"Full Service—Anything You Want"

As I write this, I’m back in Vegas, playing poker, winning poker room promotions, working, talking to hookers.

Yes, hookers.

These were the first real encounters I’ve had with practitioners of the world’s oldest profession since the post you can find here (and for a good laugh, be sure to read the first comment after the post, from one of my biggest fans).  They weren’t just sightings—they were actual conversations with the ladies.  Verbal encounters, as it were. Note, I wrote “verbal encounters,” not “oral encounters.”

The first one took place on the Sunday before Halloween, at MGM, where the hot night club was having a “Sexiest Costume” contest.  I suppose I’ll have more to say about Halloween in Vegas in a later post.  The point is that the club was open, and as I indicated in the post I linked to, there was a burning question I wanted to ask a working girl on a night when the club was open.  We’ll get there in a moment.

So I was over near the lobby, watching the people in costumes coming and going from the casino.  In addition to the costumes, there were also plenty of young ladies dressed in their normal club-going attire, which as I’ve indicated before (here), can be attention-getting to the male eye.  So it was an enjoyable experience.

As I was walking around, I passed a woman sitting at a slot machine, but not playing it or even looking at it.  She was looking at into the aisle of passersby.  I was a passerby.  She spoke to me, saying something like, “Hi, how are you?”  Then she added, “Come talk to me.”

I hesitated for a second then decided to talk to her.  After all, I had that question to ask her.

I didn’t say anything, I just stopped in front of her.  She asked where I was going.

“Oh, just back to my room.”

“Are you staying here?”

“No, at a friend’s house.”  That wasn’t the truth, but I was definitely not staying at the MGM, and I did always wonder how they would handle it if someone wasn’t staying where they were soliciting.

“How far is that?”

Pulling a number out of thin air, I said, “Oh about 20-minutes from here.”

“Oh, that’s far.  Why don’t you get a room here? You should get a cheap room.  You should get a cheap room and we can have some fun.”

“Where would I get a cheap room?” I asked, knowing that there are no such things as cheap rooms at the MGM.

“You can get a room for sixty bucks across the street at the Motel 6.”

I didn’t ask if they’d leave the light on for me.

Instead I said, “Well, I don’t think so.  I lost most of my money just now.”  In fact, I had just come from a winning session but I don’t believe that it’s against the law to lie to a hooker in Nevada.

She asked how much I had lost, and again, pulling a number out of the air, I said, “$500.”

“That’s not a lot.”

Hmm, I wonder if this gal has access to my tax returns?  I said, “Well, it is for me.”

“Well how much you got left?”

Here I totally blew it, and I’ll explain momentarily.  Instead of giving the right answer, I said, “Well, not much.  I’ve just got enough to get home.”

“Are you sure you don’t have enough….for me…..so we can have some fun?”

I was wondering why, if we were both going to have some fun, as she implied, I should have to pay her something.  Shouldn’t the “fun” itself be enough?

I guess not.

I said I was sure, and she said, “Well, ok then.” 

But I did remember to ask the question I wanted to ask.  “Can I ask you something?  Can you really make any money on a night like this, when there are so many amateurs around?”

All she said was, “Depends.”  I waited and she didn’t say anything else.  And since she knew by now she wasn’t getting any of my money, she had lost interest in me.  So I accepted that as my answer and walked away.

But after I left, I had one of those slap your head moments.  There’s another question I should have asked her, and I had the perfect opportunity.  And I blew it.

I think my readers would have been interested in knowing how much the services she was offering would cost.  I know my pal Woody, who absolutely loves all hooker stories, is always curious about “How much?”  Woody, to be clear, is happily married and would never engage the services of such a woman.  He lives vicariously through my hooker stories.  I’m sure my other readers are a bit curious too.

It would have been so easy, so much in context, to get that information.  When she asked me how much I had left, all I had to do was say, “Well, how much would I need?”  Or, I could have said, “About $200.”  If I had said that, she either would have said, “Not enough,” or….”That works.”  Or whatever.  The point is, I had the perfect opportunity to find out this vital piece information without saying anything that could have been interpreted as my soliciting her (in case she was a cop), and I just didn’t think of it at the right time.

I was very annoyed with myself.  She was still sitting there as I walked around.  I considered going back to her to say something….but there was no way I could go back to her to and bring up the topic now without possibly getting myself into trouble if she was indeed law enforcement.

I haven’t mentioned this woman’s appearance. She was a brunette with a very cute face.  But she was extremely plainly dressed.  Probably even more plainly dressed than the “Dressed Down Hooker” of my previous post.  Loose fitting top, not low-cut.  Pants that weren’t tight.  She didn’t look at all like a hooker.  She also didn’t have a particular good figure.  Later, when I saw her leave, she was carrying just her celphone and her jacket, I didn’t even see a purse.  But it might have been hidden by her jacket.

