Where's Rob?

Well, I'm right here, actually.  But obviously I haven't been posting much new material lately.

And I totally missed the fact that I recently posted my 1,000th post since starting the blog in 2012.  Yeah, 1,000 posts!  I was going to celebrate my 1,000th post, but I've blown past it and it says that I've actually posted 1,009 times by now (not counting this one).

Of course, that's a little misleading.  That includes all posts, including quite a few re-posts (like my last post), not to mention some guest-posts and even some really short, quickie "filler" posts without much written content (yes, not all my posts are 15,000 word epistles).  I have to say too that those guest-posts are a fair amount of work for me, I think being an editor is maybe harder than being a writer.  

Anyway, as to why I haven't been posting much, well, a few reasons.  For one thing, since I haven't been to Vegas since last Christmas, I've pretty much run out of material.  Now I do have notes (written and voice) for trips and sessions going back like four or five years and if I dig hard enough, I can rummage thru those old sessions and crank out a post.  But obviously if there was a really great story from an old session I would have written it up by now (the really great stories get written first, generally).  Oh, sometimes when I'm mining for stories and listen to my old voice notes I come across a long forgotten gem, or find a hook to make session worth talking about, but that's the rare exception.

I guess the other thing that is keeping me from writing much is that when I do post something new, I haven't been getting much feedback lately.  I suppose that's a function of having already used up all the best material.  But even when I have something new and what I think is entertaining, sometimes all I hear is crickets.

Which leads me to think that maybe you're all getting tired of the same old, same old.  

I dunno, but when I put all the time and effort I do into mining for post, then sitting at the PC for hours trying to make it the best possible post it could be, and then realize that I'm going to end up feeling like I'm just writing into a great void, it doesn't motivate me much to do the next one.

But the good news I'm off to Vegas in a week and I should get some new material then.  I hope.  I plan on doing Vegas a little differently than I have in the past (more on that in the future) so we'll just have to see.

Maybe I've just got the blahs.  But I tell you, there's nothing wrong with me that sitting across the table from a crazy lady showing lots of cleavage and saying outrageous things wouldn't cure.

Speaking of cleavage, I had originally intended to celebrate my 1,000 post with a few choice graphics of the kind my blog is famous (or infamous) for.  So I'll do that now.  This will be a mix of pics I've used before and new ones.  And maybe a few that I'm not sure which is which (it's hard to keep track at this point).  If I had a prize to offer, I would consider making it a contest, which of the following pics are reprints and which are new?  But since I have no prize, I won't do that.  Just enjoy.

Happy 1,010th post, everybody.

Not Everything's Flat in Iowa--It's Still True

It's been awhile since I've posted and at the moment I have nothing new to offer you.  So I present this story from the relatively early days of the blog. It was so long ago I still referred to a casino as "BSC" --remember that? I hope to be back in a few days with at least an explanation about why I haven't been blogging much lately.  In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this trip down mammary memory lane

This post is about a long ago night at BSC, and involves poker, a well-endowed woman, an aggressive hooker and the state of Iowa.  I believe only one of those topics is new to this blog, but I'm not sure.

This session started out on a very bad note when my straight ran up against a flush on my very first hand of the day.  I was dealt AQ off and raised, a couple of callers.  King and Jack on the turn, but two diamonds (I had no diamonds).  I was hoping to take down the pot with a continuation bet, but a woman--a regular in the room that I've played with numerous times before--called.  On the turn, a 10 of diamonds hit, giving me a straight but also putting a flush out there.  I bet again hoping the double threat of a straight and a flush would get her to concede, but she called. 

The river card was yet another diamond, making me throw up a little in my mouth.  I checked and when the woman bet a relatively small amount, I made a crying call even though I was sure I was beat.  I even said, before putting my bet out, "Gee, I don't suppose you have a diamond, do you?"  In fact she had two diamonds, one of which was an Ace.  She had the nut flush on the turn.  She bet just small enough amount to get me to call.  A bigger bet and I would have folded.  So right off the bat I was down $60. 

