That Was Almost Exciting!

This is part 2, the final part. Part 1 can be found here. And also, you can find Vlogger Will’s vlog of this session here. Check it out.  I believe you can see my hands quite a bit.

While we were on the subject of my name, Emily mentioned she lived in or near Nottingham.  Of course, I made a Robin Hood reference and she decided she might start calling me Robin, because it was close to “Rob.”  Then she said that Lightning could be “LittleJohn.”  Lightning said his wife would dispute that.  Emily thoroughly enjoyed that and said, “Yes, of course, of course.  We’ll call you “BigJohn.”

Since Emily was immediately to my right, it was inevitable that we would eventually come to a blind vs. blind situation.  Now, new to the MGM since the last time I played there, they no longer allow chopping the blinds.  So we had to play it out. She hadn’t looked at her hand but I had, it was Ace-Queen, a monster two-handed.  She just completed without looking and made a point of saying she hadn’t looked, she would only look if I bet.  Well, it was a friendly game and we were unlikely to win or lose much anyway so I checked behind.  We checked it all the way through, and thus she never looked at her hand.  Nothing hit my hand and at showdown she flipped over Ace-Jack, which she was seeing for the first time. There was no Jack on the board either so I won.  But she noted that we both had big hands for heads up play. “Oh wow, if I had looked, that could have been something, that could have been a heckuva hand.  That was almost exciting.”

I responded, “Yeah, I hear that from women all the time.”  That got a few laughs.

Emily got involved in a hand with Will and Seat 9.  Will raised; the other two called.  On the flop Will led out for $25 and Emily shoved for $55.  Seat 9 called Emily’s raise.  Will shoved and succeeded in getting Seat 9 to fold.  Emily was unhappy, she had obviously hoped her raise would steal the pot.  She nervously watched the turn card and got super excited when it was a 6, immediately showing her pocket 6’s which was now a set.  She was very happy, even more so when the river was another 6!  She was delighted but couldn’t believe it.  I mean she really couldn’t believe it.  Will showed his unimproved pocket Aces.

Emily was saying, “That’s not possible.  I can’t believe it.  Count the deck, count the deck!”  She was laughing but honestly, she was almost “complaining” about getting so lucky.  She spent a few minutes talking about how crazy that was and almost suggested someone was cheating for her.  But she gladly accepted the pot and then the $150 bonus they gave her for the quads. By the way, if you watch Will’s video, this is the last hand on it and he does his less than perfect vocal impression of Emily.  But his take on the hand is funny.

There was a hand with Lightning vs. Emily, and he got Emily to fold with a big bet.  She showed her hand and Lightning said it was a good fold.  That didn’t satisfy Emily, but he didn’t show his hand. “I think you’re lying, you were bluffing, weren’t you?”  Now I’ve seen Lightning do this before, but never quite like this.  He started acting totally indignant that Emily was accusing him of lying.  He got super serious and appeared angry. “You’re accusing me of lying at the poker table?”  He gave her the silent treatment and Emily actually got concerned that she had pissed him off.  She asked me if he was really mad at her.  I insisted that he was just having fun with her.

But man, Lightning kept up the act.  I had never seen him give this good a performance.  Eventually I actually started to believe he was pissed at her and asked him about it.  But he wouldn’t break character.  Was this the Lightning I had known all these years?  Finally, he did relent and cracked a smile and told Emily he was just having fun with her.  She was relieved. But that was some performance he gave.  He missed his calling. He should have been an actor.

As we were chatting, Emily asked what I did for a living.  I told her I worked for PokerAtlas. Well, never had I gotten such a positive response when I’ve told someone that.  She started raving about how much she loved PokerAtlas and how much she uses it every time she comes to Vegas. “We always think it won’t be accurate, but you know, it’s always right. Always.  It’s just great.”  I said, “Will you tell my boss that?”  She said sure, give me the number, I’ll call right now.  I told her, “You know all the gazillion tournaments that are running right now in Vegas? (This was in the middle of the WSOP).  I entered every single one of them into our database.”  She was impressed. (So am I, truth be told).

