She said it looked like it had no soul. It just stood there looking at her, and emitting a hoarse breathing noise. Then she noticed something else. It had an erection. It had a HUGE erection!
The monster stood no more than 4 feet from her. She screamed, slammed the door, locked it, then ran into her bedroom. She retrieved a pistol from her nightstand and stood there in terror, quiet and listening. She said she stood there in silence for what seemed an eternity, shaking uncontrollably. Suddenly there was a loud thud against her house, outside her bedroom wall, followed by a low, guttural growl she could hear outside. At that point she went into hysterics. Nothing else happened after that.
The next day, as soon as the sun came up, she packed some clothes and left. She holed up at a friend’s house. Her friend knew Hawg Leg too, from a while back when he discreetly took care of a problem for her, so she called him to come over.
According to ole Hawg Leg, Ms. Rita was super freaked out and had to be sedated. He decided to go over to her property and investigate. He found 3 well-formed footprints around Rita’s house that he estimated being 18 inches in length and 9 inches across the widest portions.
Hawg Leg decided that he needed some heavy heat to go up against this beast, so he called me. I told him I would throw my shit together and be there by sunset. Old Hawg Leg was to remain on the property until I arrived.
Now normally, I would assemble my A-Team. But I was a little short-handed at the moment. Old Big Dick was laid up in the hospital with the Corona Virus (what a pussy!). Black Shade got pinched for not paying his child support. Roscoe had disappeared. And good old Murder went and got himself killed in an armed robbery. So it was just going to be me and Hawg Leg on this Squatch Op.
I started to look for my shit, but it was not where it should be. “What the hell?!?”, I thought. I went to my gun cabinet and ... NOTHING! What the fuck was going on?!? I yelled for Maria, my illegal housekeeper and jizz receptacle, but she was gone too. I put 2 and 2 together and came to the conclusion that the bitch had ripped me off! “GODDAMNIT!”, I thought to myself, “Never fall asleep with a b##ner in your house. Son of a bitch!!”
Fortunately, the dumb bitch did not know about my secret stash. I grabbed my .45-70 lever action and my old .480 revolver and shoulder rig and headed out, cussing that bitch Maria all the way to my truck. I was going to have to deal with her treachery when I got finished dusting this Sasquatch. I ended up having to use my fly fishing vest to hold my fucking ammo and magazines because she even stole my goddamned tactical vest!
I arrived at the coordinates at 8:00 pm sharp, just before sunset. Old Hawg Leg was there standing by his truck. He greeted me with “Hey there, General. How’s it going?” I noticed immediately that he was not packing as I strolled up to him, armed to the teeth and ready to murder a Bigfoot. I asked “Where the fuck are your guns, Hawg Leg?”
Old Hawg Leg started telling me that he had been doing some reading on the inter-webs about how killing a Bigfoot is wrong because they are basically a tribe of primative man, and that killing one would be murder. So he decided he couldn’t kill one of these creatures.
After a brief pause to allow the absurdity of the situation sink in, I took the butt of my rifle stock and violently slammed it into old Hawg Leg’s face as hard as I could. He went down like a sack of potatoes, blood spraying everywhere and spitting out teeth. I said “YOU STUPID F#GGOT!! GET YOUR GODDAMN GUN AND LET’S GET SET UP!!” Hawg Leg was holding his smashed-in face in his hands, blood and tears streaming down, but he finally pulled himself together, got his rifle from behind the seat of his truck, and followed me to the wood line.
The property consisted of a small house that sat on approximately an acre of open land, surrounded on 3 sides by wood lines that led into deep woods. I told old Hawg Leg to hunker down inside one corner of the wood line behind the house while I did the same on the opposite corner. Soon thereafter the sun set and nighttime crept down on us.
Nothing much happened that evening. But there was an eerie quiet around us. There was no insect noise, nor were any nocturnal creatures stirring. Clearly, something was up, and it was entirely consistent with having a Sasquatch in the area. However, despite the tension in the air, nothing occurred.
At 5:00 am I decided to call it a night. I walked out of the tree line and signaled for Hawg Leg to meet me at my truck. Old Hawg leg felt the tension too. We strongly suspected a beast in the area and were perplexed by the lack of activity.
We were standing at the back of my truck, which was parked next to Hawg Leg’s flat-bed, just off the road in front of Ms. Rita’s house. As we were talking about what our next move would be, suddenly there came a crashing sound in the woods from where we just came. It was loud and wild. It sounded like a tank was coming through the woods, minus the mechanical noise. Shocked, we turned toward the woods. It was clearly moving in our direction!
Just before whatever was plowing recklessly through the woods hit the wood line, it let loose with a deafening, unholy roar that sounded like something straight out of the pits of Hell! Both Hawg Leg and I recoiled in horror at the sound.
Now, I have been roared at by big Sasquatch before. But this time was different. First, it was LOUD and LONG. The animal emitting such an infernal sound had to have lungs like a hot air balloon. This meant it was HUGE. Second, it was not merely a roar. To call it a simple roar would not do justice to it. It was a ferocious battle cry!
Then we saw it. It came busting through the wood line and headed straight for us. It was charging!! And it was coming FAST! In just a blink of an eye it was on top of us. I had gone to one knee to steady myself for a shot with my rifle. Old Hawg Leg broke down like a big, fat pussy, then tucked tail, and went running in the opposite direction.
That fucker moved so damn fast. It was uncanny. I was only able to squeeze off 2 shots before it reached my location. I don’t think I even hit it. If I did hit it, it showed absolutely no sign of it. Then it was over; it was right on top of my position!! I was fucked!!
The beast was massive. It was at least 12 feet tall and 5-6 feet across at the shoulders. It was covered in dark hair and moved on 2 legs. It was built like a fucking brick shit house, with bulging muscles. It’s eyes were as black as coal and it was huffing and grunting as it approached.
Right before it reached my location it dropped down on all fours, making it resemble an ape. It literally propelled itself forward with its huge, muscular arms. Then, as I knew I was about to be ripped into pieces, the damnedest thing happened.
It kept running, on all fours, and passed by me, passing just 5 feet to my left as I was still on one knee. Despite my gunfire, it was not focused on me at all. Instead, it focused in on old Hawg Leg running off. I quickly stood and looked behind me just as the monster leapt upon Hawg Leg, knocking him to the ground on the other side of the road in front of Rita’s house.
In the pale moonlight I could make out the red spray of blood emitted from Hawg Leg’s neck as the beast ripped off his head. Old Hawg Leg’s body hit the ground as the beast held his head in its right hand. The beast held up the severed head and looked at it, as if it was admiring its work. Then it slowly turned its head and body to look at me. I swear the damned thing was grinning at me.
I immediately raised my rifle and placed my sights on its head. But in the split second between putting the creature in my sights and pulling the trigger, it disappeared into the wood line across the road. Gone... just like that. It did not make a sound.
I don’t know why the beast did not maul me instead of Hawg Leg. I also did not know what it’s game was. Was it gone? Did it move away after re-entering the woods across the street from the house? Or, was it still there, watching me?
One thing was for sure: I was in a bad situation. I had no idea where the monster was. I decided that a retreat was in order, so I jumped in my truck and hauled ass away from there, keeping my eyes on the rear view mirror expecting to see that beast jump out at any moment. But it never did.
I drove to the nearest town, about a half hour away. I stopped at the local Waffle House, went inside, and sat there drinking coffee for the next hour, and trying to decide what my next move would be. At sunrise I left and returned to the scene to get rid of what was left of Hawg Leg’s body.
When I arrived I was already halfway expecting the body to be gone. Therefore, I was not at all surprised to see it gone with no trace of blood anywhere. The sneaky bastard had taken the body, either to conceal it or eat it. I made a phone call and arranged to have old Hawg Leg’s flat bed truck hauled off.
Then I left. I knew that I needed reinforcements to deal with this bastard. It was just way too dangerous to take on by myself. It would be suicide. But I had a plan, a proverbial “ace in the hole”. I had to go see a man. But he was not just any man. He is the very definition of “BAD ASS”. ——————————————————
I called my man. He was down for the gig and was going to meet me back out at Ms. Rita’s property at sundown tonight. With my bud lined up, I had no doubt that this would be the night we send that hairy fuck back to hell.
