"Do You Like My Rack?"

“I ran into another of those women again.”

I quote from myself (because who else would quote me?).  That was the second sentence from this earlier post here.  It is what is known in the business as a “tease.”  I didn’t then have the time to relate the story of my encounter with this woman.  But I do now.  Or at least get started on that story.  You see, after I did that tease, I ran into that woman yet again, and I teased that evening here. Yes, the woman I’m about to tell you about is indeed the woman in the purple bra from that second post.  Sadly, I will not get to reveal what was behind the purple bra in this post.  Our first night together was wild enough for now.

By “those women” I mean one of those ladies who was so outrageous, in behavior, or in her comments, or both, that I can build an entire post around her….or even multiple posts. In this case, my first evening with this girl will be a two part post.  I really wanted to satisfy my readers who demand really long posts from me, but as you know, I prefer doing shorter posts, so I am selfishly stretching this tale over two posts.  Part 2 will follow shortly.

Women such as these are scattered throughout my blog archive.  The most notable is no doubt Prudence.  However, lately she has seemingly semi-retired from outrageousness and has become one of my best friends.   Another notable contributor was Natalee, who specialized in putting men on tilt very much intentionally.  I have no more stories about her as I write this, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I encountered her again somewhere down the road.

Which brings us to my first evening with Didi, as I will call her.  That is, of course, a pseudonym.  You will see how I came up with that name shortly.

I arrived at BSC for my evening poker session and was assigned a table.  I hadn’t even taken my seat yet when the girl in seat 9 said hello and asked me my name.

That caught me off guard but I told her my name and asked for hers.  She told me it was Didi (actually, she told me what I presume to be her real first name, but as I said, we are calling this gal “Didi”).

Her next comment to me was, “Welcome to the table, Rob.  I can tell you’re a nice guy.”

I guess I thanked her; I didn’t really know how to respond to that.

But her next comment really threw me off.  “Be careful with these Vegas women, Rob.  They’ll break your heart.  They’ll break the heart of a nice guy like you.”

I had not yet played a hand and had known this woman for all of 60 seconds.  I got the sense that this was not going to be an ordinary night of poker.

I may have thanked her for the warning, too shocked to say anything else. 

Now Didi was definitely cute.  She had short blonde hair and was fairly young—at least from my perspective.  I’m terrible at guessing ages these days but I guess I’ll ballpark it as anywhere from mid-20’s to mid-30’s, with a wide margin for error. 

There was one other thing about Didi I couldn’t help noticing—well, two things, really.  Yes, it seemed that under that rather tight t-shirt (not particularly low cut) she was hiding two reasonably large breasts.

Of course, that is not the sort of thing I normally even notice, and I never, ever mention such things on the blog.  But having spent two evenings with Didi, I feel confident in saying that Didi would actually be offended if she found out that I failed to point this out to my readers.

A cute, young blonde with big tits expressing an immediate interest in my love life?  I’m listening.

However, it wasn’t very long before she started talking about her boyfriend.  So I guess she was not auditioning to be the next woman to break my heart.

Or perhaps she was more interested in the other woman at the table, a girl in her same age category.  Didi went out of her way at one point to compliment the other girl on her looks.  “You’re so pretty,” she said.  I guess she got some reaction to that from some of the guys at the table, so she announced, “She and I will be making out later.”  The other woman laughed nervously.

The other woman was Jewish, by the way.  How do I know this?  Well, at one point, totally out of the blue, Didi asked her, “Do you know Jesus on a personal basis?”  The woman said she did not, because she was Jewish.  Didi explained that once, when she was in a supermarket somewhere in Florida, a woman who was a total stranger to her came up to her and asked Didi that very same question.

We were there to play poker and it didn’t take me very long to figure out that Didi had some interesting habits as a poker player.  One, she swore a lot.   There were many “oh shits,” and “ah, f***s” coming out of her mouth.  And like the aforementioned Natalee, she had this habit of telling us about her hand. “I have a crap hand, but I’m betting anyway,” or “I have a good hand, so I’ll raise,” or “That was a bad call or a bad raise” or something like that.  Although they look nothing alike, I started to wonder if perhaps Didi was Natalee’s daughter.

But her oddest bit was that she liked to bet or raise in prime numbers.  So $11 or $17 were her favorite bets.  Don’t ask me what she had against the number 13.  Bad luck, perhaps?

Whenever she wanted to bet or raise, she had to stop and think what was the appropriate prime number to make her bet.  She couldn’t’ raise to $35, she had to raise to $37.  She would occasionally ask other players what the next prime number was after “X”, where “X” was too small to be a raise.  I know there’s math in poker, but this was a bit strange.

Didi may have been acting a bit like Natalee, but she didn’t have the same effect on the players as Natalee did.  She wasn’t putting anyone on tilt, dammit.  And she played most hands, and raised most hands (or called a raise, though she rarely three-bet).  And her raises were big.  Her preflop raise was $17 more often when than it was $11.

And just my luck, I was pretty card dead.  I looked for ways to expand my range to take advantage of the big pots that Didi was often creating but the cards just wouldn’t cooperate.  And when I did get a hand that I could speculate with, the flop missed me.  Didi was very much a calling station after the flop and she was also incredibly lucky, hitting her hands whenever she needed them most.  She also pulled off a few bluffs—a few that we saw, anyway.  Maybe there were more that we didn’t see.