As such, based on her appearance and based on my being so mad about blowing the opportunity to find out her fee schedule, my original idea for the title of this post was going to be “The nondescript hooker and the idiot blogger.”

But that changed a couple of nights later, on a night when the club was not open.  It was a bit past 11PM and I was done playing poker for the night, after a marginally profitable session.  I was heading to the parking structure and when I got to the same area where I had encountered the nondescript girl two nights earlier, I noticed a huge crowd also heading to the parking.  Apparently a show had just let out.

Rather than get swept up into the crowd, I moved toward the side, and basically leaned against a pillar to let the crowd go by.  Across the aisle, I did happen to notice a tall blonde girl walking alone.  I didn’t see what direction she had come from but suddenly she started walking towards me.  She wasn’t looking at me and I didn’t see her notice me so I wasn’t sure she if she was coming to me or if she was headed somewhere behind me.  I didn’t really have time to turn on my “spidey-sense,” she was there so fast.

And yes, indeed, she was coming to me.  Or for me.

I thought it was unlikely she was coming over to me to just ask for directions.  Or to tell me she recognized my picture on the internet.

When she got to me, I noticed how tall she was.  She had to lean over to whisper to me, and she had to bend over quite a bit. Of course, I’m not the tallest guy in the world.

She leaned into me and said, “What are you doing tonight?”

Before I had a chance to formulate a response, she continued.  “Would you like to go upstairs to your room and have some fun?  Some entertainment?”

Wow, that was fast.  Usually they work up to a little bit.

It took me a second or two to come up with a response.  I was actually thinking of my conversation with the gal two nights earlier and was trying to come up with a way that I could get her to reveal her rates.  You understand, of course, that I wanted this information strictly as a service to you, my curious readers.

But all I could manage to say at the moment was, “I don’t think so.”

She persisted.  “I can make you a real good deal.  Four-to-five hundred dollars. Full Service.  Anything you want.”

Wow.  I’ve never, ever had a girl be so direct so quickly before.  It was quite a shock.

She had certainly solved my dilemma of how to get her to reveal a price, hadn’t she?

I guess I should describe her a little better.  She was hot.

Really.  She had a very, very attractive face.  Off the top of my head, I’d say she was most attractive hooker I’ve ever seen, at least of any woman I was 100% sure was in this line of work.  She was wearing tight pants that revealed that she was quite thin—possibly bordering on “too thin” but probably not.  But she was wearing a jacket that covered her up on top.  I couldn’t tell much about her chest.  However, as my readers are well aware, that is not an area of the female form I have much interest in, so it didn’t really matter.  I will point out that when she walked away from me a few minutes later, the view was excellent.  And for those scoring at home, I didn’t notice her purse, if she had one.

I have to admit, her offer was rather tempting. Of all the gals who have suggested this particular type of business transaction to me, she was almost definitely the girl who came closest to getting me to consider doing something that was quite illegal in this part of Nevada.

But not close enough to actually agree to the deal.

So I said to her, “No, really, I don’t think so.”

So she said, “Well, the lowest I could go is $300.  For full service.”  She emphasized the words “full service.”  “Let’s go upstairs to your room.”

But once again I said no. “No, sorry. I lost a lot of money tonight and I really can’t afford it.”  Again, that was not true.  But I’ve come to believe that’s the best way to say no, because the thing they want most of all is my money, and if I tell I don’t have any, they tend to quit trying.

She pulled away, “Well, okay.”  She had a way of saying “okay” as if I had just passed on the opportunity of a lifetime.

And with that, she moved on, walking rapidly to the front of the property.  She didn’t stop to talk to anyone else, at least while I could see her.  But as indicated earlier, she did look good walking away.  Those tight pants fit her well.  Really, really well.

I guess I should make a few observations here.  As I mentioned earlier, this was the most direct, to-the-point, in-your-face approach a working girl has ever taken with me.  She got right to the point and even mentioned the price at the outset.  I’d never seen a girl be so blatant before.

And the way she said the price, especially how she came down on the price after my initial rejection, made her sound a bit like a used car salesman.  A used car salesman having a going out of business sale.  Maybe she was having a going out of business sale?  Or maybe this was just the Tuesday night, early bird special?

Although I’m glad I have a figure (monetary, not physical) to report, it still would have been nice to have gotten such info from the first girl.  Because if this blonde was worth $300, anything over $25 for the first girl would be way too much.  That’s more a comment on the blonde than the brunette, by the way.