At around noon I decided to drive over to see Ms. Rita at her friend’s house. Upon knocking on the door I was greeted by a very nice looking, well-kept, 40-ish looking MILF. “Are you Ms. Rita?”, I asked. Turned out it wasn’t; it was her friend. But she ushered me inside when I told her I was Hawg Leg’s associate and that I was there to help.
She took me into the parlor where I found poor Ms. Rita, sitting alone and eyes red from crying. Her friend announced my presence, “Rita, honey, this man is here to see you. He says he knows Hawg Leg. His name is “The General.” Rita started to rise but I motioned her to stay seated. Clearly she was in a bad way.
Now, even though Rita’s emotions had been ripped apart by her terrifying encounter, I could not get past her beauty. Hawg Leg told me she had been whoring herself out to make ends meet. I could see why too. She could make a fortune with that tight little body on her! Both Rita and her friend were smoking hot. My mind began to wonder, drifting into prurient and clouded fantasies about box munching and 3-ways. Then Rita’s friend jerked me back into the moment.
“So, where are we at with the Investigation? Did you go out to Rita’s house?”, asked the friend. I told them that I had been there just hours before and that I had an up-close encounter with the monster. This news brought both women to the edge of their seats. I told them what went down. I left out the part about old Hawg Leg getting his head ripped off and blood spewing everywhere on account of the tender sensibilities in the room.
I explained that I had just this morning employed a real badass to assist me in killing this beast, and that I am certain it will be dead after tonight. Both women looked pleased and relieved. Then the friend asked about old Hawg Leg. “Will he be out there tonight too? I’d really like to thank him”, she said.
I shook my head, to which the friend’s expression took a dour turn. “What’s wrong? Is Hawg Leg Ok?”, the friend asked. Then I spilled the beans as gently as I could. “That sumbitch is dead as fuck, sweetheart. When the beast charged us, old Hawg Leg tucked tail and ran like a pussy! He got his head ripped clean off and died a most horrible, bloody, and gore-filled death imaginable”, I said.
The friend looked in horror to Rita. Then she turned to me, smiled, and said “good”. A perplexed look entered my face, which caused the friend to explain. “You see, old Hawg Leg did me a favor a while back. But then the sumbitch started blackmailing me, saying he would turn me in for the crime he committed on her behalf.” “That’s terrible”, I said, “I had no idea.”
Then, without me asking, she went on to explain further. I said “Really, honey, I don’t need to know the details”, but she continued. It seems that old Hawg Leg’s kink was something called “pegging”. I was unfamiliar with this term, so I asked her to explain. Then Rita jumped in and enthusiastically explained it in graphic detail, telling me that when she entertains johns, 9 times out of 10 they want her to strap on and peg them. “Hell, it does not even feel like whoring when I am the one wearing the strap-on”, said Rita.
Frankly, I was shocked. I had no idea that deep down all these old time farmers were a bunch of f#gs. The women saw the look of bewilderment on my face. I slowly sat down on the couch, a couple feet away from Rita. She said “Oh, come on, it does not necessarily mean they are f#gs ...”, but I motioned her to stop.
Seeing my uneasiness, Rita scooted up close to me on the couch and took my right hand in both of hers. Then the friend sat down on the other side of me, places her arm around my back and started rubbing the back of my neck. The friend said “Come on, General, it’s ok. Even if 90% of farmers ARE f#gs, what’s it to you?”. I looked over at her. The first thing I noticed were her bare legs. The skirt she was wearing had hiked way up when she sat down. Raising my head I then noticed her titties, the tops of which were bare and exposed by the plunging neckline on her shirt.
I then realized that my cock was rock hard. I felt like I could stick it through a fucking brick wall! Rita must have seen it because the next thing I know I feel her stroking my erection through my pants. I started making out with the friend as Rita stroked me. It was not long thereafter that Rita had my cock out and was eagerly going down on me. By this point, I had pulled her friend on top of me. My left hand was up her skirt, where I had pushed her panties aside and I was using my fingers to rub her clit and periodically plunge them deep inside of her to her moans of pleasure.
Suffice it to say that the 3 of us engaged in some hot and heavy, and very, very nasty fucking the rest of the afternoon. I dumped my last load up Rita’s ass just after 7:30 pm. And God help me, I think I was completely dry after that. But, the fun had to come to an end because I had to get to Rita’s property by sundown to dust that Sasquatch.
“Ok, bitches, I got to go to work. Ya’ll go ahead and finish each other off while I get ready to go”, I said. Both of them wanted to come with me, but I told them it was too dangerous. Then Rita started begging and her friend fondled my balls. Then I thought, “What the hell? I’m never going to see these two whores again, so who cares if they get their heads ripped off?” I told them they could both come, but it was getting late so they needed to hurry the fuck up and get dressed!
All 3 of us were piled into the front seat of my pickup truck. Rita blew me as I drove us out to her place while her friend ate her out from behind. The stench of sex filled the air. Then I filled Rita’s mouth with goo right as I was pulling into her driveway.
We took a moment to compose ourselves then got out of my truck. “Where’s your friend”, asked Rita. I told her he would be here at sundown. I looked at my watch, then the sky, then silently acknowledged to myself the truth of the matter: my buddy is late. The motherfucker is always late. It is the one annoying thing about him. He is never fucking on time for anything.
Then we heard something from down the road. It was quickly getting louder. We heard the bass from the woofers before we even heard his straight-piped turbo diesel engine. My buddy was finally here.
He pulled up in a jacked-up, jet black Ford F-350 turbo diesel pickup truck. The music and thumping sound coming from its sound system was deafening. You could not see inside the cab of the truck because the windows are tinted black (and because they are too high up off the ground).
Before he got to the house I’d say he was probably going over 100mph. He hit the e-brake about 1/4 mile from Rita’s house and then drifted sideways the remainder of the distance to her driveway. The controlled recklessness of such a move startled Rita and her friend, so they closed in tight to me.
The jacked-up truck stopped right in front of us. I guided the girls around to the driver’s side, with one bitch on each arm. The truck shut off, the driver’s door opened, and there he was. He just coolly and casually drifted down from the cab of the truck, even though it sat at near nosebleed height.
There he stood. 6’8”, 240 pounds of solid muscle, custom made jungle camo leather suit, alligator hide boots, and a black Stetson hat. The girls gasped at the sight of such a manly creature. Rita’s friend whispered “Who is THAT?”. I said “That is Boss. Boss N#gger”.
Now, people get the wrong idea about me all the time: They falsely accuse me of being racist all the time because I use words like “n#gger” and hold a lot of far right political views. But nothing could be further from the truth. I love everyone. Hell, old Boss N#gger insists on being called “Boss N#GGER”; he says it’s part of his name. There’s nothing racist about it at all. It’s just who he is.
After Boss N#gger got down out of his truck, he casually took off his driving gloves (everything Boss N#gger does he does casually), looked at me and the girls, then asked “What the fuck is with the bitches, Bud? I thought we were here to bump a Sasquatch.” I replied “Hell, Boss N#gger, I just been fucking these two whores all day, and they wanted to tag along. Besides, this bitch here is Rita. This is her place.” Boss N#gger nodded in understanding.
I had already briefed Boss N#gger on what went down last night on the property. We decided to do the same thing me and old Hawg Leg did: Take up positions inside the wood line, then in the early morning hours we would walk back to our trucks out in the open. If that sumbitch is still here, then maybe it will show itself again and try to run us out of its territory.
It was already dark and we were running behind since Boss N#gger adheres strictly to Colored People’s Time (CPT). I grabbed my guns and Boss N#gger grabbed his: A Barrett .50 BMG semi-auto rifle chopped down to the size of a carbine, and a sawed off, highly illegal, short-barreled, double barely 12 gauge shot gun as a sidearm. I gave Boss N#gger a walkie-talkie and then we headed out.
We told the bitches to go into Rita’s house and lock the doors. Meanwhile, we took up positions behind the house inside the wood line and waited. Like the prior night, a thick layer of tension hung heavily in the air. The woods were silent. There was no Sasquatch action.
At midnight I heard the first noise: it was a “Pop” sound followed by a “Psssst”. It came from Boss N#gger’s position. Then I heard something that sounded like wrapping paper, followed by a crunching sound. I raised my .45-70 and pulled back the hammer. Then I whispered into my walker-talkie, “Boss N#gger. Do you hear that noise? What’s going on down there?”
