"Let Me Rub For Luck"

On a Tuesday evening in December, before Christmas, I played at Caesars with my buddy Don.  This was the evening that I had dinner with Don and then had to (almost literally) chauffeur him to the Strip because of the inability of my car seats to adjust, as I explained here.

The room was busy when we got there and I got called first after just a few minutes.  But then it took a long, long time for Don to get called into a game.  Eventually they opened a new table and Don got a seat, it was on the on the other side of the room from where I was. Well, new tables are never very good, right?  Plus I had just won a decent pot with a set (details to follow), so I didn't text Don to see if I should bother to try to get a table change to his game.  When I finally heard about that game Don was in—the next day—I really regretted not trying to move to his game.

He had such a good time he ended up playing all night, even though he finished the session down $2 and was never up or down more than $40.  It was just a fun group of people having a great time. They were all joking around—It was too much fun to leave.  Then he told me a story to illustrate.  I'll just quote from his text:

"There was one woman who is a regular in the room named Amy who was the main instigator.  But a group of us played off that.  Amy is 29, about 5'2", Vietnamese and cute as hell. At the first dealer change, she hugged a female dealer named Alison and said in her high squeaky voice, 'Let me rub for luck,' as she grabbed Alison's tits."

Damn!  I should have been there for that.  I responded that this was a perfect story for my blog. He went on to say that Amy drinks like a fish when she plays.  One of the dealer joked that when she took some time off from playing, their liquor distributor asked what was wrong with the room.

Anyway, in response to my pointing out that the "rub for luck" story was basically the kind of story this blog was created for, he told me, "That might not even be the best story of the night. But the other one has to be told in person."

Damn.

I didn't press him for more details. I assumed it was a visual.  Besides, I was sure I'd see Don again before I left town.  But for several reasons (mostly my well-documented car troubles) I never saw Don again this trip.  Hopefully he'll still remember it when I do finally see him again.

Anyway, back to my poker session. I won a couple of really small pots when my low pair was better than anyone else's lower pair.  But I was mostly card dead at the start and had managed to deplete my $200 starting stack to about $110-$120.  Then I got pocket Jacks.  After a limper, I made it $10 and it was three ways.   The flop was Jack-4-3, rainbow.  The preflop limper donked out $17.  Hmm….  Because it was rainbow, I decided to just call.  The other guy called as well.  The turn was a 7 and this time the limper checked.  So I put out $35.  The third guy folded but the limper called.  The river was an 8.  The limper made $40.  Ugh.  Did he really have 6-5?  I didn't think it was likely. I shoved, which couldn't have been more than $10-$15 more than his bet (and he had plenty behind).  He instantly mucked.  He must have really had nothing because it was a ridiculously small call to make for the size of the pot.

Caesars is back using those damn $2 chips, which are green.  A light lime green, not the dark green of the $25 chips.  Still I've seen people get them confused.  I got confused on this next hand but not that way. In the small blind I completed with 8-7 clubs and it was six-ways.  The flop was 8-8-2 and surely someone would bet I thought, so I checked.  A guy put out 2 lime green chips and a blue one, which was $5.  It folded back to me and for some reason, somehow, I thought it was a $7 bet.  That would take a red chip and two blue chips, but that's not what was out there.  I dunno, I guess I just had a brain freeze but at the time I thought my error was due to the damn $2 chips he was using.   Regardless, I put out two redbirds to call, figuring I would wait for the turn to check-raise.  But my action constituted a raise.  I had to catch myself from "correcting" the dealer when he said raise.  Well it didn't matter, the guy folded to my $5 raise.  Obviously I wasn't going to get any more money out of him on that hand either way.

Then I got pocket Aces.  I raised to $10 and got called by four players. The flop was Queen-high, two clubs, and neither of my bullets was the club.  A guy donked out $45.  What am I supposed to do there?  Is he donking into the raiser with just a Queen or did he flop bigger than that?  Is he betting a flush draw?  I ended up calling, not sure what my play is there.  The turn was a third club and we both checked.  The river was the fourth club and again, we both checked.

So I was floored when he flipped over Ace-Queen, the Ace being a club.  He had the nut flush, how does he not bet the river?  Now for some reason I didn't note/remember the denominations of the other cards on the board, but I'm sure there was no pair because for sure I would have noted that. He checked the river with the stone cold nuts. I suppose he might have been hoping I'd bet but I don't think I'd given an indication that I would have.  I lost money, but it could have been a lot worse.  But then, I wasn't going to call a big bet on the river.

