Unicorns & Rainbows (part 1)

In keeping with my recent habit, this will be another two part post.  This is part one, the second part is now up and appears here.

This is the story of the last night I played poker with Prudence on my May trip to Vegas. And please note that the link embedded in her name will take you to Prudence’s brand new Twitter account.  You should follow her because you will not only get much more immediate updates on her antics than I can provide here, but also, said updates will be much shorter by an infinite degree.  That’s something that will surely make Josie happy, even if she will have to put up with the occasional “vagina mentioning."  Oh, and Josie, she sometimes talks about penises.  And testicles.

It started when I got an urgent message from Prudence. “Now move your ass—I am leaving in 30 min. and I am on one-week poker vacay after tonight. We have exposed breasteses to scope out.”  Always nice to be wanted. And how could I not like a girl who was eager to find tits for me to ogle? You see, Prudence’s boyfriend Tom was about to take a week’s vacation, meaning she wouldn’t be coming back to the BSC to play until after I left town.  My last chance to get one last Prudence blogpost this month.

After a quick dinner, I was about to make a quick pit stop at the Mens Room at BSC when I was nearly tackled by a woman saying hello to me.  No, it wasn’t Prudence.  It was a woman who I recognized from playing 2/4 with back in December.  She was treating me like a long last friend.  She told me she was having the best night of poker that she ever had.  As we were chatting, I remembered that back in December, she recalled that she saw me every time she came to Vegas, always at the 2/4 game at BSC.  She, like so many others, thought I lived in Vegas.

The more we talked, the more I remembered about her. When she came to town from the Midwest, it was pretty much poker, poker, poker with her non-stop.  And her husband didn’t play.  He’d be on the golf course all day and then sleep during the evenings.  Nice lady.  She said she didn’t want me to come to her table because she “never wins against” me!  I don’t recall that.  But I told her I had switched to No Limit now and thus would not be joining her. Now based on the comment she had just made, you would think she’d be happy about that, but she seemed somehow disappointed.  I guess I really am irresistible to women.

There was a brief moment of sadness for me too.  It reminded me of the many friends of exactly this nature I had made over the years playing 2/4 at BSC. Now I thought I discussed this in the post I did about the differences between limit and NL here but now that I’ve re-read it, I realize I didn’t mention it at all.  I think I cut it out of that post because I feared it would be too long (I know, you are all registering your total disbelief that I ever edit anything out of my posts for reasons of length!).  Perhaps I should amplify on this sometime soon. But back in the 2/4 days, I would see people two, three, four times of year who would remember me and we’d catch up.  Call them “temporary friends.”  This woman was one of those. It’s just not quite the same at No Limit.  I have started recognizing a lot of the faces at the NL games now at BSC, but they’re mostly locals and they are really trying hard to win my money (and vice versa).  So the situation is somewhat different from the friendlier 2/4 game I used to play.

So I said “see ya later” to the woman and hours later I went over to say hello to her again while she was crushing the 2/4 game.  Which is exactly what she was doing. She had three or four racks of $1 chips in front of her.  I made it a point to say hi to her every night I saw her over at the 2/4 game the rest of the week.

Of course, I have for sure made one new friend playing NL, and speaking of Prudence….I headed over to the BSC poker room where Prudence spotted me first, already ensconced in her seat.  I checked with the front desk folks and was able to get seated at the empty seat at her table. Unfortunately, she was in seat 1, I was stuck in seat 8 and it was difficult if not impossible to carry on a conversation with her.  We did send each other texts back and forth with comments about some of the hands and some of the players at the table, but it’s not the same thing.  One such text from her:  “These people are nuts. Limp w/queens on the button?????”

I started out doing pretty well, but not Prudence.  She pissed and moaned when she had a straight beaten and suddenly without so much as a word, she disappeared, taking what was left of her chips with her.

The dealer told me that she had decided to play in the evening tournament that was just about to start.  I felt just a tad slighted.  She had practically demanded my presence!  But I have to admit, she wasn’t the first woman to leave me high and dry.  Nothing to do but wish her luck and hope I wouldn’t see her again for many hours while she was taking down the tournament.

So while I was playing cash and she was playing in the tournament, we exchanged a few texts giving each other updates.  Soon after the tournament started she sent one saying, “This table is hilarious.  I swear it’s the pigtails.  No one takes me seriously, so they call and get lucky.”

Yes, she was wearing her hair in pigtails this evening.  Later we were texting about a certain player at the table she had left me at.  She said she was kinda freaked out that he remembered playing with her last year.  I said it was probably because she told him about her vagina.  She didn’t reply to that one.

Not long after, who comes by the table but Prudence herself.  She didn’t last too long in the tournament. As she had texted, no one respected her raises, they called them all and kept sucking out on her.  Her last hand she raised on the small blind with KQ.  No one folded, there was a Queen and a 5 on the board, and the end result was that someone who called her raise with 5-2 offsuit went runner runner to get a full house and bust her out.  She was not happy.  

She returned to cash games, different table than mine.  Since as soon as she left my table, I started losing, it was easy to ask for a table change to get back at the same table with her. Especially when she sent me a text saying, “Yeah, this table is full of f***ing morons.”

But she elaborated.  “Short stacks all pushing in against each other and pushing chips back and forth.”  I texted back that she should bust someone out so I could join her but she said it was tough because everyone was barely hanging in.  But eventually someone left and I was able to join her table.