Not long after I was there, she told the dealer, “If I win this pot, I’ll chop it with you,” meaning she would give the dealer half the pot as a tip.  I’m not sure if she won that pot but she said it enough times for it to finally happen.  She won a pot of between $50 and $100 I guess and, good to her word, she counted out half of the pot and started to shove it towards the dealer.  But not quite.

“Give me a kiss on the cheek first,” she demanded of the dealer.

This particular dealer might well be described as “gruff.”  A middle-aged guy (or maybe a little beyond that), he doesn’t always have the most charming demeanor when he deals, although he and I are pals and he’s always extremely friendly with me (though he’s never given me a kiss on the cheek, thankfully).

“I’d like to, but….the cameras.”  He pointed upward.

“F*** the camera’s.  If you want the tip, you have to kiss me on the cheek.”

“OK, I will, but after I’m finished dealing here.”

“No, kiss me now or no tip.”

So, with great reluctance, and as quickly as he could, he leaned over and gave her a very, very brisk peck on the cheek.

She gave him half the pot and bragged about keeping her word and then asked the dealer, “Was that the best you’ve ever had?”  I think she was referring to the size of her tip.  “Biggest tip of the night?”

He said, “Yeah, best of the week….of the month,” as he thanked her.

This dealer doesn’t know anything about my blog, to the best of my knowledge.  But the next dealer sure did.  It was my buddy Jack, the very first BSC dealer to learn about my blog.  He reads it and has even commented on one of my posts.  It was Jack who, not long ago, gave me the heads up that Natalee had returned and therefore more blogging material was waiting for me at another table (see here).  I was across from him so we couldn’t really converse in private, but we kept nodding to each other as Didi said one outrageous thing after another.  Every so often, when she said something or did something, I’d say to him, “And I’m here to see this.”  He knew exactly what I meant.  At one point he said to me, “How are you always here when things like this happen?”  We were both amused.

So when Didi promised Jack the same deal she did with the previous dealer, I was curious to see if he would indeed kiss her when she demanded it.  Sure enough, she won a nice pot after making the promise to Jack to chop the pot with him.  And after splitting the pot in two, she made the same demand of Jack that she had made to the previous dealer.

“You have to kiss me on the cheek first.”  She pointed to the exact spot she wanted the kiss to land. 

Unlike the previous dealer, he didn’t hesitate a bit (I wondered if he had either seen that happen with the previous dealer or if the previous dealer had perhaps tipped him off).  He immediately zoomed in for the peck on the cheek.

As he did, I said, as pointedly as I could, “And I’m here to see that.”  Jack of course knew exactly what I meant—that he had just guaranteed himself an appearance in an upcoming blog post.

“You didn’t see anything,” he said.  But you know, you can’t unsee something, Jack. 

At one point early on she started announcing she was only going to play a few more hands before leaving.  Not surprisingly, she played at least an hour after first saying this.

But she did ask the floor person for a chip rack.  I’m going to call the floor person Monte because that’s what I’ve called him in the past when I told stories about him as a dealer.  Monte is in the same general age group as Didi.  He’s a good guy, is one of my BSC buddies, and has good sense of humor.  And, he tries to be professional at all times. 

So Monte brought a rack over and said something like, “Here’s a rack.”

Instead of thanking him (or perhaps, in addition to thanking him), she said, “Do you like my rack?”

At that point, she stood up so we could all get a better look at her rack.  I have to admit, that when she stood up, it did look even more impressive than when she was sitting down.

This is a total guess here, but I would be willing to bet more than a few bills that Monte did indeed like Didi’s rack.

But of course, there’s absolutely no good way to answer that question.  It’s a classic no win situation. The absolutely last thing he can possible say to her is, “No, I don’t like your rack.”  The second to last thing he can say to her is, “Yes, I do indeed like your rack.”

It was totally unfair to ask a guy that question where he works.  I mean, assuming he wants to keep his job.  If she were to complain to his boss that he said anything about her rack—good or bad—he’d be fired.  And Didi knew it.  Monte said nothing.  Didi said, “Cuz I like mine.”  Again, Monte said nothing.  So she said, “Are you saying you don’t like it?  Cuz that would be inappropriate, too.”

Monte left the table but Didi got up to talk to him briefly, and when she came back, she said, “He likes my rack.”

“He told you that?” I asked.

“He couldn’t, but he didn’t deny it.  He said, ‘I can neither confirm or deny.’”

She racked up all her chips but continued to play.  The dealer, Jack, told her she had to take one working stack out of the rack to play from, a rule almost all poker rooms have.

She took one stack out and started to take out another when Jack told her, “You’re fine, you have a working stack.”

She responded, “I have a working stack…..and they’re 36 Double D’s.”

Everyone laughed and then, looking around at all the guys at the table, she asked us, “Is that ok?  Is that playable? ” More laughter.  “Is that ok?”

They say there’s no such thing as a dumb question, but I believe she had just proved them wrong.

She was sitting right next to the dealer, Jack, and appeared to be asking him specifically.  I’m pretty sure I heard Jack tell her something like, “Yeah, that’s pretty good.”

And now you know why I decided to give this girl the pseudonym “Didi.”    

Now I know what you’re all wondering.  Did she look like a 36DD?  Afterall, people have been known to lie at the poker table.  Some people make a living doing just that.