Boss N#gger replied “Fuck, General, they ain’t nuffin a’goin’ on down this way. Shit. I am just having me a little snack.” I paused and then asked him what he was snacking on. He replied “I gots me some leftover fried chicken and a bottle of grape soda.” I grimaced and said to myself “motherfucker!”, then I calmed myself by remembering the old adage: you can take a man out of the ghetto, but you will never take the ghetto out of a man.
At this point you may be asking yourself: how the hell did The General ever get mixed up with this here Boss N#gger character? Well, I’m going to tell you. It was back in 1993 or thereabouts and I was at an illegal cock fight doing some gambling. Old Boss N#gger ran the show. But most of the time while the cock fighting was going on he was out back in the trailers whoring bitches.
This one particular night a scuffle broke out because some good old boys thought the event was fixed. They got all rowdy, then they pulled their guns. Someone ran out back and got Boss N#gger. Old Boss came out there and whipped their asses, all of them. As he and his boys were throwing them out, the good old boys swore they would be back with some more guys and would get their revenge.
Come about 3:00 am, the cock fight was long over and the place was empty. I was just finishing up with one of the whores, a sweet little Latin chick named “Madusa”. She only had one leg, but she can suck the sheets right up your ass! Then came the ruckus.
Up pulled no less that 5 big, jacked-up pickup trucks, just hauling ass and doing donuts while some of the fellas hung out the windows shooting their guns. Now I cannot tell a lie. The General is a proud son of the South. In fact, my heart yearns for a return to the good old days of an aristocratic South, free from the meddling federal government. Back in them good old days when a bunch of rowdy rednecks came onto your property raising hell you settled things with an axe handle and several shallow graves. Lots of problems were solved in these South Georgia swamps thattaway.
Well, those good old boys stormed the place looking to settle the score with Boss N#gger. I quickly got dressed and ran into the barn to find that there were 10 men standing there, surrounding Boss N#gger. They were all carrying weapons. One man was carrying a noose. Things looked bad for Boss N#gger. Real bad.
Maybe it was the sight of this mess, a prelude to a lynching, that stirred my soul to act. Maybe it was all the cocaine I had done earlier that night. I don’t know. But I decided that I was going to intervene. Nobody was going to get lynched here tonight.
I walked into the barn and yelled, “HEY, F#GGOTS!! NOBODY IS LYNCHING ANYONE HERE TONIGHT!” The crowd turned and looked at me approaching, in stunned silence. The leader of this crew was an old redneck named Silas. He pointed in my direction and said “Hey, now look General, this does not involve you. This here is between me and Boss N#gger.”
I didn’t really know Boss N#gger except as the proprietor of this establishment. The fact is, we had barely said two words to each other. See, Boss N#gger does not like white people. So with me being a honky, he had little use for me. But his place was my kind of scene. I always paid my bill and I didn’t start any shit. So he tolerated me. He had a reputation of being a real badass and I had no urge to cross him.
I walked right up to Silas and said “I am going to give you 10 seconds to apologize to Boss N#gger for coming in here raising hell, then you are going to turn around and get your f#ggot asses out of here.”
Silas looked around at his crew to gauge their reactions. Then he started laughing. They all started laughing. I took a couple steps back, but still stood facing Silas. Then I opened my coat so he could see the two pistols I was packing. They suddenly got quiet. I said “I don’t think it’s nice...you laughing.”
The first of Silas’s crew to make a move was old Cletus. He raised his shotgun. I pulled my pistols. That son of a bitch was dead with a massive head wound before his body hit the floor. I was carrying a couple Glock 17s back then, both with high cap mags in each. As all hell broke loose I opened fire. Half of those good old boys tried to fight. I dropped them all. The last four ran for the door. “BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!”
They were all down in just an instant. All head shots except for one. I only tagged Silas in the shoulder. I walked up to Silas lying there. He looked up at me and started begging for his life. I put the heal of my boot on his shoulder wound and grinded at it, twisting my heal back and forth. Silas was screaming from the pain.
Just about then Boss N#gger walked up. I turned to him and said “I saved this bitch for you, Boss N#gger. Do with him as you will.” Boss N#gger put his huge hand on my shoulder and said “Thank ya, General. From now on you and I are tight.” I nodded at him then walked off. As I climbed up into my truck I could hear Silas screaming. I don’t know what Boss N#gger was doing to him exactly, but I know it was righteous!
Boss N#gger and I have been tight since that day I saved his black ass from those rednecks. We periodically call on one another to catch up on things, and when we need someone we can trust for a particular job. That’s why I called him for this particular bigfoot hunt.
Come 5:00 am I left my hide and walked out of the wood line. I radioed Boss N#gger that we ought to meet back at my truck. I do not know why, but the idea stuck with me that if we did the exact same thing that Hawg Leg and I did last night, the Sasquatch may show itself again.
You see, this night was identical to the last. Even though we heard and saw no Sasquatch activity, the woods were eerily silent. There were no bugs chirping and no animals stirring. It was quite bizarre. It was a textbook experience for the presence of a Sasquatch.
Back at the truck I asked Boss N#gger what he thought. He said “Well Sir, there be a haint-like spell on these here woods tonight.” Boss N#gger felt it too. Then he asked, “You want to go into the house and fuck them 2 bitches in there?”
Before I could answer we heard it. It was a blood curdling scream from the woods. It sounded like it was just inside the wood line. I told Boss N#gger “There he is! Let’s take cover behind my truck and blast the shit out of him when he steps out!”
Boss N#gger said “Fuck that shit, General! I ain’t scared of no fuckin monkey.” Then he started strutting toward the woods where the scream came from. He was also talking trash to the monster. He said “Hey, Sasquatch! Git yo bitch ass out here RIGHT NOW! I is gonna put an ass whoopin’ on your hairy ass!”
I was stunned at Boss N#gger’s directness. Was he deliberately trying to confuse the beast by approaching it? Or, was he just THIS badass? But before I could give it any thought the huge Sasquatch stepped out of the wood line and showed itself. It stared at the approaching Boss N#gger, showing it’s teeth and growling.
Boss N#gger just kept moving forward. But when that monster started growling at him Boss N#gger got pissed! He yelled at the Sasquatch “NOW I KNOW YOU AIN’T GROWLING AT ME, YOU NASTY ASS BEAST!”
Boss N#gger then CHARGED the beast! That’s right … HE charged the beast! As he ran he pulled out his .50 BMG, held it forward with one hand like it was a pistol, and dumped a mag into it!! I could see the Sasquatch twitch and jerk with each shot that hit home.
When he ran out of ammo Boss N#gger threw down the gun and seemed to accelerate toward the thing. When he was about 10 yards from the Bigfoot he leapt at it. Boss N#gger’s feet did not hit the ground again until he tackled the monster. They both went tumbling into the wood line.
Up until now I stood there in stunned silence watching this drama unfold. But when Boss N#gger tackled the beast I took off running toward them. I could hear the struggle in the brush as I ran. As I was right at the wood line, out stepped Boss N#gger!
That son of a bitch, Boss N#gger, was holding the limp body of that huge 12’ beast over his head! Then, with a guttural scream of vengeance, Boss N#gger ripped the goddamn Sasquatch into TWO PIECES!!
I could not fucking believe what I was seeing. Blood and guts went everywhere. Finally Boss N#gger tossed the pieces of the Bigfoot corpse onto the ground and said “Ain’t no fucking monkey a match fo my black ass!”
I said “Goddamn, Boss N#gger! That was some righteous shit right there!” He replied, “Damn straight it was.” He was covered in Bigfoot blood and what appeared to be intestines. It smelled like microwaved dog shit. I suggested we go to the house so he could get cleaned up and we could tell the bitches what happened.
As Boss N#gger showered in Rita’s bathroom, I relayed the story to the bitches over coffee. They were enthralled by what I had to say, as well as being filled with relief.
The sun had started rising and it was getting light outside. By then I was on my third cup of coffee. Boss N#gger came walking in wearing nothing but a towel. The bitches looked him up and down, with goo-goo eyes and big smiles on their faces.
Boss N#gger then spoke up, “Well, General, are we gonna fuck these bitches or what?” I said I had been up for two days in a row and that I had to get some sleep. He nodded and I got up to leave. I looked back as I was walking out the door and saw Boss N#gger with a bitch in each arm, walking toward Rita’s bedroom.

