It Makes You Wonder, Doesn't It?

My friend Don texted me this tale the other night, something he had just witnessed while attending a Stevie Wonder concert at Park MGM (yes, he doesn't spend all of his free time playing poker).  He thought my readers, particularly those of you who are fans of a particular kind of popular post, would find it of interest.  So thank you Don, and I'll let Don tell you what he saw at the concert.

Directly in front of me are two "older" Indian gentlemen (late 40s-early 50s) and two attractive, twenty-something ladies, one African-American, one Asian.  I'm sure the show cost the Indian gentlemen quite a bit since they weren't just paying for the tickets but also for their companions' time.  So, all show the guys are clearly into the music and the ladies are sitting there bored, posting on Instagram, not clapping, not singing, not dancing, nothing.  Then the last song starts and they both start rocking out.  What song did Stevie Wonder play to elicit that reaction from two "escorts" you ask???

"Part Time Lovers"

I can't make this shit up.

Like a Boss!

This story took place my second week in Vegas last month.  For reasons that will become clear shortly, I really wanted to get this posted while the WSOP was still going on, but it didn't work out that way.  You know how it goes—you can't always get what you want.  I also wanted to marry Kate Upton, but somehow Justin Verlander beat me to her, the bastard.

Back then, Lightning was in town.  He had been playing poker all day while I was working.  He had arranged to meet up with VegasDWP that evening and play at the Wynn.  So after I finished working, I headed over to the Wynn to join them.

This being the middle of the series (and of course, Wynn had their series going on, the Wynn Classic), the place was really busy.  Lightning and DWP were already playing, but they couldn't get the same table.  So DWP was already on the list to transfer to Lightning's game.  When I finally got called to a game, I told them to put me on the transfer list to Lightning's game as well.

At this point in my trip, I had been pretty much card dead the entire time.  Things didn't change this night at the Wynn.  I was hoping that maybe transferring to Lightning's table would bring me some decent cards finally, but no one was leaving his table, and for a long time the three of us were all stuck at separate tables.

The only table between us that ever had empty seats was my table.  At one point, seat 9 opened up, and I saw a player heading for it.  As he approached, I noticed he looked familiar.  Very familiar.  By the time he took his seat at the game, I realized that this guy was the spitting image of notorious "speech-play" expert William Kassouf. 

You remember Kassouf, right?  The guy who became infamous because of one particular poker hand that was shown endlessly from the WSOP in 2016.  The "show" he put on was so noteworthy that I actually did a post discussing it, which you can find here.  If you just want to see the hand that caused all the fuss, you can find it here.

I was sitting in seat 2, far away from him, but man it sure looked like him.  I wanted to get a second and third opinion, so I texted both Lightning and DWP  that I suspected Kassouf was at my table and for them to see for themselves.  The both did and agreed it did look like Kassouf.

Well initially, I couldn't hear anything he was saying over the noise in the room, but eventually I heard his voice, that distinctive British accent, and I realized that there was a good reason it looked like Kassouf. It was Kassouf!

Now my earlier post about him was quite critical of his schtick.  And I've mentioned in other posts that I rather hate playing against guys who like to talk to me when the action is on me—when players engage in just the type of speech-play that Kassouf is famous for.  You can find a post about that here.  So my initial reaction to having Kassouf at my table was "Ugh.  Can I get that table change expedited, please?"

But I was a bit ambivalent because I'm always on the hunt for good blogging material and it did occur to me that this character could very easily supply me with something to write about.

I had hardly played a hand before he arrived and not much changed after he got there.  I was just so card dead.

Kassouf made his presence felt pretty much immediately.  He opened pots and was betting bigger than what had been the standard opening for this table.  Usually when I play 1/3 at the Wynn, players open to $12 or maybe $15.  It's not unusual though to see smaller openings.  But when there are aggros at the table, suddenly you see openings for $20 or $25.  Kassouf opened for $15 or $20, if not $25.  And until he had gotten there, a lot of the times the pot had been opened for $10 or less.

As soon as he put out his first $20 open, the guy to my left, an older gentleman with a big stack, said to him, "Why are you betting so big?"  Kassouf said, "What?  It's not so big."  I am quite sure that the guy had no idea who Kassouf was.

