Anyway, Mike did eventually join the game and immediately began targeting me. First he noticed me looking at my celphone and said, “Rob’s texting blog entries, watch out!” He was targeting me because I won huge in a game he lost huge (but I’m not sure if most of the money I won that night was his). If I saw I was in a pot preflop, he’d say, “Rob’s in? Then I’m in?” If I raised, he’d say, “Rob raised? I re-raise.” Regardless of whether or not he had anything.
Mike won a couple of good size pots getting lucky on the river. One time I got pocket Queens and a suited Ace to go with it. I raised preflop. A few callers (I got less callers than most did when they raised preflop because of my reputation), including Mike. The flop was like 10-3-3. I bet out, and Mike called. The last two cards seem meaningless and I kept betting. My queens had to be good right? No one would call a raise with a 3 in their hand? Well, Mike took down the pot with a 4-3. Oh boy, did I give him shit for that. “Four-3? You called a preflop raise with 4-3?” (he said he discarded an 8) He said, “I was playing my rush. I just won a couple of pots, you have to call everything there until your rush was over.”
The rest of the table decided to coin a new word for his style of play—playing any hand when you have just won a couple of pots recently. They took his last name and added a “ing” to it. Now of course I can’t reveal Mike’s real last name, so I’ll have to give him a fake one. So let’s just say Mike’s last name is Jones. That would make his style of play “Jonesing.” Yeah, I like that. Anytime Mike won a pot with a crappy hand—and for awhile he was doing that a lot—he was said to be “Jonesing.”
Meanwhile, between hands, Prudence was telling Jack and I about her bowling adventures a few nights earlier. It was mostly guys and her, and there was much betting on the games and I think even each frame. Prudence attributed their behavior to an excess of testosterone, and since they were betting so aggressively, she finally said to them, as a group, “OK, so why didn’t you just line up, drop your pants, and I’ll measure you and see who wins.”
According to Prudence, two of the guys weakly muttered something like, “Gee, I couldn’t win that a contest like that.” Jack said that was a surprising thing for the guys to admit to, and she agreed.
Now Prudence is not really a good loser, especially after she’s had a few drinks in her. And I’m sure that losing to her friends, Tom’s friends, and Tom (who was doing very well at the game) didn’t make it any easier. Pretty soon, whenever she lost a hand, she would scream, pretty loudly, “F*** me!”
Two things about that. First, I’m not going to spell out the “f-word”, just a personal choice. I’m not offended by it. Those of you who have met me in person have no doubt heard it come out of my mouth. I just have chosen not to use that word on my blog, although pretty much every other word is fine. If my lack of spelling out the word offends you, check out this guy’s blog.
The other thing is that, if I did spell it out, I’d be worried about this blog being considered an “adults only blog.” For this post alone I mean. Because the word I most often heard on this night was the infamous “f-bomb.”
I guess because we were all friends and more than half the table at any one time was BSC employers, there was absolutely no restriction on the use of foul language at the table. As a result, if I had only been given a nickel for everytime someone said “F***” or F***ing”, I would be driving a Lexus today. I wasn’t totally surprised, because of the nature of the game.
But yeah, I was a little surprised, because although we were in the far corner of the poker room, for much of the night there was a game or two—a regular game, with regular BSC patrons—right next to us. We were loud, and you can be sure that whenever the f-bomb was uttered it was the loudest word of the sentence spoken, not the softest.
Also, for about an hour or so, there was a total stranger playing. Some old guy (older than me) who said that he knew Crazy Pineapple and loved it. So even though he didn’t really know any of the rest of us, and the language was coarse and the jokes and insults were non-stop, he gamely played and I don’t think he said one word before he left. I’m pretty sure he was the one guy at the table who didn’t have a good time.
But despite that, nothing was said about the language, no warnings were ever issued, not once. Not even when the Shift Manager (female) joined our game. In fact, I’m pretty sure she uttered a few f-bombs of her own.
I was not bothered by this one bit. It was great feeling that I was part of a group that was getting special privileges. The right to swear, uninhibitedly at the poker table. Awesome.
So back to Prudence screaming “F*** me!” The two big winners at the table, after Mike finished his rush and had to stop jonesing, were Tom and Monte. So a bunch of times she was losing pots to Monte and was shouting “F*** me!” to him. This was particularly noteworthy because I have often heard Monte bemoan the fact that Tom somehow beat him to Prudence and thus got himself a great girl. It’s not clear to me exactly what the dynamic was, if Monte ever really dated Prudence before Tom won her heart, or if he’s just unhappy that Tom saw her first. But clearly everyone in the BSC poker room knows that Monte wishes he could trade places with Tom, vis-à-vis Prudence.
The first time Prudence screamed “F*** me!” at Monte, he said, “Well, If I did, Tom would kill me.” A while later, when she said it again, he said, “Quit making offers you don’t mean.”
This led to the hand of the night. Not sure exactly what Prudence had, I think it was AK and she flopped top two. The turn was a king which filled her up. One problem, that same King gave Monte a god damn Royal Flush. Yeah, just a Royal Flush. There was raising back and forth on the river before Prudence realized she better just call. When Prudence saw his Royal that beat her Kings full of Aces (I lost a similar hand to a Royal, story is here), she probably set the indoor record for most times screaming “F*** you!” at a person. That person being Monte, of course.
When things calmed down, Mike came up with the line of the night. “Look at it this way, Monte. Now you can finally say you f***ed Prudence.”