Well, I’m certainly no expert in this field, but based on my limited study of boobage, I would say that 36DD was definitely in her range.

But I do have to point out that 36 is not a prime number, for whatever that’s worth.

Not sure whether it was before or after this but someone mentioned being a dancer or wanting to be a dancer.  And she announced that she couldn’t be a dance because, “I’m fat.  I’ve got big hips.”  And she stood again to show off her hips.  She did have big hips, to go along with her big chest and yes, even a pretty big booty, but there’s no way I’d call her “fat.”

And that’s where I’ll leave part 1.  Part 2 will feature a Cowboy from Missouri, Robin Williams, a flying celphone and flopped quads, among other things.  Flopped quads?  Yes, the next post will actually include some poker.  Check back in a day or two.

A Duck & A Schmuck (x) 2

I guess I should explain the title of this post first.  A wise woman once told me that she referred to the starting hand of King-deuce as, “a duck and a schmuck.”  I thought that was quite funny and never forgot it.  But when I googled it, I was unable to locate any source that indicated this was an “official” nickname for that hand.  So I feel obligated to credit my pal Donna for that nickname.  Thanks Donna.  Whenever I get K-2, I think to myself, “a duck and a schmuck.”  And by the way, it’s a much better hand to get than the dreaded pocket Kings.  After all, when you see K-2, you just muck it and it doesn’t’ cost you any money.  Not so with KK.

Anyway, this is a tale about two “Ducks” and two Kings, Hence the "times 2."

In this case, the two “Ducks” involved are not cards but people: fellow blogger Lucki Duck and his awesome wife, Mrs. Duck.  I actually thought about giving Mrs. Duck a phony name, but, I don’t know, Mrs. Goose just sounded too silly.

Our story begins with a wonderful blogger’s dinner at Le Burger Brasserie, which is basically the official dinning place of poker bloggers.  As I explained in this post, it has everything a poker blogger could want.  Burgers. Women in sexy lingerie. Women in sexy lingerie serving burgers.  See what I mean?  The only thing missing is that since it is named after a woman’s support garment, the burgers should either be served on edible bras or on top of the girls’ actual bras, as I lamented here.  But to me, this eatery will always be known as “The Bra Burger” place.

I suppose I should mention that also joining us for the meal was Lightning.  But he doesn’t get mentioned in the title since he generously paid for the meal and that is his reward.  I suppose I should publically thank Lightning for the meal, but since his friggin’ Blackhawks beat my beloved Kings (the hockey Kings, not the pocket Kings), that seems like thanks enough.  Imagine my Kings losing?  Who’da thunk it?

Lucki Duck has already told his (totally false) version of the events here.  The burgers were good and the conversation was excellent.  A lot of fun. Lucki told us of his big score at the WSOP bracelet event, a tale he told here.  My first, if brief, meeting with him was there when he was in the process of winning a big pot and I stopped by to say hello and wish him well.  I have no doubt that it was my good luck wishes that propelled him into the money.

Lightning told the story of how he went to school with every known mass murderer of the 20^th century.  On a totally unrelated topic, he told us how he spent several days providing taxi service for TBC.  They had fun hitting limit games, Omaha games, stud games, and I believe he drove Tony as far north as Reno at one point.

A lot of the discussion involved sports, as Lucki & Lightning debated the merits of their favorite home town sports teams.  So, it was the Cowboys vs the Bears.  Of course, I stuck up for my hometown of Los Angeles, proclaiming that my NFL team was the best of all time, the Los Angeles…..oh shit, we haven’t had a NFL team since the single wing, have we?

But I did get into the act.  For some reason, Lightning took great joy in dumping on Troy Aikman, former star QB of the Cowboys (and by “cowboys”, I don’t mean pocket Kings).  I pointed out that before he went to the NFL, Aikman was the star QB of my beloved alma matter, UCLA, for two years.  And damn it, in those two years, he was unable beat the University of Spoiled Children even once.

Mrs. Duck chipped in with a great story about being unable to get their clothes out of the washer at their luxury hotel (or was it the dryer?).  Fortunately, Mrs. Duck was able to figure it out before having to call the SWAT team to assist her.

Then Lightning noticed I had tweeted about our dinner.  I said we were having “bra burgers” for reasons I’ve already explained.  So he proceeded to make the ridiculous assertion to Mrs. Duck that yours truly is “obsessed with breasts.”  I am confident that I have put this ridiculous notion to bed with a recent post (see here).  But before I could explain what a total misconception that was, Mrs Duck proceeded to tell us about a woman she saw on the Vegas Strip recently.

“You would have really liked this woman we saw on the Strip, Rob.”  According to Mrs. Duck, she was wearing a pirate outfit from the waist down and almost nothing from the waist up. 

That pricked my interest.

She said the only thing this gal was wearing on top was mechanical tape.  Apparently very little of it, and apparently very strategically placed.  I couldn’t believe that Mrs. Duck didn’t call it what it was (or should have been).  Duct tape.

After all, you can fix anything with duct tape.  Even sagging breasts, no doubt.  And sagging was what these breasts were, apparently.  Mrs. Duck described her figure as “Rubenesque,” 

“Oh, she was overweight?”  Mr. & Mrs. Duck nodded affirmatively—quite a bit overweight, it seems.  And it seems that there wasn’t a whole lot of duct tape being used.

