The Troglodyte Check

Some people are just obnoxious jerks, and there’s nothing you can do about it.  Some of these obnoxious jerks play poker.  And if there’s one at your table, it can be really ruin the game.

This particular Saturday night, at MGM, there was a real obnoxious jerk. A shithead. Young guy.  I didn’t recognize him but it appeared that most of the dealers knew him.  How I had managed to avoid running into this guy before, I dunno. 

He was in seat 4, and I started out in seat 6.  I immediately asked for a seat button change, because this was a club night and although I had one of the prime tables for viewing, my back would be to the pedestrian traffic.  Seat 1 or 9 were the best seats.

In seat 1 was a tall, really young kid who was very aggro and also happened to resemble Phil Hellmuth.  He looked like a younger Hellmuth, so in my mind (and in my notes), I referred to him as Hellmuth, Jr.  He straddled every time he was under-the-gun, keep that in mind.

When I first arrived, the aforementioned shithead was giving the poor fellow in Seat 9 a hard time.  Seat 9 was a middle-aged guy with a foreign (European?) accent.  Apparently the shithead thought seat 9 was a really bad player.  He was making jokes about how he would call with anything preflop, and how he’d never fold.  Sometimes he’d actually predict what kind of crappy hand he had.  I’m assuming that before I got there, seat 9 had won some hands from the kid by playing crap and sucking out on him.

Seat 4 found a partner in teasing this guy in Phil Hellmuth, Jr.  Junior wasn’t nearly as bad as shithead, but he was clearly enjoying his “jokes” at seat 9’s expense.  Whenever they would talk to seat 9, he never said a word back, so most of the teasing was shithead talking to Hellmuth, Jr. about how bad a player seat 9 was, certainly loud enough for seat 9 to hear him if he was paying attention.

I have no idea if the criticism bothered seat 9 or not.  It’s possible he didn’t understand some of what was being said.  But it was incredibly rude.  And it was also stupid.  If shithead was right and seat 9 was a bad player, why in the world would you want to say or do anything that might encourage him to leave the table?  Why not instead be nice to him, keep him in the game, and win your money back when the law of averages eventually catches up with him?  I was disappointed that none of the dealers said anything to the shithead about his comments, I definitely think they should have.  Maybe the fact that he was laughing so much (as was Junior) made it seem like it was all in good fun.  Seat 9 was not laughing but he didn’t appear annoyed.  He appeared oblivious.

Anyway, seat 9 finally cashed out.  Whether the comments from the rude kids had anything to do with that, I have no idea.  But that gave me the opportunity to take over seat 9 to get the view I wanted, which I did.  Up to this point, I don’t think shithead had said anything to me, but he couldn’t help expressing surprise that I would change seats to seat 9.  “Why would you do that?  Why move there?  It makes no sense.”

I’m assuming he felt that way because that meant my big blind would be straddled every time by Hellmuth, Jr.  Or that Junior was in general an aggressive player I’d probably prefer not having on my immediate left.  I suppose he had a point.  But by this time I’d figured out that Junior wasn’t quite the poker player his “father” was.  I felt I had enough information on him to be able to deal with him, straddles and all.

As it happens, my buddy Mike was dealing at this time.  He of course knew full well why I wanted that seat.  I really didn’t think I owed shithead any explanation at all, but I said to him, “I want to sit next to the dealer.  I want to talk to him.”

Unfortunately as it turned out, Mike decided to out me and give the real reason.  “He wants the view.”  Now shithead had already been nudged once or twice to pay attention to his hand when hot girls had walked by.  But that didn’t stop him from saying, “Oh the view. Really sir?” I ignored him. And then he said something really bizarre.  It was something like, “Oh, you wanna be like Michael Jackson?  Looking at kiddie porn?  These girls are underage and you want to look at them?”

What the hell?

Apparently, he’s young enough and ignorant enough to think there is a time in a man’s life when he no longer is interested in looking at attractive young women.  I guess he figured I was so old, I’d be past that.  As I just mentioned, he himself had demonstrated a roving eye for a few provocatively dressed ladies.  I’m not sure what was more insulting.  That I was old or that I was some kind of pervert.

Listen, Skippy….men never outgrow their fascination with the female form.  It develops in the early teens and lasts at least until death.  Maybe longer.

I’m reminded of a story I heard from a radio talk show host years ago.  A female doctor called to tell him about a recent experience in the hospital.  She was checking on a very old, very sick man.  The guy was quite literally on his death bed.  And as she was checking his vitals, she noticed he was looking down her shirt.  And she was offended by that!

The host told her that it was a great story and that he was glad that perhaps the very last sight the old man saw before he moved on to the next life was something he really, really liked. 

Aside:  Since when does a female doctor see patients wearing a top that you can look down?  But I digress.

I said nothing to the shithead.  I didn’t even bother to point out that the girls passing by would not be under-aged or they wouldn’t be allowed in a casino (yes, I know some might be using fake ID’s).  I just kind of seethed silently.  I was waiting for Mike to say something to him about that being an inappropriate thing to say to another player, but he just laughed.  Gee, thanks, Mike.

I didn’t make an issue of it.  I just tried my best to ignore it and concentrate on the game.

 After Junior busted out, a couple of brothers from Costa Rica came to the table. Between hands they would speak in Spanish to each other. Shithead decided they were pretending to be inexperienced players but were really good.  They seemed like pretty average players to me.  But a couple of times, shithead said to one of them, “Oh you’re acting like you don’t know what you’re doing but that’s not the way you folded your cards.” The brothers ignored him.  They may not have understood what he was saying.  I didn’t have any idea what he was talking about but it just may have been that he realized he hadn’t done anything dickish in awhile so he had to come up with something.

The poker session was rather blah for me, so I’ll only talk about one hand, one where I was up against the star of this post.  I limped/called $12 with Ace-9 of diamonds. It was three-way, including shithead, who was one of the blinds.  The flop was Ace-high, one diamond. It checked around.  The turn was a blank and this time shithead bet $25, I called and the preflop raiser folded.  The river was a blank, he checked, I showed my hand, he showed Ace-3.

So I won the hand, and shithead said, “Why did you check?”  I didn’t say anything. “I had Ace-3!”  Yes, I saw that.  But only after the hand was over.  I didn’t know he had Ace-3 when I checked did I?  Nine is a pretty weak kicker, I had no idea his was worse.  He continued to express his disbelief that I checked and at one point said, “That was a troglodyte check.”

Again, I said nothing.  But by this time he had won the title of “shittiest human being I encountered on this trip” in a walk.  By the way, he never had a drop of alcohol the entire time I was at the table with him, so he didn’t have that excuse.

He eventually busted out, but damn my luck, it happened when I was in the restroom, denying me the pleasure of seeing him lose all of his chips.

Call it a hunch, but I bet he lost them making a troglodyte call.