So, $300 for anything I wanted, huh?  Anything?

Damn.  I missed an opportunity to get a $300 poker lesson from a really hot blonde.

 HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

The $200 Cheesesteak

This is another night from early May, the night after this story took place.  Like that story, it took place when the poker room was still in its original location, in the middle of the Slut Parade—and this was indeed a Slut Parade night.  In that previous post, I discussed a very chatty fellow and explained that having a non-stop talker at the table could go one of two ways.  It can either be annoying as hell or quite entertaining.  Jake, the guy in that previous post, turned out to be quite entertaining.

This is the flip side. 

I joined a table and was sitting directly to the left of a guy from Philadelphia.  I found out that he was from Philly before I’d even had a chance to put my jacket on my chair.  He mentioned it every five seconds.  But then, he mentioned everything every five seconds.  This guy would not shut up to save his life.  You could offer this guy a million dollars if he could go 30 seconds without saying a word and you’d be at no risk of losing a penny.   

Never in my life have I ever, ever encountered anyone as much in love with the sound of his voice as this guy.

I don’t catch his name.  Originally I was gonna call him simply, “The guy from Philadelphia” but that’s just too much typing for a jerk like him.  Since Philly is famous for its cheesesteaks, let’s just call him “Cheesesteak.”

Cheesesteak had this incredibly loud, booming voice.  And of course a very pronounced east coast accent.  If he hadn’t said he was from Philly, I probably would have thought he was a New Yawker, but I think there’s a difference in the two accents, and I think I may have noticed it.  Anyway, his voice was annoying because of the volume, because of the unpleasant accent, and mostly because it didn’t have an off switch.

On top of that, Cheesesteak was one of those highly opinionated guys.  Every opinion he had was said as a proclamation.  It was clear that he wasn’t interested in a debate; he was right and that was that.  He wasn’t just giving his opinions.  He was pontificating.  And the person he was mainly talking to was on the other side of the table, so he was raising his voice, which didn’t need to be raised. 

Fortunately, he wasn’t talking about politics.  Thank god for that.  You might remember how much I like politics being discussed at the poker table (see here).  If he had been discussing politics, I probably would have killed him right at the table.  Even if he was on my side politically. 

What Cheesesteak was actually talking about, non-stop (except occasionally about the poker) was sports.  In fact, when I first got there he was discussing the NBA playoffs which were taking place at the time.  Now as you know, I’m a huge NBA fan so you would think that I might actually have been able to enjoy and participate in a conversation about hoops with him.  But no, I couldn’t.  The guy was just too loud, too annoying and too opinionated for me to appreciate anything he said.  I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if I had said anything to encourage him—although this guy clearly needed no encouragement whatsoever to make his lips move.

After his discussion of the playoffs was over, he proceeded to move on to the NFL, where he proceeded to state (as if it was the word of god) exactly what each team needed in the upcoming NFL draft.  He was of course a fan of the Eagles, a team which, I’m led to believe, still plays in the NFL.  But he was a (self-proclaimed) expert on every frickin’ team in the NFL.

Many years ago, I was every bit as much of an NFL fan as I am an NBA fan now—and I still didn’t give a shit about the NFL draft.  So now that I don’t pay all that much attention the NFL until the playoffs roll around, I surely wasn’t interested in hearing this loudmouth talk about how the Jacksonville Jaguars absolutely had to take a speedy cornerback—or a long-snapper—with their 8^th round pick.

Another annoying thing about Cheesesteak was that he wouldn’t even shut up when he was in a hand.  Even when the action was on him.  He’d be in the middle of story about the third string punter for the Houston Texans and the action would be on him and he would insist on finishing his point before he would decide what to do about the action in front of him.  He was actually holding up the game.

Now I will have to admit something that will shock my readers.  When I arrived in the room, I had a choice of tables and picked this one for very non-poker reasons.  Of all my options, this table was the one that offered the best view of the scenery that was about to descend upon the casino as the hot nightclub’s opening time neared.  The human scenery.  The human, female, scenery.

Thus, I was reluctant to move tables.  I kept hoping Cheesesteak would just leave.  But after awhile, he showed no sign of wanting to go and I just could not take it anymore.  Between his booming voice (right next to me), his non-stop talking and the fact the he was an annoying know-it-all, I was finding it unable to concentrate on the poker.  I expected to be distracted from the poker for a much better reason in a few hours.  This was the time I needed to be able to actually pay attention, before the pleasant distractions started showing up. 