Everyone cracked up, with the exception of Prudence, who still had steam coming out of her ears. But Monte found this especially funny, I’ve never seen him laugh so hard. When things calmed down again, I chimed in with, “Actually, it was more like he raped her, not f***ed her.” This too got a laugh, and I don’t know if Prudence laughed but she did agree with me.
(Oddly enough, just a few days after this evening, Poker Grump had this blog entry posted about the use of the word “rape” in a poker setting. Even more oddly, it was inspired by something Grump heard Prudence say when they met and played together. I made a comment on that blog post you should read, and I make no apology for my use of the term “rape” in this context.)
So, what inevitably had to happen in a poker game that lasted, for me, nine freaking hours— Prudence and I battled it out in a notable hand. This happened about midway during the night, when I had gone at least four hours—maybe five—without winning a single pot. Yeah, since Michelle had cooled me off, I was losing non-stop, had rebought several times, and was wondering how much more punishment my wallet could take despite all the fun I was having.
I don’t remember the hand exactly, except I had Ace of Diamonds and something and I must have caught something on the flop because I stayed in. On the turn there were three diamonds giving me a draw to the nut flush. That turn card also gave Prudence a straight, as I was soon to find out. Of course she bet her straight and of course I called with my draw.
A beautiful diamond hit the river, now four on the flop giving me the nuts. She bet out again and I had no choice but to raise. She was not pleased. She knew I had her. She fumed for a bit, hesitated, showed me the card she held that gave her the straight, and folded. As a courtesy, I tabled my hand to reveal the nuts to her.
In keeping with her reaction to everyone that beat her in a hand, she said to me, “F*** you! I hate you for chasing that flush.”
Now, did I mention that I hadn’t won in pot in like 4 or 5 hours? Yeah. So I wasn’t about to apologize for winning my first pot in like forever. And in the heat of the moment, I was just a bit perturbed that she was yelling at me like that. So I said, in probably the loudest voice I used that night, “That’s the first f***ing pot I’ve won in over 4 hours, and you’re giving me shit about it?”
She said nothing, I think she was surprised to hear that out of me. Jack was, for sure. He said, “Wow, You got Robert to swear!”
Thinking about it now, I suppose I didn’t have to raise her river bet, I could have just called. But it was only $6, and she didn’t call it and thus it didn’t cost her any more money. And I was pretty sure she knew exactly what my raise meant. In hindsight, she didn’t treat me any differently than she treated anyone else when she got beat, so I should have been flattered. I think I would have laughed it off instead of erupting (to the extent I did) if it had been, did I mention, over four hours since I’d last won a pot. And I should have told her something then, or actually before we started playing a limit game. In a limit game, unless you’re playing at exceptionally tight table, you pretty much always have the pot odds to draw to a flush or an open-ended straight. So it was definitely the right play on my part to “chase” that flush.
Anyway, no harm. We were back to being pals within minutes. Meanwhile, her boyfriend Tom was just cleaning up at the table. While birthday boy Jack was losing money like crazy, Tom was definitely playing like the Daniel Negreanu of Crazy Pineapple. He had accumulated ridiculously large stacks of chips and was winning like every other pot. Finally, to preserve his winnings and so a fellow dealer buddy of his could play, he left the game and cashed out. He probably would have wanted to leave, but Prudence wasn’t ready to go.
So while he was waiting for Prudence to be finish, he decided to get a massage. So as they get started, Prudence tells the massage girl not to touch Tom anywhere inappropriate. By coincidence, the massage girl is also named Prudence and Tom informs Prudence that she is ½ Asian (he may or may not have been kidding about that).
A few minutes later I happen to notice that the girl is massage Tom rather low on the back, and of course I have to point that out to Prudence. “It’s ok. I touch him there every day….usually with a long hard rubber device.” But then she said, as she turned to talk to the massage therapist, “Just kidding….I won’t touch him there. You go girl! You take care of that, so I won’t have to!.” But she was just…being Prudence.
Anyway, after the hand I won from Prudence, I started a small comeback. I never made it back all the way to profitability, but I paid a relatively small price for all the fun I had. When Prudence and Tom finally took off, the table started thinning. It was so late into the night, or the morning, really, that I stopped recognizing the dealers and the waitresses, I don’t usually see the graveyard shift. I left a bit after 4 AM, so around nine hours of non-stop poker, certainly the longest session I’ve ever had. It was 9 hours of poker and pizza with my friends, a great time indeed.
Addendum:
Some of you may be disappointed that there were no more "vagina mentionings" in this part of the story--becauise the title comes from the story than ended part 1. Actually, one person for sure will be disapponted and perhaps our friend Josie will be absolutely thrilled. Until now. Here's a couple of VM's
One of my good friends--a blog reader, of course--sent me this story he found a friend's Facebook page. I added it here without comment.
"Trouble Ahead: Overheard - a female classmate to my 7yo son: “I’m glad you weren’t the boy who said ‘vagina’ today. Vaginas are so embarrassing for girls. We don’t like to talk about vaginas."
The other thing I want to mention is article that appeared in the Sunday edition of the L.A. Times two Sundays past. It was article on how the V-word, once unmentionable, has now become fashionable. I put the linkjto the online article below, again, without comment, except to point out that in the print edition, the title said "The V-Word", not "vagina" although the article in print used the word liberally.
No comments:
Post a Comment