“Well it was very hot out there,” one of the Ducks explained.  In case I didn’t get the picture—oh, and trust me, I did—Lucki compared the tape and it’s placement to “tassels.” 

What the Ducks were too polite to say was that the gal was obviously using the duct tape to cover her nipples and not much else.

According to Mrs. Duck, the lady in question wasn’t just standing there.  No, she was dancing, jumping, shaking.  If she was indeed Rubenesque, I’m sure a whole lot more than just her ta-ta’s were shaking.

We all had a good laugh about that.  There’s no truth to the rumor that I spent the rest of my Vegas trip fixed to the corner where they said the girl was spotted.

Lightning suggested that before leaving town, the Ducks might go to a hardware store and pick up some duct tape for their own use.  Mr. Duck seemed enthusiastic about that idea, but Mrs. Duck said that he’d have to wear it. I have nothing further to report on the Ducks’ duct tape use, or lack thereof.

Lightning had already arranged to meet another blogger, Ron, over at the Luxor for an after dinner poker session, and invited us to join them.  Of course we said yes.  Ironically, I’d sat right next to Ron less than two weeks earlier at the first event of the Binions Classic, an event Ron discussed briefly here and I mentioned very briefly here. 

We reassembled over at Luxor, (or as I’ve always called it, “The Luth Luxor”, which seems quite appropriate now that a new Superman movie just came out).  Oddly enough, I had never played at the Luxor poker room before, one of the few poker rooms in Vegas I could say that about.

As soon as we got there, they opened a new blogger’s 1/2 game, but I think we all wished we could have been in the other 1/2 game they had.  It was one of the wildest, craziest 1/2 games I’d ever seen.  There was like $5,000-$6,000 on the table, maybe more.  At least three players had stacks of over $1K each and the dealers were telling us that there was some guy there who was just giving money away.  He’d buy in for $300 and within two hands he gave it all away, almost without fail.  Apparently he kept shoving with nothing.  There was actually a crowd around the table watching, as if it was the final table at the Main Event.  It was hard to believe a room like the Luxor, of all places, could get that kind of an insane action table going, and it kept going the entire time we were there.

I sat between Lucki and Lightning, with Ron across from me.  Lightning will no doubt describe in painful detail how he lost his car, his house and his first born in a huge pot to Ron, who only happened to have flopped a boat.  Lightning promised to get it back over time by never tipping him again (Ron is a dealer at Bally’s).  For what it’s worth, Ron actually felt bad about taking Lightning’s money….but he took it just the same, of course.

I think all four of us left the room ahead, which was nice.  Lightning made a nice recovery; apparently his strategy was to give money away to people he knew and take it from total strangers.  Ron can almost retire on the money he took off Lightning and Lucki spent about two hours not playing a hand and then starting winning.

I’ll talk about three hands of mine, the last of which was especially noteworthy.

In a five way pot ($35), I flopped a set of 7’s.  In early position a guy (and I think it was the preflop raiser), bet $5.  There was two to a flush on the flop so I wanted to raise.  Three times the bet wasn’t good enough of course.  That was a ridiculously low bet for a pot that size.  I made it $30 and he folded. I couldn’t see betting less there and giving anyone a good reason to call.

Immediately after winning a nice pot when Ace-King resulted in a top pair/top kicker hand, I was dealt pocket Queens.  A fairly short stacked player in early position made it $6.  I made it $18 and he called.  The flop came King-Jack-9, giving me the gutshot, plus the pair of Queens.  He checked and I made my continuation bet for $30.    

He check-raised all-in.  But his stack was only $60 total.  It was an easy call for $30 more.  The last two cards were low and meaningless.  He showed his hand, King-Jack offsuit for a flopped two pair.  OK, that hurt, and I was left wondering what the hell he was doing, other than taking my chips.

I don’t get his preflop play.  Raising in early position with a crummy hand like King-Jack?  And with such a short stack?  My understanding of a short-stack strategy is you wait for a good hand to play before the flop, not play such a dangerous, speculative hand.  Whatever.  But with that hand, he called a three-bet?  It’s not like I was playing a lot of hands, even though I just had won the previous pot.  Anyone like his play?  I know, I know, you want him to call there.

By the time this next hand happened, Lucki had already taken off, and this was his last night in town.  He’s a great guy—despite what Lightning says—and it was a pleasure spending some time with him and of course, Mrs. Duck, who gifted me with a nice “woman said” story earlier.  But sadly then, only Ron and Lightning were around to witness this freakish hand—freakish for me, anyway.

In late position, I look down at the dreaded pocket Kings. A couple of others had limped, and Lightning, on my immediate right, also limped.  I made it $14.  Only two called, including Lightning.

The flop was Ace-King-8, rainbow.  It was checked to me.  If ever there was a temptation to slow play a set, this was it.  But no, I’ve taken a vow to never slow play a set again, so I bet out $30.  Both players called.  I’m sure Lightning couldn’t put me on a set of Kings, because he knows Kings never treat me that well.

A 6 on the turn, checked to me, and I bet $60, which was a little less than half my stack (that damn King-Jack-off).  The other guy called, and Lightning thought about for quite some time, but folded.

The river card was a beautiful 6, giving me a full house.  He checked, I shoved, of course.  And he called—he had me covered.  I showed my boat and he showed….Ace-7 offsuit. 

