Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Foreplay

Sometimes it’s nice to read the end of a story first, and then go back and read the start of it, right?  You won’t lose interest just because you know how this tale ends, will you?

Let’s hope.  This post is part 1 of a two part post where the climax has already been told.  Part 2 was entitled “I Just had an orgasm and took out @Robvegaspoker” and can be found here.  It was about the finish of June’s AVP Meet & Greet Tournament.  This is the beginning of the story: all that led up to climax of the tournament.  Since this is what led up to the climax, this post is of course entitled “Foreplay.”
I arrived at Golden Nugget early for the “meet and greet” part.  I didn’t meet as many people as I hoped to.  Several AVP’ers and/or blog readers of mine said they were looking forward to meeting me and I didn’t meet them all, and the ones I did meet were mostly quick hellos during the breaks or as they maybe busted out of the tournament and somehow recognized me.  So that was disappointing.  One AVP’er I did meet, very briefly, was Sauza.  Another was Wynngolfhatguy, who has commented multiple times here on the blog.  I was sure hoping that we could get together for some poker somehow, I had missed him completely on his visit to Vegas a year ago and knew he was in town for this.  He said hello briefly during the tournament.  We exchanged cell phone numbers and tried to meet up a few days later, and he was playing at the MGM one afternoon.  I tried my damnest to get whatever I was doing done in time to meet him there but by the time I made it over there, he had left.  So hopefully next time he hits Vegas we’ll finally get a chance to really talk.  Or play poker.  Or both.
I did get to meet Dap Poker (Dave) who is a prolific poster on AVP.  He just moved out to Vegas so there’s no reason we can’t get together for a longer visit sometime in the near future.  We had a nice chat before things started.  When I checked with him after a break, he was on life support tournament wise but I understand he finished 4th overall so that was an excellent result for him, especially since he is more of a limit player than a NL player.
Things got started and I must say the table I was at was a very friendly one.  Turns out I was at the same table, the same seat, for the entire tournament, and since I did cash that is quite a rare feat.  As noted in “part 2”, Vegas724, loyal blog reader, was at my table, wearing a fantastic shirt.  It is covered with graphics of playing cards, all of them having the character of Betty Boop (or her dog) on them.
To my left was April, who I mentioned in the previous post about this event. She is Alaskagal’s friend. I saw her chatting with Alaskagal before the event and recognized her as someone I’ve played poker with before and perhaps, just perhaps, had actually dealt to me as well. She is really nice and very chatty, but only in a good way.  As I mentioned in the prior post, she admitted long after she busted out that she has dirty mind.  Sadly, she was a total lady the entire time she sat next to me.  Damn.  She most know about my blog.  Doesn’t she know that I depend on women not behaving like ladies for my content?  Especially when they are as cute as she is?  Anyway, early in the tournament we officially introduced ourselves to each other even though we both kinda knew who we were.
There was a second Aprill at the table, this one a middle aged woman who spelled her name with two “l”s.  There was much discussion of there being two Aprils at the table, we probably had the entire population of Aprils in the tournament right at our table.  Aprill was a lovely woman who talked about her 30 year marriage to a wonderful man, which made us all think she’d gotten married at 12.  I don’t think Aprill posts on the AVP forums but she was familiar with the site and uses it for information.  At one point late in the tournament, after Alaskagal had joined our table, her husband came by to see how she was doing, and she introduced him to us.  “Isn’t he a handsome man?” AG agreed saying, “Not bad, I’d do him. I’ve done worse.”  She quickly added that she was kidding, although she didn’t make clear what part she was kidding about.
A familiar face at our table was AVP’er Razcue, who I had met last year at the GVR HORSE tournament that was part of the AVP weekly showdown series they were running at the time.  This guy is awesome.  He is physically challenged, confined to a wheelchair.  And I’ll bet he is furious that I would use such a politically correct phrase as “physically challenged.”  He is constant making self-deprecating jokes about his condition; he has a great attitude about it.  He was constantly cracking us up.