These two developed a running dialog, mostly with the guy next to me complaining about the size of Kassouf's bets.  But of course that did not nothing to affect Kassouf's bet sizing.  I will say though, that after awhile, when many of his opening raises went uncalled, he pulled back a little and started opening for normal amounts.  To be fair, he sometimes limped and yes, there were times he even folded preflop.

Early on, when he made a big raise after the flop and everyone folded, the lady on my right said, "Oh wow, he must have had a big hand."  The guy on my left said, "No, he had absolutely nothing."  I suspect he was right.  Oh yeah, he was also pretty aggro after the flop, of course.

When the seat to his right opened up, the new player in it raised his first hand.  This really pleased Kassouf.  "Oh first hand, you're already into it?  Yeah, yeah.  Like a boss!"  I of course cracked up but no one else reacted.

There was one time where he really acted like the Kassouf from that WSOP hand.  It was post-flop, perhaps on the river, not sure, and the guy on his right made a fairly small bet.  Kassouf shoved.  It was quite the overbet although the guy who bet originally didn't have anywhere near the chipstack Kassouf had and they were heads up.

The guy went into the tank.  "I don't know….I don't know."  So Kassouf said, "Well, tell me what you have and I'll tell you if you should call…..You can tell me what you have."  Yeah, he really said that.  I don't remember the board, but he said, "Do you have a 10?  If you have a 10 you should definitely call."  Of course this left the guy totally befuddled.  Kassouf kept it up, asking what the guy had, and making suggestions.  "Well if you have a 10 you should call for sure."  He probably mentioned some other cards too, I can't recall.  I believe he also suggested some scenarios where he recommended folding.

But of course it left the poor guy hopelessly confused.  And so he folded.  And then Kassouf asked him what he folded.  He told him, but I didn't hear what he said.  And then Kassouf said, "It was a good fold, it was a really good fold."  Somehow I suspect it was probably the worse fold in the history of poker.

When he got folds he would frequently asked what they folded and always tell them they made good laydowns.  One time a guy told him he folded top pair, top kicker.  Kassouf seemed a little shocked.  "Man, if you laid that down, that's a really good fold!"  Again, I suspect that it was a really bad fold.

Naturally, whenever his bets did get called, he managed to have the goods.  One hand he opened big, was three-bet, he shoved, the guy snap-called and Kassouf flipped over two Kings.  The other guy didn't show and eventually lost the pot.

One of the dealers was telling him about the wild action at the PLO game so he got put on the list for that.  And he was called to it before I was called to Lightning's game.  So that was the end of my evening with Mr. Kassouf.

I had fun when I finally joined Lightning and DWP, but I remained card dead the entire time, so really no hands of mine worth writing about.

As for Kassouf, I have to admit that he's really not a bad guy.  I don't like his poker tactics but he seemed like a decent fellow and was just out to have some fun (and win some money).  Probably a fun guy to have a beer with.  But a tough player to play against and I do think he pushes his verbal tactics a bit too far.

This Tournament Was Savage

I can't tell you how many emails, tweets and comments I've gotten asking me, "Gee Rob, when are you going to tell us how you did at last year's WPT 500 at the Aria?  Surely you must have played it."

OK, so honestly, I didn't get any such feedback.  I therefore decided that until at least one person asked me about it, I wasn't going to mention it.  In other words, I'd probably never have to write that post.

However, with the just-announced exciting news the player pools on WSOP.com will be combined beginning May 1, so that players in Nevada, New Jersey and Delaware will be able to play with and against each other, I'm in such a good mood that I couldn't hold off any longer with this report.  I for one am looking to take advantage of the new larger player pools next time I'm in Vegas, which I expect to be in June.  And I'm sure that the folks at 888poker are excited and gearing up for it as well. This should be a significant step in the comeback of U.S. online poker.

I really like the WPT 500, and I've played it a few times in the past (see here for the start of the previous year's report).  So I plunked down my $565 and played one of many Day 1's.  Every day 1 ends after the players are in the money, which is nice.  There was a $1MM guarantee.  And a very nice structure (30-minute levels for the first 8, then 40-minutes). 

