"The Great Queen....That's the Queen of England!"

The Juciest 1/2 Game Ever! (Part 2)

And we pick up right we left off in part one (here).   

The Dane told Jamie he had lived in Australia for a number of years.  They talked about life down under for a bit.  Suddenly he asked Jamie and Matt if Guido Hatzis was still around.  Jamie had no idea what he was talking about, but Matt knew and said he hadn’t been heard from in a number of years.  Apparently it was a comedy act that was popular in Australia some years ago.  Matt seemed surprised his new bride wasn’t familiar with Guido Hatzis. She said, “Well, I’m young!”  I found that amusing. Even though I personally had never heard of Guido Hatzis until that very moment, it just seemed intuitively obvious that an Aussie man shouldn’t marry a woman unless he knew whether or not she knew who Guido Hatzis was.  So I said to Matt, “How could you marry a woman who doesn’t know who Guido Whats-his-name is?”  This got everyone laughing.  The Dane started looking up Guido on his cell phone (as did I, out of curiosity) and offered to show Jamie, but she declined, insisting that Matt would give her the Guido debriefing back in their room.

Now at one point the Dane wanted to eat.  He asked the floor if they could order a sandwich to eat while he was playing.  They used to order food for you and have some poker room staff pick it up and bring it to you.  But as a result of some recent personnel cuts, they no longer have enough staff to do that.  Now all they will do is order the meal for you, but you have to go get it yourself when it’s ready.  The Dane was not happy.  He didn’t want to leave the table to pick up his sandwich at the deli.  But he had them order his sandwich (I think it was ham and cheese, but definitely with mustard) and then asked Matt if he would get the sandwich for him (since Matt was just watching the game, not playing).  At first Matt thought he was joking—why should he get this guy’s sandwich?  But the Dan kept pressing him to do it since he had nothing better to do.  Finally he offered to pay him to get his sandwich.  I believe the offer was $10.  Matt was still reluctant because he said he had no idea where the Deli was.  “Is it far from here?”  After it was explained that it wasn’t that far, Matt said ok, he’d pick up the sandwich for him.  He collected the money for the sandwich and his $10 tip and took off after the guy’s sandwich.  He gave the delivery fee to Jamie to add to her stack.

A few minutes later, he returned with the guy’s sandwich.  And so the Dane started to eat and noticed there was no mustard on it.  “I asked for mustard.”  He complained to the floor person who ordered it but that wasn’t where there problem was.  You see, at this Deli, they don’t put mustard on for you.  They have little packets of mustard, ketchup and mayonnaise off to the side for you to put on yourself.  Poor Matt had no idea he had to go get mustard in addition to the sandwich.  So the Dane asked Matt to go back and get him some mustard.  Matt laughed, was he joking?  No, he wasn’t.  Matt didn’t want to go.  So the Dane said he would pay him to get the mustard.  And then he tossed two red chips in the direction of Jamie and Matt asked where he would be able to find the mustard, and then proceeded to walk back to the Deli to get some mustard packets.  The Dane had paid something like $30 for his ham and cheese.

A few minutes later, he came back with a bunch of mustard packets.  The Dane was in the middle of a hand (as usual) and trying to figure out how much to bet.  Matt came in right behind him and plopped the mustard packets not on the tray behind the Dane where the sandwich was, but right on the poker table next to his chips.  It was pretty funny, I was thinking the Dane may bet some mustard packets in addition to whatever chips he bet.

Somehow there was a brief discussion of Australian Rules Football.  Someone asked why there is a box in the middle of the field (there is?).  “What’s the box?  What’s that for?”  The Mexican said, “Don’t you want the box?  Don’t you want to taste the box? You’ll be happy when you taste the box.”  Jamie turned slightly red but was a good sport.

So back to the poker.  Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of not playing a hand, I had 10-4 of clubs in the big blind.  And lucky me, this was the one hand per hour where no one raised.  The flop came out three clubs.  I bet $6 and got two callers.  The Dane thought this was noteworthy and commented, “Wow, you haven’t played a hand in an hour.”  That was probably accurate, but I didn’t appreciate him pointing that out to everyone.  I bet $20 on a blank turn and they both called.  Another blank on the river and I checked, worried that someone might have been slow playing a bigger flush.  Nobody bet and my flush was good.

My buddy Jack came to the table and soon dealt me a couple of black Queens, easily the best starting hand I had seen all night.  I think I was in middle position and amazingly it hadn’t been raised by the time it got to me, so I made it $15.  When it came to him, the Dane again said about me, “He hasn’t played a hand in three hours.”  Jack properly told him not to make comments like that.  That is the correct thing to do and I wish more dealers would do it. Only six players called, including both of the maniacs.  The flop was Ace high, rainbow.  A guy (not one of the maniacs) donked out $10.  Hmm… I just called.  Surely someone had an Ace.  Five of us saw the turn, including both maniacs.  The turn put a second heart on the board.  The same guy bet another $10.  I called, as did the maniacs.

