Show One, Show All (Revisited)

Recovery update/explanation:  This is a repost of one of my earliest posts, dating back to my days playing 2/4 limit.  I figured that that for the only way for the time being I could keep you convinced that this is really a poker (and Vegas) blog is to do some reposts from earlier times.  It was posted over four years ago so even those of you who read it may not remember it and can enjoy it again (or not, you are under no obligation to enjoy my posts).

To update you on my recovery, well today I actually worked a few hours for the first time since I was hospitalized.  I must be feeling pretty good.  And I hope to get back to some writing tonite after dinner so that I can have the latest installment of my surgery saga for you in a few days.  In the meantime, here's a blast from the past...

=   =  =  =  =  =  =  =  =

Before I start, I need to explain to those readers who aren’t poker players the rule, “Show One, Show All.”  At showdown, if a player shows his hand and the other player (or players) still in the hand see that they are beat, they do not have to show their cards, choosing instead to just muck their cards. They can show their cards if they want, and sometimes a player showing a hand he thinks is a losing one can be surprised and discover the pot is actually pushed to him, having misread either his hand or his opponent’s.  But he can certainly muck his cards if he wants.  The reason for not showing your cards is simple; if you have lost the hand, showing what you had gives free information to the other players as to how you played that hand and will give them insight into how you play in general.

Sometimes a player will fold his cards but feel compelled to show the person sitting next to him what hand he is folding, either because he’s making such a tough lay down he simple has to show somebody or he is friendly with that person sitting next to him.  This is where the “Show one, show all” rule comes into play.  A player is not supposed to show his dead hand to selective people at the table.  He is offering valuable information, and it is unfair that only one or two people get that information.  It’s a mild form of collusion.  So if/when that happens, someone else at the table who didn’t see the hand (and usually, it’s me), will tell the dealer, “Show one, show all” and if at all possible, the dealer will take the cards the player just mucked and flip them over so that all the players at the table see what was folded, and everyone gets the same information.

OK, so if you play poker for several hours, you will usually hear a player call out “Show one, show all” several times, especially if I’m at that table.  Just keep that phrase in the back of your mind for later.

Anyway, this particular story dates back almost a year, back to the days I was strictly a limit player, playing in a 2/4 game at the BSC.  I’d been there for awhile when two middle aged guys who were friends took the two seats immediately to my left.  They were really chatty, and obviously they had come to town have a good time first, drink a lot second, and play some poker third.  Within a few minutes I learned that they were from back East, they were old college buddies, and once a year they did a guys’ trip to Vegas together, leaving their wives back home.

I first described these guys in this post here  as BSC regulars.  They knew a lot of the dealers, or at least remembered a lot of them, and were particularly interested in having Ginger deal to them, remembering her as a particularly attractive woman.  Ginger was dealing that night but she never made it to our table.  They mentioned her name a few times before they got too drunk to care.

Early on they started giving every player at the table their own nicknames based either on their appearance or how they played.  One guy was “Raisy Daisy” because he raised pre-flop so much. Another guy looked like some character from Spongebob Squarepants and named him that (don’t ask me what it was, you won’t find anyone who knows less about Spongebob Squarepants than yours truly).  Some guys had names because they looked like people they knew.

Did I have a nickname, I hear you asking?  Of course. They called me “Phil” because of the strong physical resemblance I have to famous professional poker player Phil Ivey.

Heh heh.  The truth is, I don’t look anything like Phil Ivey, and they didn’t call me Phil.  But I have been told, at least a dozen times in a poker room (and once or twice elsewhere), that I do have a strong physical resemblance to someone who is a fairly well known poker personality, someone who appears on televised poker, who is also famous (or was) in a different, non-poker related field.  No, it isn’t Jennifer Tilly, though she fits that description.  Believe me, I don’t look anything like Jennifer Tilly.  If I did, I’d never leave the house.

But in keeping with my desire for secrecy, I won’t say who this poker personality is that I supposedly resemble, to help keep my identity a bit more secure.  But tell you what, when you folks meet me in Vegas, as most of you probably eventually will, if you guess who it is I’m told I look like, I’ll tell you if you’re right and who it is if you’re wrong.  No prizes will be offered for getting this “right.”

So for now, we’ll say they called me “Phil.”  I didn’t mind, these were good-natured, here to have fun guys.  But soon I did ask him if they had their own nicknames we should use at the table.  They said it was up to others at the table to nickname them, so I thought for a bit and tried to come up with appropriate and silly names for these clowns.  Finally I came up with “Heckle and Jeckle” and told them of my decision.  They laughed and were fine with it.  Heckle was on my immediate left, and Jeckle was on his left.

For whatever reason, I had a very good night at poker while these guys were laughing, drinking and losing chips.  They weren’t bad players at all, pretty reasonable for the 2/4 game, but it wasn’t their night.

One time I had J/10 and the board was 9-8-7-6-5.  Jeckle had pocket Jacks and had to call my river bet because If I didn’t have a 10 we’d chop it. But I actually had a seven card straight and took the pot. He was not amused.

Then in the big blind I had 10-7 diamonds, no one raised.  Flopped a flush draw and a gutshot straight draw.  The turn gave me a straight.  The river gave me a flush.  I actually didn’t want the flush, figured my 10 high flush might not hold up but I thought my straight would be good.  But it turns out that Heckle had the exact same 10-7 I had, but his was unsuited!  If I hadn’t made my flush, we would have chopped the pot, but the flush gave me the whole pot, and it was a big pot for a 2/4 game!  The dealer said he’d never seen anything quite like it.