Plus you never know who you'll run into there.  In 2016, I played (ever-so-briefly) with Lacy Jones and (literally) ran into Mike Sexton.  So in 2017, I actually played at the same table with none-other than Matt Savage, who actually created the tournament and designed its structure in his capacity as WPT tournament director.  The first year Aria offered this tournament, Matt actually ran it for them.  That was under the previous Aria management.  Since the new team came on board after that first one, the great in-house Aria tournament team runs it, so Matt can actually relax and play it.   

Of course I follow Matt on Twitter as everyone who loves poker does.  And on the morning of the flight I played, I saw him announcing that he was playing it that day.  I thought, wouldn't it be cool if I was at the same table as he was?  At least for a little while, anyway.  Well, it turned out that I saw him put down his stuff at the same table I was assigned to.  And even when they broke our table, we were both sent to the same new table.  I was playing with Matt all day. 

Now the mention of Matt Savage gives me a chance to address something that I've been wanting to talk about for a long time.  If you follow Matt on Twitter, you know that players are constantly asking him for tournament (or even cash game) floor rulings.  They'll post a situation that came up in a game and ask for his take on the right way the floor should have handled it.  Now every so often, someone will re-create a tournament hand and say something like, "he bet $5,000."  And the first thing Matt will say is, "no dollar signs on tournament chips."  Well, he probably says it more politely than that.  But the thing is that Matt points out that you should not use a $ sign in front of a bet unless it is a cash game, since tournament chips don't represent actual dollars.

Well, if you've been paying attention, you will note that whenever I do one of my tournament write-ups, I usually do put the $ sign in in front of the chip count.  I'm actually surprised no one has called me out on it.  Yes, I know it is technically incorrect.  But it is a stylistic choice I made when I started talking about tournaments.  There are two alternatives that I know of.  One would be to put a letter "t" in front of the chip count.  Like, "he bet t5,000."  Or "I bet T5,000."  You see that in poker books.  But for some reason, I really find that unacceptable.  I just don't like the way it looks.  I find it clunky, for lack of a better word.

The other way is to just put the number of chips without anything in front of it.  So it would be, "He bet 5,000."  I don't like that either.  The number without a symbol in front of it just looks naked to me—and not good naked.  It just strikes me as wrong.

So basically, I find both alternatives stylistically and aesthetically unacceptable for my blog.  If others do it, that's fine (and again, technically correct).  But for my blog, I want the style I want, and even if it means I am violating some poker standard, that's the way I do it.  It just looks a lot better to my eye to do it the way I do it.  And since no one has complained, I guess it's ok (or, perhaps the sticklers have all stopped reading my blog—or never read it in the first place).  Besides, when I say, "I bet $25,000," no one thinks I bet $25,000 in actual cash money.

Anyway, I had seen Matt at tournaments a number of times, and a year or two ago I actually introduced myself to him and shook his hand when I played a tournament at Commerce (we'd actually had a lot of back-and-forth on Twitter in the lead-up to this particular tournament). Matt is also the TD at Commerce, if you didn't know. But I didn't expect him to remember me on sight.  Thus I took to Twitter to "say hello."  I tweeted about playing at the same table as Matt before the tourney started.  However, he never acknowledged my tweet (either on Twitter or in person). 

Spoiler warning:  I didn't cash.  That should be obvious anyway.  If I had cashed in big tournament you can be sure you would have heard about it well before now.

Thus I'll only mention a few hands.  In the first level I got the dreaded pocket Kings.  I raised and had a few callers.  The flop was Jack-high and I bet and got one call.  I bet again when the board paired a 5 and was called.  The river was yet another 5.  I made another bet and he folded Ace-high face up.

Winning a hand with pocket Kings so early in the tournament made me feel invincible.  OK, not really.  It actually made me feel relieved.

A few levels later Matt made a standard opening raise and I called with Ace-Queen of hearts. It was a pretty good flop: Ace-Queen-8, two diamonds.  Matt made a c-bet and I raised nearly 3X his bet.  It folded back to him and he tanked for a good long while before folding.