To April’s left was a nice lady named Maggie.  I don’t think she was all that familiar with AVP.  But when Razcue and Vegas724 noticed me taking notes about hands, they started teasing me about stuff that was going to go into the blog.  This piqued Maggie’s interest, “Oh you do a blog?  What’s it about?”  I said, “Oh, it’s sort of about poker.”  And then either Razcue or Vegas724 said something like “….and women.  Women in poker. ”  I didn’t like where this was going, especially since Maggie was such a nice, proper lady.  I guess she saw my discomfort, so she asked, “Oh, you don’t like women in poker?”  No, no, I protested.  “I love women in poker!”  Then I said, “well, you’ll have to see for yourself.”  So I pulled out a card out of my pocket with the blog’s URL and handed it to her.  I never heard back from her that I know of, so I have no idea if she ever checked out the blog.
A late arrival was Jason, who manages the IT department at AVP.  I’d met him a few times, once at the new AVP offices, and just the week before at the AVP mixed games Meet & Greet over at T.I.  I was hoping he was one of those new hires who didn’t know anything about poker but dammit, he is a tough player.  I gave Jason a hard time about all the emails I was getting—right at the table—about various upgrades and bug fixes that were taking place during the tournament.
Early in the tournament, my boss, I noticed Jon Friedberg, the big boss at AVP (and thus, my boss) come rushing over to our table.  As I hadn’t seen him up to this point, I assumed he was rushing over to greet his star employee.  Of course I mean me.  But no, he didn’t even notice me.  He was coming over to give April a hug.  OK, I can see that.  Did I mention April was cute?  I had to tease Jon about this, so I said, “What no hug for me?”  He gave me a pat on the back.
So the tournament started and I managed to go the entire first level without playing a hand.  On the second level, I was dealt pocket 9’s and raised.  Only Aprill called.  The flop wasn’t bad, 9-10-9.  That was the second time within in a week I had gotten quads in a tournament, the first time was mentioned briefly in this post here (and like this current post, I do need to go back to that tournament and tell the whole story).  We both checked the flop.  She bet $1300 on the turn (don’t remember what it was) and I just called.  She checked the river so I had to bet, this time $2,000.  She did call me, so I turned over my hand and said, “I just flopped quads.”  She was very pleasant about it, even congratulating me.
A level or so later Jason raised and another player went all in for less.  I called with pocket 7’s.  We ended up checking it down.  He showed King-Queen and the board had helped neither one of us.  It hadn’t helped the all-in guy either, who I think had a weak Ace.  So my 7’s were good and I got some chips there.
Razcue made a preflop raise to $1800 and I called with pocket 4’s (I had already limped in).  Flop was King-Jack-4.  I bet $3K and he called.  Blank on the turn and I bet $5K, this time he folded.  During the break, which took place one hand after he had busted out, I went over to him to tell him I had the set there.  He appreciated me telling him.  He joked, “Thank you, now I don’t have to wait to read until it’s on your blog to find out.”
There was a guy sitting next to Jason who I think had just recently moved to our table.  In early position, and with no one in the pot, he mucked his cards and they were exposed accidentally.  He had folded pocket deuces.  Everyone started giving him a hard time for being too tight and folding there (considering the blind levels and his stack, it wasn’t really a bad play).  I’m sure most of the kidding was friendly joking around, but he seemed to take it quite badly and didn’t say another word the rest of the tournament—which for him didn’t last too long.  He busted out soon after, and when he was gone, Jason said that he was sure the guy had been shaken by the teasing he had gotten and it wrecked his confidence.  Sad.
With the blinds at 300/600 I had a setback.  Folded to me in the small blind, I raised to $1600 with Ace-4.  The big blind (not April, she had busted by this time) called.  Flop missed me and I put out $3900 hoping for the steal.  Nope, he called.  We both checked the turn.  A Jack hit the turn and we both checked again.  He showed a Jack.  Until then he had nothing.  Why did he call my flop bet (there were no draws)?  Guess he knew that Jack was coming.
There was another hand when I put out a big raise with Jack-10 hearts.  A guy with a big stack who had just moved to the table had limped and then called.  The flop missed me and he led out with a pot sized bet and I had to fold.
A few smaller loses and I just couldn’t keep up with blinds and the antes, I started getting desperate for chips.
How desperate?  Desperate enough to limp with Ace-Ace.  Yeah, I didn’t really have enough chips to raise anything but an all-in, which I was afraid wouldn’t get called.  So I limped and two others limped with me.  No one raised, unfortunately.  I just shoved the flop (whatever it was) and no one called.  So, while it didn’t hurt me, it didn’t really pan out the way I had hoped.
Not long after, down to two tables, they moved the big tournament chip leader to my immediate right.  That was Alaskagal.  And you already know what happened then.  If you don’t know, or don’t remember, you can pick up the story here and read how I gave a woman an orgasm right in the middle of a poker tournament.

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