After a bunch of limpers, I limped in from the button with King-Queen clubs.  I know I should have raised, but decided not to because there were so many limpers.  The flop was pretty good, Jack-10-9.  There were two spades and a club. Someone bet $15 and I made it $45.  He called and we were heads up.  He checked the turn, the 6 of diamonds.  I shoved, it was a little bit more than my $45 bet on the flop had been.  He tanked but folded.

That was it.  I ended up losing a few bucks.  I said goodbye to Don and heard from him the next morning about his adventures at the fun table. 

"I Put The Over/Under at 2-1/2....."

The Nightmare Before—And After—Christmas

Chapter 11

Warning:  This post will have some actual poker content!  That's right, even though this post is the next chapter in my car troubles saga, I have decided to include my New Year's Eve festivities—in an actual casino, playing poker—as part of it.  Up until now, I've skipped over the parts where I got to a poker room to play, planning on catching up with those stories later.  But for this night only, I will discuss my long poker session that took place immediately after the lost radiator cap incident.  It makes sense, because I was only in Vegas to play on this night because of the car problems.  And besides, I know you folks are all hungry for some poker content by now, right?  Oh, and I just might have a few words to say about the scantily clad young ladies dressed to the nines for NY's Eve as well.

As a reminder, the previous chapter can be found here.  And you can find all the posts in this epic saga using the label "Stranded in Vegas."

I left you hanging on NY's Eve, around 5:45pm, with my radiator cap secured, hoping I could make it to the MGM before they closed all the streets for the big New Year's celebration.

I decided to see if Google Maps had a suggested route that was still open.  I could see from the map they knew a lot of the roads were closed. But they suggested an interesting route, which they said was "fastest route due to road closures."  It was actually the simplest route—straight down Flamingo, turn right on the Strip, turn left at Tropicana.  Now, I spend my entire time in Vegas steadfastly avoiding driving on the Strip, it's a traffic nightmare.  So I would not normally go that way.  But the thing is, my best non-Strip routes were already closed to traffic.

I hurried to see if I could make it before they closed the Strip, which they were about to do any second.  Sure enough, the traffic going down Flamingo was incredibly light.  People were already avoiding it.  I turned on the Strip and couldn't believe it.  I practically had the street to myself.  Seriously, I had never seen the Strip that empty. It was a pleasure driving on it.  Tropicana was also light traffic, and I had no trouble turning into the MGM parking structure.  I probably made it to the garage with just minutes to spare before they closed Flamingo, Tropicana and the Strip!  Thank you, TC!

Parking was a little more difficult.  I wanted to go up to the 6th floor (instead of my usual floor, either 4 or 5) but signs said the 6th & 7th levels were closed.  Great night to close some of the parking levels, only their busiest night of the year.  Well I found a spot on the fifth floor, just not as close to the elevators as I would have liked. I knew I was pretty much stuck at MGM for the next 8-9 hours or so.

I figured I should get dinner out of the way before starting to play.  There was really only one decent option for me.  I didn't have enough comps to eat at the sports bar and it is way too overpriced for me to pay for a meal there.  The deli that replaced the Stage Deli is an abomination, terrible food at unreasonable prices.  Fortunately a year or two ago they put in a Subway just before you enter (or exit) the parking garage.  It would have to do.

The good thing about the Subway is that they had a bunch of wrapped, plastic straws over where you got your soda (no free refills, not at a Subway in a casino, no sir). I took a few extra because I knew that it was still MGM policy not to provide straws for drinks in the casino. Finally figured out a way to beat the system.

I was at the poker room around 7 and was seated right away.  And I got lucky. I was not only sent to a table right up against the rail separating the room from the walkway, but my seat was facing all the foot traffic.  In other words, I had a prime seat for enjoying the New Year's Eve Slut Parade which was about to commence.  And damn it, after all I'd been through with the car the past 10 days, I felt entitled to a free show. 

And there was plenty to see.  Hakkasan always attracts a huge NY's Eve crowd and they were arriving early.  Now at first, a lot of the ladies were wearing pants.  Some nerve!  Actually I couldn't blame them, it was just so cold in Vegas.  But pretty much all the females I could see walking by the poker room were at risk of getting severe chest colds.  Every conceivable way to display the female breast while still keeping the outfit legal was featured this night. There was a high percentage of really attractive women, to be sure.

Before you ask (for the umpteenth time), no, I didn't get any pics.  Sorry. I always thought it was impossible, but every now and then I have tried.  I've even tried to take some video.  But it never comes out well.  And worse, trying to record it totally ruins it for me, I end up missing the action trying to document it.  It's just not something I can do.