By the way, I had lunch at the office the next day and told them this story, they loved it.

Then there was Lightning's big hand.  He’s already blogged about it (here) and it is featured prominently in Will’s video I linked to above.  Will was one of Lightning’s victims.  It is the second to last hand he covers, and you can see my hand pounding the table when the winner is revealed. It was a rather benign hand until the river when there was now 4 to a straight on board.  Any one with a Jack had a straight, but if one fortunate soul had King-Jack that would be the stone cold nuts. 

First to act led out for $100.  Will tanked.  I heard him muttering something about pot odds to chop.  Finally he called.  Then it was on Lightning, who really Hollywooded it up.  He talked and talked and worried and fretted and put on a show.  Remember how I told you how good an actor he was when he convinced Emily he was mad at her?  Well, he wasn’t quite as good an actor this time.  I thought he went overboard. But the thing was, he only had $141 left.  So it didn’t make much sense for him to just call.  He was trying to convince the other players that he really wanted to fold, but not sure he sold that.  Anyway, he finally shoved.  The guy on Will’s right instantly called but Will went into the tank again.  I was pretty sure he just had the Jack, and even though he had to believe at least one of the others had King-Jack, it was just not enough of a bet to get him to fold.  Not for $41.  I was sure Will would call and eventually he did.  Of course, Lightning was the only one with King-Jack and made a really nice profit for the session with that one hand.  

Emily had been telling all of us about the differences in poker etiquette in England vs. the U.S.  But somehow she wanted to bring up a difference between the two countries that had nothing to do with poker.  She suddenly turned to me and said, “I just found out that people are allowed to have guns here.”  That took me by surprise.  I said, “Yes, we have the second amendment.  The right to bear arms is constitutionally protected.”

She told me no one has guns in the U.K.  She went on and on about how different that was and she had a hard time grasping it.  She said, “Everyone here at this table could have a gun right now?”  I said, “Different states have different rules.  In some states it’s very restricted and you can’t conceal carry.  But in other states, it’s more lax.  I mean, in Texas you are required by law to have a gun on you at all times.”  

I think she almost believed me when Seat 9 piped up.  “That’s the way it should be.”  She and seat 9 got into a bit of a discussion about it with Seat 9 very much in favor of easy gun access.  She never did seem to understand it.  So finally I said to her, “You know why we have the second amendment, why we are all allowed to own guns?”  She said no.

“Well,” I said, “Hundreds of years ago, America was ruled by an evil country, led by an evil tyrant, who wanted to control everything about the way we lived.  And that country was called ‘England’.”  “No, no, I never heard of it, never heard of it…”  she was laughing as she said this.  “Yeah, you heard of it.  When we threw that country out of here, we put in the second amendment so we’d be armed in case any other country ever tried to control us again.”  Emily was still pretending she never heard of England, “No, no, I know nothing of this, I had nothing to do with it (she was laughing the whole time).”

“King George?  You never heard of King George?  Or George Washington?”  She laughingly denied every hearing of those two Georges.

Eventually we had to leave, albeit reluctantly. I told Emily I was definitely going to blog about her, and when I do, I wanted her to leave a comment. She said, “Oh, I hope you won’t be too mean to me, this crazy English girl you met.  I’m really pretty wonderful.”

I said to her, “Emily, are a total delight.  I had so much fun tonight.  You’re fantastic.”  She seemed touched. 

I left up over $400 but you couldn’t put a price tag on the fun I had.

Quad Aces for the Re-suck!

(This is part 1 of 2 parts)

As you know from my last two entries here, I was in Vegas recently.  And I had a poker session that was so much fun that I just have to blog about it.  So at least for the time being, my blog is back.

