Fan Mail

With a few days left on my last Vegas trip, on a Tuesday morning, I received the following email:

Long time reader, first time writer...  I'm a big fan of the blog, and thought I'd see if you were still in Las Vegas.  I'm flying out to Vegas now, and if you don't mind chatting with a fan while you play, it would be cool to meet you.

Mind?  What part of “Rob is an ego-maniac” isn’t clear?  I’d love to meet one of my previous unknown fans.  It was a blast to find out the guy next to me was a “secret” fan of blog as I explained on this page.  So, to find out some reader I didn’t even know of before opening the email wanted to possibly go out of his way to meet me, and play poker with me, was fantastic to me.

So I emailed him back and said I was still in town and told him I would indeed be playing that night and when he landed, he responded.  Turns out that BSC was very convenient for him so he said he would stop by to play some 1/2 No Limit and to meet me. 

I will call my fan “Doug” because that’s the name he posted a comment under in this thread here. Since we had exchanged phone numbers, Doug texted me when he was sitting at a table and I gave him my table # and seat # and eventually he came by to say hello.  He was unhappy with his table and I was (foolishly as it turned out), happy with mine so he asked for a table change.

So he eventually joined my table, we chatted at bit as he played.  He was actually in town for business, but had some time in the evenings to play poker.  Soon after he came to my game, Jack shows up to deal.  Again on this page I explained how Jack had heard about my blog but hadn’t read it….until the night before this story took place.  Yes, Jack finally found my blog and it turned he was an instant fan of it!  I suppose since so much of it takes place in the room he works and some of the stuff I write about involves him, that shouldn’t be too big a surprise. But he spent a good portion of this down talking about the blog and of course I was eating it up.  Only Doug at the table knew what he was talking about, but he joined in a bit on the discussion too.  So I was having so much fun hearing the two of them talk about my stuff that I wasn’t paying attention to the fact that I was slowly—or not so slowly—bleeding chips. 

Jack of course wears a name tag with his real name and the actual casino he works at on it. So it was funny when he said was that he wanted to get another name tag that says “Jack” and with the name of the casino as “BSC.”  Jack also said that he had already started thinking who would play him in the movie version of my blog.  Of course I thought the idea of a movie version of my blog was quite amusing.  He decided on George Clooney to play him.  Now, Jack doesn’t look anything like George Clooney so it was pretty obvious why he picked him.  I tried to think of the most un-George Clooney like actor I could think of to throw out him, so I suggested that Mickey Rourke would be right for the part!  Heh Heh.  (Jack doesn’t look anything like him, either)

Meanwhile, Doug was distracted from spending more time talking about me by a rather attractive girl that was sitting next to him.  She mentioned that she was from San Diego and that an airline was offering $10 flights from San Diego to Las Vegas at certain times.  That’s why she and her friend were there. She said you couldn’t bring any luggage at all for that price which is why she had to wear the same clothes every night!  I guess therefore I’m glad that it was Doug, not me, that was sitting next to her!  I wasn’t close enough to smell her.  Disappointingly, the one top she took did not show any cleavage, although she appeared to have a good figure. 

Anyway, while Jack was distracting me talking about the blog, I noticed Doug and the San Diego girl were starting to talk politics!  No kidding.  And although I hadn’t blogged about it yet, thoughts of the annoying guy talking politics non-stop at the table the other night was fresh in my mind (see here.) Now fortunately, they were not talking loudly like the clown the other had been, and I was easily able to tune it out (especially since I was distracted by Jack talking about the blog) so I have no idea which side of the political aisle either one of them fall. But since I had mentally already had that post about politics and poker written, I was concerned that when Doug read it, he’d think I might be referring to him!  Fortunately, he did not.

I guess maybe I was also so distracted I was giving insufficient attention to the poker.  The only hand I can report on from this session was when I limped in with 4/6 suited and I was already short-stacked (probably not the best time to limp in with that!).  I flopped middle pair and an open ended straight draw, so when someone bet (I don’t recall how much), my only two moves were a fold or a shove.  I decided to shove so if I missed, I would just re-load.  And that’s what happened.  My middle pair wasn’t good enough and I missed my straight, time to buy more chips.

Doug wasn’t doing too well and had an early meeting, so he left, and I didn’t stay that much longer.  But he said he might be back.  And in fact, two days later, on what was the last day in Vegas for both of us, he returned to BSC, and we exchanged texts.  But he liked the table he was at and I was enjoying playing next to Prudence, so neither one of us moved to the other’s table.  And as it happened, he never came by to say hello.  That was disappointing, because I had told Prudence that there was a fan of my blog in the room, and that he came all away from the mid-west just to play with me!  She was impressed.  Of course, I immediately told her that I was kidding about coming just to see me, he was here on business.  But if he had come over, I was going to tell Prudence he was the “fan” I was talking about and then it would have been interesting to see if Prudence would “out” herself as Prudence to him.  But now I’ll never know.

Doug emailed a few days later and told me that there was a hooker stationed very near the poker room, soliciting guys as they entered or exited the room, but I did not see her.  Sounds like Doug needs a blog of his own!

Anyway, Doug, it was great to meet you, maybe next time we’ll have more time to chat.  Thanks for your support!