Anyway, the guys at my table (and at this point, it was all guys), were definitely noticing the girls.  One guy said, "Don't they wear bras in Vegas?"  I saw girls obviously wearing bras, but I did see a few who definitely needed them but had apparently forgotten to put one on before leaving the house. One guy, a serious player who was only playing at this game because he was waiting for a seat at the 2-5 game, actually moved so he would have his back to the walkway so he would be less distracted.  I suppose that made sense, but if you can't have a little harmless fun while you're in Vegas on NY's Eve, what's the point?

When a female dealer pushed in, some of our comments on the girls stopped, but everyone was still enjoying the sights.  The dealer noticed and said something like, "Yeah, all these girls walking by, with just one tiny little piece of fabric covering them."

The male dealer who replaced her was certainly enjoying the view.  The dealer's seat was the perfect spot to notice the ladies.  Almost immediately after sitting down, he said, "What's the over/under on how many naked girls we're gonna see from this spot tonite?"  One of the players asked, "Naked naked?"  The dealer said, "Well not naked naked. But partially naked.  Titties falling out.  I'm gonna put it at 2-1/2 titties."  The player asked for a clarification of what he meant.  So he pantomimed where the dress might be cut down to and said they would fall out.

By that standard, I saw no titties that night.

Much later, after we had entered 2019, there was a different male dealer at the table and by now a couple of ladies had joined our table. This guy was apparently making a double-entendre having to do with something that had happened while he was shuffling or dealing the cards.  He said, to the entire table, "When I double fist…."  but he never finished his thought.  However, the woman across from me said, "Tell us more."  But he must have realized what he was saying was totally inappropriate and didn't continue the conversation.

As for the poker, it was pretty good.  It was mostly non-regs. There was one really good player from the east coast—the guy who moved so he wouldn't see the girls walking by.  The rest were pretty average or worse.  I won a few small pots but nothing major, and was about even when the big hand happened.

There was one fairly aggro at the table who built up a good stack but eventually busted out.  The other player in this hand was a newbie.  Well, he was new to brick-and-mortar.  He said he is used to playing with just his friends.  He kept making the kind of mistakes a player without much card room experience would make, like making string bets.

On this hand I called $12 from the aggro with pocket 8's.  A number of others called—it was 5 or 6 way—including the newbie.  The flop was King-10-8 rainbow.  The preflop raiser (the aggro) bet $26.  With a number of players behind me and no flush draw out there, I decided I could slow play it and just called.  It folded to the newbie who shoved $112.  The aggro tanked for a bit, finally said, "OK, let's gamble," and called.  It was back on me.

I put the newbie on one of two hands.  He either had pocket 10's and I was screwed, or he had King-10 and I was in very good shape. There was no way he was doing that with a draw, or with just top pair.  He had at least two pair or a set.  I suppose King-8 or 10-8 were possible, but I couldn't see him calling the raise with those hands.  I figured a set of  Kings was unlikely, I think he would have three-bet pre with those.  I couldn't rule it out completely, but it a set of 10's seemed so much more likely.

Of course I wasn't folding my bottom set.  The next day, when I recorded my notes, I couldn't believe I didn't shove then.  But I just called.  I wish I could explain my thought process, but I can't.

The turn was a blank and after the aggro checked, I shoved.  But he folded.  I was now heads up against the newbie.  The river also blanked and the newbie showed, King-10, just as I thought.  He was stunned when he saw my set of 8's.  But he rebought.  Meanwhile, I now was sitting behind over $400. 

At some point in the evening, before midnight, two Indians joined our table, and then things got wild.  One them had blond hair.  I dunno, but it was a bit disconcerting to see a man from India with blond hair.  The blond Indian was an absolute maniac.  Fortunately he was sitting directly on my right.  His friend was next to him.  The non-blond was a rather timid player, most likely new, and not much of a threat.  He busted out fairly soon, borrowed some money from his buddy, re-entered the game and lost that too.  Then he mostly sat behind his blond buddy and watched.

At one point, the one still playing went up to use the restroom.  And his buddy, by now just a spectator, took his seat and intended to play his friend's stack.  For some reason the dealer was distracted and didn't notice.  I had to stop her from dealing him cards by pointing out that they had pulled the switch.  "You can't do that!" I said to the guy.  "I can't?  Oh, ok."  Once the dealer realized what had happened she slid his card to me.

The blond guy was usually betting big, big preflop raises, big bets on all the streets when he stayed in a hand (which was most of the time).  He bullied people into a lot of folds, but I swear, on those rare times when he had to show, he usually had a monster.  One time he had King-Jack and flopped a boat.  He had a high variance  game to say the least.  He was spreading chips all over the table, except to me.  I was totally card dead after the set of 8's hand.