A Hotline Miami crossover.
The only variation to the timeline is that the Exchange Program went undiscovered far longer than in canon.
“Sapience is a tune. It must be sung together.”
Memory Transcription Subject: Narek, Unemployed Venlil.
Date [Standardized Human Time]: January 14, 2140.
The rest of the night was sleepless and unpleasant, forcing me to resort to curling into a ball and awaiting the reprieve of a beeping alarm clock. My body had ached from the moment I stood - my spine having spent the previous few hours bent at an awkward angle, my entire body aching from laying down for too long. My head pounded and my eyes were already weary. And yet, I knew I had a few things to do today, which meant facing the outside world which had produced gunfire and shouting a mere few hours ago. I groaned and lurched for the door - my paws placing one before the other slowly and surely, making me shamble like some sort of wooly zombie.
My hand brushed against the taller of two doorknobs at the apartment’s door and I pulled - opening the way to the hallway and eventually out onto the sidewalk.
Ever since I lost him, I hated going out. Me and everyone else had gotten to know the humans for almost four years before the Feds snuck their nose in our fucking business. We all had a creeping suspicion that what we had been taught since we were pups had been bullshit, but that wasn’t confirmed until they threw a hissy fit and tried to glass Earth. Apparently, Earth survived thanks to some species pulling through and helping out, us included, but at a huge loss - some four and a half billion gone, and millions more missing. In the week since, Venlil Prime has had a very distinct brand of numbness that has been passed around. Of anticipation of history being made. Many acted on it too. Most of us have lost faith in the Federation. They had been wrong about the one thing they built everything else around. What else could they be playing us about? This frustration of course boiling over, at the most visible symbol of Federative authority - the Exterminators. They were waning, but they were never this socially shunned.
As I stood on the street, I could see the smoke plumes still billowing from the headquarters. News Lady said arson, possibly an inside job.Which meant that maybe even they didn’t drink their own kool aid. Fucking idiots.Humans here had been treated gently since Earth. A large spike in suicides had been responded too with overwhelming community support, with resources being offered to any living here by locals. Hell, there’s even less heat from the exterminators than usual. Sucks all it took for that to happen is to blow up South Carolina. But due to this, Human refugees have been flooding in - many of them evacuated during the battle itself, which meant many were wounded or sick from sudden first spaceflights. Also meant that I couldn’t get my pills anywhere remotely normal.
Charnem was a nurse - a real greasy guy who skims some of the prescriptions from the hospital’s top for extra money. I had first gone to him for sleeping pills after uh, that … Happened - met him after hours behind the hospital he worked at. But the staff of that place were stationed helping out the first shipments of refugees. So I’d just have to go there.
It was noon by the time I arrived at the ports, the herd amassed telling me I was exactly where I needed to be. The community had flocked to help,they got so many volunteers that apparently, they had to hold a raffle to determine the handlers of the “predator” herd that had arrived. The area wasn’t fenced off or anything - but the entire docking bay was empty save for the fleet of transport ships which dropped off thousands. I could see them here, so many people bearing grim faces and sporting shredded clothes and bodies. A few tents and some loudspeakers had been set up, a voice blaring over them - prompting my ears to twitch.
"We do not need AB- , AB+, or O-. We have enough, thank you. There are critical shortages of O+, A+, and B+. If you match that blood type, please donate. Lives are on the line.”
The voice warbled for a moment, before it abruptly cut to music. All that assaulted my ears now is that annoying ass song, uh … I’m goin’ down or whatever. Made by Bruce. It really was a sucky fucking song to play in this situation, made even worse because I could understand English. Could they play something happy or some shit? If I got blown up, the last thing I’d wanna hear is Springman complaining about his teenage lovelife.
The nearest canopy tent was kinda weird. A group had set up shop inside, hundreds of mass-produced stuffed toys portraying Venlil sat up on tables and inside boxes. They were passing them out to the kid refugees, who mostly seemed either unhappy with a toy as consolation for abruptly losing everything else in their lives, or clinging onto the pretty soft-looking toys for dear life. It was nice of them either way I guess. These were volunteers, they probably knew. If not, I’d ask the ones next to them that were passing out food and water.I skipped the line entirely, my heart rate already increasing from the sheer amount of people I was swimming through. The noise was overwhelming, with all the chatter and that stupid fucking loudspeaker switching to the sorta better fitting Auld Lang Syne. I slowly weaved my way through the mass of Humanity until I found myself next to the tables, and in earshot of the worker.
"Hey-” I spoke, “I’m uh, I’m looking for Charnem? The nurse?’”
In between serving a forced smile and a stuffed animal to the battered human youth below, she turned and looked at me with exhausted eyes - puffy and red.
“Nurse? Check the medical tent … Hang a right next to the food line.”
A hasty medical tent had been set up at the edge of the bay, right where most ships would unload - bearing UN markings. It was large, I admit, taking up a good portion of the space given. The flap however was open and gave me an opportunity to get in, my ears recovering from the chatter of outside within the soundproof tent. All I heard here was the beeping of machines and tools, groaning, and wailing. I’d take it, I guess. Humans had been packed like sardines in here, all sporting a variety of injuries ranging from cuts and bruises to being half-way charred by anti-matter. Even further, some were being actively operated on behind dividers. What a horrible place to do this type of thing.
Behind a small divider in an attached room, I could see him - the nurse. Charnem was a greasy dude. His wool was oily and unkept, with figuratively tall and lanky features for us Venlil. The guy usually looked bored out of his mind and tired - but he seemed to have thrown that away today. He sat on a chair, a young human boy - if I had to guess, whose parents were being operated on and carried one of those produced plushies. He manipulated the overstuffed toy, making it ‘dance’ much to the dust-covered child’s joy, though he seemed more interested in the giant walking lamb than the copycat of the toy he already held in his hands.
It was weird, the guy had the largest and most natural looking smile I’ve ever seen him have, and I’ve been seeing him at doctor’s appointments for ages - he hardly was just my one-time drug dealer. Peeking from the side of the Divider, I spoke.
“Hey, can we talk? It’s me, the guy from the other night?”
The other Ram kept his attention on the boy, continuing to manipulate the stuffed animal as he asked his question. "Who from the other night?”
“The good tipper?”
His face fell for a moment as he looked over at me, then down to the boy. He patted the kid on the head and spoke, “I’ll be right back. Watch Davey for me - make sure he doesn't move! He’s suuuper sneaky!”
With that, he led me outside.
“What is it, Narek?” He asked, adopting that annoyed expression he so often did. What a dick.
“I was just wondering if you had some pills to spare?”
He stared incredulously. “Wait, wait, seriously? Look around you, does it look like I have anything to spare?” As if to accentuate his point, he flailed his arms in the direction of the door. “And even if I did, why are you asking me now?”
“I-” I tried to speak, though he had other thoughts.
“Seriously, we are out of everything right now. I’ve given up my own stash for this - the hospitals are flooded from that riot right now, and we’re using scraps. If I had sleeping pills, I’d be giving them to the people who actually need it. Not someone like you who just wants to have a talk with the spehing Hat Man!”
My mouth opened, and closed, and opened again. I had no words to say. I just felt like a total piece of shit, because he was right. My ears pinned down and my tail laid still, as I tried to stammer out a response. The Nurse looked at me and shook his head in frustration, before sighing. “Nar, I’ve been checking you into the doctors for years now. I heard what happened, and I’m sorry. I want to help you, but I just can’t. Sleeping pills won’t bring Roy back-”
I winced at the mention of his name.
“So go get a drink or talk to friends about it. You are going to crash and burn if you keep it up like this. I’m not your friend either - so don’t try it.”
As he walked away, I felt less than dirt. How could I march in here and ask for scraps to get my kicks off of? He had only plunged the knife deeper by mentioning Roy in all of this. I wonder what he’d think of my stunt here, if he could see me? I sniffled, wiping my eyes with my paws - before I put up my bravest face and decided to try his advice. I knew just where to go.

