PAHWM: The Boots (with the fur?)

First time at this casino, and I've been at the table for a couple hours.

I'm in the 4 seat, 1 on off from my preferred 5 seat (what I call "The Perch"), atop from which I watch over the 2/5NL table with my eagle eye.

It's one of the long, dreary days of winter when the sun has just started to stay up longer but the kids are not yet back in school. The ashes of yesteryear are being collected for the waste-bin along with the kindling for the coming year, but looking around the felt I see more of the former than the latter.

READS:

The player to my direct right (seat 3) is a drunkard and a dullard. He's spent the last 30 minutes arguing with me that I am not from around here, and I've thus far been unsuccessful in convincing him that I don't care where he thinks I'm from. He has a seat change button, but has not used it despite me prompting him to each time a seat opens up.

Seat 2 (the "Silver Wing") is probably your standard 40/5 player online, but he's been much tighter and more aggressive live.

Seat 1 (the "Talon") looks like he was attractive in an earlier day, perhaps even in recently. He shows up to the casino well-groomed--hair coiffed, the brand of his fitted shirt conspicuously scrawled across his chest (though I myself don't recognize the designer), rings on each hand--but the light has left his eyes. He's clearly been ground down by poker or maybe a failed marriage (a wedding band is not among the jewelry he's sporting). The only "hard" read I have on his game (for those who are into that sort of thing) are that he's yet to limp. I'm confident he never will.

Seat 9 (formerly the "Tail Feather", now the "Empty Nest"): Vacated, ostensibly because of COVID, but like shoes and belts going through a TSA metal detector, I know it will be permanently retired to the anals of history.

Seat 8 (formerly the "Booster Seat", now the "Tail Feather Part Deux") is a regular from the casino where I usually play. A few years back he tapped the tank against a big fish, and I've refused to talk about him ever since. I have loads of reads on him, but I won't dignify his character by divulging any of them to you.

Seat 7 (the "Hatch") is between 36 and 47 years old and has a dark complexion, but does not otherwise have features typically associated with African American gentlemen. I played the hand under the assumption that he is from the northern Horn of Africa, but I encourage you all to debate this in much greater detail as it is very important to how the hand plays out. (Sorry for the spoiler.)

Seat 6 (which obviously you all know by now is called the "Cloaca") is your very typical OMC, except a little looser. He's literally drinking coffee as this hand takes place!! I'd estimate he's raised every other hand.

Seat 5 (the "Eagle"), is the seat just to the left of where we get dealt one black king and one red cowboy. The black one is the devil's heart. The player who is sitting there just returned from a smoke break and says he'll wait for the big blind, so he's not playing this hand.

OTTH:

The Talon and The Silver Wing limp to us and we ???