"Those Things", The Tournament Tipper & Cheated Hookers

This post consists of some amusing things I overheard recently, one of which is totally unconnected to the other two.  Since none of the stories themselves is enough for an entire post, I thought I’d put them together.

I think I have to be careful telling this first story because I have a bit of a high profile in the poker world.  In this case, I don’t have any inside information, the background is pretty common knowledge.  Just the same, I’d rather not name the poker room involved.

So let’s just say this took place in a poker room somewhere in the United States.  It could be Vegas, it could be L.A., it could even be Atlantic City.  But since I’ve never been to Atlantic City, probably not.

Anyway, we’ll call this mystery poker room “Generic Poker Room.”  Catchy name, right?  It seems that at Generic Poker Room, they recently had a few employees who left under less than ideal circumstances.  A couple of the higher ranking tournament managers were apparently keeping some of the tip money for themselves instead of passing it on the dealers. One can imagine that this may have left a few of the regular dealers disgruntled, shall we say.

So I was playing in a tournament there and the guy next to me seemed to be playing live poker in an actual poker room for the very first time.  His play was ok, he knew poker.  But some of the rules and procedures for playing live seemed unfamiliar to him.  For example, he never, ever figured out that his bet was supposed to cross the “betting line.”  He was sitting close to the dealer so they would frequently just push it forward for him.

After a few hours, he busted out.  When he stood up, I was surprised that he reached into his pants for his wallet.  My first thought was, does he think he needs to give the dealer his player’s card to check out of the tournament?  But no, he didn’t grab his player’s card.  He took out a $10 bill from his wallet, and slapped it down right in front of the dealer.  “That’s for you,” he said, as he left.

Well that was a new one on me.  I’ve played in a lot of tournaments and that was the first time I’d ever seen a guy who busted before cashing—long before cashing—leave a tip.

But the dealer didn’t react like it was the first time he’d seen it, not at all.  He thanked the guy and picked up the bill.  As it happened, one of the guys running the tournament happened to walk by, and the dealer called him over, and gave him the bill. “That’s for us.”

The floorman/tournament director didn’t seem surprised either.  He took the money and kept walking.

At which point, the dealer said, “I just hope that actually gets to us.” About half the table laughed, the other half didn’t. Of course, I knew exactly what that was a reference to so I was totally amused.  The dealer then turned to us and said, “I’m just kidding, he’s a good guy, no worries.”  Then, after a few seconds, he added, “What, you haven’t heard?”  And then he wisely dropped the subject.

Anyway, I’m curious—have any of you seen something like that?  A tip given by a losing player early in the tournament? Really a surprise to me.  The only thing close to that I’ve seen is a time or two when a dealer was off duty and playing in a tournament in a room they work.  This dealer had a stack of $20 real chips (not tournament chips) and would tip the dealer a buck every time they won a pot.  But that was tipping fellow employees, so it was a bit different.

Now speaking of tournament chips….well much later in the tournament a very jovial, extremely chatty fellow was moved to the seat to my right.  He was clearly playing to have a good time, not to win the tournament.  He even mentioned that he thought if he could several hours out of the tournament, the free beer he’d get out of it would be more than enough to compensate for the tournament. 

He also wanted a massage, and made a joke about paying for the massage with tournament chips.  This prompted the dealer—a different one—to ask, “Do you know why it says “no cash value” on all tournament chips?”

A few people started to give their theories but the dealer gave his explanation.  “Because guys would pay hookers in tournament chips, and then they’d try to cash them in and they couldn’t.  And so of course they were quite upset about that.”  Someone at the table made the lame joke about the hookers getting “screwed” after getting screwed.  It’s entirely possible that someone was your humble scribe.

So according to this dealer, it was the hookers getting paid in worthless chips that forced the casinos to stamp “no cash value” on the poker tournament chips.

Truth is, I had heard that story before.  I’m not sure I believe it, but I definitely have heard it.

Totally unrelated to poker, we have a story that occurred on one of the nights when the Slut Parade was taking place.  I was just walking around the casino, minding my own business, not even noticing the many young ladies in their skimpy outfits (you buy that, right?) when I heard a “whoop,” or some similar exclamation.  It was obvious a female voice.  It’s not usual for the young (or drunk) folks to whoop it up like this when they are in Vegas.  They are happy to be in Vegas.  They are happy they are going to the club (or wherever). 