So when I noticed a seat had opened up at the table behind me, I jumped up and asked the floor if I could take that seat.  It would give me a slightly worse view of the pending parade that was coming.  But I had to move.  If I killed Cheesesteak, they probably would have taken me out of the poker room before the eye candy showed up anyway.

Unfortunately, at the new table, there was a new distraction.  This particular table was ice cold.  I guess I was sitting under the vent, as my hands were so cold I had to keep them in the pockets of my jacket when I wasn’t using them to look at my cards or to bet.  This was in May, it was nice outside and sub-arctic where I was sitting.  Even though I had a jacket on, I started thinking about making the ridiculously long trek to my car to get a sweatshirt—even though what I really need was ski gloves, something that is not in my wardrobe.  Soon I became convinced I had to walk to the car to get the sweatshirt.  I wasn’t sure how much that would help, but I figured the long walk—a lot of it outside, where it was warm—would help too.

I decided would play the button and then trek over to my car.  I played a few more hands and then, on the button—my last hand before the break I was planning to take—I looked down at pocket Jacks.  The table’s designated aggro—and this guy was really aggro—raised to $10 in front of me.  A reasonable player called.  I’m not always three-betting there, but against this guy, it was easy to three-bet.  I was ahead of most of his raising range, which I’m pretty sure consisted of every possible card combination in the deck and maybe a few Uno cards as well.

I made it $40 and the aggro called.  The reasonable player folded.   The flop was Queen high, and very uncoordinated.  He checked.  What should I have done there?  I had about $120 or so left and he had me covered by at least $500.  Should I have shoved?  Should I have checked behind? 

I figured I probably had the best hand, but with his range, he could have nothing or he could have had me beat.  I made the c-bet of about $60, half my remaining stack.  He check-raised me all in.  I called, because even if he had the queen, I couldn’t fold there, having put so much of stack in already.

We didn’t show.  Nothing on the turn or river changed anything.  He showed Queen-4.  There was no four on the board.  Just the Queen.  He had top pair, no kicker.

And won the pot.

Queen-4???

Queen-4???

Oh, I guess I should mention.  It was soooted.  But he never caught a flush draw.

So let’s see.  He raised preflop in early position with Queen-4 sooooted (I told you he had a wide range).  Then when I three-bet him he called $30 more with Queen-4.  I guess I should mention that this was the second time I had three bet at this table.  Earlier I had three-bet with the dreaded pocket Kings.  And I had taken down the pot with a bet on the flop, so I didn’t have to show.  But that was my only preflop raise at this table.  I’m sure I had a tight image.

And he had no kicker with his top pair.  He check-raised me with a 4 kicker.  I could have had Ace-Queen there, no?  Or a set of Queens?  Or Aces or Kings—how many other hands do “normal” people three-bet with?

When I finally had a chance to jot down notes on that bad hand, after giving the details, I wrote, to myself, mind you, “Are you f***ing kidding me?”

So I went to my car to get my jacket.  Not having any chips left, I decided not to ask them to hold my seat.  At that moment, rather perturbed by the turn of events, I wasn’t even sure I would play anymore that night.  Maybe I’d just hang around and enjoy the scenery that was starting to show up.  I couldn’t stop thinking about Queen-4.  I was flashing back on all the times, when I was playing 2/4, people would say they hated 2/4 because you could never bet someone off a hand.

I guess you can’t bet someone off a hand in NL either.  I guess there’s really no difference between NL and limit poker after all.

The walk to the car was good for me.  I did warm up.  And cool down, if you know what I mean.  When I got back to the poker room I just sat around for awhile and then finally got my name back on the list.  I saw Cheesesteak was still at the table I was originally at.  I told them I didn’t want to go back to that table.  In addition to his being an annoying loud-mouth, I had now gotten it into my head that Cheesesteak had cost me $200 by forcing me away from my original table and into that game with Mr. Queen-4.

I also didn’t want to return to the other table, as Mr. Queen-4 was still there.  Sometimes when a guy takes my money like that I relish the thought of getting a chance to win it back, but not this time.  The Queen-4 was just too much to take.  I thought if I played at the same table as him again I was in danger of going on tilt.  So I requested not to go to that one either.

Fortunately they had a long enough list to start a new game.  My buddy Mike was opening the game.  This table didn’t have a particularly good view of the scantily clad females who were starting to appear, but since listening to my baser instincts hadn’t worked out for me too well earlier, maybe that wasn’t so bad.

Mike greeted me with, “So I get to bust you out?”  I told him I had already busted out once that night and he said he saw that, he saw me leave.  “Maybe you can double me up,” I told him.  He responded, “Or bust your Kings.”  Yeah.