I was in Vegas for 12 days, and for much of the first week, my blogging pal Lightning was in town with me. In fact, he has already blogged about this night, which you can see here.  But now, for the first time, you will tell the true version of this night.

Back in the day, I played a lot of poker at MGM, but not so much recently. It’s not that I no longer like the room (although I must admit, I’m not a fan of uncapped 1/2 games like they have now). It’s mostly that over the recent years, all my dealer buddies have left the room. I go there now and I don’t recognize anyone.  It’s just another poker room, nobody knows me there. In the old days, it was like Norm walking into Cheers whenever I showed up there.

On this night, Lightning suggested that we hit up MGM for our evening session and it seemed like a good idea.  Because parking is always an issue at MGM properties, he picked me up at my hotel and we made our way to the poker room.

I got seated first and almost immediately picked up a fun vibe from this table.  I was in seat 5, directly across from the dealer, and the young lady on my right in seat 4 was obviously having a great time. When I first got there, she was mostly conversing with the young fellow in seat 2, who I noticed would occasionally take a camera out and appeared to be recording some hands. Two things became immediately obvious to me.  One, the young fellow was a vlogger (a blogger like me, except with video instead of text) And two, the young lady was British.

Emily (her real name) appeared fascinated by the concept of a vlog. And she was peppering Will (the vlogger, also his real name) with questions about vlogging.  I stayed quiet for a while, and noticed that Emily seemed excited that she might appear in a future vlog, especially after Will asked her name and wrote it down. She enthusiastically gave him her permission to use her likeness and her name should she be involved in a vlog-worthy hand.

Emily was chatting with everyone at the table, talking about the hands and about poker and about differences between poker in Vegas and England.  She was just one of those people who, while playing poker, engaged in just the right amount of conversation.  She talked a lot, but not so much that she ever got annoying (though she seemed to worry about that).  And almost everything she said was interesting and usually amusing.  She was just a really fun person to be sitting at a poker table with.  The most apt word I can think of to describe her is “delightful.”  Sadly, I don’t think I can sufficiently convey with just words just how truly delightful she was.

I asked Will what his YouTube channel was and looked it up on my phone.  It’s 4 Bet Blind.  He explained that he had come down from Portland for the WSOP where he hoped to find lots of material for his vlog.  He had played the Gladiators event at the WSOP the day before and gave us a few details about that.  Emily too had played the Gladiators.  She cashed but busted before Day 1 ended and we heard about that.

My session was up and down to start.  I won a small pot flopping a set of Jacks.  For this trip, the single hand I was dealt most often was pocket Jacks.  You’ll be surprised to hear that I only lost one time this entire trip with the dreaded pocket Kings.  That one time I ended folding to a bet (it may have been a bad fold, I’ll never know). 

Meanwhile Lightning was having a miserable time at his table, lost a buy-in and took a break.  I told him I didn’t know if my table was going to be profitable but that it sure was fun, and I wasn't about to leave it any time soon.  He got back in a game at a different table and put his name on the list for a table change to my game.  I was thinking it’s a shame that he was missing out on this fun.

Eventually the seat directly to my left opened up.  Lightning’s table was near mine so rather than text him I tried shouting his name.  The room was packed and he didn’t hear me.  Emily asked me if I was calling my friend and I said yes so she joined in yelling “John, John!”  He didn’t hear my voice but somehow he heard Emily’s!  I guess he’s been married so long, his ear is more attuned to hearing a female voice yelling at for him.

Lightning settled into seat 6 and I’m sure he immediately picked up on the fun vibe of the table.  Then a familiar face came in to deal.  It was my old pal “Joyce,” who’s been dealing to me at MGM probably since I started playing poker in Vegas. In researching her blog name, I discovered that despite dealing to me probably thousands of times, I had only mentioned her on the blog once.  But it was a fun post because, of course, it was the time we discussed her bra size.  But on this night we discussed what happened to all my old pals from MGM instead.  