On Friday, there was a scantily-trafficked post that immediately caught my eye.
“Why do many experienced players wait for their turn pre-flop to look at their cards?” - Post by Standard_Emu6202

Is it to pick up live tells of other players? By that logic wouldn’t waiting for your turn and the tables focus to be on you give others live tells on you? Is it so they don’t get emotionally attached to the hand until they know entry price?
Just curious what edge I’m giving up by looking right away.

This was the undisputed top comment by Tolve.

By that logic wouldn’t waiting for your turn and the tables focus to be on you give others live tells on you?

Not really. It's NOT a tell like "that glean in his eyes means he has aces." The real (and very useful) preflop tells are does someone look disinterested, maybe with cards already half in the muck and spacing out, or interested in the pot paying close attention to the action. Basically you may give away whether or not you intend to play the hand to observant OOP opponents. If you don't look at your cards until the action is on you, then they don't need a tell to let them you're playing the hand, your bet speaks loudly enough.
You might ask, "Why can't I just look at my cards ahead of time, and not give off tells?" Well you can try, but it's kinda tough. Pay attention to it and count how many times you totally space out preflop while waiting to fold a hand you know you're gonna fold. You might also ask, "why do I care if I'm planning to fold anyway?" The answer is because if they can tell when your about to fold and they don't see that, it means they know (or at least have reason to suspect) you have a hand worth playing so might fold something at the bottom of their range they would have opened otherwise.
That said, I still look at ahead of time most of time unless there are some tough players to my right. Cause I'm lazy and want to space out.

^{Also, I’m not trying to attack Tolve, he’s summarizing the point I’ve also seen made countless times, and by ignoring it to be lazy, he’s unironically the hero in these situations.}
I am making a standalone submission because this is important: I hate when other players do this, and you should too. Especially if you’re a winning player, you should stop doing it, and you should really hate it when you see other players do it. Also, if you’re a winning player, yeah, I’m not lying: You can increase your profits by 6% instantly by ceasing to do this.
Yes, I’m serious. Yes, this was a lot of effort to prove this point. Yes, that is how annoying I find this innocuous-seeming “exploit.” Allow me to explain.
So here’s, in a nutshell, the pitch for the “exploit”:
If you let everybody else look at their cards, and wait to look at your’s, you can gather information on the person(s) on your direct left. If they give off a reliable tell that they are going to fold, you are essentially “stealing” their position, and can therefore profitably open a hand you would otherwise fold. There’s also a sub-pitch, which was actually expanded upon more than the usual core pitch in the top comment that I highlighted, which is that you don’t give off tells as to your action, namely when you’re looking disinterested and folding, but that really doesn’t even have the notion of a benefit inherently, which I’ll get to later.
Simple, right? The “exploit” turns certain folds into a profitable opening hand, makes money you would’ve otherwise left on the table.
Alright, let’s just start here: Hands per hour matters so much in live poker. It’s why people chop their blinds, speeding the game up helps everybody, including the two people forgoing their chance to play a potentially profitable hand from the blinds. Profit is the rate of play times your edge. Your edge you control through study and game selection. As for rate… You can really only do so much, but it’s arguably as, if not more, important than your edge (making the loaded assumption you have a decent-sized one).
I'm a winning player, which is important to this post. If you’re a losing player, you want less hands per hour, at least as it pertains to your hourly profit (loss) rate, you’ll bleed out slower. Winning players want to not only win the most BBs per 100 hands, but also get the most hands dealt as possible each hour. Both will increase a winning player’s hourly/total profit.
So,
If I'm doing this trying to grind out an extra, what, 1 BBs per 100 hands raising K9o in the Cutting because I see the button is going to fold (effectively netting me 0.05 BBs, since instead of mixing K9o for 0.00 BBs in the cutoff, I'm effectively playing it from the button where K9o has an EV of 0.05), I'm doing a few things:

I'd be seeing less hands per hour. Like, a lot less

My original premise has always been this:
For reference, I win 15-20 BBs an hour in the main game I play in. So, assuming there’s 30 hands an hour, increasing my BB per 100 in this game is 50 to 67 per 100 hands (online players are crying and throwing up). That means that I need to weigh the opportunity cost of my actions. If I increase my BB by 1 per 100, but it means that I see one less hand per hour, I've actually lowered my hourly rate from 15-20 BBs an hour to 14.79 to 19.63 BBs an Hour, a loss of 1.4-1.8%.
But, if only this “exploit” was only costing the table one less hand seen per hour.
Originally, I had written a paragraph about the potential for the pace of play to be slowed If you had four try-hards doing this is a table at the same time, and I assumed that four people all waiting to for the action to be on them before making their decision would slow the pace of play by 10%.
Then, I figured, hey, what the hell, I worked in NBA analytics as a consultant for over 50 players over the span of nearly a decade, let’s just run the math, it’s simple enough:
There’s 60 times 60 (3,600) seconds in an hour, and if the average casino table averages 30 hands an hour (I’ve seen a range from 25 to 35 cited, let’s just split those down the middle), that means there is, on average, 120 seconds her hand. Let’s assume that this “exploit” takes anywhere from 5 to 10 (I’ve experienced players doing both, and even some Silent Generation members taking up to 15 seconds per hand), and simplify that down to an average of 7.5 seconds that means that one for each player doing it makes each hand take ~6% longer than usual AND OH MY FUCKING GOD WHAT THAT CAN’T BE RIGHT!!!
But it is.
An easy way to check my math is just taking ( (120 + 7.5) / 120) - 1, which equals 0.0625, or 6.25%. Remember, that’s per person, because if two try-hards are doing this at the same table, Randy #2 will always wait for Randy #1 to be done halting the action to check their cards before he will begin to check his own. For a 30 hands an hour table, that means that each person is costing the entire table 1.88 hands per hour when they choose to do this, and, to point this out again, they stack.
Yeah. For those of you who haven't extrapolated how toxic this is to a win rate, here’s a chart. Remember, getting X% less hands in is literally identical to lowering your live win rate by X%:
​

Number of Try-Hards	Slow Down Percentage	Hands Lost Per Hour
1	6.25%	1.88
2	12.5%	3.75
3	18.75%	5.62
4	25%	7.50

​
Assuming the maximum favorable conditions, this is what the same chart looks like:
​
35 hands an hour, 5 seconds wasted per wait-to-peek:

Number of Try-Hards	Slow Down Percentage	Hands Lost Per Hour
1	4.86%	1.70
2	9.72%	3.40
3	14.58%	5.10
4	19.44%	6.80

​
And, assuming the maximum least favorable conditions, this is what the same chart looks like:
​
25 hands an hour, 10 seconds wasted per wait-to-peek:

Number of Try-Hards	Slow Down Percentage	Hands Lost Per Hour
1	6.94%	1.74
2	13.89%	3.47
3	20.83%	5.21
4	27.78%	6.94

​
Real fast and without the charters, here are the other two extreme scenarios:
Fastest Game, Slowest Peeks (Most Annoying): 9.72% Slow Down Percentage, 3.40 Hands Lost Per Hour per Try-Hard
Slowest Game, Fastest Peeks (Least Annoying): 3.47% Slow Down Percentage, 0.87 Hands Lost Per Hour per Try-Hard
I think that this information speaks for itself: By having somebody perform this “exploit” at your table, the effect is basically making winning player’s 6% worse at poker. This is true even if that player performing the “exploit” is yourself. You attempt to claw back some of that 6% by playing more hands, but, good luck being able to make that up (more on this later).

I’d be opening the door for an instance of flukish disaster (getting three-bet from somebody I was banking on folding)

In theory, if I knew 100% of the time that my read was infallible, this wouldn't be worth considering. But, we’re humans, we make mistakes, and everybody’s habits are subject to the deviations of chance.
Walk through this scenario with me:
If I'm opening K9o from the button, the chance that I get 3B from the SB or BB is baked into the EV of 0.05 BBs for the hand. You know what's not baked into the EV of 0.05 opening K9o from the button? Getting 3 Bet from the button. This can happen if you're opening it from the cutoff with the live read that the button is folding, but (whoops!) it was a false negative read, the button actually hadn't looked at his cards yet because he was dicking around on his phone or something, and three-bets you. You have to fold, and in trying to steal 0.05 BBs of EV but opening a hand that you would otherwise fold in the cutoff, you have lost the entirety of your standard opening size. GTOWizards says you should be making it 2.3 BBs from the cutoff in NL50, so, according to that proportion of EV to the BB open, this means that you just lost the equivalent of 46 successful K9o cutoff opens to this one outlier event, and therefore you need to be 98.87% sure that the button will fold every time you open K9o from the cutoff for the move to be profitable. I wouldn’t put a dollar into a soda machine if I was only 98.87% confident that the machine wouldn’t eat it.

Is this really a good use of my attention/energy?

Okay, let’s start here: I know this is hella ironic from the author of a 4,500 word post on /Poker trying to get people to stop doing something that almost nobody else has ever complained about. Let’s all be adults about this, now.
Anyways.
Every person in a poker room has a finite bandwidth of information that they’re able to prioritize, observe, process, and utilize. I’m not about to go full-Danile Negranu, “everything you do at the poker table conveys information,” so yeah, I bet you would like a sandwich, you fat whale-pig hybrid. The point that I’m getting at here is when you are watching the NFL Network on mute in April, you are missing that the dude actually check-jammed Q9s on A J64r flop, and not the flush draw T turn. When you are texting on your phone, you are not noticing that the guy who 3bet bluffs preflop uses a bigger denomination chip when he’s raising for value, and a bunch of smaller denomination chips when it’s as a bluff. I’m not here to say that you can’t do both, either. Shit, order a sandwich when you’re hungry, nobody plays their best when they are trying to push away their stomach growling.
But, here is what I will say: If I had my choice of anything pertaining to tells and game strategy that thinking opponents will spend their time, energy, and bandwidth on, I hope it’s something as trivial and opaque as guessing whether or not the other players in the game will be folding their hands preflop and devising intricate strategies to exploit that.
Please, spend an hour trying to figure out whether you can safely raise T6s from the hijack because the cutoff and button might be giving off a tell. That’s turning a 0 EV fold from the hijack into the equivalent of a 0.01 EV button open, baby!
Not to mention, the people who do this only end up drawing attention to themselves, and they are inadvertently telling the table what type of player they are. Whenever I see this, I instantly understand that the person is absolutely a try-hard, but somebody who either can’t see the forest for the trees, or somebody whose win rate is so low that they would rather make ~1 big blind per 100 hands more than they would like to play at a faster rate. Knowing that most people act in their best interest at the poker table, it’s clear that a person doing that is not a big winner, as they would understand that they make more playing fast than they do grinding out marginal opening hands. As you can see, this is like a Bat Symbol in the sky for, well, a shit reg for knowing players, and an experienced player for the whales. Not the type of marketing you want for yourself.
This actually pairs nicely with my next point…