This particular villain was sitting between her husband and her daughter, and not long after, the entire family left for dinner.  In this woman's place a rather attractive, albeit unusual looking, woman was seated.  She had a rather science fictiony look to her, and I immediately thought she sorta looked like a female Vulcan.  But pleasantly so.  I have no idea what her name really is, so let's call her Saavik.  

In addition to her exotic looking face, she had something else that caught my attention, oddly enough.  She was rather well endowed the chestal region.  Furthermore, she was showing some eye-catching cleavage.

But she was not showing said cleavage in one of those "dressed for clubbing, I'm a slut" outfits that so many females wear while in Vegas.  Her outfit was very professional looking (and no, I don't mean that profession); you know, the kind of outfit a female business executive would wear to the office.  It was just that, her jacket closed below the bust, and the top underneath the jacket was cut to expose a decent amount of boobage (or, an indecent amount, depending on your point of view).

She almost immediately revealed that she was in town for a conference and had attended meetings and other convention type programming all day.  That certainly helped explain the outfit she was wearing.  Before she arrived, a guy wearing a suit and tie had joined the table and he was attending the same conference.

So it would be unfair to accuse Saavik of going for the JenniferTilly Effect with her choice of clothing. It was not anywhere that revealing dammit.  On the other hand, one might be inclined to say that, for the professional setting she was attending, the cleavage was inappropriate.  Except, as I've already discussed here, cleavage is never inappropriate.

Anyway, I was still smarting from my straight vs. flush fiasco when Saavik further abused me.  I was dealt pocket Aces under the gun.  To my dismay, five people called my preflop raise.  Not exactly what I was hoping for.  The flop came 10-4-4.  I led out a bet of about 3/4's the size of the pot.  Two callers, including Saavik.  The other caller was a BSC regular I don't remember playing with before.  I assumed he was a regular though because he knew all the dealers as well as I did.

I kind of figured at least one of them could beat my Aces.  They were both reasonable players, neither one had shown anything crazily aggressive.  In fact, I don't think I ever saw Saavik raise preflop during the entire session.  I prayed for an Ace on the turn, and didn't get it.  I don't recall what it was, but it didn't help me at all.   I guess I need help in how to proceed in this situation.  I just checked.

The guy checked and then Saavik reached for chips.  She put out a fairly small bet for the size of the pot.  But it was close to half her remaining stack.  Both the regular player and I had her well covered (and more covered than the outfit she was wearing).

I 'm not sure why I called, other than it was such a relatively small bet, so I was getting better odds than I would normal expect.  But it was a tough decision.  The other guy also took some time.  I was kind of hoping he was thinking about raising.  If he had, it would have been a much easier lay down.  But he finally just called.

The river card seemed meaningless as well.  We both checked to Saavik, who pushed all in.  I think it was around $50, give or take.  Again, the bet to pot ratio was quite small, and I felt I was worth making the crying call even though I strongly suspected I had the worst hand of the three of us.

The other guy debated for awhile, said he was probably in 3rd place, and finally mucked.  He said that he assumed I had pocket Kings (maybe he reads my blog) but that Saavik had a big hand, maybe a 4, maybe a full house.  Anyone care to guess what Saavik had?

Just pocket 10's.  Yeah, she had flopped a friggin' boat.  I didn't show my bullets.  The other guy said, "Well, that's why I didn't get another 10 to fall."  So he probably had Ace - 10.  I'm thinking if that's the case, he probably played the hand worse than I did (especially if he thought I had a big pocket pair).

Saavik took down a very nice pot and I was suddenly quite short stacked.  I waited an orbit and then added $100 to my stack so that I had enough ammunition to continue to play the way I wanted to.

Meanwhile, Saavik had told us all that she was from Iowa and that she is a serious sports fan and therefore has to travel outside her state to see professional games, and she does it regularly.  And so she told us that there is really nothing much happening in Iowa.