Joyce turned out to be the only familiar face among the dealers that I saw in the room that night.  She greeted me warmly as I did her, and I asked about all my old pals.  She told me that there were just a few left…..but they were either floor people or shift managers.  The other dealers had all moved on.  I did know that a number of them were now working at South Point. 

We had just about finished going down memory lane when Joyce dealt me pocket Aces.  Nice.  I didn’t write down the details like I would have in the old days so I might not have this exactly right, but I believe I was one of the blinds and the relatively quiet fellow in seat 3 (so maybe the button?) raised to $8.  I made it $25 I think.  He called and it was heads up.  The flop was really nice. As5d8h.  Always nice to flop a set of Aces.  I didn’t expect to get any action but since I was the preflop aggressor I dutifully put out a bet and he called. The turn was 7d.  So a straight was possible if he had 6-4.  Since he had initially raised and then called my pre-flop three-bet, what were the chances of that?  Still there were now two diamonds on the board in addition to the straight.  I believe I bet again and he called.

I wasn’t too worried, but better safe than sorry, I remember thinking it would be nice to see the board pair just in case.  The river did indeed pair the board.  With an Ace!  A set of Aces is nice. Quad Aces is damn near perfect.

I assumed there was no way Seat 3 would call anything with two Aces on the board, so I put out a really small bet.  To my astonishment, he shoved!  Of course, I snap called and turned over my hand, saying “I think I got this!”  Seat 3 was surprised and somewhat argumentative.  He showed his hand, which was indeed 6-4, both diamonds and pointed out that if the 8 of hearts had been the 8 of diamonds, he’d have beaten my quads with a straight flush!  Except that it was the 8 of hearts, and he only picked up that straight flush draw on the turn, when he made his straight.

Wow, what a hand. It was the old “suck/re-suck.”  He sucked out on me on the turn, and I re-sucked out on him on the river.  Phew.  BTW, MGM does not have a bad beat jackpot, so if it had been quads vs. straight flush, I would have just had one horrendous bad beat story to tell, and not the prize of winning a bad beat jackpot.  Anyway, imagine winning with quad Aces which I actually needed them to beat his damn straight.  Set of Aces no good there.

Well there was quite a bit of excitement to say the least.  For one thing, the room has high-hand bonuses.  They are progressive, and it would be at least $100.  As it turned out, it was good for $150.  This was actually the second time since I’d been there that someone had quads. I think it was quad deuces and I also think they were hit by the very fellow in Seat 3! They also have a High Hand of the Hour that I might have qualified for in addition to the $150, but it happened after 9PM and the last high hand period ended at 9PM. Oh well.

There was also the pot.  I had Seat 3 covered but not by much. It was a healthy pot.  Damn, I didn’t write down how much it was, but I was sure that after it was over, I had more than a double up of my $200 buy-in, not counting the $150 bonus, which I pocketed when I received it some time later (I had plenty of chips to play without with the pretty green ones).

And you know who was almost as excited as I was over this hand?  Emily, of course.  She loved it. She insisted I hurry up and take a picture of the hand, then grabbed the phone out of my hand and took the pic for me because she had a better angle. But what happened was the guy in seat 9 was expressing his disapproval of Seat 3’s play.  How could he call my three-bet preflop with 6-4???  Even it if was sooooted???  He wasn’t involved in this hand at all but somehow the play of Seat 3 offended him!  Hours later, when seat 9 left, Emily commented to me about the guy being so upset with the way the hand was played, she was still wondering why it bothered that guy so much.  And Seat 3 seemed to be defending his play because he almost had a straight flush.  Or maybe because he had sucked out on me on the turn, and what were the chances of a re-suck?

