I Should Only Play Pocket Kings at the Venetian

On a Wednesday night during my recent Vegas visit, I decided to play at the Venetian.  And then I saw a tweet from Andr0us that he and his fiancé were going to be playing there that night.  As I mentioned when I basically did an entire post “dedicated” to him (see here), he and I are Twitter buddies.  Although, before this night, I had never met him in person, I kind of felt like we were almost brothers. 

When I got to the V I made sure to tweet to him and ask him if he was there.  In the meantime, I had gotten a seat at a 1/2 game.  When he replied that he was there and gave me his table and seat #, I realized he was sitting at the table right behind me.  In fact, he was in the seat right behind me.  I didn’t say anything to him directly. I noticed the person in the seat he identified was wearing a Dodgers baseball cap, backwards.  So I tweeted to him, asking if he was wearing a Dodgers baseball cap, backwards. He tweeted back, “Just for you.”

Awesome.  Of course, I have made a point, here on the blog, of saying that I hate it when guys wear their caps backwards.  But if someone does it on purpose just for me, as an “homage” to my well known pet peeve, well, I’ll take that compliment every time.  And by the way, later in the evening, he asked me if I was satisfied with the cocktail service in the room, a reference to the post I linked to above. For the record, after while, he turned his cap around and wore it the proper way, as all people with class do.

Actually, this is the proper way to wear a Dodgers cap

Anyway, we turned around and met, chatted a bit, and he introduced me to his lovely fiancé.  But there was no empty seat at his game and I had already figured out that the table I was at might be worth staying at.  I had been there for three hands, and each one had been all-in by the turn.  Clearly if I could get a hand, I could make some money at this table.

Both Andr0us and I tweeted out that we had finally met.  So Tony tweeted back that he should straddle every chance he got.  Andr0us replied, “Are you kidding?  He’ll blog about me!  No way!”  That was actually in reference to then-current Twitter discussion about me blogging nasty things about my friends and fellow bloggers. That is untrue, of course—I would never heap abuse on any of my friends in this blog—except of course, when I do.

But we never played together, and just gave each other updates on our tables through the night.  Apparently both of our games were juicy.

The guy on my left was a major league maniac and loved to straddle. He straddled under-the gun—meaning he straddled my big blind—and also from the button.  At least at the V, the action on a button straddle begins as God intended—under-the-gun and not with the small blind. His stack fluctuated like crazy.  One hand he got a big double up, shoving (or calling a shove) with two pair against a guy who had TPTK with Ace-King.  But within three hands, he had lost most of it to someone else, when he shoved his TPTK with Ace-King into a guy with two pair.  Yeah, it was like that.

I probably would have asked for a seat change (if not a table change), but whenever I had the chance to move, I was doing well and had determined that my seat was lucky.  Then, since it was a high variance game, I’d start losing but there would be no seat to move to.

Early on, I had the dreaded pocket Kings in the big blind.  Of course the maniac on my left had straddled. One person had called the straddle when it got to me so I made it $20.  Maniac called and the other player called.  The flop was Ace-high.  Brand new to the table but already knowing the action was wild, I just checked.  Note:  usually in that situation, I do bet with the Ace on the flop.  But it checked behind me.  The turn was a blank and this time I bet $50.  Nobody called.

Within an orbit, I got Kings again.  I was in early position and opened to $15.  That was, I thought, a smallish raise for this table.  And I don’t think I had been there long enough to have really gotten a tight image.  But no one called.

In late position, I limped in with Ace-10 offsuit.  I had noticed the maniac had actually left the table before the action got to him.  But everyone else saw the flop—all 8 of us.  The flop was 10-5-5, and I called $12.  There were now only five of us left!  The turn was a King and it folded to the button, a woman, who bet $20.  Very small bet for the size of the pot. It folded to me and I called.  We were heads up.  An Ace hit the river and this time I led out for $30.  But she folded (guessing she had a weak King).

I had Ace-2 in the small blind.  By this time the maniac had busted a couple of times and had to hit the ATM up for more money.  When he got back, it seemed like he had had a come to Jesus moment and was playing a lot tighter.  I decided to limp in and see if he raised—but he just checked.  Five of us saw a flop of A-4-2, two clubs.  I bet $5 and two players called.  I bet $10 on a red face card and got one call.  I sure didn’t like the 3 of clubs on the river, but I bet $15 and got a call.  He said, “I don’t think you have a 5,” and called.  He was right, but he obviously couldn’t beat two pair and just mucked.

Then I got pocket Kings again.  Third time of the night.  Early position player opened to $15, I made it $45.  It folded back to him.  He doubled checked my bet and then said, “I guess I’m all in.”  It was only a total of $88.  Of course I called.  All the cards on the board were low and he showed pocket Jacks.  Wow, three for three with the dreaded hand this nite.

I checked from the big blind with Ace-4 of spades.  Five saw a flop with nothing for me but a single spade.  None-the-less, I called $10 and it was three-way.  A second spade hit the turn and I called $15.  It was just heads up.  The 7 of spades on the river gave me the nut flush but also paired the board.  So I just called his $30 bet.  All he had was trip 7’s and my flush was good.

By this time, the table had quieted down considerably.  The other aggros at the table had all left, replaced by nittier players.  The maniac on my left was also much quieter, as I mentioned.  He only got frisky again when he opened to $25 when I had a pair of 6’s I wanted to see a flop with.  But not at that price.  I folded and went to the Men’s Room immediately so I wouldn’t see the flop.

I decided to call it a night and take my $150 profit with me.  It was a nice session and it was good to finally meet Andr0us, who is a cool guy. Maybe next time I play with him, I’ll actually play with him.