"Grow Some Balls, Will Ya? You're Such a Vagina!"

Somewhere in a previous post, I mentioned getting to Vegas earlier than I expected for Christmas because of a couple of events that were taking place there.  One of them was the unofficial BSC Holiday poker party.  This was just one of those crazy (mostly) dealers games that I am now routinely invited to.  The story of the very first one I attended was told here.  The most recent one (before this one) I blogged about is here.

I got back to Vegas extra early to attend this sacred event on my first night in town.  The hosts of this event were Prudence and Mike (the dealer who was cracking my Kings before I even knew that was a bit).  Unfortunately, Mike picked the games.  It wasn’t just Crazy Pineapple and Omaha Hi like it had been last time.  No, Mike insisted we include Reverse Hold’em in the mix.  Ugh.  Reverse Hold’em is like hold’em but after the first round of betting, only one card is put on the board, there’s another round of betting, then another single card is put on the board, another round of betting and then finally three cards are put down at once, then the last round of betting. For a discussion of why Reverse Hold’em is the single worst card game in the history of the universe, see here. It sucks, it really, really sucks.

The stakes were 2/4 limit, but with a half-kill.  You can’t really play a game with crazy, drunk dealers for higher stakes than that, it would be way too expensive. 

I arrived before the game got going and said hello to all my pals.  When the game finally got underway, there were enough fish players for two tables.    Fortunately for those of you don’t like long blog posts, I did not end up at the “fun table.”  Our table was rather restrained all evening.  I was sitting next to Prudence, but as she was drinking nothing but water, she was on her best behavior.  We shared some nice private conversation, but she really didn’t say anything that can make it into this post.

The other table was the crazy one.  Mike was there, as were Ginger and Nancy.  Ginger has been discussed many times here, most recently here.  Nancy was the dealer who told us about auditioning to be a porn star while at a hypnotist show (see here). Also at the table was a dealer I’m going to call Gretchen.  Although I didn’t give her a name, I did talk about Gretchen in that first post I linked to above, my first Crazy Pineapple game.  She was the lady who said, “Don’t look at my boobies.”  She was also the lady who jokingly offered a $40 lap dance.  That’s about to come into play.

Their table was right behind us and the noise was palpable.  There was so much laughing, cackling, screeching and screaming from there, you would have thought they were having an orgy.  But every time I checked, they all had their clothes on.  Despite the fact that most everyone there was a BSC employee (or if not, a BSC regular), the floor had to come over several times to remind them to try to be quiet.  I believe they were getting complaints about the noise from Harrah’s.  I mean the Harrah’s in Laughlin, not the one down the street on the Strip.

And the poker was wild too.  I heard that the betting of almost every round of every hand was capped.  And reports were that frequently, Ginger and Gretchen were raising and re-raising blind preflop.

I guess from the standpoint of poker, I’m glad I was at the more sedate table.  I probably would have busted out of that other table within an hour (unless I had gotten lucky and hit one hand, which could have made my night).  But if I had been at the noisy table, I suspect I would have had enough “woman saids” to fill three Rob-sized blog posts. 

The one thing I did hear, over and over again, was a desire, expressed in very loud tones, to go to a Strip Club.  The voices expressing this desire were all female.  Most of the comments that I could hear were coming from Gretchen and Ginger.  Gretchen was also offering to buy lap dances for any of the males that came along to the strip club.  I guess Gretchen has a thing for lap dances, since she mentioned them at the game a few years back.  And although she had warned a guy not to look at her boobies then, I guess she didn’t mind looking at other women’s boobies. 

It was hard for me to take this seriously; I thought they were all kidding, or that this was just the free-flowing alcohol talking.  When I called it a night, they were all still at the poker table.  But the next day, when I returned to BSC and went over to get my name on the list, Nancy was working the front desk.  Since we were at separate tables and had never conversed, I wasn’t even sure she would remember that I was there the night before.  But what the hell, out of the clear blue I just went ahead and asked her, “So, did you guys ever make it over to the strip club last night?” 

She stopped for a second.  Nancy is new and doesn’t know me as well as a lot of the other dealers do.  I wouldn’t have been surprised if she felt uncomfortable answering that question for me, or if she might have even wondered how the hell I knew to ask it.  But no, she said, “Yes, we did.”  She claimed not to have stayed too late but she gave me the complete list of all the folks who went there.  All the ladies I’ve mentioned of course, including Gretchen and Ginger.  And she mentioned a few of the guys.

Apparently a good time was had by all and I later heard from yet another, anonymous source, that a huge amount of money was spent by this crew at the club, one of the nicest strip clubs in Vegas.  It was a slow night, and it seems there might have been more dancers than patrons on this night, about a week before Christmas.  Apparently Gretchen had spent a fair amount of money (like over $2K) on booze and also on buying lap dances for the guys who were with them.  The guys that went with them were not, as far as I know, the husbands or boyfriends of the ladies who took them to the club.