A level or two later, I again called a Savage raise with Ace-Queen and we were heads up. I was the big blind.  The flop came Ace-Jack-x.  For some reason, I donked out a bet.  I don't recall why I did that and I didn't explain it in the voice notes I made the next day.  But when Matt raised me 2.5X, I got very concerned.  I tanked for a good long while and remembered why it's not a good idea to call a raise with Ace-Queen out of position.  It's a hand easily dominated.  Eventually I decided to fold.  But I couldn't resist doing something I almost never do.  Since it was Matt, I said to him, "Ace-King, Matt?"  He smiled at me and said, "I'll show one."  And with that he flashed me one card—it was a Jack. I couldn't tell if he checked his cards to make sure which card he showed me. That was the only time all day I saw Matt show a card he didn't have to. I will go to my grave believing the other card was either an Ace or Jack.  No way he had King-Jack or worse there.  Right?

Then there was the standard "if only" hand.  In the big blind with pocket 6's, I folded to a raise and a shove.  It was pocket Kings vs Ace-Queen.  The flop came Ace-6-x.  Would have been a nice triple up for me if only I'd made a terrible call.

The guy on my right was a really poor player who basically liked to see every hand, almost always limped in and stayed too long.  He was also a slob.  He was an older guy and kept ordering coffee (or maybe tea).  He would throw the sugar packets—among other things--on the floor.  When he inevitably busted out, he left all kinds of debris behind.  It was so bad that the cute young lady that was sitting on his right took the time to clean up his area after he was gone.  I looked at her as she was doing this and she gave me a look that said, "Can you believe this mess?"

I lasted through the dinner break and also through our table breaking. There was the guy there that made a kind of mental error that really cost him his tournament life.  First he put out a big stack, but there was oversized chip mixed in with his stack—his bet was a lot more than he intended.  When a guy shoved over him, he must have felt he had too much in the pot to fold.  He had pocket 7's and was facing pocket 10's.  He didn’t improve. He confessed that his initial raise was a mistake due to the his biggest chip being hidden among the others.  Very  next hand, now short stacked, he shoved and was snapped called.  This time he had the pocket 10's.  The snap caller had pocket Aces and the Aces held.

I was actually pretty happy with the way I played but I just couldn’t get my stack built up enough.  And so on level 12, short-stacked,  I looked down at pocket Queens.  There was a raise in front of me, Of course I shoved.  It folded back to the raiser who snap called.  He flipped over two Kings and boy did I dread them. To rub it in, there was King on the flop.  The turn card was a Queen which was a cruel joke.  Could I go runner-runner Quads?  No.  I was done. I have to admit, losing set over set was bad, but imagine how much worse it would have been if the Queen was on the flop and the King was on the turn.  That would have really the ultimate poker-tease.

It was an enjoyable tournament though—as enjoyable as losing without cashing can be, I suppose. BTW—Savage cashed and advanced to Day 2. Apparently directing all those poker tournaments has taught him something about how to play the game.

Guest Post: Norwegians Invade Venetian (Part 2)

Here's part 2 of guest-blogger Eivind Brenne's report on his recent visit to Vegas to play the Venetian Deepstacks.  You can find part 1 here.

=  =  =  =  =  =

Here we are again. Just over 2 months after our last trip to Vegas. Work in the Oil & Gas sector had not really picked up yet after the low season in the North Sea. Again, our minds were drifting off to Vegas and FM pointed out that he would soon turn 50 years and could play in the senior’s event next time at the Venetian DSE. As it turned out, such an event took place just two days after he turned 50 in the January DSE. He called me from his house in Maine and said he was planning on taking a short trip down to Vegas to play in the senior’s event. The day after I gave it some thinking and called him back and told him. “No way you are going to Vegas alone. I’m coming with you!!” Ohh crap. I had just promised my buddy to go to Vegas with him without even asking my wife. So, I found a good opportunity when we were having dinner at a restaurant in Bangkok and mentioned this. She looked at me and said sure, why not? Then my daughter of 5 years said “NO can do!” (With a slight smile). “You can only go if you buy me lots of toys.' So, we logged onto EBay with my phone and started browsing for her favorite toys and we chose some and shipped them to FM’s house in Maine, so he could bring them to Vegas for me. Then I asked my daughter if I now could get a “visa” to go to visit my friend FM. “Granted” she said and gave me a pretend “visa” stamp on my hand. Awesome!