I didn’t think I even had the second best hand, but the bet sizing there kept me in.  If I could see a cheap showdown, why not? I was pretty sure I needed to hit my set in order to win this pot, a real long shot.  And then, starring at two hearts on the board, I started thinking I wasn’t sure I wanted the Queen of hearts to hit.  Between the bet-sizing and the lose play at the table, a backdoor flush wasn’t at all unlikely.  So I figured I was probably down to one-out, the Queen of diamonds.

Just like the first hand I described, when I willed the Ace of clubs to hit, I started trying to will the Queen of diamonds to come out.  “Come on, Jack, put that Queen of diamonds out there,” was what I was thinking. 

And then somehow, Jack, looked deep into my thoughts.  He read my mind.  He read my mind and produced the river card I was looking for.  Yes, it was the Queen of diamonds!  The same guy bet $10 again, and both maniacs called.  This time I of course raised. I made it $70.  The guy who bet shoved for a little more than that, but the two maniacs folded. 

The guy had Ace-King.  So, he had limped in with that.  And had he made a decent bet on the flop and/or the turn, I might have given up on my Queens.  But, as it was, well played, sir!

I was sitting right next to Jack, and as he pushed me the pot he whispered, “nice river card.”   Jack knows all about my blog and so he said, “I can just see it now, ‘Jack reads my mind and puts out the Queen of diamonds I was thinking about.’”  He kind of was reading my mind because I admitted I really was thinking of that card, and was trying to telepathically communicate the Queen of diamonds to him.  I told him that since my Queens were both black and the hearts were out there, I only wanted the Queen of diamonds, not the Queen of hearts.  “Yeah, yeah, I read your mind, make sure you put that in your blog.  You know, you can send it to me and I can edit it for you.”  Ha ha. Well, I didn’t send this to Jack for his review, and he’s probably pissed that it took me so long to write this up, but here you go, Jack!

A little while later, the Dane was all in against somebody (no surprised) and had his cards face up.  The river was a queen that made the Dane’s hand and he won a nice pot.  He got excited when he saw the Queen. “Ah, the Queen, the great Queen…..that’s the Queen of England!”  Jack was amused and said to me, “You’ve got to put that in there, ‘the Queen of England.’”

I said, “Oh I will.  But when I write the blog post, I’ll have been the one to have said ‘The Queen of England!’”  Jack laughed at that and said, “Yeah, ok, I’ll back you up.”   But see, I was honest, I didn’t give myself credit for the Queen of England reference.

I had a lot of chips in front of me for not playing very many hands.  It was getting late, and I was still card dead.  I was beginning to think that was fine.  It was a high variance type of game and I was on the good side of that, but I was thinking there was a high likelihood of me getting burned if I stayed too long.  So I was hanging on, enjoying watching the action and the conversation, and not minding not getting anything to play.

By this point I had seen the Dane go through some huge stacks a couple of times.  One time when he busted out, he actually had to go to the ATM to get more money.   He ran up to that $300 to well over $1,000 in less than an hour.  And burned through all of and busted out again in less than 20 minutes.

And then I got a couple of deuces.  The Dane’s stack was kind of low and he only raised to $10, probably as small a raise as he’d made all night.  The Mexican called, I called and one other player called.  I flopped the set on a rainbow board (no good straight draws either).  The Dane led out for $25, the Mexican called and I decided to slow play it, so I just called.  The turn was a second diamond.  The Dane shoved for his last $100 and the Mexican called.  The Mexican had a huge stack, well over $1,000.  I had about $400.  I just called.  The river put a third diamond on the board which was a concern.  A back door flush was not rare in this game.  The Mexican took a long time to think about it before checking.  I took a long time to think about my action.

Now, the Mexican would have called any bet the Dane made even if all he had was Ace-high.  But he was aware of who the tight players were and I’d seen him fold plenty of times to bets made by everyone but the Dane.  If he had forgotten that I hadn’t played a hand in a long time, he was reminded by the Dane who had once again made a comment about it when I called his initial flop raise.  The more I thought about it, the more I felt that the Mexican would only call a bet from me if he had me beat.  Had he rivered a baby flush?  Maybe he had set-over-set?

So I played it safe and just flipped over my set of deuces.  The Dane stared at my hand and the board for a long time and finally mucked.  The Mexican showed a pair of 8’s (one on the board, one in his hand, along with a Queen).  I was worried for nothing, but I am quite sure he wouldn’t have called any bet I would have made there.

I settled for adding over $200 to my stack.  Perhaps I could have gotten more, but I wasn’t really upset with myself for being overly cautious under the circumstances.

Amazingly, the Dane didn’t rebuy, and left without really saying goodbye, which was surprising.  The game quieted down.  A tough regular raised to $10 and I called with Ace-King offsuit.  It was three-way.  The flop missed me but no one bet.  The turn was also a blank and again, no one bet.  A King hit on the river and the reg bet $25.  I just called, the other guy folded and the reg just mucked without my even having to show my hand.  Fine with me.

A few minutes later they had the drawing and this time I didn’t get called.  I racked up my chips and cashed out with $540 of profit.  That about equals my best cash session ever.  Oh, and I had $100 in my pocket from the earlier cash drawing promo.  So it was a very good night indeed.

I’d never seen a game like this before, to be sure.