I'm Kind of a Big Deal

The TBC Invitational, Part 1

This is the follow-up to the night of blogger’s poker that I wrote about here.  For this second session of blogger’s poker, Tony was not just imaginary.  He was there, in the flesh.

After the game I described at MGM, Tony expressed disappointment that he missed out on it.  He expressed this to both Pete Peters  and myself.  He sent me a direct message on Twitter that indicated that he not only wanted all of us to play poker together, but that he wanted me to post about it afterwards.

I have to say I felt a bit honored. I knew that, in the past, folks who know about the blog wanted me to write about them here.  But having such an esteemed blogger as TBC requesting this was something else.  I mean, someone with more page views on his blog than I could ever dream of, asking me to feature him in one of my posts? How could I say no?  I just hope this doesn’t turn out to be an example of that old Chinese proverb:  “Be careful what you wish for, you may get it.”

Pete and I both wanted to get together with Coach for another session anyway.  All we had to do was arrange for it to happen in a venue where Tony is allowed to play.  The Venetian or the Wynn were the two choices on the Strip (unless you count the Stratosphere, and I don’t).  We settled on Venetian.  Almost from the outset, the name “TBC Invitational” just came to us and stuck, even though it was open to anyone and it wasn’t a tournament.  We were all going to play 1/2 NLH.

Since we were having another night of blogger’s poker, with a rare appearance by Tony, we had to get the word out.  The three of us—and I guess Tony too—all posted on our blogs about the event that night.  I tweeted about it as well. A few people who might have made it appeared to be busy.  Tony sent me a tweet saying if I could find a baby sitter for Jennifer Gay, she could make it.  Of course, if you need a baby sitter in Vegas, I am your go-to guy!  Actually, when we met up, Tony said he had mistyped that and all he meant was that if she could find a baby sitter, she’d come.  I guess she didn’t find one.

And Pete and I did our best to convince the very real Alysia Chang to join us—mostly through comments on our blogs, since we don’t have any real contact info for her—but she had plans.  She indicated that she might stop by later if she wasn’t too tired, but unless she came in disguise, she never made it.

Tony had joined PPP and Coach for lunch that day but they had split up after that.  I would have joined them but I had a business lunch to attend. We didn’t have a set time, just show up this Friday evening (the Friday of Labor Day Weekend) at the V.

I got there before Pete and Coach, but long after Tony.  When I arrived, I toured the poker room and found him in a 1/2 game sitting behind a nice stack of chips.  I went over to say hello and asked him if anyone else had arrived yet.  Nope.

I got a text from PPP that they were on the property but had stopped to get a player’s card for Coach.  So I went to the podium to see if and how I could arrange for all of us to get into the same game.

The short answer was:  I couldn’t.  That is, other than all of us getting on the list, getting into a game, and then eventually getting enough table changes to all finally end up at the same table.  Hmm…didn't sound promising.  I had her put me on the list—that was a mistake.  I should have waited for the Pete and Coach to show up and had us on the list consecutively, and prayed that they would start a new game we’d all be called to.  Didn’t think of it until too late.

As I said, this was the Friday of the holiday weekend, so the place was busy.  They had a bunch of 1/2 tables going and before I knew it, they were calling me into a new game.  Meanwhile, Pete and Coach got on the list, and in short order, were each called to separate tables.  So they we were, the four of us, each sitting at a different game!  Not at all what we had planned.

I went back to the podium to see what they could do.  When I said we had four people at four different tables that all wanted to sit together—and that we expected more of our friends to show up—the lady just kind of shrugged.  She remembered that she had just sent me to a table that they had just opened and she said, “Well, they’ll never move any players from existing games into a new table.”

Ugh.  I suddenly recalled one of the things I didn’t like about playing in the Venetian.  It’s their must-move policy.  I won’t explain “most-move” games for those of not familiar with them, but you can read about them here.  My experience was that usually only the biggest games a poker room has are ever must-move.  So, at MGM, the only time you’d see it is if they had a 2/5 game going and they open a second one, the new one would be “must-move.”

So I was shocked when, one time in my limit days, I was playing 4/8 at the V and I was called to a new game.  And then one by one, they came over to take our players away and move them into one of the previous two existing 4/8 games, and then brought us a new player off the long waiting list. One by one, the fish I was playing with were moved to another table.  I was very aggravated.  This must have happened before I started the blog, because I know I was so pissed off at the whole thing that I could have easily filled a long (even by my standards) blog post ranting about it.  Remember, this was for the smallest game, stakes wise, they offer there.

Anyway, her comment about not moving players to a newly opened game reminded me of the policy.  I wasn’t actually told that my game was a must-move game. I assumed it was, and anyway, her comment about not moving us to my table convinced me that I needed to take more dramatic steps to get us all into the same game.

I was frustrated.  I knew if we were at MGM, I’d have us all sitting at the same table in minutes.  Partially this is because it is a smaller room, less tables, easier to monitor.  But the other reason is that if I went over to the shift manager and/or the person at the podium, whoever it was, they know me and would surely go the extra mile to accommodate me.  They’d be looking out for me and would make sure that we all got together as soon as possible.

But it appeared we were kind of screwed over by the size of the Venetian, the fact that it was super-busy, their rigid policies, and the fact that I didn’t really have any friends working there.

Or did I?