To prove her assertion about her home state, she told us about a t-shirt she saw in the gift shop at the Iowa airport before boarding the plane to Vegas.  It said something to the effect, "Nothing tips like an Iowa cow."

I pointed out that she should have gotten it for Vegas, so she could where it when playing poker, where players are expected to tip the dealers.   There was some cross talk and I don't think she heard me.

Then she mentioned the "other shirt" she saw that airport gift shop.

It said, "Not Everything is Flat in Iowa."

Ahem.  I had just scored a cute "woman said" story.  Everyone laughed, and I'm sure that everyone at the table (all guys, save her) had the same thought--how appropriate it would have been for her to have purchased and worn said shirt.  Perhaps she even mentioned it because she did buy it.  But I was surprised she had brought that up when she didn't have to....this was the first--and last--even remotely risqué thing she had said all evening. This wasn't Prudence, after all. And she had to have known that by bringing this up, it would make all of us start thinking about her impressive chest.  Because, you know, until then, none of us would have.

During the rest of the session, she kept giving me sly smiles whenever our eyes met (she was sitting across from me).  I did not take this to mean she was interested in me or was flirting with me.  I took it to mean she was very happy about taking so many of my chips.

Later when the other guy in that story returned from the rest room, he asked if he missed anything.  "Any fights?  Any big hands?  Any all-ins?"  We all shook her heads no.  And then I added, "No flopped boats."  Saavik enjoyed that.

I did get most of my money back, slowly.  A short stacked guy went all in after I raised with AK.  It was an easy call based on his chip stack.  The board missed me and I assumed i would lose to a pocket pair, but no, he had AQ and thus gave me all the rest of his chips. 

I caught a an Ace high straight against a set of 10's and stacked some short stacked guy.  A nut flush also got me some chips.  I got pocket Aces again and this time a guy in early position raised to $15.  I made it $40 sure that the other guy would at least call.  But he folded.

I got two callers when I raised with pocket Queens and no one called my flop bet on a low flop.  By the time I was ready to call it a night, I had gotten all but a few bucks of my $300 buy in back.

Walking to the parking lot, I was deep in thought about the session as I walked through the area where hookers have been known to congregate.  After this story, I no longer seek out hookers to blog about or tell my friend Woody about, but they still seem to find me. As I walked passed two girls I hadn't really noticed sitting in front of two slot machines (but facing out, not towards the machines), I heard one of them say, "Hey what are you looking for?"

I didn't get a good look at them, but they both some reasonably attractive as Vegas hookers go.  They didn't really stand out in my mind, good or bad.

I gave them a quick glance but kept moving.  The girl continued.  "Hey, come here."

That was said rather pleasantly.  But when I continued to ignore them, she said it one more.

"Come here!"  This was said very sternly, much more like an order than an invitation.

I turned to her and shook my head.  "No thanks."  Nothing she could have said would have gotten me to stop, but she needs to work on her sales pitch.  She'd only get guys who like to be verbally abused with that tone.

I kept heading to my car and my thoughts returned to the Mid-Western girl who flopped a boat against my Aces and told us--and demonstrated--that everything isn't flat in Iowa.

Halloween Boobage 2017 Edition

This post is a hybrid of a repost and a new post.  Actually it's not really a post at all, it's just some pics to carry me over until I can do a real post.  Most of these pics ran a few years back but there are a couple of new ones.  Yes, I am still too busy to do a complete a new post.  Sorry.  I will be back to writing 100,000 word posts soon!  In the meantime, enjoy the boobage.

It Was the Best of Kings, It Was the Worst of Kings

I made sort of a last minute decision to go to Vegas for Labor Day Weekend (and the week following).  I usually go then, except for last year when I couldn't go because I had cataract surgery the week before.  But as you know from reading my posts, I have become less and less enamored with Vegas lately.  And after my month-long summer trip ended in early July, I openly wondered how soon it would be before I returned.

