Thursday, September 6, 2012

Adolf's Suckout

Allow me to quote myself, because no one else will (and besides, you can’t stop me).  Back in the post “Driving Miss Prudence” I wrote the following:

“On the way over to BSC, she called another poker buddy, a young guy who is a 2/5 regular at BSC. She begged him to join us; she wanted to play 2/5 at BSC, now that’s she gotten used to it at the WSOP. She has told him about my blog and get this….the guy wants to have his own identity on my blog, like Prudence has “Prudence.” I told her that he has to do something outrageous to merit a post. Actually meeting the guy would help. Sadly, tho this guy wants a Prudence-type identity on the blog, he hasn’t read it ever, to Prudence’s knowledge. Well, this is a start, friend of Prudence. Now we have to meet, and you need to do something blog-worthy and I’ll be happy to give a phony name right on this blog.”
Well, not too long after I posted that story, I did indeed meet this poker buddy of Prudence.  It was not in a poker room, at least initially.  I’m not sure I’m supposed too say much about this get-together, so I’ll just leave it at this.  The four of us (Prudence’s boyfriend Tom was of course there as well) had a fine time.  And the good news—for my ego, anyway—was that by this time, said friend had indeed seen my blog and read some of my blog posts.  And, amazingly, having read my blog, he was not at all dissuaded from wanting to be written about on the blog, and from wanting a “Prudence-type” secret identity on the blog.  In fact, I think it is fair to say that he wanted that even more once he read the blog.
I told him that all he had to do was do something blog-worthy in my presence and his wish would be granted.  I believe I even suggested one possibility to him, totally sarcastically, of course.  I suggested he do something with breasts—ogle them, fondle them, motorboat them—that would be outrageous enough to get my attention.  I have no idea where that idea came from.
Anyway, after this initial meeting, we ran into each other a couple of times in the BSC poker room and had nice chats.  He is—or so I thought—a good guy, and I could see why Prudence (who has excellent taste in friends….witness me, for example) liked him.  But since he plays 2/5, he didn’t have much have an opportunity to do something blogworthy in my presence. 
Until a few nights ago, that is, when Prudence’s pal did indeed earn his own blog post, and a pseudonym all his own.  The circumstances were one of those crazy dealers games to celebrate a special occasion, such as the Crazy Pineapple games described here, here, and here.  I won’t describe the occasion this time to help conceal identities.  But the honoree was my dealer pal Mike, who had been present at the other games of this time that I described.  The site of this game was not BSC, but I can’t say why it was held somewhere else without giving away “confidential” information.  Instead, this took place a locals casino, which I will assigned the fake name of “Moon River Casino” even tho that’s not likely to fool anyone who is familiar with the Vegas poker world.
It is fair to say that I chose the timing of my September visit to Vegas so that I would be able to attend this event.  I was hoping that it would be a lot of fun and very profitable.  I had to settle for one out of two.
Mike decided to have a rotation of three different poker games for this event.  In addition to Crazy Pineapple, he added Omaha and something called “Reverse Hold ‘Em.”  You all know how much I love Omaha (see here).  Still, I thought playing that game with a bunch of drunken dealers—at $3/$6 limit stakes—might prove beneficial to my bank account.
As for Reverse Hold ‘Em….well, all that is Hold Em, but instead of putting out the 3 card flop first, a single “river” card is dealt, there is a round of betting, then a single “turn” card is dealt, and there is a round of betting, and then a three card flop is dealt, and then we have the final round of betting. 
The less said about this game the better.  I’m pretty sure it is the worst form of poker I’ve ever played.  I think playing “Go Fish” for money would be more fun.  Later, one of the players at my table decided we should play Omaha that way, and we tried that.  It was actually slightly better than Reverse Hold’Em, but that’s like saying having your fingernails pulled out is better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.
 Anyway, I got to the game early and found Prudence’s friend playing 2/4 limit while waiting.  I have to wonder if he’d ever played 2/4 before.  I asked him what he was doing, and he replied that he was getting a head start on getting drunk.  You see, as a 2/5 NL player, there’s no way he could take a $3/$6 limit game, as we were about to play, seriously.  Also, once you’ve played one hand of Reverse Hold Em, it would be impossible for anyone to take that seriously.  So it was his intention to get totally smashed, something he wouldn’t be inclined to do if he was playing 2/5 and playing with “real money.”  In case I haven’t made it clear, he makes his living playing poker.
I asked him how the 2/4 game went.  I think he lost a few bucks, but he said he pissed off all the other players by being the first person they’d ever seen at this game actually raising preflop!  And probably pretty often.  They have various high hand bonuses and jackpots at Moon River Casino, so that’s another reason everyone wants (and expects to) see the flop for only two bucks.
Plenty of Mike’s friends showed up, some I didn’t know, but a lot I did—people who work or used to work at BSC.  So it was a very friendly group, especially once the alcohol started flowing.  Also, free pizza was served, which is never a bad thing.  It was a blast playing in the game, and I'm very happy that I am now so well entrenched with this crowd that I was invited to join the fun.
And of course, Tom and Prudence were there as well.  There were actually two tables (with a 3 or 4 person waiting list, at one point), but indeed, Tom, Prudence, Prudence’s poker pal and I were all at the same table, as was Mike.  We actually drew for seats like you might in a tournament, and some discussion took place about moving people every hour, but that didn’t happen.
As it happened, Tom was, I think, the first person to bust out.  Both he and Prudence limited themselves to one buy in. OTOH, in an attempt to intimidate everyone, Prudence’s buddy bought in for a mere $1,000.  He said that even if he lost half his stack, he wanted everyone to think he was killing the game.