Anyway, the “whoop” sound got my attention and I turned to see where it was coming from.  I say a young woman walking the opposite direction (towards the club) and as part of her “whoop” she had raised her right arm and was waving it for emphasis.  This was a serious whoop.  Since I was to the right of her, I couldn’t help notice that the side of her dress was…well, actually, there was no side of her dress.  There was just a lot of skin.  And she was revealing….let me see, I believe there is a technical term for it.  Ah yes, I believe it is called “side-boob.”  There was actually a lot of side and a lot of boob revealed.

She was with a guy and another girl and my eyes followed her as she walked away.  It turns out she wasn’t wearing a dress at all.  There was a revealing top, which was totally backless.  And there was a skirt.  Actually, it was probably closer to a belt than a skirt.  It was incredibly short.  And it was incredibly tight.  I tried to figure out if it was tighter than it was short or shorter than it was tight and honestly, it was too close to call.

This outfit was thus a “triple threat,” something that is not actually that common among club attendees.  As I explained in my original slut parade post, the standard “uniform” of the female club goers is a) very tight; and/or b) very short; and/or c) low-cut with generous cleavage revealed.  But it isn’t that often any one girl is wearing an outfit that has all three of these features.  Usually it’s just two of the three.  Sometimes it’s one of the three, but unless that one is extreme, the girl is practically overdressed.  It’s just very challenging for a woman to pull off a triple threat dress (no, not that way) because in order to really look good in one, the woman would have to have a near perfect body.  Of course, many girls who do try to wear such a dress don’t have the bodies for it (again, few women do), but that’s another story.

This girl appeared to have the kind of body that filled out all the requirements such an outfit demanded. 

I kept walking but somehow, very mysteriously, really, I found myself wandering about the area where the club goers were milling around.  And by pure coincidence I assure you, I once again encountered this triple-threat girl.  This time I saw her while she was facing me.  And it turns out that her outfit was revealing more than just side-boob.  It was pretty much wide open in front too, almost down to her navel.  Basically, it was just two straps coming down from her neck covering her nipples and not much else. Since she was showing both “normal” cleavage and side-boob, plus the short and tight skirt, I wondered if she deserved a new category, which would be “the quadruple threat.”

Anyway, by this time her party had expanded by one, and there were two guys and two girls.  Based on the interaction, I would guess that this new guy was the boyfriend of this striking girl.  They were face-to-face, talking, and at one point, I saw him put his finger up to the girl. He was actually pointing. He may or may not have actually touched her chest, but I could hear him plainly say, “Could you put those things away, please?”  The girl laughed, and then leaned in to give the guy a big hug.  Hmm…I wonder if she would have hugged me if I had made the same request.  Probably not.

Anyway, for those of you interested in such things, I would say there is a at least a 99.9999% chance that the “things” her boyfriend wanted her to put away were purchased from a plastic surgeon.  Since she clearly wasn’t wearing a bra, with the size of those things, if they were god-given, they would have been down to knees.

I know whenever I tell a story like that, people will write to me and demand that I start taking pics and/or video of the Slut Parade.  I can’t see myself doing that—way too dangerous.  Now, if I had one of those “wearable” cameras, or some such, so I could take the video without anyone realizing I was doing it, maybe I could do it.  Hmm….perhaps I should open a “Go-Fund-Me” account to start collecting donations for it?

Now the pic below, of Reese Witherspoon, is the closest I could find to approximate the outfit she was wearing, and it really doesn’t come very close.  For one thing, Ms. Witherspoon’s natural assets are a lot more normal sized than this gal’s unnatural assets were.  Also, the quadruple-threat girl was showing a whole lot more skin.

And I doubt that Ms. Witherspoon would yell “Whoop!” if she was about to attend a night club in Vegas.  But I could be wrong about that.

Still here?  Well, the pic above was supposed to be the end of this post.  But between the time I wrote this and the time I was able to post it, I found  this intriguing picture below, which perhaps is a little more representative of the dress I was describing--or at least the top I was describing.  This is actually a swimsuit, so it's not exactly what the gal was wearing.  But the top of this swimsuit is pretty close to what the girl was wearing...perhaps the dress I was describe was slightly wider, but not much.