As the weekend approached, I was thinking more and more that I wouldn't go.  But somehow the desire for another Vegas trip returned just in the nick of time.  I made some mental adjustments that I thought would help me with my poker. And then I realized that I had just enough comps left that I could keep my expenses down for a "quick" 10-day visit.  So I figured I'd give it a go while the weather was likely to be good and the days weren't short yet.  Note:  In winter, the days in Vegas are actually shorter than in L.A. and I hate it when the sun is gone by late afternoon.  Even in the heat, I like it when the sun is out in the early evening.  Typically, by September, things have cooled down a bit in Vegas so the weather you have to worry about is inside the casinos, where it is winter pretty much all year round.  Note: It turned out for the first part of my trip it was almost as hot as June, and for the second part it was cloudy, windy and rainy. 

So I booked a room and then the only other consideration I had was what to do about tournaments.  I've long felt that I was a better tournament player than a cash game player.  But my recent results seemed to be telling me otherwise.  I'd had quite a dry spell, tournament-wise. The only time I cashed in 2017 was the whopping $40 I'd won at the Bike Mega-Millions in March (see here, if you like).

Thus, anticipating the trip, I debated with myself whether I should even play any tournaments, or I should just stick to cash the whole time.  I did ok during the summer at cash but took a beating at the tournaments.  Of course, with tournaments the variance is much greater. I had two competing thoughts.  The first was, it had been so long since I'd done well in a tournament that I was "due."  The other thought, however, was the old saying, "the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result."

Well I must be insane because after researching the tourneys available to me for the time I would be there, I decided to get back on that horse and try a couple.  As it happened, that first Saturday I didn't play a tournament because of some issues with the room I was staying that took just too long to get semi-resolved.  By the time I was done with the issues, it was too late to play a tournament.  However, I should point out, this decision was influenced by my less-than-overwhelming desire to play a tournament.  Despite the issues, if I had really, really wanted to play in a tournament that day, I could have and would have.

But I passed, and that brings us to Labor Day.  I took advantage of the holiday to play in one of my favorite tournaments—and also one that I've had quite a bit of success in over the years—the Aria 1PM with a $125 buy-in.  In fact, I've already written about one particular incident that took place during this tourney (here).

Since I didn't cash in this tournament, I'm only gonna discuss a few hands of interest.  If you love complete detailed summaries of tournaments, fear not.  I have two more tournaments to blog about and those two will together probably fill out enough blog posts for the rest of the year.

But for this tournament, I'll start with a hand late in level 4. I started that level with a stack of $12,200 where the blinds were 25/100/200.  The starting stack is $10K.  I opened to $525 with my old friends, the dreaded pocket Kings.  There was a call and than a lady made it $4K.  Hmm.  She was new to the table.  Her stack looked to be about the same as mine (which had dwindled down to $10K-ish).

Since it was Kings, I insta-folded.  At least in my mind.  But in real life, I am just about never folding Kings preflop.  Would you have?  That $4K was a big part of my stack (and hers) and I really couldn't see calling.  I guess you could make an argument for it.  Fold on the flop if there's an Ace, get it all in if there's a King on the flop and play it by ear if it's Queen-high or lower.  But I couldn't see that. I had to assume, without any other evidence, that she could be doing that with Queens, Jacks, maybe even 10's and of course Ace-King.

I couldn't really raise without shoving so I shoved.  And the speed with which she announced "call" signaled that I was in deep shit.  Of course she had two Aces.  I started thinking about what I could do with the rest of my day.  Until I saw that beautiful King on the flop. My set of Kings held and I was left stacking her chips and wondering why I hated that hand so much.  I had her covered by just a few chips, it was a nice double-up.

As I was stacking the chips, I started thinking that this was an omen.  A sign from the poker gods.  If I got it all-in Kings vs Aces, and somehow laid a bad beat on the other player—I survived KK vs AA—there's no way I am not cashing this tournament.  I have to cash.  It's been ordained.  It's friggin' destiny.  I owed it to the poker gods to cash.

