The Maniac, The Boobies, and The Spanish Inquisition

My last night in Vegas last month was rather eventful.  There was the hand I got into with Poker Grump.  That one hand has inspired three blog posts across two blogs (here, here and here).  Then there was the girl on girl action—and by action, I mean fistfight—described here.  But there’s more from that night, as follows.

Prudence and I had agreed to join Grump at Planet Hollywood.  Prudence was recovering from a night of way too much demon rum and as such was avoiding all spirits this night.  Thus, she was rather sedate and quite quiet—not at all the outrageous woman I’ve described in numerous blog posts.  But there was a moment of accidental humor when she was told that there was power strip under the poker table where she could charge her phone. Unfortunately, she had difficulty getting the plug into the socket.

She disappeared under the table for quite a long time.  Oddly, no one made a joke about that.  Then suddenly, from under the table, we heard her say, “I can’t get the thing in the hole.”  This caused Grump to tweet about the incident, adding to her quote the hashtag: “#MakeYourOwnJoke.”  Actually Grump came to the rescue by providing her with a flashlight to use to find the socket, and she was able to stick it in.

Soon after, she saw Grump’s tweet and replied with one of her own,  “Just when I was feeling bad that I'm never "on" when @PokerGrump is around, an inspired sex joke came down from the heavens.” 

I was too late with my own response, seeing as how I was somewhat distracted by the, you know, poker that was being played, but I tweeted:  “I was gonna say ‘put some hair around it’ but that reference seems dated.”

Prudence had the misfortune to be seated to the immediate right of the table maniac, a young, loud, annoying, drunk guy.  He didn’t stop talking and he didn’t stop betting.  Grump noticed that once Prudence took the seat next to him, he was sitting a lot closer to her than he had been to to the guy who was in that seat previously.  His nonstop chatter was driving Prudence crazy, leading her to tweet to Grump and me, “Quick, need tips for tolerating this effing clown on my left.”

Grump tweeted back, “You don’t carry a gun?”

The maniac was aggressive and, at least for the first couple of hours we were there, incredibly lucky.  Raising almost every hand preflop, he managed to build a stack of nearly $500.  When his luck ran out and he started giving back the chips to various players, I was unable to take advantage, at least initially.  And pokerwise, I’m sure this is a night Prudence would love to forget, she couldn’t get anything going the whole night.  Before I even sat down (she was seated first), she lost her first stack with Ace-King.

My stack was dwindling a bit, but I still had more than half my buy-in.  In middle position, I looked at pocket 3’s.  In early position, the maniac raised to $8.  Not surprising.  For the entire night, he never saw a starting hand he didn’t think was worth eight bucks.  I called and so did a couple of others.

I didn’t get a chance to write down the details of the hand, because, just as I was recalling the details and about to make my notes, I was distracted (to say the least) by the hand vs. Grump.  But I flopped my set, all the cards were low, with the lowest card being a 3.  I flopped bottom set.  I believe there was a straight or a straight draw was out there.  I think the maniac checked, and I bet, and at least one other person called, as did the maniac.

I don’t recall the turn card, but mostly I was thinking that maniac had seen his lucky streak end and was unlikely to be good there.  But I also thought he just might pay me off no matter how weak his hand was. He checked, and  I put out about half my remaining stack.  It folded to the maniac who check-raised me all, or close to it.

I didn’t ask for a count, it was close enough for me to just shove myself.  I don’t remember if he had to add chips or not, I think he did, a few.  The river was a second 5, giving me a boat.  I no longer had to fear the straight, but of course there was a chance of losing to a bigger full house.

I flipped over my hand and showed my boat.  He flipped over…pocket deuces.  Yeah, kind of like this hand. I suppose he probably had a gut-shot straight draw.  I won a lotta chips.  Grump said it was close to a triple up, I really don’t recall that, but I was suddenly well in the black, enough profit for Grump to see the opportunity to make a move.  Anyway, the maniac said to me, “I put you on high cards.”