I had to think about that for awhile.  Woman A paying Woman B to give a guy (who is just a co-worker) a lap dance? This is not the world I grew up in.  I believe the dances were given in a private room, so the purchaser of the lap dance didn’t get to see if she had gotten her money’s worth, though all things considered, that might have been for the better.

I have to admit, this is something I don’t understand.  I mean women going to a strip club.  A girls strip club that is.  We’re not talking male dancers here.  The girls were seeing naked girls, not guys.  Why would they want to do that?  I can assure you that I have no interest whatsoever in seeing guys take their clothes off.

A few days later I actually asked a woman of my acquaintance why girls would go to strip club.  She replied something to the effect, “Oh, to make fun of the strippers….you know, critique their boobs.  That’s what that’s all about.”  OK, then.

BSC management graciously provided pizza for us.  While I was up getting some, I overheard a brief snippet of conversation between Nancy and one of the male dealers who was at her table.  They appeared to be arguing and the only line of conversation I actually caught was Nancy telling the guy, “Grow some balls, will ya?  You’re such a vagina.”  Sorry, I have no context for that. The reader will have to supply his or her own context. 

So I did get a “vagina-mentioning” out of the night, even if it wasn’t from Prudence.

One of the ladies who was sometimes at our table was Michelle, the dealer I can never win a hand with.  That’s when she’s dealing.  When she’s playing, it’s a different story.  Michelle never saw a hand she didn’t like.  Her boyfriend was there and at one point, when she went to the other table, he instructed her, “Try to fold at least one hand per orbit, honey.”  When all the strip club talk started, Michelle told her guy that he was welcome to go to the strip club, and even “get a woman, as long as you don’t do anything with her.” Nice.  Michelle did not join the group that went to the cub, according to my spies.

As for the poker, it was mostly a miserable night for me.  I couldn’t catch a hand to save my life, it was about 2-2-1/2 hours before I even won a pot.  The good thing was that after one round of Reverse Hold’em, our table unilaterally decided never to play it again.  It was a rules violation but they didn’t penalize us for it.  This was actually bad news for Prudence, as she won most of the hands during this round.  She should have lobbied for us to keep it, but I think if we had, ¾’s of the table would have left.

I didn’t write down any hands.  There were so few that I won, and then too, in a game like this, those no strategy to discuss.  By the time I finally won a hand I knew I wasn’t going to be talking much poker in any blog post that came of this.  I don’t think I ever won a single hand at Crazy Pineapple which is the game I actually like.  The few hands I won were all freakin’ Omaha.

The first hand I won, I almost didn’t see that I had a straight.  I kept my hand because of the pocket Queens I had, along with a Jack and who knows what else.  There wasn’t a lot of betting on this hand, and although the Queens didn’t improve I stayed around for some reason.  Someone bet the river, and I stared at the board to see if I had anything—I didn’t think so.  Then Michelle, who was behind me, called a bet and showed her hand, which was only 2 pair.  It was at this point I was starting to think I might have a straight.  I mean, I knew I had a straight, but I didn’t know if it was an Omaha straight.  Could I use exactly two cards from my hand to make my straight?  Yes, yes I could.  So I just called—this was after Michelle’s hand was exposed. I didn’t know if her hand was better than the other hand, but it didn’t matter.  My straight was good.  This was something of a miracle because a straight is so rarely the best hand in Omaha.

I won another hand in Omaha with just trip 10’s.  Not a set, mind you, but trips.  There were 2 10’s on the board and I couldn’t believe no one had a boat.  I was so sure my trips were no good that I accidentally slow rolled Michelle, who thought her pocket Queens (along with the pair of 10’s on the board) were going to be good.  She gave me a hard time about that, and I apologized profusely.  It’s just that, who thinks trip 10’s is going to win an Omaha pot?

I’m not sure I won any other hands.  My last hand was Omaha and I had pocket 7’s and an Ace so I saw the flop.  No 7, but an Ace kept me in the hand.  I just had to call $3 (this was a kill pot).  The turn was a 7, giving me the set.  I only called $6.  An unimproved set wasn’t likely to win, especially with 2 clubs on the board.  I just wanted to get to the showdown cheap.

The river was a 9 that paired the board.  So now I had boat, but was it good enough?  In this game?  Not likely.  I lead out with $6 and Michelle raised and I think Abe, the other player in the hand, re-raised.  I probably should have folded but I called and Michelle didn’t re-reaise.  They both had Ace-9 for 9’s full of Aces.  Ugh.  Fitting ending for a bad night of poker.

Still, it was a fun night, especially if you ignore the poker.  I know the $90 I lost was nothing compared to what some of the maniacs at the other table lost.  And I always feel honored to be invited to these special gatherings.