Mike was soon pushed by the next dealer and the girls were starting to walk through the poker room, causing some distraction, of course.  One (male) player said there were too many people walking by for him to concentrate.  Just then, a particular hot group of young ladies walked by, wearing some exceedingly short, exceedingly tight dresses.  I said to the guy who complained, “It’s a feature, not a bug.”

We had started to discuss the young ladies lining up.  One guy said that the skirts would get shorter as the night wore on.  A woman said, “They get better looking as it gets darker.”  I said, “They get better looking the more alcohol that’s consumed.”

A guy came to the table who looked like something the cat dragged in.  I’m not sure what that means, exactly, but my late father used to say it all the time.  He had long, straggly hair that looked like it hadn’t been washed in about 6 months.  He had a beard—or the beginnings of one.  Maybe he just hadn’t shaved in about a week.  He was wearing an old fashioned hat—like the kind every man wore in the 1930’s and 1940’s.  I guess you could say he didn’t exactly look like he’d be stealing women away from Bradley Cooper.  Or Anderson Cooper, for that matter.

Suddenly three of those incredibly hot girls walked by, and stopped to say hello to this seedy looking character.  I’m sure that, between the three of them, the quantity of material they were wearing was enough to produce one actual dress.  The hottest of the three girls proceeded to lean in (how she bent over in that dress, I’ll never know) and give the guy a big kiss right on the lips.  Trust me, this was no platonic kiss.

The other two girls didn’t kiss him.  I was sitting next to the dealer and leaned over and whispered to him, “Really?  Really?   He laughed and said, “Yeah.  Go figure.”

The poker was better at this session, at least for me.  Won a couple of small pots, then I was dealt pocket 9’s in the small blind.  Someone raised to $12, one person called, and I called as well.  The flop was A-10-9, two hearts (I was heartless).  I lead out for $25.  One guy folded, the preflop raiser made it $60.

That looked to be about half his remaining stack, give or take.  I didn’t see any point in waiting any longer to get it all in, so I shoved.  I had the guy covered.  Now that I think about it, is there a difference there in shoving and just raising the guy all in?  I didn’t think it mattered, but is it better to figure out exactly what the guy has left and raise that much instead of announcing “all in”? Psychologically, does hearing me shove with a big stack scare him more than if I had just raised to $120 there? 

I asked because he folded.  I was surprised; I really thought he was pot-committed.  And he folded face up too, showing Ace-King.  Wow, that was a pretty big lay down.  I don’t think most players would have made it.  Maybe my saying “all-in” instead of betting just enough to put him all in was a tell?

Still, a decent pot.  The rest of the pots I won aren’t really worth discussing, but I won enough small ones to get back all the money I lost to Mr. Queen-4.  Yeah, I recovered and ended up breaking even for the night.

And by the time I cashed out with my money back, there was a awful lot of beautiful, exciting scenery all around the place to admire.

Which I did.

Scent of a Woman

People ask me why we haven’t heard much from my pal Prudence lately.  Prudence is fine and doing well.  It’s just that for reasons I won’t go into, she hasn’t played very much poker lately.  At least live poker. I believe she’s taken full advantage of the fact that it is now totally legal to play poker online in Nevada.  I think she actually prefers playing online to live play.

Another change she’s made recently is to greatly curtail her consumption of alcoholic beverages.  So the most recent times I have seen her and played poker with her, she was not drinking.  Oddly enough, she doesn’t say nearly as many outrageous things when she’s not drinking as when she is enjoying the demon rum.

So for this one, perhaps the last time I played with her when she was drinking, I have to go back to late March.  One of the reasons I haven’t blogged this sooner is that it was a pretty miserable night of poker for both us. It wasn’t even bad in a memorable sense, at least for me.  No great suck-outs to report on; no $400 pots lost.  I was actually luckier than she was.  I was so card dead, I couldn’t even lose my entire buy-in, I just didn’t get anything to play all night.  OTOH, she frequently was getting the second-best hand and you know how devastating that can be to one’s bankroll.

There was one hand when a bunch of us had limped in, including both Prudence and me.  But once the flop came, no one seemed to have much interest in the pot.  I don’t think anyone bet the flop or the turn.  Finally, on the river, when again no one bet, Prudence said loudly, “Wow, we’re all just showing our vaginas there, aren’t we?”  I don’t remember who won that pot.

The only time I got pocket Aces, Prudence raised to $10 in front of me.  Another player at the table called and I made it $40.  Prudence tanked a bit and then folded.  So did the other player.  She told me she had pocket Jacks.  Prudence has quite a bit of success cracking Aces with pocket Jacks (see here), so I’m glad she decided to fold there.  I believe that was the biggest pot I won all night.