I just chuckled.  When he left the table, Grump and I had a good laugh about him.  He asked if I heard the comment about putting me on high cards.  Of course I had.  He also thought it was funny that the guy thought he might get me to fold with his check raise when I had already put about ¾’s of my stack.  I said, “Well, of course, having seen me play for three hours, he could tell I was a loose player.”

Ok, you know what happened next, (the hand against Grump) so let’s skip to the good part.  Still a bit distracted by the hand to Grump, and wondering if I had made a good lay down or not, I was dealt 6-3 of diamonds in early position.

The Spanish Inquisition.  Just as Grump’s favorite hand is the deuce-four, the 6-3 is the favorite hand of Grange95, the blogger whose quote was used as the title of this post.  In fact, although I didn’t mention it my post, I believe I saw Grange win a pot with it during the WPBT tournament.  Now, unlike the Grump (the deuce-four), I don’t recall ever playing the 6-3, except perhaps when I was the blind in an unraised pot and I got to play it for free. I’m pretty sure if I did play it, I’d never had any success with it.

Why is the 6-3 known as the Spanish Inquisition?  Obviously, because nobody expects it.

The truth is, I would have tossed it away then, but there were two things that made me play it.  One, I had run into Grange just the previous night, playing in a 2/5 game with, of all people, Prudence.  I was just watching Prudence play, not feeling too well at the moment, but I had a nice conversation with Grange.  And I think the thought of having just chatted with him the night before probably made it seem like a better idea than it usually does to me.

The second reason was, I was still thinking about the hand with Grump, and as such, I sorta had a “what the hell” attitude.  And I thought if by some miracle, I won a pot with it, it would be really neat to show Grump that I won with the Spanish Inquisition.  The truth is, if I hadn’t had that hand with Grump, I probably would have folded it. 

Again, sorry, I didn’t write down the details.  I limped in with it, and may have had to have subsequently called a small raise.  I got the miracle flop I needed, three diamonds!  The highest card was a Jack.  No way I’m slowplaying a baby flush, so I bet out.  I can’t recall if the guy in seat 1 raised on the flop or the turn, but when he did, I shoved, and he called.  He had $140 total, a lot less than me.  I knew I didn’t want to see a fourth diamond hit the board, and I didn’t.

I think the guy had Ace-Jack, the Ace being a diamond.  So I dodged a bullet there and won a nice pot.  I showed my hand and Grump was quite surprised, and immediately commented on my playing The Spanish Inquisition.  He even tweeted about it : “@robvegaspoker flops flush w Spanish Inquisition, stacks a guy. #easygame.”

I’m sure Grump thought I had a flush there, but I’ll bet he didn’t expect The Spanish Inquisition.  Neither did the guy I stacked.  Oh right, nobody expects it.

A bit later Grump and I did our information exchange, at his suggestion, and I learned exactly how he used every bit of knowledge he had about me to win that pot.  Oh well, I got a good blog post out of it—and he got two blog posts out of it!  And I learned a valuable poker lesson.  Don’t play poker with Grump.  As for the rest of the session, I lost some chips back, but I did leave with more than I started, so that was nice.

On the way back, Prudence and I were walking in the Strip area, but not on the Strip.  It was kind of back-alley, sidestreets, and there were not a lot of pedestrians at such a late hour.  At one point, a woman wearing a very low cut top, revealing mega-cleavage, who happened to have seriously large breasts, coming from the opposite direction, walked right passed us.  It was very cold, and I’m sure she was wearing a jacket, but she was wearing it so it didn’t cover any of the cleavage.  After she was out of ear shot, Prudence asked me, “Did you see that?  Did you see those boobies?”

Ahem. The woman who had just asked me that question had loudly, and publicly, accused me of being “obsessed with bosoms” less than a year ago.

So I just stopped walking, turned to her and said, “You’re asking me that?”  She laughed and said, “Of course.  Of course you did.”  Then she added,  “ I guess she wanted everyone to see them, wearing that dress.”

To be fair to Prudence, I don't think she wasn’t really asking me if I noticed, it was more of an expression she was using to comment on how revealing the outfit was.  But I did find it amusing.

And that should be the rest of what happened my last night in Vegas, 2012.