I was quite amused but Heckle was extremely pissed. He bitched and moaned about that for quite some time. Of course, what I didn’t point out, because I’m no table bully or asshole (see Gary’s blog post here and my comment on it below), that the guy had only himself to blame.  What the hell was he doing calling pre-flop with 10-7 unsoooooted?  Under the gun, yet?  I was the big blind, that’s the only reason I saw the flop.  But I failed to point that out to him, because that’s the kind of guy I am!

One more hand of note.  I had A/J of hearts and called a pre-flop raise by “Raisy Daisy”.  Heckle only called the raise (remember, this is limit, the raise pre-flop can only be two bucks).  Ace on the flop, plus two hearts.  Turn is a blank but the river is 8 hearts, which is the second 8 on the board.  So I had to be a little concerned about a full house beating my nut flush, especially in a limit game.  Heckle bets the river, pre-flop raiser calls, I raise.  Heckle and other guy call.  Pre-flop raiser had pocket 9’s and should have gotten out a long time ago.  Heckle showed AK and was really upset.  He said I was behind the whole way and said I sucked out on him….I “chased it down.”  He said he wished he was playing No Limit so he could have bet me off of it.

I tried to point out that not only did I flop top pair, decent kicker but I flopped the nut flush draw.  I wasn’t going anywhere.  He wouldn’t listen. This was another really big pot for a 2/4 game.  He wouldn’t stop pissing and moaning about it.  Again, I reminded him I flopped the nut flush draw, and then he got mad because he said I didn’t have the nuts.  He’s right, I didn’t have quad 8’s.  I told him I had the nut flush and tried to make the distinction, but he was too upset to listen.  I even asked the dealer to confirm that I was right, I had the nut flush even though I didn’t have the nuts.  But Heckle wasn’t in a mood to listen.

I guess I’m making it out like these two guys were bad guys but really they weren’t.  At least 90% of the time they were laughing and joking.  It was only when they lost a big pot that they turned sour.  Especially since every time they lost a big pot it was to me.  At one point, when they were back to being jovial, they looked at all the chips in front of me (most of which I got from them) and one of them said, “Well, with your winnings, at least you can get laid tonight, Phil.”  I just laughed.

The whole table was chatty and fun, led by Heckle & Jeckle.  One topic of conversation was movies, and there was a debate about what Natalie Portman’s first movie was. I neither remember nor care about the answer—a cell phone was used to confirm—and Heckle said something to the effect that Portman was a beautiful woman but she had absolutely no breasts whatsoever.  He made several comments to the effect that she had gone far as an actress without actually having any breasts.

A bit later, Heckle & Jeckle started bitching about the waitresses refusing to serve them shots. And then he made the rather bizarre statement, “Not being able to get shots in Vegas is like getting in trouble for showing tits in Vegas.”  Suddenly I was getting the impression that Heckle was “obsessed with bosoms,” (unlike me).  Especially when soon thereafter I heard him brag, “My wife has the world’s greatest tits.”  Jeckle confirmed this.  He said “they are real and they are spectacular.”  Brent was dealing at this point and he said, “Oh, like Terry Hatcher on Seinfeld.”  Yes, they agreed, except Mrs. Heckle’s breasts were truly spectacular.

Jeckle said that not only had he seen Mrs. Heckle’s tits, but he had actually had the thrill of motor-boating them.  And this was with the encouragement of Heckle.  Heckle pointed out that his wife will go “topless or even naked in public” at the drop of a hat.  He insisted that was true, and then, to back it up, he took out his cell phone and started looking for some pics.  He indicated he had no problem with his wife doing this at all, he had no problem with anyone seeing his wife’s tits, just as he had no problem with his friend not only seeing his wife topless (at least) but motor-boating her.

First he showed a pic of two naked women, and after insisting that this was his wife and her best friend, admitted that he was kidding and that this was just a porn pic.  But then he showed me a close-up of a huge tit, completely out of a dress, completely exposed (yes, I could see the nipple, plain as day).  Heckle insisted, and Jeckle backed him up, that this was really his wife’s bare breast.  After he showed me, he passed the phone around for all the guys at the table to see. Even Brent (our dealer), got a peak.

When he got the phone back he was involved in a couple of hands, then began to start fumbling around with his phone again.  He said he was going to find a fully nude pic of his wife that she sent him this morning from a girl’s night out that took place the day before as he and his pal arrived in Vegas!  However, before he could get the picture, somehow, a female floorperson, had somehow gotten wind of him passing around the prior topless pic and came over to him.  She said that he had to stop doing that.  She didn’t say what “that” was but it was clear that she somehow knew about him passing around the topless pic, and perhaps the pornstar pic before that.  She said that such activity might “offend” someone.
Interesting.  There were no women at this table, and I don’t think any of the guys would be upset, and if they would be, they could have passed on it.  But, I can see from the casino’s point of view that they might not want such activity at the poker table.  Whatever.  So he had no choice but to put the phone away.  If he really was about to show us a totally naked pic of his wife, I’ll never know for sure.

A down or two later, Samuel came to deal.  Samuel is generally one of the less talkative dealers, but every once in awhile he snaps off a wickedly witty comment.  So somehow, the discussion turned back to Heckle and his wife’s allegedly amazing breasts. Of course I had to tell Samuel that Heckle had actually shown most of us at the table, including Brent, a picture of his wife topless. Samuel of course was interested in that, and asked the guy if he could see the picture.  But he refused, telling him that the “mean” floorperson said it was offensive and he couldn’t show any more risqué pictures at the table.

Samuel instantly replied, “That’s not fair.  Show one, show all.”

Not long after, the Heckle and Jeckle had decided they’d lost enough money for the night—most of it to me—and took off, never to be seen again.  But since I had most of their money, it was a very good night—in more ways than one—for me.