It shows a fundamental misunderstanding as to why the button is more profitable than the cutoff

I have often heard people say that the button is the most profitable position in poker because it’s the one where they get to raise the highest percentage of their hands in position.
This is a little true, but you’re not grinding out a higher EV raising the hands that you would otherwise fold from the cutoff.
We can prove this one of two ways.
The easy way is to note on GTOWizard that the EV of being dealt any two cards and having it fold around to you in the cutoff is worth 0.15 BBs, and in the button that rises to 0.23 BBs. That’s cool.
But, that breaks both ways. It means that in the cutoff, hands that are worth at least 0.151 BBs of EV are raising that position’s average, while hands worth 0.149 BBs are lowering that average. Ditto for 0.231 and 0.229 BBs of EV for the button. So, when we look at a hand, like, say Q7s, it’s technically profitable from the cutoff (0.01 EV) and the button (0.06) EV. In fact, it’s the last hand that is profitable to raise from the cutoff when rounding to the hundredths decimal place, as GTOWizard does, so this is a great measuring post that I will return to. While raising Q7s from the cutoff will not generate much profit, I’m not going to go galaxy brain on calculating at which BBs per 100 threshold you should be valuing the opportunity cost of quickly folding the Q7s to get slightly more hands in and therefore raising your hourly rate more than harvesting that 0.01 EV by raising it from the cutoff. So, it stands that while raising Q7s is making you money, it actually isn’t accounting for much, because turning a 0.01 EV open into a 0.07 EV open that accounts for 4 out of the 1,326 possible combinations of hole card combos means that 0.3017% of all hands dealt I make 0.06 more big blinds.
This means that every time I’m dealt two cards on the button, the chance that it’s Q7s is adding (0.3017% * 0.06) EV before I know what my cards are compared to if I was being dealt two random cards in the cutoff. That equation comes out to 0.00018102 BBs of EV, or 1/441.94th the distance between the 0.15 and 0.23 BBs of EV difference between the positions.
That’s the easy way, because you can extrapolate that all the hands like Q7s are going to have a similar statistical endpoint and therefore aren’t going to be doing much to bridge that cap.
The hard way is to find all the combos that are not opened from the cutoff and are opened from the button and assess the number of combos and EV of each of those hands.
Here they are:

Hand	Combos	EV Per Combo	Total EV
Q6s	4	0.06	0.24
K9o	12	0.05	0.6
T7s	4	0.05	0.2
K2s	4	0.05	0.2
Q5s	4	0.05	0.2
97s	4	0.05	0.2
87s	4	0.05	0.2
J7s	4	0.05	0.2
Q9o	12	0.04	0.48
A5o	12	0.05	0.6
A7o	12	0.04	0.48
T9o	12	0.04	0.48
J9o	12	0.04	0.48
Q4s	4	0.03	0.12
33	6	0.03	0.18
A6o	12	0.02	0.24
76s	4	0.02	0.08
86s	4	0.02	0.08
A4o	12	0.02	0.24
J6s	4	0.02	0.08
Q3s	4	0.01	0.04
T6s	4	0.01	0.04
J5s	4	0.01	0.04
96s	4	0.01	0.04
65s	4	0.01	0.04
GRAND TOTAL	166	0.0332 (Average)	5.78

This is it. This is the Library of Alexandria for all the people who wait to look at their cards. I have revealed the sacred knowledge.
Also, for the record, this is me taking a bit of a shortcut and being nice to the people who practice this “exploit.” To generate this list of combos, I found the aforementioned last profitable open from the cutoff (Q7s), found out how much EV this open generated from the button, and just went down the list on GTOWizard of every button open that makes less EV than Q7s. The problem with this trick is that I actually captured some hands that are opened from the cutoff. Q6s, Q5s, 97s, J7s are all, according to GTOWizard, mandatory opens from the cutoff, and 87s and A5o are mixed between raising and folding at greater than 70% for raising. Excluding them (and not K2s, which is mixed at 50.5/49.5 favoring raise), there are 134 combos generating 4.14 total BBs of value.
I hope everybody was sitting down.
If executed without a single flaw, ever, this “exploit” generates 4.14 BBs of total value spread across not just 134 combos that it utilizes, but the total 1,326 possible combos of hands. That’s a BB per 100 hands of, wait for it, 0.31 BBs per 100 hands.
All the time, the energy, and of course, the opportunity cost of time wasted, to generate an extra 0.31 BBs per 100 hands of profit.
I would sooner dig to China using a lacrosse stick than go through all this effort to try to capture 0.31 BBs per 100 hands of profit.
Remember my original pitch? 1 BB per 100 hands more profit at the opportunity 1 less hand an hour?
Here’s the reality: 0.31 BBs per 100 hands more profit at the opportunity cost of, dream case scenario, 0.81 less hands an hour, but realistically I’m kidding myself if I don’t assume it’s around 1.88 hands an hour.
Like most things in life, you get what you pay for. With this really basic, bottom-of-the-barrell, entry-level “skill,” you get almost no tangible benefit.
So, where is the profit coming from by playing more hands in the button versus the cutoff?
Where profit always comes from, super premiums:

Hand	Combos	CO open EV per hand	CO Total EV	BU open EV per hand	BU Total EV	Per Hand EV Margin	Total EV Margin
AA	6	9.31	55.86	9.62	57.72	0.31	1.86
KK	6	6.1	36.6	7.08	42.48	0.98	5.88
QQ	6	3.49	20.94	4.88	29.28	1.39	8.34
AKs	4	2.27	9.08	3.37	13.48	1.1	4.4
AKo	12	1.63	19.56	3.13	37.56	1.5	18
JJ	6	1.61	9.66	2.75	16.5	1.14	6.84
AQs	4	0.86	3.44	1.85	7.4	0.99	3.96
TT	6	0.61	3.66	1.55	9.3	0.94	5.64
GRAND TOTAL	50	3.18 (Weighted Average)	158.8	4.27 (Weighted Average)	213.72	1.10 (Weighted Average)	54.92

Why do these hands generate dramatically more EV on the button than the cutoff? A mix of position and, yeah, getting three-bet/called off just a little bit lighter because of all the junk that you open from the button that you don’t from the cutoff.

“But OP, you’re totally missing the point. Whenever I showdown a button open from the cutoff, I show that I’m playing wide, and therefore I will get raised and paid off more when I have super premiums on the cutoff like I do when I’m on the button! How could you not think of that?”