Remember the tough player who was waiting for a seat in the 2-5 game?  Well, once that guy saw the Indian putting tons of chips in play, he decided to stay in this game.  His stack went up and down, as did the Indian's.  The tough player once shoved the turn with King-high and the Indian called—with just a draw.  Of course he hit his flush on the river and a big stack of chips changed hands.  I said to the tough player, "Easy come, easy go."  He just nodded.  He wasn't upset. He knew there was a good chance he'd get them back.  And he did.

Now before the set of 8's hand, I had won a smallish pot with a set of deuces that boated up on the turn (no call on my turn bet).  I had also flopped trip deuces with 3-2 from the big blind.  Again, no call on my turn bet.  But that was earlier.  Now I was getting nothing to play.

Meanwhile, after distributing stacks around the table and rebuying a few times, the Indian's game had settled down.  Although he was still making big bets on later streets, and even shoving into very small pots, he had mostly taken to limping instead of raising preflop.  So I limped behind him with pocket 9's and it was four way.  The flop was 9-high, my third set of the night.  I bet $10 and everyone called.  The turn was a 10 and put a second diamond on the board.  I decided to bet big so I made it $75.  It folded back to the Indian and he called without a thought.

The river was the Ace of diamonds.  So now there was a flush possible.  When he checked, I decided to play it safe and checked behind.  I hadn't seen this guy do a lot of check-raising but I didn't want to be put in a difficult spot if decided to try it now.  I showed my set and he turned over Queen-7off suit.  Which meant he had nothing, absolutely nothing.  There was no Jack or 8 on the board that he could have made a straight with.  It looked like he had a pair draw.  Why the hell he called my bet on the turn with that, I have no idea.  But I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have called anything I could have bet on the river, because he had to know his Queen high wasn't good.

Last hand I'll mention, I had pocket Jacks.  The Indian opened to $20.  By this time, he was mostly limping so it was a bit of a surprise.  I think if I had gotten Jacks when he first sat down and was raising big every time, I would have three-bet.  But now I had to assume he had a pretty good hand.  There were a few callers and the flop was Ace-10-x.  He bet big and I just folded.  There was one caller and then on the turn he bet big again and took it down.  He showed his hand though he didn't have to.  Pocket 10's. So I was ahead of him pre but he would have called my three-bet and then taken the pot with his set.

Although many games broke as midnight approached and folks left to go outside to watch the fireworks in the freezing cold, our table never stopped.  It was almost always full even as the casino was mostly empty. Our dealer wondered if it was going to get busy again after the fireworks.  She was new to the room and this was her first NY's Eve. She was hoping it wouldn't so she could take an early out and leave before her scheduled time of 3am.  But I told her it was going to get real busy by 12:30.  "They are going to be opening tables left and right, watch."  Well I was right but I guess I should have told this to the folks running the room, all of whom were fairly new to the room and apparently didn't know what to expect on NY's eve.  They actually sent a bunch of dealers home during the lull and then suddenly the dealers who stayed were all working seven straight tables without a break.

After midnight this real character got into the game.  A friendly guy from Arkansas.  They must have different rules where he normally plays.  He liked to talk about his cards.  All the time.  When he was facing a bet, he'd say, "Well I got King-Queen so…"  He kept talking about what he was holding.  Was he telling the truth?  Sometimes he was.  But one time he said what he had, then actually flashed his cards.  The other player didn't see it but the dealer did and said his cards were not what he said they were.

Well all of that is strictly forbidden at MGM.  You can't talk about your cards, and you surely can't reveal them as long as there is still action pending.  The dealer warned him about this time and time again.  He didn't care. He was there to have a good time and for him that mean chatting about his cards.

He would say, "But it's heads up. I've got Ace-3."  He was told he couldn't say that even if it was heads up.  "Well, I don't believe that. I'm talking about my cards."  The floor was called and warned him sternly.  He didn't say anything and then when the floor left he went right back to saying what his cards were.

The more he was warned, the more pissed off he got. He started swearing.  "I don't care what the f*** they say, I'm talking about my cards."

The other players didn't mind of course.  In addition to all this information he was giving us, he also was dropping numerous buy-ins and reloading.  I'm pretty sure he had quite a few alcoholic beverages before joining us to celebrate the new year.

But eventually they did kick him out.  He didn't go quietly, shouting, "They're mother-f***ers."  One of the women at the table said, "Hey, you can call me a mother-f***er if you're giving me your money."

I grew tired of being so card dead and more importantly, I was just plain tired.  So I cashed out up $225. 

It was still too early for the roads to have reopened, so I wandered around, enjoying the view.  There were provocatively dressed young ladies everywhere, most of them quite attractive. I saw one young lady sitting down in her very short dress, and for a brief second I thought I noticed that she wasn't wearing any underwear.  Being a gentleman, I looked away immediately so as not to see something that should be only be seen by her future husband (or, her gynecologist).  So I really can't be sure if perhaps she was just wearing flesh-colored undies.