Sigh.

The woman on my right thru the early rounds was someone I recognized, or at least I think I did. If I'm right, she's a regular at the Aria tournament.  But she didn't say hello to me, so maybe I have her confused with someone else.  Of course, to be fair, I didn't say hello to her either.  She is a mature woman if you catch my drift.  I'll call her "May."

The success with Kings did not propel me to greatness.  Instead I lost chips raising when I could but getting called or raised and having to let the hands go.  So by level 6 (50/300/600) I was down to $8,100.  It was shove-or-fold.  And I was dealt King-Jack off.  May open limped.  This was surprising.  By now she had built up a fairly big stack.  And she had been fairly aggressive since she had gotten a double up with a set of 9's.  I couldn't remember another open limp from her.  That affected my thought process.  If she had raised, I would have folded.  If she had folded, I would have open shoved.  But the limp.....well?  Based on what I saw, I figured the limp was a sign of some weakness.  And I decided that there was no way she would call a shove from me with a hand she had only limped in with.  I was so sure of it I was willing to bet my tournament life on it.  So I shoved.  It folded back to me, she asked for a count, took her time, and then shocked the hell out of me by calling.  Well, so much for that read.

And she flipped over Ace-10 off, which also surprised me. She was in middle position and that's a tough hand to play out of position.  To me, it would have made more sense to raise if she wanted to play it.  Whatever, I was behind but at least I had live cards.  Well, there was a Jack on the flop and another Jack on the turn for good measure, and I had a much needed double-up.

Next level May raised to $1,800 and I called with pocket 10's, we were heads up.  She checked a Queen hi flop.  She bet $2K on a blank, I assumed she didn't have a Queen so I called.  We both checked the river.  I showed my 10's and she mucked, saying she had a 6 (there was a 6 on the board).  I assumed she either had Ace-6 suited or maybe 7-6 suited.

The next hand, the (male) dealer pitched her a card and it somehow flew off the table and hit her, sort of in the chest.  It went off the table and it was a misdeal.  May said to the dealer, "You damn near hit the cleavage with that."  The dealer laughed and said, "Shh....don't give away my secrets."

As I was coming back from the break before level 8, I saw they were breaking our table.  So I got my new assignment just as the level started.  I had $24K with the levels at 100/600/1200.  I opened to $3K the first hand back with pocket 5's but the guy on my left shoved and I had to fold. 

A hand or two later I was the big blind with 8-5 offsuit.  It folded to the button.  The small blind still hadn't returned from the break, so if the button folded I'd get a walk, which would have been really nice since I had such a garbage hand. But the button said, "Oh, I gotta gamble...I'm all-in."  However, he was super short stacked—only $2,900.  When I got the count, I thought about it and realized that for such a small additional bet, and with all that dead money in there, it really didn't make sense to fold. It was just a little more than another big blind ($1,700) to call. His stack was so short he could be doing that with almost any hand, and even if he had Aces it wouldn't have been a terrible call (just a really odd looking one).  So I called.

Well, he really was gambling.  He had 6-2 and it wasn't even suited.  Absolutely nothing hit either one of us, and I busted him with 8-high!  Yeah, I won the pot with 8-high!  Pretty sure that never happened to me before.

I survived that level with $17K and the blinds went up to 200/800/1600.  And early in that level the table broke. We were down to 30 players (93 total players, they were paying 11).  I had just posted the big blind at the old table and now I lucked into the big blind at new table. I looked down at pocket 9's and I figured that unless there was a lot of action in front of me, this would be it.

Well it folded around to the small blind.  Hey, a walk there would have been fine with me.  But the small blind, who had a big stack, added $4K to his SB.  Well, I didn't know this guy at all, hadn't seen him play a hand.  But I figured with his big stack and seeing my short stack, he might do that with all kinds of hands, including total garbage.  It's a smart play, and I've done it myself.  So I shoved.  Unfortunately, he snap called and turned over pocket Kings.  Ugh.  Yeah, that was pretty dreaded.  I didn't hit my two-outer and my tournament life was done.

