And Then—The Oral Sex!

First a straight flush.  And then—the oral sex.  Sounds like a nice evening, right?

I had been playing for just a little while and I’d already caught a straight with a gut shot.  Limped pot, I had King-Jack in the blind.  Q-9-3 rainbow flop.  I bet the pot just to steal it, since no one had raised preflop.  I got two callers.  Ten on the turn gave me the straight.  Bet the pot, one guy called.  Another Queen on the river, and I got a bit scared, so I just checked, he checked behind me.  My straight was good.

But a few hands later, it was a lot better.  I limped in with 10-9 of diamonds, nobody raised.  Three of us saw the flop, which was Q-8-4.  Both the Queen and the 8 were diamonds, so I had the gutshot straight flush draw.  I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to bet there, but for some reason I just checked.  This was well over a month ago as I write this, and my notes don’t give me a hint of why I didn’t bet.  I seem to have a vague recollection of checking at the time, and then thinking, even before the next card was dealt, “Jerk, what the hell are you doing checking? You’ve got a zillion outs.” 

Turned out to be ok.  As I got over not betting, I started thinking, “Boy, the Jack of diamonds would be pretty nice right now.”  And so, the dealer did indeed put out the Jack of diamonds.  It’s only the fourth or fifth time ever that I’ve gotten a straight flush. The pot was very small and a guy bet a whole $5.  I just called, figuring if you can’t slow play a straight flush, what can you slow play?  The other player folded.

The river card was 10, putting four cards to the straight on the board.  The guy bet $10.  I bet $25 praying he would call—or even better, raise.  But no, he folded.  I dunno if he was going for the steal or had a weak flush, maybe a straight and he was worried about the flush.  So it was pathetically small pot for such a monster.  I showed my hand, because, if you have a straight flush, I think you really have to show it, right?  I think if I had bet the flop, I would have taken it down right there and never seen my straight flush, but I know that’s not the way to look at it.

 Early in the session a couple came to the table.  They were from the Southern California area.  At one point the woman said they had been together for 20 years, which seemed about right.  The guy didn’t say much but the woman was a non-stop talker.  I never learned either one of their names but I’m going to call the woman “Zoot” for reasons which will become clear later.

She seemed to be a little uncomfortable playing poker in a casino.  I think she knew a little poker but probably had mostly played home games with her husband, who was a much more experienced player.

One early hand she clearly meant to call a raise but put out the amount of the bet without taking back her blind, and since it had been a small raise in the first place, it actually counted as a raise, albeit an accidental one.  Here’s the thing….her hand was the dreaded Pocket Kings,  and raising was the right play anyway.  She won the hand, and I’m 100% sure she raised by mistake, and that she was not just pretending to not know what she was doing.

Her husband helped her a little with the blinds and the betting lines and one time even gave some advice, which of course was not allowed and they were warned by the dealer.  He didn’t do it again.

She got into a very lengthy conversation with a player at the other end of the table, a Swedish fellow who was now living in England.  It seems Zoot, although American, had grown up in Denmark.  Her non-stop chatter started to wear on me, as they were comparing Sweden to America and even discussing our different health care systems.  This is not even remotely what I want to hear a discussion of at the poker table!

She also was telling us pretty much her whole life story, which I mostly managed to shut out.  In addition to the Swedish Brit, she was talking a lot to her husband and the guy next to her, but not me.  Not me at all.  I was two seats away from her and she was ignoring me and that was fine with me.

Then, while I was either texting, tweeting, or writing something in my infamous notebook.  I heard her finish a sentence with the words, “oral sex.”

Huh?  All of a sudden I was interested.  The male dealer said, “Yeah, that’s  good.”  I was really pissed because I had no idea what she was talking about.  All I heard was, “blah, blah, blah.  Blah, blah, blah, oral sex.”

Damn.  Doesn’t she know I have a blog that specializes in just this type of thing?  A woman starts throwing the phrase, “oral sex” around at a poker table and I’ve got a blog post.

Sigh.  I had no choice but to ask.  “Excuse me, but what was the context of that?”  She had been in a hand with the Swedish Brit.  So she said, “That was the only way he could get me to lay down my hand—oral sex.”

Really!

Actually, at the time it wasn’t clear to me who was going to give oral sex to whom in order to get whomever to lay down their hand.  But I’m pretty sure it was him on her, otherwise, she would be offering him oral sex, and I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t have done that—even as a joke—with her husband not two feet from her.

All I could say was, “O.K.”

About two hands later, I got into a hand with Zoot.  At this point, the only words the two of us had shared were about her mentioning oral sex.  That was it 

So I had Ace-King in early position and raised to $8.  Zoot called, as did two others. The flop was 9-4-4.  I made a continuation bet of $25 and only Zoot called.  Damn.  But the turn was a King.  I bet $60 and she called.  I just couldn’t put her on a 4. By this time she had gotten more comfortable with the game and I’d seen her make reasonable raises when she should.  I was sure she would have raised if she had a 4.

The river was a four, giving me a boat, and I’m losing to two hands, Aces or a four.  I really was pretty sure I was good there.  Now I should point out, that when I made the turn bet and she called, she said, rather loudly and emphatically, “I want to beat you!”  It really sounded more like she had something against me, more than just a player expressing the normal desire to win.  I couldn’t figure out where that had come from, since, as I said, we hadn’t had much contact up to that point. I even expressed some surprise, like “why me?”

So I shoved and she called quickly.  Had I fallen into a trap?  We both had a bit over $100 at that point and neither one of us had put our money out over the line, it was all verbal. She showed her hand, pocket 10’s.  My King was good, although when the dealer started counting my chips she got confused and asked what was going on, perhaps thinking that she might have actually won!  Turned out I had her covered by a little bit.

Once she realized that she had lost and the dealer was taking all her chips away, I started debating about making a really risqué comment that I would never in a million years have said to a stranger just a year or two ago.  But hell, she was the one brought up oral sex.

Seriously, I dunno where I got the balls to say this to her, especially with her husband right there, but sure enough, I found myself saying to her,  “You know, if he (pointing to her husband) wasn’t here, I might suggest we do that oral sex thing instead of you having to pay me off.”

Her husband just sort of chuckled and she said, “Oh no, no, no.  That’s way too complicated.”

Really, that’s all she said.  She clearly wasn’t offended.  And neither was her husband.  I guess he’s pretty used to his wife’s personality.  A few of the other players laughed but that was it.

I'm not sure if it was before or after her first bringing up oral sex that she started talking about the porn industry being centered in a certain area of the San Fernando Valley in the Los Angeles area.  I did ask her how she knew so much about that subject and she just said, "Oh, I know a lot of things."

In case you couldn't guess, she was not a shy woman.

The husband busted out soon after, and they went to dinner.  As far as I know, they never returned to the poker room.

There were no especially interesting hands after that.  I was up and down all night, finishing slightly in the plus column.  And I only got paid in chips, not in favors, of course.