"We're All Male Strippers"

On this night, I thought I ran into the biggest asshole of all time, but the next night, I found out I was wrong.

Oh, he was definitely an asshole, I just found out that wasn’t quite as big of one as I had originally thought.

But as usual, it will take me awhile to get to him.

Before that, I was playing poker with Jeff Bridges, a guy who couldn’t keep his hands off me, and a couple of well-dressed drunks.

It wasn’t really Jeff Bridges, of course. The guy didn’t even look like him.  Except he did.  Sorta.  Imagine Jeff Bridges with long black hair and a baseball cap (worn the right way).  But mostly the guy sounded like Jeff Bridges.  At least, he sounded like I recalled Jeff Bridges’ voice sounding.  His voice definitely made me think of Jeff Bridgers. Alert readers (do I have any?) will recall I once almost played poker with Jeff’s brother Beau (see here).  Except he wasn’t playing poker, he was playing blackjack just a few feet away from my poker table.  But that was really Beau Bridges.

“Jeff Bridges” really wasn’t Jeff Bridges, but he was a funny guy, an amusing guy, a bit of an odd duck.  But entertainingly so. He was very friendly and said hello to every player as they came to the table.  There were no ladies at the table for most of the evening, and that was true when a guy sat down and Jeff said, “Welcome to the table. We’re all male strippers here.”

I can assure you, looking over this table, no one, male or female, would be hoping anyone there was going to take their clothes off.

The Jeff added, “Except me.  I’m a whore.”  And then, pointing to me, he said, “He’s my pimp.”

I just cracked up.  Other than saying hello when he welcomed me to the table, we had had virtually no communication up to that point.  I guess I was oldest person at the table, which was likely the reason he chose me for this, um, honor. 

Then he added, “I would totally bend over for him.”

Gee, thanks, “Jeff.”  No chance of that happening, ever.

The guy to my immediate left was getting on my nerves.  Aside from the fact that he was a rather aggressive with his preflop raising, and the fact that he was wearing a baseball cap backwards (see here), he couldn’t keep his hands to himself.

I don’t think he was into me.  He just was in a hurry.  The first time I noticed it, it was preflop, the last guy in front of me just checked and I was looking at my hand to see what I wanted to do.  I guess I took all of two seconds before I felt a slight tap on my left arm.  Huh?  Was it him?  Was I imagining it?  I let it go.

But a bit later, I had pocket 8’s preflop and was deciding if I wanted to raise, and if so, how much.  Suddenly this clown tapped my arm again and said, “It’s on you.”

Now I was pissed.  I don’t have a thing about people touching me, but if someone’s gonna touch me, I’d prefer it to be a hot girl instead of some chubby guy wearing his baseball cap backwards.  I said, in a harsh tone, “I know!”  He said, “sorry” and I hoped he had gotten the message.

But it only lasted so long.  It was an hour or so later.  By this time, he was now straddling my big blind every damn time.  He hadn’t been doing that when I started, but now he was doing it religiously.  You all know how I love straddles (see here).  Even though this wasn’t the button straddle, it was maybe worse because he was to my immediate left, and his UTG straddle was taking away the possibility of my ever seeing a flop for free.  Putz.

I should have gotten a seat change or a table change, but for a good while I was doing pretty good at the table and I am loathe to move when I’m doing well.  It’s not like I’m the first poker player to be superstitious.  So I stayed and hoped he’d either leave or stop doing it since it never paid off for him.  But he kept at it.

Anyway, this one time, the dealer was just about to start dealing when he did it again.  He tapped my arm, this time to remind me to put out my big blind, which was on me.  Why was it so important for him to remind me to post my blind, when that’s the dealer’s job?  Because he wanted to make sure I posted it so he could put out his straddle.  And for that he had to touch me?

What made this time worse was that he distracted me from a particularly pleasant view.  You see this was a Friday night, a Slut Parade night, and I had the best seat in the house to watch the fine young ladies making their way to the club (OK, so I guess that may possibly have been another reason I didn’t ask for a seat or table change).  And just as he tapped my arm, a couple of young ladies wearing the shortest, tightest and low-cut-est (did I just coin a word?) dresses I’d ever seen had come into my view.  I was just about to focus on them when I felt the jerk tap me. I looked to him to see what was going on and by the time I looked back, the girls were hidden from view by some fat guys.  For that alone, I should have killed him.

Then there were two very well dressed young guys who made it clear they had tickets to the club that evening and planned on—what’s the polite way to say this?—making new friends.  For at least the night, that is.