Again though, I was not sitting close to her, so conversation was tough.  We again begin texting back and forth. One text gave some insight into the player to my immediate right.  Actually, the story of this guy, the warning Prudence gave me, and the hand that started me on my big comeback of the night has already been told.  It was the story of how I played the mighty deuce-four and you can find it here. Thanks again, to both Grump and Prudence.

Now since this her last night of poker player for at least a week, Prudence intended to have a good time.  And that meant, in her case, imbibing in as much as alcohol as she could hold, if not a bit more.  So by the time I had joined her at this table, she was well on the way to feeling no pain, if not already there yet. This is perhaps a better thing for my blog than it was for her, although at the time she was certainly enjoying herself.  

Prudence always has some kind of cute card-protector to cover her cards.  I noticed she didn’t seem to have one on this night, and I asked her about it.  Sadly, she forgot to bring any of her usual card protectors so she went rummaging through her purse to try to find something appropriate to use.  “Let’s see, I could use a tampon, since I’m late.”  And out from her purse came a wrapped tampon which she waived in front of her face for a couple of seconds.  As she was putting it back in her purse, she insisted she was “not preggers” nor did she have any plans to change the status in the near future.  This was, I’m sure the first time I’d heard the word “tampon” used at a poker table since the story I told in this post here. And I’m damn sure it’s the very first time I’ve ever seen a tampon make an appearance at a poker table.

I finally was able to get a seat change right next to her, so we could chat more easily, more privately (though this is not often a concern of hers, as I’m sure you realize) and without raising our voices (again, more a concern of mine than hers).  She was still unhappy with her tournament experience.  She told me of a hand during the first level of the tournament, a very small pot, not much betting.  She was still in the hand and expected to call any reasonable bet because she might indeed have the best hand (didn’t give me any details). Into a very small pot, her male opponent shoved his entire stack, pretty much what he started the tournament.  It was quite the overbet to be sure.

She folded but asked the guy why he didn’t bet a smaller, more reasonable amount. “I would have paid you off” she told him.  Then to me (and to whoever at the table heard this), she added, “Yes, sir.  Your penis is very large.” All the guys around us found that quite amusing.

Later, as she was again getting frustrated at her good hands not holding up, she said, “I need a penis to make a hand. I have one of these instead.”  She made a “v” with her hands. “I have this instead of a penis.”  Then she “corrected” herself.  “Actually, I do have a penis.  It’s up there.  It’s tucked in up there very tight.”

By the time this night had taken place, I had already posted my quick and dirty first take on the night of blogger’s poker which had taken place the night before.  That first take is here. Prudence had already commented on the post and I replied to her comment. My response to her comment included this: “I know you tried to stop me from funding the grrouchie retirement fund, but next time, try to be less subtle. I think we need a "safe" word. Try shouting "BOSOMS!!!" at the top of your lungs next time.”  Well, I believe it was while she was at the very table that she read, on her cell phone, my response for the very first time.

So first, she said, in a particularly loud voice, “Bosoms, huh?” and laughed.  But then she said to me, “It’s interesting that you even know what a safe word is.  You must have some very interesting hobbies when you’re not playing poker.  We should discuss them sometime.”  I just laughed, a bit nervously, I’d say.

Finally frustrated at her luck, she totally blamed it on the pigtails (and lack of a penis, I guess) so she undid her pigtails right at that table.  She then did her hair in sort of a semi-bun.  I said that she really needed glasses to make that look work.

As the night wore on, she was definitely feeling the effects of the drinks, but still, at one point she said to me, “You know, despite all the drinking, Prudence hasn’t really come out yet.”  I corrected her.  “That’s not exactly true.  Just because you haven’t said the v-word yet, but Prudence has definitely made appearances….” Yeah, I probably said it like that, because I really don’t want someone else overhearing me say the word “vagina” at the poker table—something that doesn’t bother Prudence, of course.  

Anyway, she responded, “Oh, you mean like when I waived my tampon around?”  I said yes, that was a good example.  I think I reminded her of all the times she managed to say the word “penis” up to that point to.  Of course, the idea of “Prudence coming out” was a callback to a few nights earlier, the Crazy Pineapple game (see here), when she warned me due to a lack of food and a non-lack of alcohol the real Prudence was about to make an appearance and soon it would be “vagina this and vagina that.”  So she conceded the point.

But….she was definitely about to get more “Prudencey” as it were.  Sometime after this, she stated—not sure if there was really any context for it—that before she lost her virginity, “my vagina belonged to god.”  A little while later, she claimed that “My punany smells like roses.  And rainbows and unicorns shoot out of it.”  Well, at least she came up with another word for “vagina.”

I believe it was later, when she was getting more and more frustrated over the way the cards were treating her, she, just out of the clear blue, shouted (and I do mean shouted), “Bosoms! Vaginas!” Then in a softer tone, she said, “Guys seem to like it when chicks say those words.”  I think by guys she meant me, and at least some of my readers.

At one point she dropped a $5 chip into her drink, which I believe had just been delivered and was fairly full.  But as inebriated as she was, she refused to take another sip from the glass after fishing out the chip from it. She waited until the waitress brought her another one.  That was the longest she went without alcohol all evening.
 
I'll end part 1 there.  Part 2 actually discusses a couple of poker hands (believe it or not) and can be found right here.