Emily asked me if I was worried about the straight (before the river).  I said I saw it but it was so unlikely.  Emily agreed.  She said something to the effect of, “How could you imagine anyone playing like that?  I mean, he’d have to be a complete idiot to have 6-4 there!”  That’s just a weak paraphrase, I wish I had written it down at the time.  But I do know she referred to Seat 3 as an idiot over the way he played this hand any number of times.  And she was actually arguing with Seat 9 about it, even though they were both questioning Seat 3’s play.

I was a bit surprised that Emily was so critical of Seat 3.  I mean calling him an idiot seemed out of line, to say the least.  But they had been friendly and I had already picked up that Seat 3 was a Brit like her.  I had assumed they met at the table and bonded over their mutual heritage.  Boy was I was wrong.  Before the evening was over I figured out, and then confirmed, that Seat 3’s name was Matt and he was indeed Emily’s husband!  This made it even more fun for me that Emily seemed to be so happy about my quad Aces.  And I guess it somehow made it ok that she called him a complete idiot.  Likely not for the first time!

And let me defend Matt’s play there.  By this time he obviously knew I was a tight player and when I three-bet there he can put me on a very narrow range that includes Aces, Kings and maybe Ace-King.  Maybe.  Probably not even Queens.  So maybe if he hits something unexpected, I will get sticky with it and put all my chips in play against a hand I couldn’t possibly expect a decent player to have there. Which in fact is exactly what happened.  Except I pulled off the re-suck. Trouble is, if that was what he was thinking, he has to know it is almost more likely than not that I do have quad Aces on the river. I mean I wouldn’t play Kings like that with all the Aces on board.  And would I have played just top pair that strong with the straight out there (however unlikely)?

Emily confessed that they never play at the same table usually but because it was so busy there they had no choice.  So they ended up sitting right next to each other.  I wonder if that hand came up in their subsequent conversations during their trip?

I’m not sure about this but I think Emily asked Will if he caught any of that hand for his vlog, and I think he said he might have. But since he wasn’t involved in the hand I rather doubt he recorded any of it.  But Emily was excited about the possibility of it appearing in Will’s vlog.  It was probably at this point that I did something I rarely do.  I came out of the closet.

Yes, I admitted to being the world famous poker blogger Robvegaspoker. While Emily was still quizzing Will about his vlog, and kept asking, “are you gonna put this in the vlog?” I spoke up.  “You know, I’m internet famous, too.”  She asked who I was and I told her.  And I said, “I used to have a pretty popular blog.  A written blog, low-tech, not video like Will.”  She went searching the web for it immediately and found it.  I said, “I’ve only done one blog post this year but I have to blog about the quad Aces for sure.”  She took a screenshot of the blog and promised to look for the blog post. I told her Lightning also had a blog (or maybe he told her himself) and she took a screenshot of his blog too.

So she asked me if I was “Rob” or “Robert” and I said “Yes.”  She must have thought I was being a smart ass so explained, “My legal name is Robert but I go by Rob.” Then she went on about how Robert is a great name, explaining that in England there are some strong names and Robert is one of them.  She also liked the name John.

I took issue with that a bit. “Are there any Roberts in England?  I’ve never heard of an English Robert.  There’s never been a King Robert, has there?”  But she insisted it was a good English name and then told me it was the name of her dear father who had passed away a few years ago.  I don’t recall if she said I reminded her of him or if she could see me as her father substitute, something like that.  She asked me what year I was born.  I was taken aback by that but I finally told her and she expressed a bit of surprise, which I took to mean she thought I was younger than I am but I could just be flattering myself.  She told me her dad was born a few years after I was.  

Yours truly with the delightful Emily

And that’s where I’m going to leave this part 1.  I haven’t written up the rest, so it may take some time to get more posted, but please check back.  In future installments we discuss Robin Hood, the player who actually complained about hitting quad 6’s, Emily’s favorite poker app (PokerAtlas, of course), Lightning’s Academy Award winning performance, the American Revolution and of course, the 2nd Amendment (really)!  Check back early and often!

NOTE:  PART 2 IS NOW LIVE, FIND IT HERE.