A Whole New Way to Lose with Pocket Kings

This goes back to my trip in late March.  Originally I expected this to be part of a much longer post (you know, the kind all my readers love) that would involve the entire night of both poker and craziness.  But it’s getting very difficult finding enough time to write.  Even if I never gathered any more material, I’m sure I could easily do 15-20 blog posts right now from all the things I have in my notes from my last three trips.  But by the time this post is published, I’ll be back in Vegas getting more material.  I dunno how I’ll ever catch up.

So I thought I’d isolate this one hand for this post, especially since it involves one of the most popular topics for this blog….the dreaded pocket Kings.  Hopefully, one of these days, I can blog about the rest of the evening.

This happened near the end of that trip, and I was having a good run at the tables.  When I got to BSC, I saw Ginger and Isabel playing at a 1/2 game, already drinking heavily.  These two ladies, both dealers in the room, have been blogged about multiple times before.  For one such post, see here. Always on the look-out for good blogging material, and knowing they are usually a fountain of “woman saids” and “woman dids”, I asked to be transferred to their table as soon as a seat was available.  As I told the person at the podium about that table, “There’re drunk women at that table.”  Now that I think about it, since I already have  more material than I have time to write up, I really should have stayed the hell away from them.  It would have been better in more ways than one.

I was transferred there almost immediately but was not seated close to them.  There were in seats 8 & 9 (the table is 9 handed) and I was in seat 4.  I couldn’t hear much of what they were saying but the guys around them were constantly laughing, as were they.  I wanted to move closer to them so I could join the fun.

I asked for the seat change button and waited.  There was a guy in seat 6 who was close enough to join in with Ginger and Isabel.  And he was having a bad night at the table.  He busted out at one point, and had that look on his face that all poker players get sometimes when the poker gods seem to have it in for you.

He bought in again, and it took very little time for him to lose that buy-in too. I don’t recall the details, but he was definitely sucked out on.   He just sat there for a couple of seconds, staring off into the distance, that look seemingly permanently affixed to his face.

He didn’t say a word.  As the dealer was dealing the next hand and came to him, he asked the player, “Are you taking a break?”

The player just nodded yes.  He said nothing, did nothing for several hands. The dealer put a “reserved” button in front of him so he wouldn’t deal him a hand.  Of course, I was anxious to move to that seat so I could join in on the jocularity with the two lovely ladies.  In Ginger’s case, I consider her a pal too (see here for the story of my chauffeuring her).  Isabel, not as much, because she works a different shift that I don’t play often.

But the guy was just sitting there doing nothing.  I know he can hold the seat for awhile without buying in again.  They will hold the seat for you if you ask them to when you go to the ATM to get more cash.  So I said nothing.

Finally the guy got up, and as far as I could tell, he said nothing.  He had two drinks in front of him, one was coffee and the other was apparently an adult beverage, and he took the booze with him.  He left the room.

I asked the dealer if he was coming back and he said no, he wasn’t. He pulled back the reserve button.  Could I move to his seat?  Yes, I could.

But there was the small matter of the fact that I just been the big blind and was now due to be the small blind.  Should I wait?  No, the dealer assured me that I could move right then and just post the small blind from my new seat (which would actually be immediately to the left of the player who was now the big blind.

So I picked up my chips and brought them over to my new seat as the dealer dealt out that hand.  When I got there, I noticed a jacket on the seat—presumably belonging to the player who had just busted out—that had fallen off the back of the chair.  I told the dealer the last player left his jacket there.  It was then that the player in seat 5 said, “Oh, he’s right back there,” and pointed to behind the rail, just a few feet away, where he was puffing on a cigarette.

I started to hand him his jacket and he said, “I’m coming back.”

Huh?

I asked the dealer again if he said he was coming back.  The dealer said no.  But only then did the player in seat 5 speak up and say that he heard the guy say he was coming back.  Now he speaks up?  Why didn’t he say anything when he saw me move to the seat?  What did he think was going to happen?

Anyway, I now had two cards and I was in a seat I didn’t belong  Since one player could confirm the guy asking for his seat to be held, I had no claim to the seat I was now in.  Fortunately, no one had yet taken my old seat, and the dealer held it for me, but he said that I would just play that one hand that had already been dealt before returning to my proper seat.

I believe this would be considered “dealer error.”  He ok’d my move to a seat I had no business taking.  I have no idea if, after discovering the guy was still claiming that seat, he made the right decision to play the hand or not.  I didn’t dispute it at the time.

I definitely should have when I saw my hand—the hand that didn’t actually belong to me, it belonged to the guy on my right, the big blind.  It was—you guessed it—the dreaded pocket Kings.

I figured, since these pocket Kings didn’t’ really belong to me, maybe I’d have some good luck with them this time.  Yeah, right.

I raised to $10 and only one player call me.  It was Isabel.

I can’t remember the flop specifically but I can tell you a few things about it.  There was no Ace (no King, either) and it was uncoordinated and it was rainbow.  There was one spade on it.  Just one.  That comes into play soon.

I bet out $15 and Isabel called.

All I can tell you about the turn was that it was a second spade.  No pair.  Didn’t look like much of a straight draw possibility.

I bet $20 and Isabel made it $40.

A third spade hit the board.  Still no pair.  Still no likely straight.

I checked.  She bet out $80.

I went into the tank.  Two pair?  A set?  The way she played the hand, I couldn’t put her on a flush.  Runner-runner flush?  Well, maybe if she had pair and then the draw…..

What I haven’t mentioned is that this was the second hand I’d gotten into with Isabel.  Earlier, I had pocket Aces.  She raised my flop bet when there were two 7’s on it.  I was still thinking about that, whether I had made a good lay down there or not.  I just didn’t want to lose too much money there with an overpair when a lousy 7 beats me.  I couldn’t recall noticing Isabel bluffing the previous times I’d played with her.  But maybe I was paying too much attention to the conversation and not enough to the poker?

If I hadn’t already folded my Aces earlier against her, I might very well have folded my Kings there on the river.  But I didn’t want to back down yet again.  Especially since I had no idea if I had made a good fold before or not.

So, I called.  It was a crying call.  I was hoping she had bluffed on the Aces hand and thought she could get away with it again.

Nope.  It wasn’t a bluff.  At least not on the river. She turned over Ace-10 of spades for the nut flush.

I picked up the few chips I had left and returned to the seat I should have never left.

I’m pretty sure there was steam coming out of my ears.

Isabel had called my flop bet with nothing…..absolutely nothing.

Then she raised me on the turn with just the flush draw that she picked up only on the turn.

And of course hit her runner-runner flush on the river.

I might have had the exact same expression on my face as the guy whose seat I had oh-so temporarily taken when he sat there “taking a break.”

Ultimately, I can’t blame Isabel for her play.  I wouldn’t expect her to soft play me.  Besides, I do occasionally play during her shift.  I’m sure I can get that money back from her one missed tip at a time. Heh heh.

But the fact that I never should have been dealt that hand is what gets me.  That wasn’t my hand, and I had just discovered a whole new way to lose with pocket Kings.