This is why you want people to make bad calls preflop, isn’t it?  He limped with a hand he should have folded, and called my preflop raise with a hand he never should have called a  raise with.  Then he kept calling me on every street, even though he had to believe, at the very least, that I had a bigger Ace than he did!

As Ron pointed out, the pair on the river was a great card for me.  If he was worried about his kicker, he might now think that it’d be a chopped pot and we both had two pair, Ace’s & 6’s, with a King kicker (on the board).  Well, as long as I hadn’t raised preflop with Ace-King!

Lightning told me he folded an Ace, and that it was bigger than a 7.  But I wonder—if he didn’t know me, if he’d never read my blog or played with me before, would he have possibly hung around until the river?  I’m glad he didn’t.  I would have felt guilty enough to at least have considered paying him back for the dinner if he had.

It was a nice pot, and put me up over $100 for the session.  I took off not long after that, saying goodbye to Ron and Lightning.

As I said, Lightning recovered by taking money from strangers instead of giving it to friends.  Summing it up, it was a great night…..great dinner, great conversation, great poker….a good time was had by all.

Except the guy who called my preflop raise with Ace-7 offsuit.

A Pair of Huge Pots

This is from a very long evening at BSC, and will concentrate on just two hands, one early and one late.  As it played out, it was one night but two different sessions.

Very early in the first session, I was dealt Ace-Jack offsuit in the hijack seat.  There were a number of limpers, so I made it $14.  The guy behind me, in the cut off seat, had missed his blind and had to post.  He called.  And so did everyone else.  Even a few players over at the next table called.  Three players at Harrah’s Laughlin called.  At least two players playing (legally) online at Ultimate Poker called me.

Well, it seemed like that.  In fact, there were five us seeing the flop, not exactly what I wanted with my Ace-Jack.  And since I was very new to the table, I didn’t have a read on anyone.  Thinking about it, with no reads on anyone, I probably should have folded Ace-Jack there.

As I waited for the flop, I figured that I really couldn’t make a continuation bet.  The flop would have to hit someone, and the pot was huge for preflop.  A c-bet would have to be something like $50, and it was doubtful it could win the pot.

But then I saw the flop.  It was Ace-9-8, two hearts (I had zero hearts).  So I flopped top pair, ok kicker.  Since I was the preflop raiser, there was a good chance my kicker was good, though without any experience at this table, it was no sure thing.

It folded to me and I put out $50.  The guy on my immediate left called, and so did two others.

Wow.  The pot was now around $170.

So three other people liked their hands enough to put $50 in on that flop.  And that pot is looking awfully big to me against three other players with just my top pair.

I’ve mentioned this before, but I try to be careful—perhaps too careful—about risking too much money with “just” top pair.  I got this from one of the first books I read about NL when I switch from limit, the cash book by Dan Harrington.  He makes a point that you shouldn’t put a lot of money into a pot with just top pair--you shouldn’t “play for stacks” with such a hand. I’ve always followed that advice, perhaps too well.  I’ve heard criticism of the book recently that poker has changed and his book is outdated.  I know these things are very situational.  The problem here was that I had no read on anyone.

I had started the hand with pretty much my $200 buy-in.  With the pot now at $270 and my stack less than that, any bet I would make there would almost have to be a shove.  I’d be putting my entire $200 stack at risk for a top pair hand.  What would Harrington say about that?

The turn card was a low black card that didn’t seem likely to help anyone.  It checked to me, and, mindful that I only had top pair, I checked too.  I suppose that was a weak play?  I should have shoved there and tried to take it down?  I just couldn’t stop thinking that it was “only” top pair. 

As I checked, I wasn’t sure what I’d do in response to a bet by the last player.  But he checked too.

The river was another low black card.  No flush was possible, no pair on the board.  A straight could only be made with low hole cards, something I figured was unlikely.  Check, check to me, and I thought a bit about betting there, but I checked too.

The player behind me announced, “all in.”  Damn.  Now I’d have to make a decision.  He had me covered, so calling would be for everything I’d bought in for, not more than 10 minutes earlier.  I didn’t really relish the thought of buying in again so soon after getting started.

The other two players folded instantly and I went into the tank.  There was a voice in my head telling me, “You’ve just got top pair.  You don’t want to lose a whole buy-in with just top pair.”

But there was another voice too. “What could he have?  That river card couldn’t have helped him, and if he already had you beat, he wouldn’t have checked the turn.  If he had a set or two pair, he might have flatted the flop but he would have bet the turn.  He must have been on a draw.  Probably a flush draw.  He missed.  He’s trying to steal the pot.”

The more I thought about it, the more I leaned towards calling.  My logic made sense, and if I was wrong, if he had me—if he had something like Ace-Queen or even Ace-King—well, that’s why there’s two more buy-ins in my pocket.  The night is young, and I have plenty of time to win it back.

So I called.

The guy said, “Good call, I missed.”  He flipped over King-something of hearts.  The something was low, so I had to wonder why he called my preflop raise in the first place.  Oh yeah, it was soooooted.  So he had the nut flush draw and missed. 

I couldn’t believe the size of the pot I was sweeping in.  I’ve won bigger pots, but never with such a marginal hand.  I mean top pair, so-so kicker gets you a $540 pot?  Definitely the biggest one pair pot I’d ever won—at least that didn’t get it all in preflop.  Plus it was Ace-Jack, a hand everyone hates.

