Joe-Zee, Grumpy, Lightbulb & Titguy

A professional poker player, a soulless siren, a self-proclaimed chick magnet and a tit-man walk into a poker room.....

Stop me if you've heard this one before.

Last night, I made my way over to Bally's poker room to find Cleopatra, Poker Grump and Lightning, all sitting at the same table. Three poker bloggers all at the same table? What could worse?  Only one thing.  I had to make it four.

I saw some amazing things.  I saw Cleopatra being felted--twice. 

No...not that way, you pervs.  It's a poker term.  Look it up.

I saw Grump and Cleopatra acting like they were BFF's--if not more.  Seriously, all that shit they give each other back and forth on their blogs?  It's all a smokescreen. I never checked it out to be certain, but I'm pretty sure they were playing footsie with each other under the table the whole time.  Fortunately, I don't think Grump's girlfriend reads my blog.

And now that I've done the joke about giving Josie the fake name of Cleopatra three times, I'll go back to calling her Josie. Tip of the hat to Poker Grump for reminding me that I promised to do this.  Back to the blog post....

I saw someone go all in at that table pretty much every other hand, if not more often.  Seriously, this was a major, major action table.

I saw people with huge stacks one minute and felted the next.  I saw everyone and his brother--even the fair, sweet looking Josie, unleash the dreaded "button straddle."

I saw a cocktail waitress, who had probably once dated Calvin Coolidge, actually serve someone a drink once.

Once.

Yeah, it was one weird nite.

Of course, I had not previously had the pleasure--and it was indeed a pleasure--of meeting the effervescent Very Josie before. As I entered the room, I immediately spotted her sitting to Grump's left in Seat 10.  I saw she was in a hand so I waited to say hello.  Almost immediately thereafter, she was felted.  I was worried that I had brought her bad luck.

As she was re-buying I came up behind her and Grump, and started to say hello, but she immediately recognized me from the picture Grump had sent her last month.  Her first words to me, after hello, were, "Can I call you titguy?"  I said I would prefer she not call me that in public--I do have an image to maintain--even tho it amuses me when I see it on a blog link.  My position is this; it's ok to call me titguy if there's a link to the blog attached.

Fortunately someone at their table wanted a table change so I was almost immediately allowed to join the fun, sitting immediately to Lightning's left.  Unfortunately, Grump and Josie were at the other side of the table, so it was difficult to talk all that much with them.  So I mostly got to hear Lightning grumbling about Josie raising every other hand.

Soon after I joined the fun, I saw something truly sensational.  All-in, Josie vs. the Grump.  Guess who won that battle?  Josie!  Grump doubled her up by over playing his pocket Queens.  Josie of course had the dreaded pocket Kings. If I had tried that move, you could be sure that Grump would have flopped a Queen and then rivered quads, just to rub my face in it.  But Grump just didn't pick the right person to try that move against. 

I knew I had to remember that hand for the blog, so I took out my memo pad and started making notations.  Josie saw this and asked if I was writing notes about the session, and I admitted I was.  She got up to take a look.  Standing behind me, I showed her my chicken scratchings, which I doubt she could make out (most of them I can't read a few seconds later, either).  But while there, she did give me a very nice back rub.  Someone out there was gonna keep a count of the back rubs Josie administered while in town, so there's one I know of for sure.  While I was there tho, she didn't administer or offer anyone a front rub, as she has been known to do.

Then I saw Grump take on Lightning, and fail in that effort too.  His dreaded pocket Kings were no match to Lightning's nut flush.  Grump made a huge raise to try to scare of Lightning, but Lightning refused to be pushed around, called, and hit his flush!  I believe this hand felted Grump.

Here's where I can't read my notes too well, but I believe I also saw Josie catch Grump with his pants down, and stack him again, when she played 10-7 and caught a straight.  Grump went all in with a pair of 5's?  Josie said she only played that hand because of some history she and Grump had with it.

Josie took some guy's whole stack when she went all in with AA vs...the dreaded pocket Kings!

But what about me?  How did I do?  Well, terribly, actually.  It was a very frustrating night for me, for a variety of reasons.  One, I truly do hate the Bally's poker room, and when I have more time, I will rant about this, and about the button straddle, and about the fact that I've never won there, and who knows what else.  BTW, I hate the f&ck*#g button straddle with all the intensity of a thousand red suns.  Just sayin'.

I was getting zero cards.  Nada, zilch.  My hands redefined the definition of "card dead."  And since this truly was a high action table, with huge preflop bets followed by even bigger post flop bets, I saw no opportunities to try anything cute to try to win some pots.  I just kept waiting for the cards to get even semi-playable, so one of the action players would pay me off.  But it never happened.  I tell you, 9-4, K-2, J-5 get old after a few hours.  And those were my better hands!

Also a bit frustrating that I was so far away from Josie and Grump, and couldn't really converse much with them.  I could tell Josie would be a real treat to BS with, but was unable to really do so from that distance.  And then Lightning, frustrated by all that action with such terrible cards himself, bailed on the table and tried to find greener pastures, leaving me there all by myself, watching Grump and Josie having a ball together, playing footsie, and occasionally looking over at me to laugh at me for playing so few hands.  I know they were talking about me all nite.

Somehow, despite being felted by everyone at the table except me, towards the end of the night (for me, that is) Grump had accumulated a ton of chips.  I guess that's why he can do this for a living.  He can take those loses in stride and not go on tilt and just continue to play his game, and recover.

Unfortunately, Josie did not fare quite so well.  For most of the night she was flush with chips.  She had made a great recovery from the felting I had witnessed when I showed up, and at one point she had multiple stacks of red chips in front of her.  It was clear that she was going to have a great poker night to blog about, plus being able to brag about catching Grump at least twice.

And then it all went to shit on one hand.  She overplayed top pair, top kicker against the guy at the table who had the most chips--by far.  She made a huge raise (flop or turn, not sure) and then the guy shoved against her.  She thought long and hard and finally called.  Bad move.  The guy flopped a set of deuces.  Josie said goodbye to all her chips, including the ones she took from Grump

Ouch.

At least my hands were so freaking bad I didn't lose my entire stack.  I was actually down to less that $40--and because it was Bally's and my luck sucks there,I didn't rebuy--when I shoved preflop with pocket Aces.  Actually got a caller and whatever he had, he didn't beat the bullets.  The flop was scary--three clubs.  I had the Ace of clubs and was praying for a fourth club to seal the deal. Didn't need it.  Pretty much the only memorable hand involving me in 3-4 hours of poker.

After I was there for awhile, Grump asked me if Prudence would be joining us. I said that sadly, she was unavailable.  Oddly enough, there was conversation back and forth between Prudence and I earlier in the day that might have led to me meeting her and Ginger at a locals casino that would have prevented me from joining the gang at Bally's.  But that never came off.  Just a bit after Grump asked about her, Prudence texted me to apologize for not coming through on the plan.  I told this to Grump and so he asked if she would now be coming over.

I laughed.  This was way after midnite and I knew there was no chance of that. Tom would be finishing up his shift soon and be ready to join her at home. So I said, "No, her boyfriend will be getting off soon."

Josie piped in with, "I bet he will!"  OK, not bad as an entry level "woman said" line, but my dear Josie, if you want to get your own "label" on my blog, you'll have to do better than that.

It was after 2AM when Ieft, Josie & Grump were still playing, as was Lightning at the other table.  But I was too tired and too frustrated by the lousy cards to continue.  But I will see this fun group again soon.  Tonight, for example.  Gotta run.