I guess it was around 3am when I saw that all the roads had been reopened and I could get back to the Gold Coast easily.  And fortunately, the car was still behaving fine and I made it back there without incident.

And that's it for this chapter. I'm not sure, but I think I will be able to wrap up this saga in one or two more chapters.  But since I haven't listened to my recordings yet, and it has been awhile at this point, don't hold me to it.  We'll just have to see.  Back soon.  (Edited to add:  Yes!  Our long national nightmare is over.  I was able to wrap it up with one last chapter, and you can find that chapter here.)

Poker and Boobs

The night after I played in the Neeme/Owen meet up game (here), I returned to Westgate to play in The Trooper's game.  The Neeme/Owen meet up games are irregularly scheduled, but Trooper has his game at Westgate scheduled for every Thursday night.

Again I phoned ahead to get on the list and again there wasn't a seat available when I got there.  There were two full tables.  I immediately found Tim, aka Trooper, and went over to say hello.  I'm not sure I'd seen Tim since the Linq closed its poker room.  He gave me a warm greeting, shouting "Robvegaspoker!"  He asked if I came from California.  Yes, but not that night, I'd been in Vegas for almost a week. And at Tim's table, I noticed AustinBluffs, who I had sat next to at the other Vloggers' game the night before

Before I got into a game, I helped myself to some chocolate chip cookies proved by the poker room.  Later, Tim brought in a pizza, and I confess I had a piece.  As I write this, I realize that I forgot to mention that at the Neeme/Owen meet up game the night before, they had sent out for a bunch of pizzas and I had a slice or two (or more?).  Thanks to everyone who provided me with free food at the Westgate over these two nights.

Actually, one of the floor people was sitting in at the other table and gave me his seat, so I got into a game fairly quickly, but not at the table Tim was at.  Our table was pretty quiet, except for one player who talked basically non-stop.  I'm going to call this player "Petey" because that's what Tim called him.  I have no idea if that's his real name or a nickname bestowed upon him by Tim.

Petey didn't let the fact that he wasn't at Tim's table stop him from carrying on a lengthy conversation with him from across the room.  Apparently, Petey and Tim were acquaintances from before.  I wasn't sure if Petey had been to previous Trooper games at the Westgate or if perhaps Petey had just run into Tim at a poker room in Vegas.  Petey was obsessed with Tim's coffee drinking habits.  He wanted to know how much Tim spent on coffee a month.  He even came up with an over/under figure on it.  I don't recall what it was.  Tim gave him a figure which Petey thought was too low and Tim went thru the numbers with him to show him how he was wrong.

After I'd been playing for at least an hour (maybe more), Tim and his fellow vlogger pal Pure Aggression switched tables so Tim ended up at my table.  And after a seat change by another player, Tim ended up seated to my immediate left.

I think they were doing bomb pots at the other table but we couldn't get unanimous agreement to have them at our table, mostly because Petey vetoed the idea.  He claimed poverty.  Since I continued to be card dead, that was ok by me.  One of the (many) things Petey was talking about was that he had to leave soon to go to a movie.  When he finally did leave, I asked him what movie he was going to see.  He said Jumanji.  I dunno why, but everyone thought that was funny.

Tim said he hadn't gone to the movies in like forever.   So I said, "You know, they have sound now."  The dealer for some reason thought that was hilarious.

The two guys on Petey's left and my right, a couple of older gentlemen, just happened to be there for poker and didn't know who Trooper was—or for that matter, what a vlog was.  Petey explained it to them.  He said there were other vloggers but Trooper was the biggest.  Tim corrected them.  "I'm not the biggest, but I was the first."  They asked if Trooper's vlog were all about poker and he said not really.

Later, he told the table that I had a popular written blog. "He's robvegaspoker….he has a blog about poker…..and boobs."  The dealer (same one who liked my "movies have sound now" joke) said, "Boobs?  Why didn't you tell me?  Now I'm interested."

Tim mentioned that he is leaning towards getting away from poker.  "I'm getting a new hustle."  He didn't elaborate.  People were guessing.  I guessed pimp or stripper, but he said no.  I think I may have also guessed if that he was going to become a woman, that too was incorrect.

We talked a lot and Tim spent some time trying to talk me into changing the blog into a vlog.  "You gotta do video, that's where it's at.  No one reads any more.  I don't read."  I said, "Yeah, well, I have a face for writing."  He said, "Well do audio then.  Do a podcast."  I said, "Well, you can't do boobs on audio."  Tim replied, "Sure you can.  You can talk about the sound they make, like when they're flapping around."  I said, "Motor-boating?"  Yeah.