As I stacked my chips, I realized I had inadvertently made a great play.  Since he missed his draw, if I had bet out there before him, he folds instantly.  By checking I induced a bet from him, and got an extra $135 that I wouldn’t have gotten if I had tried to value-bet.  I wish I could say I had done it on purpose and impress you all with my brilliant play, but honestly, I didn’t.  But hopefully I’ll learn from it.

That was very satisfying to say the least.  And for awhile, I was able to add to my stack, a little at a time.  No more big pots, but I won a few small ones and had over $600 in front of me.

But then things started to change, and the chips started leaving my stack.  Still, I was doing great.  I had gotten such an early start that I was going to take a dinner break at some point.  Since I was doing so well, I originally figured I’d keep the seat, just leave my chips while I took a quick break for a bite.  My only concern was that I actually had so many chips there I was a little concerned about leaving so much money unattended.

But then conditions at the table changed.  As I said, it had stopped being a “hot” seat.  Then, a group of Germans came to the table.  There were not the stereotypical “aggro Euro’s” you may have expected.  Actually, there were fairly inexperienced players and were very passive in their play.  I saw one guy win a pot that had been limped preflop with pocket Queens.

The problem was they just wouldn’t shut up.  There were three or four of them and they not only talked with each other, they were talking with the other players near them.  Even when they had cards.  Even when the action was on them.  Especially when the action was on them.

The dealer had to constantly interrupt their conversations to tell them it was on them.  Additionally, when they were talking to each other, they kept lapsing into speaking German.  No matter how many times the dealer or the other players told them, they kept speaking German even though their English was more than adequate.

It was annoying and was ruining the game.  We got fewer hands in because of their total inattentiveness.  So that made the decision easy for me.  I picked up my chips, cashed out and went off to dinner.  So I booked a bit over $300 profit for the session.

When I finally returned to the poker room, I saw that the Germans were still there.  I made sure I wasn’t sent to that table, no way did I want to be stuck with them.  In fact, there had been a shift change and the new floor person was spending most of her time at that table warning them.  They were still speaking in their native tongue, and holding up the game.  I think she encouraged them to call it a night.  I saw them leave, I’m not sure if they left willingly or not.

At my new table, I had started back with a $200 buy-in.  For most of this session, I was completely card-dead.  Which was especially frustrating because it was a wild, action table.  There were quite a few aggressive players there, led by two Dutch guys who each had huge stacks in front of them and straddled every chance they got.  Unlike the Germans, they had no problem speaking English and the more aggressive of the two was quite friendly—but never held up the game like the Germans had.  Unlike the Germans, they were experienced players and very tough to play against.

There were very few pots that were not raised preflop.  The friendlier of the two Dutch guys played 90% of the hands, and raised about 90% of those hands.  But if it was raised to him, he wasn’t afraid to fold, although he did call a far number of preflop raises.  The other Dutch guy, who is a key part of this tale, was about 20% less aggressive than his friend, and about 75% quieter.

I tried to look for spots but my hands weren’t cooperating.  It was usually raised before it got to me, and I couldn’t lower my standards enough to play the junk I was getting in a raised pot.  I made some raises myself, and managed to win a few small pots, but couldn’t ever get even a $100 profit at any point, and then started losing my meager profits whenever I tried to loosen up against the aggro Dutch boys, or some of the other aggros at the table.

After several hours, I was pretty much where I started.  When the button came to me, I had $192 in front of me.  I’d probably tipped for close to 8 drinks, so it was a break even session.  I decided to play one more orbit and call it a night when the big blind came to me.  If I didn’t get a hand to play in that orbit, I’d have won $300 for the night.

I got garbage a few more times, and then, with the button at the 3 seat (I was in seat 1), I found pocket fours, both black.  The less aggro of the two Dutch boys in seat 6 had straddled of course.  Several folks before me called the straddle and so did I.

A few more called and the Dutch guy had the option.  He looked at his cards and threw out four redbirds, making the bet $24.  With his play, it was entirely possible he was just raising there to try to take all the limpers money.  There was no guarantee he actually had a hand.

So much for this being a break even session.  Dutch had about four times my stack, if not more.  The guy to his left had a smaller stack than mine but still well over $100.  Folded to me.  Only one player in behind me, the guy to my immediate left, and I was pretty sure he’d call, especially if I did. I figured I was getting pretty good odds to set mine there, even though putting in $24 with a low pocket pair was ordinarily too much.  So I thought to myself, “Well, a $275 profit is still pretty good,” and called.  I was right, the last guy called behind me.  With the limpers who didn’t call the raise, the pot was over $100 before the flop.

Now,the good thing about playing a low pocket pair is that you know where you stand after the flop.  You either hit your set or you don’t, and then it’s an easy check/fold.

I hit my set.

The flop was 10-6-4, all red.  I don’t recall whether it was two hearts or two diamonds but it was definitely two different suits.  OK, this was not going to be an ordinary hand.

First action was on the straddling Dutch boy, and he counted out a bunch of chips and placed them across the betting line.  I wasn’t sure from my distance how much it was, but it was at least $50, maybe $60, maybe a bit more.  I didn’t ask because the action wasn’t on me yet.  But I had already figured out that it didn’t much matter.  I wasn’t slow playing my bottom set, and with the size of his bet, the size of the pot, and the size of my stack, I didn’t think anything other than a shove was going to make any sense.