So the dreaded Kings worked for me beyond my wildest dreams early in the tournament.  But in the end, the burned me, as usual, even though I wasn't the one who held them.

I had played five hours.  The top prize was $2975 and 9th, 10th, and 11th all paid the min-cash of $217.  Not one, not two but three places get less than double the buy-in.  You can bet I wasn't t thrilled when I saw what the min-cash was, you've heard me rant about that.  But at least I felt that I had played pretty well, well enough to consider another tournament or two before I left town.  Stay tuned.

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.

Honeymoon in Vegas—With Me! (Part 1)

Note: if you enjoyed my previous post, you might want to see the comment that the great Lee Jones himself left in response to his critique of his decision in the hand.  You can go directly to it here.  

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As you probably know, when I first started playing poker in casinos, and even when I first started blogging, I was strictly a 2/4 limit player. I was having really fun sessions and picking up amusing anecdotes to tell my friends from these 2/4 games.  And as I’ve explained often, those anecdotes I was relating to my friends turned into many of my early blog posts when those friends encouraged me to start the blog.  

Recently, I’ve been reflecting back on my days of playing 2/4 and kind of missing them.  I’m almost thinking of them as the “good old days.”

This is not because my recent run of poker has been bad—although it has.  Yes, my bankroll would likely be better off if I had been playing 2/4 limit instead of 1/2 NL during this downswing.  But that’s not the reason I’ve been thinking more fondly of those days. 

It’s because I miss the fun.  Back when I first started playing NL cash games, when the blog was just a few months old, I did a post about the differences between the limit and no-limit games.  You can—and should—find that post here.  At the time, I was concerned that if I played NL full time, the kind of fun I was having playing poker—and the kind of fun stories I was getting from it—would vanish.  That post was actually introduction to my post about meeting my now good friend Prudence.  That was key because my first session with Prudence helped me convince me that I could play NL and still have really fun, really crazy sessions that would also provide me with quality blogging material. 

It’s a good thing, because honestly, sooner or later, I really wouldn’t have had much choice but to switch to NL.  Limit poker is increasingly hard to find in Vegas.  When I first started playing it, my favorite poker room (then referred to as “BSC”) always had multiple 2/4 games going whenever I walked in (even though there were always more 1/2 games going).  It became my favorite poker room because of the great 2/4 games.  These days, they virtually never get a limit game going (it would be 3/6 if they did). It’s been over two years I’m sure since I’ve seen one there.

Now of course, I’ve played in fun, crazy NL games plenty of times since then, and hopefully those sessions made entertaining blog posts.  But games like that occur much less frequently at the NL level than at the low limit level.  And it just seems like it’s been quite a while since I’ve played in one of those really fun games.

There are two ways a poker game can fun (maybe there are more, but for now, let’s go with two). One, it can be fun because you’re winning.  Winning is always fun.  As I’ve documented here, winning has been a rather infrequent occurrence for me lately.

The other way is with a great group of fun players, or perhaps just one particularly entertaining player bringing great conversation to the table.  Or outrageous conversation.  The more outrageous, the better.  It helps if said player is female.  Female isn’t mandatory of course, but those outrageous and slightly (or not so slightly) provocative women I’ve encountered in the course of my poker endeavors make for my personal favorite blog posts, starting with Prudence. It was my pal Woody who coined the term “woman said” and I love writing posts that merit that label—they are my favorite. But I haven’t run into a “woman behaving badly” in a long time—over a year, I believe. My dry spell in scoring stories starring fun ladies runs longer than my bad run of poker.