Soon after Tim joined our table, there was some commotion at the table he left.  There was some kind of dispute between two players and loud words were exchanged, some threats were made and eventually one of the players was booted out of the room.  I don't think Tim got any of that on his video though.

Also, Tim and Petey got off on some weird tangent on advanced mathematics.  They were trying to figure out what a trapezoid was and how it differed from a parallelogram.  Then the discussed planes.  It was not typical poker table talk, that's for sure.  Fortunately, debates/discussions like this don't have to take too long these days, with everyone having Google in the pocket.

The game was 1/3 and as I mentioned, I was card-dead again.  My stack dwindled down until I was short-stacked, and I was debating whether or not to add-on.  So I got pocket Aces in the big blind and raised to $15.  There was one or two callers.  The flop was low and I bet $25, got one call.  The turn paired the board (7's) and he donked out a bet.  It was almost my remaining stack so I shoved and he snap called.  Now, earlier in the evening I had noticed that a player was paid for $50 for having his Aces cracked.  I had forgotten they had this promotion until then.  Lucky for me I saw it then.  By this time, I knew if I got my Aces cracked I'd get $50.  So I was in a no lose situation.  Either my Aces were good and I'd win the pot, or they were no good and I'd at least get $50 for my troubles.  Once I had bet the $25 and been called, it only made sense to commit my stack there with the Aces.  The river blanked and of course he showed 7-6 for trips.  But I showed my hand and got the $50 promo money.  I probably wouldn't have played it any different if I hadn't know about the Aces cracked promo, but I wouldn't have known to show my hand to get that promo money otherwise.

I'm pretty sure that this was the first time I was ever paid for hitting an Aces cracked promotion.

I added $50 out of my pocket so I could have a little more money to play with, but it was pretty clear this wasn't going to be my night.  I should have left then but I was enjoying the conversation too much.  But I was at my cut-off there, I wasn't going to dig into my wallet again.

Which explains the hand you can actually see me play in Trooper's 360 video from this table, which you can find here. It's near the very end of the video. I was down to $15 and I had pocket 7's.  I shoved, first in.  Three people called and I just watched the rest of the hand.  The flop was Jack-10-8, two spades.  When the turn was the Ace of spades, I think you can see on the video that I checked my hand to see if one of my 7's was a spade and sure enough it was.  So the 9 of spades on the river gave me a flush (and also a straight, I didn't notice that til I watched the video myself).  Was it good enough?  Actually it was.  One guy had a straight another guy had two pair, I'm not sure what the third guy had but my 7-high flush was good.  I didn't realize that Tim had likely recorded the hand until he came back to the table.

I returned to losing and cashed out a few chips.  It was a fun time but again, just couldn't get any cards.

The "regular" video that Trooper made of this game can be found here.  Thanks to Tim and to the Westgate for sponsoring these games, they are great fun and great for the Vegas poker community.

I Wonder if He's Still Good Enough to Fold Pocket Kings?

This is a repost.  The reason I'm reposting this particular post is that I've recently encountered the star of this post, "Austin Bluffs", not once, not twice, but three times in the past week or so.  The first time was via a Periscope that the Aria poker room folks did.  He noticed that I was watching and gave me a shout out, forcing me to revisit the post.  I hadn't heard anything from Austin in all this time, since the story you are about to (re) read.  As for the other two times I've run into him, well, I'll save that for when I get around to writing about the events of the previous two nights here in Vegas.

This post originally appeared October 24, 2013, but the event that it referred to happened in July of that year.

Hope you enjoy this trip down memory lane!

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The other morning, I woke up to the following tweet from someone going by the Twitter handle, “Austin Bluffs”:

“I just recognized you in Ante Up, I laid down KK against you PF at MGM in July, good lay down, right?”

My first reaction was, “huh?”  How the heck am I supposed to remember some hand from July?

I appreciated the fact that somebody recognized me from my little pic in Ante Up and tracked me down.  Actually, I was amazed by it.

I mean, here’s someone obsessing over a hand that happened over 3 months ago.  But hey, as a poker player myself, I could certainly relate to that.  Yeah I could.  In fact, I have a blog where I have a permanent record of hands I tend to obsess over.  When I go back and read some of my early posts, and read about the bad beats, they still piss me off.

But something else surprised me.  He recognized me from that tiny picture.  And not just as, “Oh, I know I played against this guy a few months ago.”  No, no….he looked at that pic, recognized me—and this is key—recognized me as the guy who got him to lay down pocket Kings preflop!  Recognizing me as that guy really impressed me, I have to admit.

I wondered if I had blogged about the hand he was talking about, but I doubted it.  I think if I would have blogged about it, I would have remembered.  