But these guys knew that the price of drinks at the club was steep, so they were getting pre-drunk on the free booze that they could get while playing poker.  They got drunker and drunker and although it didn’t affect their play, it did affect their language—and the volume of their voices.  They had to be repeatedly warned about using the “f-bomb” and they made some rather tacky jokes whenever the cocktail waitress came by to refill their cup holders.  She was a good sport about it.  One of the guys kept telling us that if he lost his money playing poker, his two kids would have to go without milk.  Like that would be our fault.

As I said, I was doing pretty well for awhile. Without getting any particular noteworthy hands, I had worked my $200 starting stack up to just about $300.  And then…..well, I had Ace-Queen offsuit, under-the-gun and I raised to $8.  Two players called, one of the well-dressed guys who had less than $100 and a totally unmemorable fellow who had about $200.  The flop was Q-Q-X, two spades (I didn’t have a spade).  I led out for $15 and they both called.

The turn was a red King and I bet $50.  Well-dressed guy with short stack shoved….it’s not all that much more than my bet.  Unmemorable guy with about 2/3’s my stack shoved as well!

WTF?  Did the second guy have King-Queen?  Or had he slow played pocket Kings?  Was he shoving with just the flush draw?  On the turn?

I snap shoved.  The pot was two big relative to the bet I was facing to fold now.

I knew I didn’t want to see a spade on the river, but the King of clubs that actually hit the board didn’t appeal to me much either.

Ugh.  Short stack had Queen-Jack.  I was ahead when he shoved, but now he was in the same boat I was in (so-to-speak). Queens full of Kings.  Which was no good.  Bigger stack had King-10, both spades.  He flopped the flush draw, picked up a pair of Kings on the turn (to go along with the pair of Queens on the board), and sucked out on me by catching another King on the damn river.  Runner runner.  True, he had a lot of outs.  And he friggin’ hit one of them.

That left me with about $100.  A definite cooler.  I did something I should do more often when that happens—I took a break.  I hit the Men’s room, walked around the casino, sat down by a slot machine and just tried to relax.  That’s poker, I told myself.

I didn’t think about this at the time, but now that I’m writing this up—how do you feel about his play?  Was it the right move to shove on the turn?  Should he have just called? 

When I got back to the table I added another $100.  And soon thereafter I got into a hand against Jeff Bridges.  The dealer was Michelle, the one who never pushes me a pot.  I had Ace-9 of spades in the big blind.  Jeff opened for $11 and a couple of people called behind him.  I would close the preflop action so I decided to call.

The flop was good, if you consider flopping the nuts good.  It was Queen-high, all spades.  I couldn’t decide between completely slowplaying it and betting out.  There was a good chance that Jeff wouldn’t c-bet on a monotone flop.  I compromised by betting small, $20.  Jeff made it $50 and the other two folded.  I put out $100, which was actually a bit more than he had left.  He called.

I showed my hand and said, “You need help.”  He flipped over the dreaded pocket Kings. One of them was the spade but no amount of spades could help him this hand.  He didn’t get his runner-runner boat (or quads) and I had stacked Jeff Bridges—with Michelle dealing, no less!

There’s some poker blog out there somewhere that talks about what a bad hand pocket Kings is.  I guess Jeff needs to find it.

The last hand I’ll talk about was the hand with the Asshole, which I was only peripherally involved in.  I limped in with Ace-7 of hearts.  Four or five of us saw the flop.  It had one heart, and a 7.  There was also a 5 and a face card.  Someone made a small bet and I called with my middle pair.  There were four people still in the hand when the turn card was revealed, another 5.  That didn’t help me at all, and I was done with the hand.  But no one bet so I was still technically alive to see the river.

I don’t recall the river card but it didn’t help me.  Asshole led out for $30-$35.  And everyone promptly folded.

This did not please the Asshole.  He was actually livid.  “Damn. Nobody calls! Not one of you?”  And he slammed down his hand face up, which was pocket 5’s. 

Trust me, I know how frustrating it is when you have quads and don’t get paid off for them.  Still, you would think a guy could handle it with a little more class than that.  He was actually screaming at us.  “How does not one person call me there?  Not one!”

Meanwhile, I realized that for his quads he qualified for the high hand bonus, which meant he would get to pick an prize ball that would be worth between $50 and $1,000.  I even said, “high hand,” although of course the dealer had noticed it too.  He called it out for a floor person to confirm it.

The asshole wouldn’t shut up about how bad it was that no one called. He seemed oblivious to the fact that he had earned a high hand bonus—although what I learned the next day indicated to me that he indeed did know about the promo.  Which kind of makes his behavior even more inexcusable. 

He was still ranting and raving about no one calling when Nancy, who was working floor this night, came over, saw the quads, was told it was Seat 3’s hand and asked him, very nicely, “You want some money?”