Seriously, did you think I would spend all this time and not anticipate that counter-argument? Let me share some more secrets…

In a per-hand vacuum, I actually don’t really care if people think they’re gathering live tells on whether I’m folding in advance preflop, because I’m folding, and nobody you want to influence is being influenced by your wider opens

This is my card-reading process:
I get dealt both cards. I instantly bend-peek the bottom left corner on both for the rank, then I quickly bring them together to do the classic\ two-card peal-peek to double-check the suits. Yes, I do this when I have a pocket pair of the same color for balance, too, thanks for asking but obviously, I already thought of that. Yes, I do this even when the first card is a two and I’m under the gun, like once in a thousand hands the blocker information helps me when archetyping a player based on post-flop action, so I want to always know my exact cards even when I’m folding. The whole thing takes about 3 to 4 seconds, and that little extra sauce I put on the routine by bending the cards individually wouldn’t even matter towards extending the total length of the hand if everybody immediately looked at their cards the moment they were dealt, also.
Yes, there is the argument that I could skip the bend-peeking and just peel-peek, but I am just confirming the information I already know and, yeah, I like to bend the cards, it makes me feel like I’m playing in the Full Tilt Poker Million Dollar Cash Game, shut up.
After I do this, I watch the action and wait for it to get to me, then I act. I rest my hand on my cards regardless of if I’m raising or folding while I do this.
It’s the same every time. It’s fast, I know instantly how I play this hand because it’s not my first time being dealt this combo and I already know when I start/stop 3Betting this hand from. I don’t lose interest when I get dealt rags in the blind, I stay tethered to the action and I hope for a chop. I view this, frankly, as decorum to the people behind me, and a bit of a societal contract. I wouldn’t fold out of turn in a million-dollar pot because it influences the action, and it costs me nothing to do the same on this much smaller scale, so I do it in hopes that the people behind me will do the same when one day I’m behind them.
But, back to the hand, and the EV implications: When I fold a hand outside of the blinds, I don’t make money, and I don’t lose money. The EV is 0. Therefore, folding 74o on the button is a non-event, like casting a line when fishing and then realizing that you lost the bait. Oh well. Why should I care if a guy to the right of me is opening a hand like J6s because he thinks I’m folding? What am I gonna do, get into a pointless leveling war by three-betting him and hoping that the blinds have dust? I’m gonna fold, like I planned!
So, it follows that if the try-hard in the cutoff has spent considerable time studying me and trying to ascertain which subtle mannerisms mean strong and which mean weak, I don’t care. Poker is a zero-sum game, sure, but my EV is hard-locked at zero for this hand anyway, so I guess that the 0.03 BBs that the cutoff is getting by raising Q4s instead of folding is coming from the blinds. Honestly, I prioritize other things in my life before plugging my own 0.31 BBs per 100 hand live leaks, I’m not going to be losing sleep if my good faith attempt still ends up costing another player 0.31 BBs per 100 when they’re in the blinds, sorry.
This actually leads me to the only potential way to make this “exploit” profitable when considering the opportunity costs associated with it: If you are able to do this only when you’re on the button with the intent of finding times to steal the blinds with any two cards, then perhaps maybe if you’re incredible at reading tells you might be able to overcome the opportunity costs and eke out a profit with this “exploit” after accounting for everything. But, again, how many times do you need to be wrong and wind up with 95o on A765r on the turn before you have dusted away your 1.5-BBs-a-pop stealing profits playing a strange hand in a stranger way because nobody bats 1.000 on any prediction. And, assuming you somehow only wind up in those flukish spots rarely enough that you, in fact, are able to profitably steal the blinds even with the opportunity cost of missing out on more hands, refer to my original point #3, and ask yourself “is this really a good use of my attention/energy?” Also, how many times can you even hope to do this, once every 5 orbits if you’re incredibly skilled and in a dream spot for this?
Also, yeah, sure, this street could theoretically break both ways. Maybe a super, super discerning player might end up folding a marginal hand that is usually an open if they sense that I’m going to three-bet them. Do I put much stock into the idea that this is something that happens outside of self-reported, apocryphal anecdotes? No, obviously not, I’ve seen people raise first in big out of turn pre, then the player who is to act before them raises anyway to just fold when the out of turn player raises big anyway. Correlation does not always equal causation, and everybody in poker has an anecdote to reinforce how clever they think they are.

Conclusions

Let’s return to this hypothetical argument:

“Whenever I showdown a button open from cutoff, I show that I’m playing wide, and therefore I will get raised and paid off more when I have super premiums on the cutoff like I do when I’m on the button!”

Here’s the problem with the whole “exploit” of waiting to look at your cards: At the crux of the argument for using it, you will always find unrealistic dichotomies, missing the forest for the trees, and confirmation biases.
The unrealistic dichotomies are easily apparent once you know to look for them. What player is studied enough to understand that you’re opening wide, but oblivious enough to not realize that you’re doing it because a player behind you isn’t paying attention? A dumb player doesn’t know what hands should be opened from where to begin with, he won’t adjust his raises if he sees you get out of line with A7o from the cutoff. A smart player understands what hands should be opened from where, but he also understands why you’re waiting to look at your cards , and just by following the action he will notice that a player consistently telegraphs his folds. Not hard to understand that they’re opening wide, and revert to playing a cutoff versus BB spot like they would play a button versus BB spot. I do this whenever I need to, it’s an easy adjustment. Also, when I watch somebody wait to look at their cards and then immediately stare down the person to their direct left when they clearly are waiting on pertinent information before raising or folding, it’s not that sneaky and easily exploitable until the villain proves they can adjust with a false tell when they have a super premium.
Also, what types of players give off super consistent tells? Yeah, bad ones. You should be expanding your range before you even know how interested they are in their hand, especially if you’re in the cutoff or button and all the players behind you are bad, because you want to play more hands with bad players to begin with. Hard to miss the forest for the trees more than this, but again, when you’re spending time obsessing over tells, you might not think about this because your attention and energy is going elsewhere. But, what if the fish is hyper-focused and clearly waiting to play the hand behind you on a given hand, should you be expanding your range then?
No! Obviously not, and this is the real punchline of it all: YOU DON’T NEED TO WAIT UNTIL AFTER YOU LOOK AT YOUR CARDS TO NOTICE THIS TYPE OF STUFF TO BEGIN WITH!!! You can look at your cards, begin to follow the action, and then right before it gets to you, glance at the fish who wear their obvious tells and decide if they’re giving off a can’t-miss signal of strength and act accordingly. For all the reasons mentioned above, why do you care if you’re giving off subtle tells on whether you’ll play the hand or not? Not to mention, another unrealistic dichotomy is the idea that a good player would struggle to look at a good hand and not give off a tell. Also, if you can’t look down at AA without giving off a tell, WAITING TO LOOK AT YOUR CARDS WON’T SAVE YOU!!
The entire thing, the logic behind it, the obsession with the procedure of folding hands preflop ignoring the size of the tiniest effect it could possibly have on anybody else’s strategy, and not to mention trading 6% more hands in to make 0.31 more BBs per 100 hands, it’s MADNESS.
So, do everybody at the table (including yourself) a favor:
Increase your profit by 6%, and stop waiting to look at your cards until the action is on you.