The Rude Maniac

On this particular Sunday night—the Sunday night of my first weekend in town—I found myself at the Mirage for some 1/2. There, I encountered one of the most annoying players I've played with in awhile.  I have to give this bastard a name, so I'm going to call him "Appendix," because, let's face it, he needs to be taken out.

He was annoying in so many ways.  Yes he played like a maniac, but there's so much more.  When I first got to the table he was away from it, and there were open seats.  For the first hour or two the game was constantly short-handed, and his numerous visits to the sports book didn't help.  He was gone at least for the first 20 minutes I was at the table.  Then he came back, posted his missed blinds, played two hands, won them both and took off again.  This time he was gone for at least half an hour.

All the time he was gone, I was upset that he was gone so long because of the table already being short-handed.  But once he returned and stayed awhile and played some hands, I began to long for the time when he was absent.

He was super aggro, open raising to $20 or more an awful lot.  Sometimes he'd only open to $15, but never less.  Oh he did limp occasionally and even folded preflop once in a while.  But that wasn't the norm.  And of course, he'd three-bet a lot. 

He had a short stack when I got there, managed to have to rebuy and then started building it up.  You know how it is—some maniac starts raising with and playing garbage hands and gets on a heater and starts hitting everything in sight.  Well that was Appendix this night.  He also won some pots on pure aggression, although once we saw how often he was playing bad cards he got called down a lot.   But during this stretch, he always seemed to catch the card he'd need to win the pot on the river.  You know how it is, he'd shove with bottom pair playing something like 9-4, get called, be way behind to the caller and then catch his second pair on the river when he needed it.

He managed to get his stack to over $1,100 at one point.

He was sitting next to me, but at least he was on my right.  A bunch of players who were originally stuck on his right asked to move to the other side of the table whenever they could.

But he was making the game difficult.  Oh sure, having a guy like that, creating a lot of action can be profitable, especially if you catch a hand and he pays you off in a big pot.  But I was extremely card dead all night.  There was no making a move against this character.  You had to have a hand and then value bet the hell out of it (or, even easier, call all his big bets).  And it was very costly to play any speculative hands as long as he entered a pot.  And if you had a decent but not nutish hand, he always seemed to catch the second card he needed to win when called.

Actually the game wasn't that good anyway.  His big bets were inhibiting a lot of the action from the other players.

In addition to being a maniac, he was very rude too.  For one thing, he was one of those guys—and I seemed to constantly run into them this trip—who liked to sit sideways, taking up my space at the table, kind of locking me into my seat, getting his shoes on me or rubbing his leg up against me.  Why does that last thing never happen when a hot girl is sitting next to me? Why can't people keep their legs and feet under the table, in front of their own chair?  Or he'd put his feet on the bottom ring of my chair, which annoys me (I don't like people using my chair to rest any part of their body—again, there would be the "hot girl" exception to that).

Also, he was an obnoxious winner.  When he won a hand, either at showdown or when his bet wasn't called, he tended to shout "Ship it!" or, "I got you, I got you!" as if he was rubbing it in.  One time on the flop, he re-raised all-in against a guy who then went into the tank and finally folded.  Appendix had three-bet preflop on this hand.  The other guy must have folded a pretty good hand, so after he folded, Appendix showed his cards—3-2 offsuit, which hadn't connected with the board in any way whatsoever.  And so he said, "Well, I did have the best hand preflop."  The other guy was not amused.

I would have asked for a table change but I knew it wouldn't fly because our table was always short-handed.  Finally when the table did fill up and there was actually a wait list, I was about to go up and ask for a table change when the clown asked to borrow my phone charger.  I should have told him where to go, and in fact I did say to him, "Well, I'm about ready to leave the game," but he said he just wanted to try it because his didn't work.  So I lent him my charger and delayed my exit from the game.  It turned out my charger didn't work either—he said it didn't fit his phone (although I had already noticed he had the exact same phone as mine).  He finally borrowed one from the podium and then finally figured out that the USB port in front of his seat was not working.  So he asked if he could try my USB connector and he ended up using that one.  So I not only had to deal with his legs and feet getting in my way but his phone charger cord too.