Asshole replied, almost screaming, “Yeah I want money.  Of course I want some money!  I’ve got kids.  Of course I want money.”  He practically bit Nancy’s head off.  He was so rude and nasty, I only wished there was a way to deny him his bonus money.  And I kind of felt sorry for his kids right then.

And after finding out he was going to get some bonus money for his quads, he still kept complaining that no one called him.

Asshole.

As he left the table, I whispered to the annoying guy next to me, “The only thing worse than a sore loser is a sore winner.”

There are 100 prize balls in the hopper.  I think well over 70% have either $50 or $100.  I’m pretty sure that only one has the biggest prize, $1,000.

Nancy led Asshole over to the hopper and a few minutes later, I heard him whooping and hollering and the shift manager announced, “We have a lucky $1,000 winner.”

Are you kidding me? A f***ing jerk like that and he wins the biggest prize?  The most underserving winner in the history of promos.  A one-in-a-hundred shot.

When he came back to his seat, he said to the table, “Well, you’re all forgiven for not calling me.  I won a thousand bucks!”

We’re forgiven?  Wow, thank you sir.  I can sleep well this night.

F you!  The last thing I wanted from this schmuck was his forgiveness.  How about an apology?  Especially to Nancy, who actually got screamed at for telling him she was going to just give him money.

Nothing worse than seeing reprehensible behavior rewarded. Life just isn’t fair.  Yeah, I already knew that, but I didn’t need to see the message brought home so vividly.

Anyway, it took a while for them to process the paperwork and bring Asshole his thousand bucks.  And as soon as they paid him off, he put all the chips (mostly $100 chips but a couple of hundred in $25 chips—no redbirds) in his pocket.  Nothing wrong with that.  I just wondered how he could forget to pass a few of those green chips (if not a black one) to the dealer who gave him the quads, who was still at the table dealing when he got paid off.

So, a couple of things.  The fact that he didn’t tip the dealer—or so I thought—made him the world’s biggest asshole in my mind.  In fact, that was originally going to be the title of this post, “The World’s Biggest Asshole.”  But….but….well, I’ll get back to that.

Now, I didn’t say anything about him not tipping the dealer. I am of two minds about that.  Tipping is really a personal decision, and I sure hate to be confrontational.  It’s really none of my business if the guy doesn’t tip.

Or is it?  I felt guilty not saying anything.  I felt bad for the dealer, who is a real nice guy who I’ve known for a long time from the room even if he hasn’t yet done anything to earn his own blog pseudonym. A few seconds later, Asshole got called into the 2/5 game.  I considered going over to him even after he moved into the new game and asking if he forgot something, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

And I felt really shitty about not saying something.

What say you?  Do you say something in that situation?  I mean, I assume he had tipped the dealer when he dragged in the pot, but since—as he was only too eager to point out—it was a small pot, he probably didn’t give him very much.

Grrr….it bothered me all night and the next day while I was working.  My one consolation was the scathing blog post I was going to write calling him the world’s biggest asshole.

I decided that because he was such a jerk, I was going to find out his real name and use it here, not giving him a pseudonym.  First name only.  But let’s say his name was Joe.  I was going to call him Joe Asshole. I knew I could probably find out his name because he signed the form, and maybe the shift manager would remember.

So the next night, I asked Nancy, who was working floor again, if she remembered the guy and his name. She didn’t remember his name.  So when the shift manager walked by, I asked him if he remembered.  Nope, he didn’t remember.  But I’m glad I asked when I did.  Mike was dealing and he actually knew who it was (he was not the dealer who gave him the quads).  He knew his name because he is apparently a 2/5 regular!  I didn’t recognize him, but that’s because he doesn’t usually play 1/2. 

So I learned his name and then when I bitched about him not tipping for his high hand, Mike told me that I was wrong. He assured me that the asshole did indeed tip for his high hand!  Apparently he had tipped the dealer from his stack before getting the thousand bucks.  Shit, I was feeling guilty and being mad at this guy for no reason.

In fact, later, the dealer who had given him the quads came to my table and I asked him directly if the guy had taken care of him.  He confirmed that he had.  He said he gave him “a few bucks.”  I assumed that it wasn’t the most generous tip he’d ever gotten, but he had gotten something and that made me feel better.  No doubt if I had said something to him about not tipping, I would have had my head bitten off, and maybe even deservedly so.

Ok, so the guy is just a garden-variety asshole (for the way he reacted when no one paid off his quads) and not the world’s biggest.

So I want to publically apologize to Asshole for thinking he was a much bigger Asshole than he turned out to be.  Sorry, Asshole.

Anyway, it was a strange night of poker.  I never completely recovered from the cooler hand, even after stacking Jeff Bridges.