When we got to the table, there was an older Asian gentleman there who had one of the biggest stacks I’d ever seen at a 1/2 game.  It was at least $1800.  Since the maximum you can buy in for there is $300, he was having a very good nite.  Actually, he was really having a good day.  He explained that he had been playing for about 10 hours, and had gotten lucky on a few big hands early in the session.  During the time we were there, he was playing pretty tight, and he never really took advantage of his stack to bully us around.  If he bet or raised, you knew he had a good hand.  He worked up the stack a few hundred more while we there.  No big dramatic hands as I recall, just small-to-medium pot every so often. 

At one point a person walking by the room did a double take when he saw this man’s stack, and stopped to watch for awhile.  He asked us, “Is this a tournament table?”  No sir.  This is a cash game and that’s his money, we explained.

Prudence somehow figured out that this gentleman was the father of one of the room’s regulars, who had only recently taught his dad how to play.  He learned well.  Obviously, a father can learn a thing or two from his child.

Now that morning, I had somehow come across a story on the internet about something that happened—or was about to happen—on one of the Kardashians’ reality TV show.  I say “one of” because I assume there’s more than one—is there?  I really don’t care.  I don’t pay any attention to them at all, but somehow, this one story came to my attention.

You can read all about it here.  It’s old news of course now, but the sweet young girls had decided to have a contest.  Two of the sisters each claimed to smell better than the other one.  The third sister would be the judge of which one did in fact smell better.

In case you didn’t click the link and haven’t figured out exactly what I’m talking about—well, it was a very specific scent from a very specific area of the body that was to be judged.

Or, as Khloe, the judge of this contest said herself, in the story, “But we're sisters - If I can't smell their pussies what else am I supposed to do?”

Well, you could not smell them, Khloe, for one thing.  Yes, that is actually an option.  But I guess that wouldn’t get the ratings you’re looking for.

Anyway, when I came across that story, I emailed the link to Prudence that very morning, thinking that might be of interest to her.  We shared a good laugh over it and she said that this was too much even for her.

So, a female dealer came to the table who is “Extra-board”—basically not a regular but on call.  She doesn’t deal there often.  I recognized her from another poker room.  So did Prudence.  In fact, I can’t go into the details but she and Prudence had had a rather awkward encounter at another poker room awhile back.

There likely was still some lingering hard feelings between the two of them.  But they said hello to each other cordially when the dealer pushed in. 

After exchanging pleasantries, Prudence said to the lady dealer, “Did you hear about the Kardashians?  They going to have a contest on their reality show to see which one of them has the best smelling pussy.  Khloe is going to be the judge.”

To her credit, the lady dealer didn’t act at all shocked by this out-of-the blue (but very blue) comment.  She acted as if Prudence had just given her a weather report.  “That’s what’s wrong with reality TV.”

Prudence followed up with an observation.  “I can’t imagine smelling my sister like that.”

Indeed.  Who, besides a Kardashian, could?

Prudence got along swimmingly with the dealer after that.  It wasn’t until after she left that Prudence explained to me that she had an unpleasant experience with the dealer.

So I said to her, “Oh, and so you just opened up the conversation with her by telling her about the Kardashian contest?”

“I thought it was a good ice-breaker.”

When we called it a very unsuccessful night, I had to wonder, did the cards we were getting smell worse than the Kardashians’ private parts?

He Was Good Enough to Fold Pocket Kings

The other morning, I woke up to the following tweet from someone going by the Twitter handle, “Austin Bluffs”:

“I just recognized you in Ante Up, I laid down KK against you PF at MGM in July, good lay down, right?”

My first reaction was, “huh?”  How the heck am I supposed to remember some hand from July?

I appreciated the fact that somebody recognized me from my little pic in Ante Up and tracked me down.  Actually, I was amazed by it.

I mean, here’s someone obsessing over a hand that happened over 3 months ago.  But hey, as a poker player myself, I could certainly relate to that.  Yeah I could.  In fact, I have a blog where I have a permanent record of hands I tend to obsess over.  When I go back and read some of my early posts, and read about the bad beats, they still piss me off.

But something else surprised me.  He recognized me from that tiny picture.  And not just as, “Oh, I know I played against this guy a few months ago.”  No, no….he looked at that pic, recognized me—and this is key—recognized me as the guy who got him to lay down pocket Kings preflop!  Recognizing me as that guy really impressed me, I have to admit.

I wondered if I had blogged about the hand he was talking about, but I doubted it.  I think if I would have blogged about it, I would have remembered.  

So I tweeted back to Austin for more info on the hand.  Maybe he could explain enough about the hand to trigger my memory.  I tweeted to him:  “Wow. Seriously? You'd have to give me details about the hand for me to try to rack my brain (or my blog notes) to remember.”