Also, his buddy was at another table and they were talking and he was bragging to his buddy that he had all these chips....and he was threatening his buddy that he was gonna move to his table and take all his chips.  So I held out hope that maybe he'd move so I wouldn't have to.

But then, he got into a hand with a fairly new player at the table.  The new player bet, and Appendix shoved.  The new guy tanked for quite a while and finally called.  I think this was on the river.  The new player showed his hand—two pair.  And Appendix mucked without showing, claiming he had a pair of 6's and saying he was sure the guy would think he "had it" and would fold.  The new player only had around $150 and Appendix started the hand with over $1,100 so it wasn't a very big hit. It was the first sizable pot I'd seen him lose and he didn't seem upset.  Nevertheless, as soon as the hand was over, he went up to the front and grabbed a couple of racks, took them back to his seat, and started racking up.  He played no more hands.

One of the players who'd been there a long time said, "Oh, you can't take it, huh?"  Appendix said, "No, it's just that I gotta go to a Strip Club with my buddy."  As he was about to leave, he had to get the phone charger out of the USB port I was sitting behind.  Without any warning, he reached in front of my gut and pulled the charger out, and brushed his hand against my stomach.  He didn't hurt me, but it was such a final act of rudeness not to say excuse me first—I could have easily slid back so wouldn't have had to have touched me. Anyway, he was gone.  No one was really sorry to see him take his big stack and leave with it.  Instead, there was a audible sigh of relief from almost everyone at the table.  He was just that much of an asshole.

After he was gone, the dealer said, "He's in here every day, pissing people off.  He raises with 6-deuce, whatever and rubs it in when he wins." 

Earlier, I was amused when one of the players at the table answered his phone (while in the middle of a hand), saying "Joe's Bail Bonds."  I thought, now that is just so Vegas, isn't it?  And for 15 minutes he had a conversation with an associate about some new client who needed to post bail for a domestic violence change (the client was female, for what it's worth).  Joe was mostly concerned about whether or not his potential new client had enough collateral.

There was only one hand of note for me, it took place after Appendix took himself out.  The game had gotten pretty nitty at this point and I was down to about $100 or so.  In late position I limped in with pocket 9's.   Six of us saw a flop of Queen-5-3, two diamonds.  A guy led out for $5 and everyone called.  So, for $5, I decided to call too.  It was a long shot, but it was cheap to see one more card.

Good decision.  The turn card was a 9 of clubs, putting a second club out there.  The guy who bet the $5 checked, but another guy bet $20. I remembered watching this guy call the flop.  He was playing with his chips and I really thought he was about to raise.  Had he done that, I wouldn't have called.  But it seemed like at the last minute he decided to just call.

I wanted to raise, but I didn't have as much money to raise as much as I wanted to and I thought a shove there was unlikely to get a call.  So I bet $50, which left with me ~$50 behind.  He tanked forever and finally said, "OK," and called.

The river was a third diamond.  He checked.  I decided to play it safe and not bet.  I honestly didn't think he'd call me unless he had caught a flush.  So he turned over Queen-3 and was really surprised to see my set.  "I was gonna raise the flop but decided to slow play it, the game was so tight.  I shoulda bet."  Yes, he should have.  Glad he didn't.

I managed to break even for the session after four hours.  When I left, I was on my way to the parking garage when I noticed these boobs walking perpendicular to me.  Well, they were actually attached to a blonde woman.  She was nice looking, wearing a summery dress that was fairly conservative except for the fact that it was wide open on top and her jumbo after-market ta-ta's were practically falling out of it.  I didn't immediately suspect working girl because the dress didn't seem sexy enough (if you ignore the cleavage).  It was neither short nor tight—just extremely low-cut, the kind a lot of ladies visiting Vegas might wear.  Thus, at first glance, she just didn't seem like a hooker to me.

But she stopped in front of me and said "Hi."  Random blondes with big tits don't just say "hi" to me unless they want to sell me something.  I said "hi" back as I tried to keep walking but I guess she didn't hear me. "You can say 'hi.'"  So I said hi again, this time louder.  By now she was thinking she had my interest but after that, I moved fast and just kept walking.  I dunno why I was so anxious to get away from her.  I think maybe if I chatted with her bit I could have possible gotten a better hooker story than I did.  Oh well.

And that was that.