So, in thinking of this recently, I remembered there was one story, featuring a very fun female, that goes back to my 2/4 days that I’ve never written up for the blog.  It’s perhaps ironic, because it took place just a few months before I started the blog. In fact, this story is definitely one of the ones that my friends Woody & LM had in mind when they pushed me to start the blog.  The email thread about this particular night is quite long and very entertaining in and of itself.

So why have I avoided posting this before now?  Well, I guess there are a couple of reasons. One, there is somewhat of an embarrassing element to it that I always had a problem coming up with a way to talk about to the general public (as opposed to my really close friends, where I can say anything).  Second, it took place right around the same time as a particularly painful incident in my life occurred.  Furthermore, in some odd way that I cannot reveal, this story ultimately played a small part in painful incident. 

You see, this story took place on my first night of poker in Vegas in May, five years ago.  And although I wasn’t totally aware of it at the time, by the time this trip was over I was about to enter one of the most painful periods of my life—and as I said this story played a small (but not insignificant) part in it.  Thus I had trained myself to not think about this story too much, least I relive some painful memories.  And in fact, just starting to write this post brought some unpleasant stuff back to me that I’m better off not revisiting. Sigh.  But it’s been a long time and it is time to soldier on.

So on this night, I arrived in the poker room and there were two 2/4 games, as was pretty standard for that era.  I got on the list and looked over the two games (which were right next to each other).  I couldn’t help noticing that at one table, there was an attractive young woman sitting behind one of the male players.  She had long, brown hair and was wearing kind of a flowing white dress that was rather low cut. She was slim but had a very nice figure. So yeah, she got my attention.  And when she leaned forward to talk to her man, she revealed some cleavage.  Just on the basis of having a pretty face to look at, I kind of hoped that I would get a seat at that table as there were no pretty faces—just guys—at the other one.

I took a seat at an empty table and waited to be called.  It didn’t take that long and I was called to the game I wanted.  However, when I got there, I was disappointed to see the attractive woman was gone, as was the guy she was sitting behind.  Guess that’s why the seat was open.

I played there for about an hour, sitting in seat 4.  The limit games were always 10-handed, so either 5 or 6 were my preferred seats (for purposes of vision), 4 a bit less so.  When seat 2 opened up, the floor man brought over a new player, a young guy.  Then I noticed there was a young girl with him and the floor man turned to her and said, “You’ll be first up.  What’s your name?”  She said it was “Sheila” and he put her on the waiting list.  And then Sheila pulled a chair up behind the new player to observe. 

Since it had been an hour at least, I didn’t even recognize the girl initially.  But when she leaned over to talk the guy, it suddenly came to me that this was the girl I had noticed sitting behind a player before I joined the game.  So of course I assumed that she was sitting behind the same guy as before.

In fact, the player in seat 1, who had been there the entire time, said to him as he got settled in, “You’re back, huh?”  The returning player, who we will refer to as “Bruce” from now on, replied, “Well, we had to eat sometime.”  At first I thought I might have detected a British accent from Bruce, but in fact, I soon overheard Bruce tell seat 3 that he and Sheila were visiting from Australia and were on their honeymoon. I’m always upset with myself when I make that mistake, I’ve encountered enough players from both Australia and England that I should be able to easily tell the difference.  Usually I do, but sometimes I goof, like this time.

Meanwhile, I was doing lousy at cards, barely winning a pot.  Suddenly the guy to my left, in seat 5, left the game.  Because I was losing in my current seat and because I prefer seat 5, and only for those reasons, honest, I told the dealer I would slide over to take seat 5.  I was not remembering at this point that Sheila was next on the list and would be taking the open seat.   But of course that's what happened...she took the seat that I had just vacated.

It was really fortunate.  Because it put her only one seat away from her loving groom, and basically right across from him. So they could easily converse during the game. It was real nice of me to do that, even though that's not why I did it.