I mentioned my blog notes on purpose.  I had no idea if Austin reads my blog.  I couldn’t assume he did.  But I wanted to give him a heads up about it.  Maybe he’d come back and say he looked for a mention of it but I had never written about it.  Maybe he’d start reading it to see if he could find something.

In the meantime, I looked through some of Austin’s tweets.  I found an interesting one on July 6.  He tweeted to All Vegas Poker’s twitter account (and to Las Vegas Michael, the one-time main face of AVP) “pls ask Robert S from your staff if the guy (me) who laid down KK preflop had a good read (AA) on his 5-bet @MGM.”

I didn’t spend too much time analyzing this tweet because it gave me the vital piece of info I needed—the date, or the approximate date—the incident took place.

That meant I could probably find the hand in my notes.  As I’ve explained previously, since around March, I’ve been doing voice notes to chronicle my Vegas adventures, usually recorded the morning after every day of poker/Vegas activities.  And more recently, I started a spreadsheet to keep track of what significant events happened and on which voice recordings I could find them.  That means I avoid listening to 20-40 minutes worth of notes before finding out if there’s anything there worth blogging about.  I can find the stories I know I want to tell easier.  Then, when I do the blog post, I put the title of said post in the next column, so I know the story is done, and I don’t have to review those notes any further. 

The tweet was sent at 6 in the morning, so it was safe to say the hand must have occurred July 5 or before.  I opened my spreadsheet and saw the details I had from that day.  Actually, all I had to look at was the name of the blog post that I had indeed written about that day.

And when I saw what post it was, I almost shit in my pants. 

The title of the post was “Bad Beats & Big Tits” and you can find it here.  I remembered that post very well.  It was about a few really bad beats I took in a couple of consecutive sessions.  And about how I humorously blamed a guy who was sitting next to me both sessions for my bad luck.  At least I was trying to be funny. In that attempt, I went on and on—as am I known to do—about certain physical attributes that the player’s wife was displaying rather liberally. I believe the title of the post will give you a pretty big hint about what that was.

I knew that I didn’t suffer any bad beats to the guy I was “blaming” for my bad luck (also known as the husband of the woman with big tits).  But since I had no memory of what Austin was talking about, I couldn’t be sure that Austin wasn’t the husband of the woman with the big tits.

And if he was, that really scared me.  I’ve mentioned before being worried about some of the subjects of my posts recognizing themselves here and being upset with me for what I’ve written.  The biggest concern I’ve had was Denise, the lovely dealer who I complimented in a very ungentlemanly fashion.  But it turned out, not only wasn’t she offended, she was actually thrilled that I had “tooted her horn”—she was flattered, totally ignoring the tackiness of my comments (see here).

This would be similar, but somehow very different.  The husband of the woman I had written about the way I had this woman might not be so thrilled with my ungentlemanly assessment of his wife’s assets.  He might not find any humor in it all. He might want to defend his wife’s “honor.”

So I may have just suggested to this husband that he search my blog to find the hand he was obsessing over.  And he might find the story of me discussing his wife’s chest instead.

Damn.

Suddenly I wished I hadn’t sent that tweet to Austin, I certainly wished I hadn’t mentioned the blog on it, and I wasted no time finding my voice notes from the 5^th and listening to them.

It was the first time I’d played back the voice notes since I wrote that post, which I did just a day or two after the session. I should point out, as I’ve mentioned numerous times before, in order to help me do those voice notes, I take notes of certain hands right at the table, soon after they happen.

So I heard myself on the voice note saying, after I’ve set up the situation, “I guess I’ll read the hands even though nothing really matters but the last hand, because I lost my entire stack on the last hand.  Because poker’s such a good game.  But I’ll read them anyway.”

Yeah, I was bitter.  If you reread that post, you’ll see why.  This was the morning after my set of 9’s got beat, the first hand of that post.

I listened through a few hands, and then I heard myself saying, “Then, the most interesting hand that I can possibly blog about other than the one that f***ed me up the ass.” (yeah, that’s the way I talk to myself in these notes).  I went on to say that I had pocket Aces.  One guy made it $6, another player called, I made it $18, and the guy in seat 9 made it $50.

I breathed a sigh of relief even before hearing the rest.  I was sure this was the hand Austin was referring to.  He must have been the guy in seat 9.  Couldn’t have been the man whose wife had the big ones, he was sitting right next to me in seat 4.  Phew.

I continued describing the hand.  It folded back to me.  I put a stack of $100 right next to the $18 I had initially put out.  It folded back to seat 9.  He tanked.

