"50% Off on a Lapdance—But You Only Get One Leg"

Sometimes, giving a person a taste of their own medicine can be delicious.  This is true of poker and of life (is there a difference?).  It’s not necessarily a revenge thing, perhaps just an amusing bit of irony one enjoys.

This goes back to last month when I was playing with Faith.  Faith is BSC degen regular, and a good friend of Ginger, the dealer who I’ve mentioned many, many times before.  She probably merits her own label.  I mentioned her a couple of times before giving her very own blog name, in the post here.

Faith is chatty, giddy, and loud, especially if Ginger is playing with her.  She acts drunk, but she doesn’t consume alcohol, as far as I can tell.  But she has this one really, really, really annoying habit.

She catches cards like nobody’s business.  Seriously, she is the Queen of the suckouts.  She makes very loose, very dubious calls and then some way, somehow, always seems to get there. 

Not only that, but ever since they started doing promotions, who do you think wins them all?  Ok, not all of them, but way, way, way more than her share of them.  If she’s in the room (and when she is in the room, you can hear her from any seat in the house), and her name isn’t called for a drawing, I’m shocked.  Everyone is.  But usually, we’re not shocked.

An absolute luckbox.

Honestly though, I can’t recall her sucking out on me much, surprisingly so.  But whenever I’m at the same table as her, I will invariably, time and time again, find myself shaking my head as I see her turn her hand over on the river and reveal some incredible garbage hand she played, where she only had a tiny piece of the flop but stayed in and called bets anyway, and then, miraculously, hit just the card she needed to take down the pot from someone who actually played well.  In fact, I wrote a blog post entitled “Bad Player Wins” which was inspired by her play, and you can find that here.

So I have no beef with Faith, but sometimes it can just drive you crazy to see her get lucky so many times and take down pots she has no business being in.  Of course, she’ll call with almost anything, preflop and post flop, so you can’t really out play her—you just have to find a way to out luck her.  It’s nearly impossible, most nights.

Early in the session, before Faith joined the table, I took a hit when my set of 4’s was taken down by a rivered straight.  That cost me about $65.

There was a funny moment when Ginger was dealing.  They had just announced the start of a 2/5 game and someone walking by asked Ginger where that game was.  She pointed to the table behind her where only the dealer was sitting; no players had shown up yet.  “Over there, where the empty dealer is.”  Then she corrected herself, “I mean, the empty table, not dealer.”

I totally cracked up, because I saw the dealer and calling this particular fellow the “empty dealer” was just perfect.  But no, I won’t give my BSC friends who read my blog any clue at all as to who it was.  Sorry.

I had Ace-5 of diamonds in the big blind.  Someone raised to $12 and when three others called, I figured I could call too.  The flop was 10-9-8, all diamonds.  I bet $20.  I guess I was semi-slow playing it. Only one caller, and it was not the preflop raiser.  I bet $35 when the board paired on the turn, and again he called.  The board double paired on the river and I checked, thinking the nut flush wasn’t looking so good any more.  But the guy checked behind me and showed pocket Queens!  My flush was indeed good despite two pair on the board.  Note that this guy merely called the initial $12 raise.  If he had three-bet the flop, I never would have been in the hand.  Of course, you could certainly argue that I shouldn’t have been in it for $12, either.

A few orbits later, I had Ace-5 in the big blind again, this time in spades.  A late position player made it $6, I called, as did Faith and one other.  The flop was Q-4-2, one spade.  Faith led out with a $10 bet and it folded to me.  Easy fold, right?

Nah, for only ten bucks, with a gut-shot, a back door flush draw, and an overcard, I figured I would call. The turn was the 2 of spades.  I checked and Faith bet $15, and with both the straight draw and the flush draw now, I called.  The river was the King of spades, giving me the nut flush.  Knowing that Faith could have a boat, I checked and she bet out $35.  I called and she showed Queen-something.  Awesome.  I had sucked out on the Queen of suckouts!  How sweet!

I showed my flush and Faith was aghast.  “You kept calling me.  How could you keep calling me?  You had nothing.”  Now you might think she was just spitting back the same lines she’d heard spoken to her a zillion times, but I honestly don’t think so. I truly believe she failed to see the irony of her comments.

I failed to point out that irony to her.  No point.  I just said, “Well, I did have a gut shot on the flop.”  She’s called bigger bets with less. She probably had within the past five minutes. I took it as some kind of cosmic justice for all the bad beats she’s inflicted on players with her own loose calls.

Speaking of suckouts, I had pocket 6’s in the big blind and called a raise to $12.  I called and it was heads up as all the limpers folded.  The flop was 9-7-6, two hearts.  I bet $30, about the size of the pot.  He made it $60, which left him $40 behind.  I raised to put him all in, and he called.

He showed the dreaded pocket Kings, and I showed my set of 6’s.  No King showed up. Just runner runner hearts.  Did I mention that one of his Kings was the heart?  Yeah, that hurt.

Now, there was a Norwegian fellow sitting between Faith and me.  And after being unusually quiet for a long time, Faith start acting more like her usual self, and then started getting really chatty with the Norwegian fellow. The Norwegian was a kind of an aggro and I think he’d lost some pots to Faith, on suckouts no doubt.  And as I’ve seen her do before when she’s in a good mood she started talking about strip clubs and going to one.

I’ve heard her kiddingly offer to take guys to strip clubs and buy them lap dances.  This time, she did something a little different.

She told the Norwegian, “You know, my second job is as a stripper.  My stage name is Stephanie.  When they call Stephanie on stage…that’s me.”

She told him she was soon to start her shift at the Sapphire Club and that she was gonna take him there.  “I’ll give you a 50% discount on a lap dance…..but you’ll only get one leg.”  A bit later she said, “$40 for a lap dance.”

The Norwegian laughed, but I don’t think he thought it was as funny as I did.  I should point out that Faith is married and presumably happily so, and in fact, her husband plays poker there too, but not as much as Faith does (because that would be impossible). I’ve played with him too, and he is not the luckbox she is.  Anyway, Faith is, of course, is mostly definitely not an exotic dancer.

Anyway, all this was going on as the drawing was being held.  I had a few tickets so I had to stay active in the game in case I was called (I wasn’t).  Thus I had to post my big blind even though I was going to be finished as soon as I either was or wasn’t called for the drawing.

I had King-2 of diamonds.  No raise, a few of us saw the flop, including the Norwegian.  I flopped the draw and called $10 from the Norwegian.  Hit the flush on the turn and bet $30, and he called.  I checked the river, which had paired the board, and he bet $50.  I called.  Obviously I was a bit concerned about the nut flush or a boat.  He had the flush too, but it was Queen high and I took the pot.

The dealer gave me a ticket for the flush, but since the next drawing was going to be at 4AM, I politely declined.  The dealer asked the Norwegian if he wanted a ticket.  At first he hesitated, not sure he’d be around at 4AM either. So I said, “Yeah, he’s headed to the strip club now.”

That got a laugh, and then he decided to go ahead and take the ticket.  So I said, “Yeah, he’s got plenty of  time to hit the strip club and be back here by 4AM.”

And with that, I called it a night.  You only get to suckout on the Queen of suckouts once per session, if you’re lucky.