By the way, I should point out although I did see Prudence consume adult beverages, I did not hear her utter the v-word even once. This may be the longest time on record she’s gone without referencing her vagina. In fact, she didn’t say anything that was especially obscene or outrageous, at least that I heard (we were not sitting near each other).
After Tom busted out, the memorable hand took place.  In the Crazy Pineapple rotation, I had pocket 9’s and some other insignificant card.  The flop came 9-3-3.  Wow.  I flopped a boat.  I check raised and we were down to Prudence, her pal, and myself to see the turn.
The turn was a 6.  I led out and to my surprise, Prudence raised.  Her pal called.  I just called, I’m not sure why.  I didn’t really put her on pocket 3’s.
The river was the ugliest card I’d ever seen in my life.  It was another 3.  Shit.  This time, Prudence’s pal led out.  Damn.  Of course I called, even though I had to believe he had the case 3 for quads.  There was too much in the pot to lay down the 2nd nuts for $6.  Prudence almost soiled herself as she folded.  She was so mad at the board—and at her pal.  She had pocket 6’s.  I’m not even sure if she realized she was only in third place there, but she knew—as I did—that one of her poker buddy had quad 3’s.  Folding a full house is not a fun thing to do.  She swore at her friend.
Of course, he indeed had the 3, and I showed my flopped boat in disgust.  I don’t remember what I said, but I’m pretty sure I used some language that would not have made my late mother proud of me.  I think I almost made Prudence blush—which is not easy to do.  Her pal just laughed and laughed as he stacked his shitload of chips. 
“A one-outer! I hit my one-outer!”
Yes, he did.
I said to him, “Remember how you’ve always wanted your own story and your own pseudonym on my blog?  You just got one!”
He laughed and thought that was great.  I’m sure the fact that he had earned mention on this blog was a lot more meaningful to him than the money he had just won.
Yeah, that’s bullshit but it sounds good, doesn’t it?
I told him I would have to come up with the worst pseudonym possible for him.  Now, he has an unusual first name, and before this incident I had actually considered using a variation of it as his pseudonym, if and when he merited a mention on the blog.
But not now. No, I told him, that would have been way too mild.  He needed a truly vile, truly nasty name.  For the rest of the night, I kept thinking of various names.  Most of them were extremely obscene.  Two that each have four syllables and end in “er” kept coming to mind.
But by the next morning, it had come to me.  And so, I now report that from here on, Prudence’s poker buddy will be known on this blog as “Adolf.” 
So yeah, Adolf hit his one-outer on me.  Adolf sucked out on me.  Face it, Adolf sucks
Not long after, I managed to recover from this fiasco by flopping another boat.  I had pocket 10/3 and the board was 10-3-3 (I also had a Jack, which I threw out after seeing the flop, that’s why I played the hand).  Then on the turn, a 10 hit.  So it got even better.  No river three this time, and I took down the pot.   I believe this was also against Prudence (but not Adolf).  I think this helped hasten Prudence’s soon thereafter bust out from the game.  Sorry, girl, but it was your buddy who took us both down with that one-outer!  Not my fault the poker gods misdirected my revenge at Adolf towards you.
After she was gone, there was one really interesting Omaha hand that I can’t remember too well, because it’s frickin’ Omaha.  I had a bunch of medium cards (Q,10, 9 and I don’t recall the other one).  I’m not sure why I kept calling all the preflop raises, but I did (I think I was the big blind, and it was only one bet to call, then two more when it came back to, then one more—and since just about everyone was calling I had pot odds to play almost anything).  It was a huge pot before the flop, and the flop was rainbow and gave me an open ended straight draw.  I called a bet or two, but wasn’t about to raise because I know a straight almost is never any good in this stupid game.
Even when I turned the straight, I didn’t raise, just called.  I mean I think I had a straight, but with Omaha, it’s easy to misread your hand, since you have to play two from your hand.  But there was no flush out there and no pair, so I thought I might be good.
Even on the river, which didn’t change anything, I just called a single bet.  I was fairly sure I had the nuts, but the pot was huge anyway and I just wasn’t 100% sure I really had the hand I thought I had.  When I showed my hand and took down the pot, I got teased by everyone—especially Mike, who was in the hand at the end—for not raising there.  Oh well, even when I win a huge pot in this game, I get grief.  One more reason to avoid it.
This put me in the black, but the night was young and there was such variance with all the crazy betting and the crazy games that I ended up losing ¾’s of $200 buy-in.  You either need cards in a game like this—which I wasn’t getting—or you need to have the guts to stay in with every hand and then pull off hitting the miracle one-outer.  I don’t have that skill, but I know who does.  That would be Adolf.
Speaking of Adolf, he had interesting experience after he realized he was way too drunk to drive home (I think this dawned on before Mike’s game started—it’s amazing how drunk you can get playing 2/4 limit when you don’t give a damn about the game).  When he went to the Front Desk to see about renting a room, they refused him because he didn’t have a credit card on him.  He had plenty of cash with him, well more than required to pay for the room, which he offered to do up front.  But that wasn’t good enough.  He actually gave him his credit card info, but that to wasn’t good enough, he needed to present an actual card.  Weird.  I was hoping he’d have no choice but sleep in his car, but I later heard someone used their credit card to get him a room.  So I was denied even that little bit of revenge.
Just kidding.  Adolf really did nothing wrong hitting that one-outer against me.  That’s poker, right?  I wouldn’t hold a grudge against a poker player for hitting a one-outer, would I?
Would I, Adolf?

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