According to my notes, he said, “I know you got Aces.  I know you got Aces……You got Aces.”  And then he folded.  Face up.  Showing the dreaded pocket Kings.

Now, I’m absolutely sure at the moment that happened, my thought was, “Wow, this is going to be a blog post.  I got a guy to fold pocket Kings.  I found a player good enough to fold pocket Kings (see here)."  At the time, I was sure that hand would be the main story of the blog post coming from that session.  I mean, there’s the whole “good enough to fold pocket Kings” bit that I’ve discussed several times.  There’s the fact that it was indeed the dreaded pocket Kings (which appear more often in this blog than “boobs mentionings”).  Plus the numerous times I’ve discussed the whole Aces vs. Kings scenario (see here).  And you know, you just so rarely see a guy fold Kings preflop.  It’s memorable.

But of course, the last hand of the night made me forget this hand completely.

Back to my voice notes.  I explained that the guy to my right—who was probably the guy with the large-breasted wife (although this might have been before he showed up)—said, “No, he had Queens.”

Seat 9 said, “Well, then it was a good bet.”

The player to my right said, “Queens or Jacks.”

I just smiled.  I came pretty close to showing, but held back.  I said, “Deuces.”

Player to my right said, “I’m sure you had better than deuces.”

I said, “OK, threes.”

Player 9 said, “He’ll do a forum post on AVP—‘I bluffed this guy out of Kings.’”

Yes, it turned out that my association with AVP had been discussed at the table prior to this. A dealer had mentioned it and so had another player.  I don’t recall if Seat 9 had mentioned that he was a reader/member of AVP before this or not, but he clearly was. 

I just laughed.  In my mind, I said, “No, but I’ll sure mention it on my blog.”  But because of my ambivalence about mentioning the blog at the poker table, as I’ve discussed before, I said nothing aloud.

But clearly, playing this back, Seat 9 was Austin Bluffs.  And that meant Austin Bluff was not the guy sitting next to me who I had made the star of the blog post I’d already published.

Phew.

My notes went on to say that he seemed like a nice guy and I planned to tell him I had Aces, away from the table, when one of us left.  But he left with a buddy while I was in a hand and I couldn’t get up and tell him that he had made a good lay down.

In the meantime, I received a tweet back from Austin giving me more info.  He said he had written about it the trip report he had filed on AVP, and gave me the link. Somehow, I had totally missed his trip report. The story is here but, without permission, I’ll copy what he said about the hand:

“At MGM, I had KK and 4-bet preflop. The opponent moved all in. He was older and I hadn't seen him get out of line. I knew he had AA and mucked the cowboys face up. He didn't show, but I still am sure he had AA. Before this hand, he mentioned he works for AVP and I saw his name on the Bravo display to be Robert S. I tweeted to AVP to see if I could flush out some info on whether I read his hand right but they are not giving up the info (it's OK, I know).”

Heh heh.  He was wrong that I had moved all-in, but I guess he was right about my not getting “out of line”!  And that I’m “older.” And now I had an explanation for his tweet calling me “Robert S”—he saw that on the screen in front of the dealer.  Which he could see from Seat 9, but not from Seat 4, which was occupied by the guy whose wife—well, you know.

I do wonder why, if he knew I worked for AVP, he never thought to ask my screen name.  That could have given him the opportunity to ask me about the hand many months sooner. 

After hearing my notes, I tweeted back to Austin, “You said, "You have Aces", guy next to me said, ‘No, he had Queen’ I said ‘No, deuces’ and said I'd go on AVP and talk about bluffing a guy who had Kings? THAT hand? Heh heh. Yeah, I had Aces and was gonna tell you when I left but you left first.”  (It was a two-part tweet).  I wanted to put his mind at ease at long last after all these months.

He responded:  “lol, I'll always remember that hand, thanks for confirming my read (or at least making me think I had it figured out)...”

Austin your read was dead on.  It really wasn’t a good lay down tho, because, you know, there was gonna be a King on the river.  At least, the way my luck turned at the end of the evening, that’s what would have happened.

Anyway, in listening to my voice notes just now, it was indeed a memorable hand that I meant to blog about.  But the reason I never did was because of the nightmare finish to the evening.  I wanted to forget that night as soon as I wrote the story of the unfortunate finish.  I did not leave myself a note (on the spreadsheet) to review that session for additional things to blog about it.

But I should have.  And I want to thank Austin Bluffs—I’m assuming that’s not his real name, so I’m using it—for getting me to review this evening and helping me write this blog post.

And by the way, just to be clear.  Austin Bluffs, whatever his real name is, is good enough to fold pocket Kings.