But I was still thinking about it when I heard the guy next to the Dutch boy announce, “all in.”

OK, that was scary.  Did he have a bigger set than me?  I should mention that this guy hadn’t been at the table very long, but I knew him.  I recognized when he sat down as a BSC reg I’d played with multiple times. My recollection was that he was a pretty solid player, but nothing out of the ordinary, not wildly aggro, not especially tricky.  I thought he played ABC poker and was kind of glad that he came to the table, hoping he’d be one of the saner players.  He was good, but in my mind, although he might make an occasional bluff, you could usually be pretty sure if he made a bet or a raise he had something.

But this night he was acting differently from the get-go.  He was more talkative than usual, and he kept talking about “needing a double up” and “this is the hand I get my double up.”  He was raising preflop more often and in larger amounts than my memory told me was normal for him.  I’d seen him make one really weird play.  On the turn, he put out a big bet into a big pot.  His opponent went all in for just a little bit more, no more than $20 more.  And he folded!  I couldn’t believe it.  Even if he had virtually no chance at the pot, it was too big to fold there for so little.  Truth be told, the guy he was against probably didn’t have enough chips to fold to his bluff, if he had thought it through.  I had started to think the guy was either drunk or on tilt….or both.

Anyway, even if he was sober and playing the way I remembered, I wouldn’t have gone anywhere.  I’m not folding a set there.  If I lose my stack in a set-over-set situation, hey that’s poker.  I get up and I’m still up a $100 for the night, I can live with that.

So without any hesitation, I put my entire stack over the line.

The guy to my left folded instantly, and then Dutch went into the tank.  He asked for counts of both our stacks.  Mine was $167 and the reg’s was $135 or so.  It took a long time for him to decide, but eventually Dutch announced “call.”

Even before his call, I assumed I was ahead of him.  The most likely hand that he could have there that beat me was a set of 10’s, and I wasn’t sure he would have led out if he had flopped a set.   But his hesitation made it obvious I was ahead.

And it didn’t take long for me to figure out I was ahead of the other guy too.  When Dutch announced his call, the other guy started whopping it up like he’d already won.  He was so happy.

Shit.  He had a bigger set.

But no, no, then he started saying, “Alright, I’ve got a chance for triple up.   Here comes my triple up.  Just put a black 3 out there.  Come on, put out a black 3!”

A black three?  That’s what he wanted?  There was no 3 on the board.  So he was on a draw?  Well if it was only a three that would help him, he had 5-2.  Did he really shove there with only a gutshot?

Anyway, the betting was over and the dealer dealt out the next two cards.  No one showed their cards, and all I knew for sure was that I didn’t want to see a 3 hit the board.

The last two cards were both 7’s.  I don’t recall the suits, but it didn’t matter since I now had a boat.

I flipped over my hand.  Dutch boy looked the board up and down and just mucked face down.  The reg flipped over his cards in his hands.  I saw only one card, a 7.  “I have a seven but….” And then mucked.

OK, he had a 7.  So he must have had 7-5 and shoved with an open-ender.  An 8 would have helped him too, even if he didn’t ask for it.  I understand the shove on the flop, he had a good draw, and with his stack he’d be committed anyway, no sense just calling there.

What made less sense was calling both the straddle and the raise preflop with 7-5.  This wasn’t the player I remembered.

I did ask Dutch what he had, and he said, “Kings.”  I believed him.  It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve seen a player lose a huge pot with pocket Kings, now would it?

This was probably the biggest pot I’d have won to date, though I suppose I should read all my other poker posts to be sure.  The dealer was a woman who has been dealing poker to me for over 6 years and knows me well.  As I tipped her generously, I said to her, “Can I kiss you?”

She said, “No, don’t kiss me.  You can kiss me, but don’t.”

Hmm…

Anway, it was over a $600 pot and made me a winner of $400 for that session and $700 for the night.  I played a few more hands than I intended  just so I couldn’t be accused of “hit and run” and then called it a night.

As I was thinking over the hand, I realized how much the odd-behaving reg had helped me out there.  Not just by contributing his chips to my stack.  My guess is, the Dutch guy might very well have not called my shove if the other guy hadn’t shoved first.  Heads up against me, he wouldn’t   have been getting anywhere near as good odds.  Plus, he’d played with me for three hours.  I had a pretty tight image, to say the least.  He had to have known I wouldn’t have shoved there if I couldn’t beat his pathetic pocket Kings.

But with the other guy in, the pot was just too damn big for him to let it go easily.

I thought I caught the hand of the night in the first 10 minutes when I won a huge pot with just top pair.

Little did I know I’d end the night with an even bigger bang.

The Boobie Magnet

It’s no secret that I’ve been accused of being obsessed with breasts.  In fact, before this blog was six months old, I published a blog post with the title, “You’re Obsessed With Bosoms!” which was a quote from Prudence, an accusation she shouted at me from across a couple of poker tables the first time she saw me after reading my blog for the very first time, not long after I told the story of our first poker session together (which had virtually no discussion of poker).

This is absurd.  I’m not obsessed with bosoms.  The reality is that it is women who are obsessed with their own breasts.  And possibly other women’s breasts.  And I can prove it. 