So I tweeted back to Austin for more info on the hand.  Maybe he could explain enough about the hand to trigger my memory.  I tweeted to him:  “Wow. Seriously? You'd have to give me details about the hand for me to try to rack my brain (or my blog notes) to remember.”

I mentioned my blog notes on purpose.  I had no idea if Austin reads my blog.  I couldn’t assume he did.  But I wanted to give him a heads up about it.  Maybe he’d come back and say he looked for a mention of it but I had never written about it.  Maybe he’d start reading it to see if he could find something.

In the meantime, I looked through some of Austin’s tweets.  I found an interesting one on July 6.  He tweeted to All Vegas Poker’s twitter account (and to Las Vegas Michael, the one-time main face of AVP) “pls ask Robert S from your staff if the guy (me) who laid down KK preflop had a good read (AA) on his 5-bet @MGM.”

I didn’t spend too much time analyzing this tweet because it gave me the vital piece of info I needed—the date, or the approximate date—the incident took place.

That meant I could probably find the hand in my notes.  As I’ve explained previously, since around March, I’ve been doing voice notes to chronicle my Vegas adventures, usually recorded the morning after every day of poker/Vegas activities.  And more recently, I started a spreadsheet to keep track of what significant events happened and on which voice recordings I could find them.  That means I avoid listening to 20-40 minutes worth of notes before finding out if there’s anything there worth blogging about.  I can find the stories I know I want to tell easier.  Then, when I do the blog post, I put the title of said post in the next column, so I know the story is done, and I don’t have to review those notes any further. 

The tweet was sent at 6 in the morning, so it was safe to say the hand must have occurred July 5 or before.  I opened my spreadsheet and saw the details I had from that day.  Actually, all I had to look at was the name of the blog post that I had indeed written about that day.

And when I saw what post it was, I almost shit in my pants. 

The title of the post was “Bad Beats & Big Tits” and you can find it here.  I remembered that post very well.  It was about a few really bad beats I took in a couple of consecutive sessions.  And about how I humorously blamed a guy who was sitting next to me both sessions for my bad luck.  At least I was trying to be funny. In that attempt, I went on and on—as I am known to do—about certain physical attributes that the player’s wife was displaying rather liberally. I believe the title of the post will give you a pretty big hint about what that was.

I knew that I didn’t suffer any bad beats to the guy I was “blaming” for my bad luck (also known as the husband of the woman with big tits).  But since I had no memory of what Austin was talking about, I couldn’t be sure that Austin wasn’t the husband of the woman with the big tits.

And if he was, that really scared me.  I’ve mentioned before being worried about some of the subjects of my posts recognizing themselves here and being upset with me for what I’ve written.  The biggest concern I’ve had was Denise, the lovely dealer who I complimented in a very ungentlemanly fashion.  But it turned out, not only wasn’t she offended, she was actually thrilled that I had “tooted her horn”—she was flattered, totally ignoring the tackiness of my comments (see here).

This would be similar, but somehow very different.  The husband of the woman I had written about the way I had this woman might not be so thrilled with my ungentlemanly assessment of his wife’s assets.  He might not find any humor in it all. He might want to defend his wife’s “honor.”

So I may have just suggested to this husband that he search my blog to find the hand he was obsessing over.  And he might find the story of me discussing his wife’s chest instead.

Damn.

Suddenly I wished I hadn’t sent that tweet to Austin, I certainly wished I hadn’t mentioned the blog on it, and I wasted no time finding my voice notes from the 5^th and listening to them.

It was the first time I’d played back the voice notes since I wrote that post, which I did just a day or two after the session. I should point out, as I’ve mentioned numerous times before, in order to help me do those voice notes, I take notes of certain hands right at the table, soon after they happen.

So I heard myself on the voice note saying, after I’ve set up the situation, “I guess I’ll read the hands even though nothing really matters but the last hand, because I lost my entire stack on the last hand.  Because poker’s such a good game.  But I’ll read them anyway.”

Yeah, I was bitter.  If you reread that post, you’ll see why.  This was the morning after my set of 9’s got beat, the first hand of that post.

I listened through a few hands, and then I heard myself saying, “Then, the most interesting hand that I can possibly blog about other than the one that f***ed me up the ass.” (yeah, that’s the way I talk to myself in these notes).  I went on to say that I had pocket Aces.  One guy made it $6, another player called, I made it $18, and the guy in seat 9 made it $50.

I breathed a sigh of relief even before hearing the rest.  I was sure this was the hand Austin was referring to.  He must have been the guy in seat 9.  Couldn’t have been the man whose wife had the big ones, he was sitting right next to me in seat 4.  Phew.

I continued describing the hand.  It folded back to me.  I put a stack of $100 right next to the $18 I had initially put out.  It folded back to seat 9.  He tanked.