I am blessed to have such a nice family when I want to go to play some poker. My wife knows that I never over spend money on poker or gambling, and that the rest of my time I spend with my family taking care of our child.

Actually, this reminds me of a story a few years earlier when my buddy FM called, and we started talking about our next Vegas trip. I’m not sure I should tell you this story, but here it goes. In the aftermath I’m not really proud of this. That time, I asked FM on the phone “When should we go to Vegas again?” "How about tomorrow?" FM said. "Hmmm. I’m going to have to get back to you on that one. Give me 5 min." My wife had already gone to sleep about 30 minutes prior to this. I snuck into the bedroom and asked my wife if she was sleeping. Not yet she said. Listen, I said……. You know my buddy FM called and we ended up talking about our next Vegas trip. Ok she said. "When are you planning to go?" Ehhhh, tomorrow. A brief moment of silence occurred, and she finally said yes. Not an angry yes. Then she said. “I’ll drive you to the airport tomorrow. As I closed the door to the bedroom I started thinking. “Did I just wake up my wife and asked her if I could go to Vegas tomorrow???" Almost shocked at what I really did, I grabbed my credit card and booked the trip. Ok, judge me whoever wants to J

Back to January,2018. I booked a ticket with the same Chinese airline. Hainan Airlines, to be more specific. This time I got a real good deal for a business class ticket, so I took them up on the offer. The 3 hours of customs lineup were still fresh in my mind from my last trip. The day of the travel finally came, and I really enjoyed the trip to Vegas. On the flight from Beijing to Vegas in a brand new 787 Dreamliner, I was treated with a 7-course dinner and unlimited drinks served by very attractive Asian flight attendants. 

Hmmmm, no, they did not really look like this, but in my mind they did.

After we landed I was the second person out of the airplane and I started walking very fast. No way I’m going to be last in the queue this time! I came to the immigration check point and no one was there!  A lady that was preparing the queue system said. “You are too early” The immigration staff has not yet arrived to handle your flight. Ohh my. This time I was too early. Then I hear a gentleman sitting in the green card slot saying, "Come over here, I’ll get you through." I thanked him, and he asked me what I was doing in Vegas. "I’m here to play poker." "Ohh really, I play poker too."  He told me he knew many dealers that worked at various casinos around Vegas. We had a friendly chat about poker and I told him I will be playing at the Venetian mostly. "Ohh,  then say hello to my friend Bobby that works there as a dealer." I said I would do that if I saw him. (Obviously, Bobby is a name I gave the dealer for this blog, not the real name). Just as he let me through to pick up my luggage, the 400 tourists from the cattle class showed up to wreak havoc just like last time. The only difference now was that I was already through immigration. I got my luggage immediately as it had a “priority” tag on it. Customs gave me no problems and I was out of the terminal in record speed. I took a shuttle bus down to the domestic terminal where I had to wait for FM this time. We did not book a rental car this time as we were staying at the LINQ, and it’s just a short walk down to the Venetian. What’s even better, it’s just a few hundred meters away from In-N-Out Burger!!

This time we just checked in, took a shower and headed out for a burger as usual. We decided to do the same as last trip and kick it all off with an Aria tournament. However, this time we made it to the 1pm tournament as the DSE did not start until the day after. We played there a few hours with no success. When we entered the Aria poker room we saw that the US Poker Open had started just a few days later. We decided to drop by a few days later and see if we could spot some poker celebrities. More on that later.

I’m going to break it to you early. This was a trip filled with bad beats and bad luck. We must have used all the good poker mojo on the previous trip where we won two tournaments in a row. Anyhow, the rest of the first day we played some cash at the Mirage and at the Venetian.