Before the blog was a month old, I posted this story about a woman who brought up her boobs right at the poker table for no apparent reason.  She did more than talk about them—she grabbed them right in front of the rest of us.  That story actually took place before I started blogging, and was in fact one of the stories that I had told my friends that got them to encourage me to start a blog to share stories just like that one with the world.

Since then, there have been plenty of “boobs mentionings” posted here. And in many, if not most of these stories, the person mentioning the boobs is in fact the owner of said boobs.  Or perhaps it’s a woman discussing another woman’s boobs, or boobs in general.  .

I’m now back home from my most recent visit to Vegas, and I must say, this last trip I came back with a double-D cup size full of boobs mentionings.  I already wrote about Denise telling the table about her “perfect rack” (see here).  A few days later, I ran into another woman who mentioned her rack—and revealed her bra size—a coming blog post that I teased here.  Even a very pleasant, seemingly refined dinner with fellow bloggers Lucki Duck and Lightning couldn’t end before a woman discussed breasts right at our dinner table.  In this case, the woman was Mrs. Duck and the breasts she discussed belonged to a Vegas street performer.  That story will be coming soon to this blog, but it may actually be overshadowed by something that happened later that night.  I won a big pot with the dreaded pocket Kings. Yeah, the boobs might not be the lead in that post.  A woman discussing breasts seems to happen to me all the time.  Winning a hand with pocket Kings?  Now that’s rare.

Which brings us to my last day in town, when I scored a pair of boob mentionings.  First, there was the female dealer at a major Strip poker room who told the story of her being bribed to deal the game with her top off.  Right in the middle of the poker room.  Seriously. I'm still debating in my mind whether to give the full details or if I need to avoid revealing the name of the poker room and some of the specifics in order to protect this lady's identity.

And then there was my night session.  The woman I described two paragraphs above as having revealed to us her bra size was back in the same poker room and may just have given me the mother of all boob mentionings.  In fact, she did a whole lot more than just mention them.  She showed them.  Well, not quite.  But she did pull her top down at least five times, pulling it below her bra, revealing said bra.  Which turned out to be purple.  And at least twice, she stuck her hands inside her bra and “tucked them in.”

Ordinarily I wouldn’t “spoil” my own (future) post by revealing the climax prematurely (because a premature climax tends not to go over well).  But just this once, I decided to tweet about it while the story was actually taking place to see what reaction I could get, and to help tease the inevitable 25 page blog post that this night will spawn.  Besides, the twitter feed from the previous day contributed mightily to my previous blog post and basically wrote the post for me (see here). So I figured I’d send out a tweet and see if it got any reaction.

It did.  A few of my male twitter followers demanded that I take a picture of the girl revealing her bra.  When I get around to doing the full post, I’ll explain why that didn't happen.  And a couple of women—one of whom I don’t think I’ve ever met—tweeted back that they were not the bra-flashers.  Which was funny because I never accused them of that!

But one tweet that got me thinking about came from Shannon, one of the most prolific poker tweeters (that really sounds dirty, but it’s not).  Actually, Shannon has already been mentioned in a previous blog post, but because I was being my usual self, I gave her a phony name.  I should have a contest for readers to figure out which post Shannon appeared in and what the fake name I gave her was.  But sadly, I have no prize to offer, so I won't do that.

Anyway, Shannon tweeted to me, “LOL!! Whats with you and the ladies at your table goin boobie crazy!!??”

Indeed, it was a very good question.  Apparently there are some women out there who don’t think it’s normal for other women to discuss their boobies at the poker table.

I tweeted back, “What can I say? I'm a boobie magnet.”

Yes.  That’s me.  The “boobie magnet.”

There is clearly something about me that brings out the boobs.

And they do more than just talk about them in front of me, right?   Sometimes, a woman takes a picture of another woman’s cleavage, right in front of me (see here).  Or women come up to me while I’m minding my own business and demand that I take a picture of their cleavage (see here).  Or a woman buries her face in another woman’s cleavage right in front of me (see here). Or a chick grabs her friend’s oversized boobies right outside a casino restaurant, right in front of me (see here).

I didn’t do anything to stimulate any of these incidents, they just happened while I was around.

I’m beginning to wonder if they happened because I was around. 

Hmm.

The Boobie Magnet.

Anyway, the good news is that the lady in question said quite a few other memorable things, both about her boobs and other racy topics, so I don’t think I’ve spoiled my upcoming post at all.

And upcoming is what it will be.  Now that I’m back in town, I hope to do some serious blogging in a futile attempt to catch up.  I now have three Vegas trips with untold stories to relate.  I wish I had them organized but sadly, I don’t.  And now that I’m using recordings, it actually takes longer to find and write up the stories I want to tell.  So expect me to jump around and tell the stories in no particular order.  I just don't know where to begin, I truly have an embarrassment of riches.  Hopefully nothing will interfere with my intention to spend most evenings blogging. 

I’m sure my next few posts will be the kind of extra long posts that you’ve all been craving.  I can’t tell you how many complaints I’ve recently gotten about how short my posts have been lately.

This latest trip had more than just boobs mentionings to report about.  There were some interesting poker hands, some huge pots, dinners with bloggers, burgers served to us by women in lingerie and stories about my new found celebrity status.  And probably stuff I’ve forgotten until I play back my voice notes.

Stay thirsty my friends.  I mean, stay tuned.