According to my notes, he said, “I know you got Aces.  I know you got Aces……You got Aces.”  And then he folded.  Face up.  Showing the dreaded pocket Kings.

Now, I’m absolutely sure at the moment that happened, my thought was, “Wow, this is going to be a blog post.  I got a guy to fold pocket Kings.  I found a player good enough to fold pocket Kings (see here)."  At the time, I was sure that hand would be the main story of the blog post coming from that session.  I mean, there’s the whole “good enough to fold pocket Kings” bit that I’ve discussed several times.  There’s the fact that it was indeed the dreaded pocket Kings (which appear more often in this blog than “boobs mentionings”).  Plus the numerous times I’ve discussed the whole Aces vs. Kings scenario (see here).  And you know, you just so rarely see a guy fold Kings preflop.  It’s memorable.

But of course, the last hand of the night made me forget this hand completely.

Back to my voice notes.  I explained that the guy to my right—who was probably the guy with the large-breasted wife (although this might have been before he showed up)—said, “No, he had Queens.”

Seat 9 said, “Well, then it was a good bet.”

The player to my right said, “Queens or Jacks.”

I just smiled.  I came pretty close to showing, but held back.  I said, “Deuces.”

Player to my right said, “I’m sure you had better than deuces.”

I said, “OK, threes.”

Player 9 said, “He’ll do a forum post on AVP—‘I bluffed this guy out of Kings.’”

Yes, it turned out that my association with AVP had been discussed at the table prior to this. A dealer had mentioned it and so had another player.  I don’t recall if Seat 9 had mentioned that he was a reader/member of AVP before this or not, but he clearly was. 

I just laughed.  In my mind, I said, “No, but I’ll sure mention it on my blog.”  But because of my ambivalence about mentioning the blog at the poker table, as I’ve discussed before, I said nothing aloud.

But clearly, playing this back, Seat 9 was Austin Bluffs.  And that meant Austin Bluff was not the guy sitting next to me who I had made the star of the blog post I’d already published.

Phew.

My notes went on to say that he seemed like a nice guy and I planned to tell him I had Aces, away from the table, when one of us left.  But he left with a buddy while I was in a hand and I couldn’t get up and tell him that he had made a good lay down.

In the meantime, I received a tweet back from Austin giving me more info.  He said he had written about it the trip report he had filed on AVP, and gave me the link. Somehow, I had totally missed his trip report. The story is here but, without permission, I’ll copy what he said about the hand:

“At MGM, I had KK and 4-bet preflop. The opponent moved all in. He was older and I hadn't seen him get out of line. I knew he had AA and mucked the cowboys face up. He didn't show, but I still am sure he had AA. Before this hand, he mentioned he works for AVP and I saw his name on the Bravo display to be Robert S. I tweeted to AVP to see if I could flush out some info on whether I read his hand right but they are not giving up the info (it's OK, I know).”

Heh heh.  He was wrong that I had moved all-in, but I guess he was right about my not getting “out of line”!  And that I’m “older.” And now I had an explanation for his tweet calling me “Robert S”—he saw that on the screen in front of the dealer.  Which he could see from Seat 9, but not from Seat 4, which was occupied by the guy whose wife—well, you know.

I do wonder why, if he knew I worked for AVP, he never thought to ask my screen name.  That could have given him the opportunity to ask me about the hand many months sooner. 

After hearing my notes, I tweeted back to Austin, “You said, "You have Aces", guy next to me said, ‘No, he had Queens’ I said ‘No, deuces’ and said I'd go on AVP and talk about bluffing a guy who had Kings? THAT hand? Heh heh. Yeah, I had Aces and was gonna tell you when I left but you left first.”  (It was a two-part tweet).  I wanted to put his mind at ease at long last after all these months.

He responded:  “lol, I'll always remember that hand, thanks for confirming my read (or at least making me think I had it figured out)...”

Austin your read was dead on.  It really wasn’t a good lay down tho, because, you know, there was gonna be a King on the river.  At least, the way my luck turned at the end of the evening, that’s what would have happened.

Anyway, in listening to my voice notes just now, it was indeed a memorable hand that I meant to blog about.  But the reason I never did was because of the nightmare finish to the evening.  I wanted to forget that night as soon as I wrote the story of the unfortunate finish.  I did not leave myself a note (on the spreadsheet) to review that session for additional things to blog about it.

But I should have.  And I want to thank Austin Bluffs—I’m assuming that’s not his real name, so I’m using it—for getting me to review this evening and helping me write this blog post.

And by the way, just to be clear.  Austin Bluffs, whatever his real name is, is good enough to fold pocket Kings.