However, when Sheila took the seat on my immediate right, I couldn’t help noticing the cut of her dress.  In addition to being low-cut, it had this sort of crisscross design, meaning from one side it was possible to see a whole lot of Sheila.  To see a “whole lot,” you had to be on her left side.  And as it happened, I was on her left side.  Oh dear.  I guess I should mention that it was obvious that Sheila had not bothered to put on a bra when she left for her evening of poker.  Was I perhaps in position to see something I wasn’t supposed to see?  

Spoiler alert:  I was.  You remember the famous Janet Jackson “wardrobe malfunction” from the Super Bowl, right?  Well, one time when I was conversing with Sheila, I got a better view of her than I ever got of Janet Jackson.  Oops.

Oh well, so what?  It was just a quick nip-slip.  And what did it matter that some guy she’s gonna be playing poker with for an hour or two and never see again saw it?  Back then I thought, “Wow, this is fun story to tell my friends.”  If it happened today, my thought would be, “Wow this will be a fun story to blog about.”

But what happened over the next 6 hours changed my perception a bit.  Yeah, six hours.  That’s how long I played with Bruce and Sheila. 

Now of course, being a gentleman, I spent that entire time trying my damndest to not experience another Janet Jackson moment with Sheila.  I tried really, really hard not to see anything I wasn’t supposed to see—that I had already seen—again.  And again.  And again.  You all believe that I tried really hard not to see it again, right?  You do believe me, I’m sure.

I suppose the surest way to avoid a recurrence would have been to move to other side of her.  From her right side, I’d be able to see nothing. For reasons I am unable to explain, that though never occurred to me on this night.

Ok, we’ll get back to the wardrobe malfunction later. Actually, it will be in part 2, sorry. Let’s return to the conversation.

It turned out that Sheila was a really nice, really fun, really interesting person.  The same could be said for Bruce.  Soon after she sat down next to me, I confirmed what I heard, that they were from Australia on their honeymoon.  Just Vegas?  No.....they came to the U.S. for six weeks. They flew to NY and drove across the country, and were having a great time. BTW, it was tough driving here at first because she told me they drive on the wrong side of the road in Australia just like they do in England.  Vegas was their next to last stop.  The next morning they were planning to drive to L.A. and fly home from there.  They were going to Disneyland. Sheila had been there when she was five-years-old but Bruce had never been. But they would be returning to Vegas first for one more night—a last minute decision. Saturday night was a special "Glee" show at Mandalay Bay and they wanted to come back for that since Sheila loved that show. Actually Bruce said "they" love the show but Sheila said he was just being nice, it’s she who loved the show.  They were staying Saturday nite at Mandalay Bay.  They’d had four nites in Vegas—two at Venetian, two at Caesars.  I wondered why they were at BSC in that case. Had they seen a show there? Nope, just came to check it out.  

Sheila had been watching Bruce play poker and decided it looked like fun and would try playing. This was her first time ever playing real poker.  She said she plays on her Blackberry, but that was not with real people or real money.  But she was losing so much money at the video poker machines she didn't think she could do any worse at a real poker table, and this was more social.

I asked if they had come to the U.S. immediately after getting married.  Not quite, they were married in March and Bruce had been busy in court.  So I asked if he was a lawyer or a criminal. Sheila laughed.  He’s a lawyer, as is she.  She was quick to point out that they are corporate lawyers, not those “personal injury lawyers everyone hates.”  So Bruce was in court on a case. I asked if they wear those wigs in Australia like they do in England.  She said they do!  But not Bruce and her.  It's a little different down there.  Although they are actual lawyers and work for the biggest law firm in their city, they have not passed the bar exam yet.  Sheila was hoping to soon.  It is only the barristers who are allowed to speak in court (and wear the wigs). All they can do is take notes. 

After a few minutes of chatting, Sheila introduced herself and Bruce to me by name and asked my name and where I'm from and what I do.  Sheila immediately noticed that I knew all the dealers and asked if was a local.  I said no but that I’m Vegas a lot.  

And that’s where I’m going to end Part 1.  Part 2 is now posted and you can find it here.