And I thought about it, and was caught in a bit of a moral dilemma.  You see, I do have some “stature” in the Vegas poker community.  Through my work for both PokerAtlas and Ante Up, I have contacts in every poker room in Vegas.  I deal with these folks every month to get updates on the rooms for PokerAtlas and news for Ante Up.  I'm kind of a big deal.  :)

My contact at Venetian is the tournament director, who updates me not only with tournament info but cash game updates as well.  He is a really good guy and I knew if he was around, he wouldn’t think twice about going out of his way to help me out. I bet he feels like he owes me a favor or two. Actually, when I got to the room, I went over to the tournament area to look for him, but it appeared he wasn’t in.

But, he has his own Twitter account.  What if I tweeted to him about needing a favor?  I had to decide if there was anything wrong with that.  I know I can never ask any of my contacts for anything of monetary value—comps, shows, rooms, etc.  That is strictly verboten. But all I’d be asking for here was a little accommodation so all of us could sit together—nothing of any economic value.  In fact, it would be assuring that we all stayed there and played long into the evening.

I decided it would be ok and sent out a tweet to him.  The Venetian poker room also has a twitter account and I included that on the account.  And I waited.

Meanwhile, a friend of Tony’s, Herbie, showed up to play.  But he saw that we were all at four different tables and saw how long the waitlist was and didn’t think there’s was much of a chance of us all getting together anytime soon.  He chatted with Tony and went around the room to introduce himself to Coach, Pete and me.  When he came over to meet me, he said there was a short list for an Omaha game, do I ever play that?  Um, not if I can help it. (see here).  So I thought he might try to get into the NL game, but apparently he just gave up and left.

But the old coot to my left heard this conversation, and when Herbie was gone he asked me, “Do you like to play Omaha?”  I said no, but that the guy who just left apparently does.  So the old coot said to me, “There are two kinds of people who do well at Omaha.  Rocket scientists and complete idiots.  And he didn’t look like an Astronaut.”  Ok, I had to laugh.  And boy was that old guy proud of his joke.  Anyway, Herbie, don’t take it personally, the guy had nothing to base his comment on, other than the fact that you weren’t wearing a space suit at the time.

Meanwhile, my tweet was being ignored.  I guessed (correctly as it turned out) that my contact was out of town for Labor Day weekend.  And I guess whoever handles the regular Venetian twitter account was off for the weekend too.  I considered sending out another tweet that would say, “Maybe we should head over to the Wynn poker room.  Perhaps they’ll be more accommodating.”  But no, I didn’t do that.  I also was thinking that perhaps we should all just cash out of our games and then get back on the list at the same time, figuring at least a few of us would end up at the same table that way (especially if they started a new game and it looked like they were going to be starting new games at a pretty good clip this night).  But I wasn’t ready to try that yet.

But I knew I had to do something, it was just a question of how much I wanted to throw whatever weight I have around.

I didn’t just want to go up to the shift manager and tell him I work for both PokerAtlas and Ante Up and I’d like to get all my friends at the same table.  I was afraid that it might not sound too good, and if he were to complain to my employers about being a pain in the ass too demanding, I could get in trouble.  So I decided to be subtle.

I had business cards on me from both entities.  I took one out—it happened to be the one from Ante Up (I always, always see tons of copies of Ante Up whenever I am in the Venetian poker room)—and wrote my name and table number on the back. I then went around the room and made sure I had the right table numbers for Tony, Pete and Coach and wrote their names and table numbers under mine on that business card.

The plan was to hand this card to the shift manager and explain that these four people all desired to sit at the same 1/2 table.  Could he help us out?  I wouldn't say anything about who I was, but if he happened to turn over the card to see the Ante Up logo, well then, what a coincidence!  Subtle, right?  It wasn’t like I was actually asking anything of him because of my Ante Up column, at least not directly.  Also, if he turned the card over, he might even have recognized my name from my column (or perhaps my contact at the V had mentioned my name to him, that wouldn’t have surprised me).  I figured this was the best way to go.

I saw a gentleman who looked like he might have been the shift boss in the middle of the room, standing at a very small podium, looking at some clipboards and talking to one of the floor people.  I went over to him and when he asked me what he could do for me, I went into my pitch.

I asked if he was in charge—he was—and if he was in charge of the tournaments or the cash games. He said he could help me with either.  So I handed him my card and told him that those four players all wanted to be at the same table.  Any table, didn’t matter which one.  I couldn’t help noticing as I was talking to him there was a small stack of Ante Up magazines right there next to his little podium.  I was oh so tempted to grab one, open it up to my column, hold the page up to my face and keep going back and forth, pointing to my face, and then my picture in the magazine.  But no, I didn’t do that.

He was wired into to the front podium and he told them to put all of us on the list for a table change to my table.  Ok, we were making progress.  He was even going against the stated policy of not moving players to the newest game.  The trouble was, since mine was a new table, it was likely to be the last one of the four we were at to start losing players.  But it was better than nothing.  He handed me back the business card without ever turning it over.  That is key….he was trying to accommodate us without having a clue about who I was (unless he recognized me from my Ante Up pic, highly doubtful).  We got no extra consideration than anybody else going over to him would have gotten.  My cute little trick had gone for naught.  But at least there was a possibility that at some point, one by one, the others could be sent to my table.

This is going to be a three-parter, and that's where we leave part 1.  Did the blogger's ever get together at one table?  Will I ever actually discuss any poker?  You can find part 2 here. In the meantime, you can check out the following links to read previous versions of this night. See Pete (here), grrouchie (here) and Coach (here and here).