The main event for this DSE was the $1,100 MSPT (Mid States Poker Tour) that had two starting flights. We definitely wanted to play in this one! There where daily satellites for this tournament and we played them all. Again, the bad beats were just stacking up. The story goes like this: All in and ahead… Then our opponent hit his two outer and draws out on us. Nonstop this went on until the day before the senior’s event. This was on a Thursday I believe. FM managed to win a ticket but could not play in Day 1 as he would play in the senior’s event that day. No problem, he was booked into Day 2. I played my last satellite (I thought) and the story repeats itself. Bad beat, bad beat, bad beat. Crap, I need to change poker rooms for a while. FM looked forward to playing his first seniors event. He was thinking. “This should be easy money to play with those nits”. Ohh boy, was he wrong. The game was hyper-aggressive. The older gentlemen were not afraid to put their chips into play. And in good old fashion of this trip he was all in and ahead only to be drawn out on.

I decided that enough is enough. I need to try something else. I checked out the PokerAtlas app on my phone and found out that they were running a $50k guarantee, two starting flights tournament at South Point Casino a bit south on the strip. I think the buyin was $250. I grabbed a taxi while FM was still waiting for the senior’s event to start. Once I sat down at the table at South Point, I quickly understood that this was a room filled mostly with regulars. I think I was the only one who did not know the name of all the dealers. Anyhow, the regs were all nice and the play got under way. I did not last long and was out during the third level. I texted FM and at that time he was also out of the senior event. We agreed to meet at the Aria poker room just to have a look. Once we got there the room was packed with action. All tables were full and a $10k PLO event was going on. There were cameras, lights, PokerGO and there was Daniel Negreanu sitting at the table right in front of us. He was chatting it up with the other players on his table as he usually is. What a nice guy that is! Just on another table, Justin Bonomo was sitting with his pink hair and a big stack. The more we looked around, the more poker celebs we spotted. Several of the big names of Poker After Dark were there as well. Wow, this was so cool. Up until now, we had only seen them play poker on TV. Now they were there just in front of us. We hung around for a while soaking up the atmosphere. We kept looking around for the Poker Brat, Mr. Phil Helmuth, but he was nowhere to be seen. Not sure he played any of those events at all.

We eventually grabbed a taxi back to Venetian and sat down and played some 1-2 cash. I noticed that they had added an extra last satellite to the program. FM already had a ticket, so he continued to play some cash, but I took yet another shot to win a ticket to the $1,100 MSPT the day after. This satellite was on temporary tables right outside of the poker room as the room was packed with MSPT Day 1 players, senior event players and another tournament currently going on. Not to mention all the cash action during these events. Before I busted out of the last satellite, FM had already called it a night and headed back home. I busted out long before any tickets were awarded as usual. I texted FM when I walked back home and told him my plan for tomorrow. Alright, I said. I could not let him play alone in the $1,100 MSPT tournament tomorrow. I will buy in I told him. He thought it was a good idea and I went to bed to get some sleep. When I met him in the reception area of the LINQ the day after he handed me $550. Why, I asked. We share all the wins he said, and he had technically won $1,100 for the ticket. What a nice gesture!  

On Saturday we played the second starting flight of the MSPT. Ohh, I forgot to say…first, we had another nutritious breakfast at a place I think you know by now. A massive field came along for the last starting flight. On Day 1A I think they got just under 400 entries. On Day 1B they got almost the double. First place prize money turned out to be just over $108k! I got a quiet table at the shielded area by the cashier counter. The starting stack of this tournament was 20k. As play kicked off I had a good feeling for the first time of this trip. I accumulated some chips and hit some flops. Once the ante kicked in there was a bust out and we got a new player. A fairly young guy, clearly experienced. He immediately said hello and started chatting up another guy on our table. It turned out the guy that was already on our table was one of the guys managing and commenting on live streams for the MSPT. However, on this day he was playing poker instead. It was impossible not to hear what they talked about, but the guy that works for MSPT kept talking of all the success of the new young guy that came to our table. He had won several MSPT’s before and had several big cashes in various tournaments in L.A.

Did anyone say Hyper LAG? The new player was definitely a LAG. Hyper LAG I would say. He opened 100% of the pots that were not already opened. I did not see him fold one single time if the pot was not opened. He did not open huge, but min raised all the time. In the beginning he was running over the table. Then I got involved in a hand with his buddy. I can’t remember all the details, but I flopped a gutshot. I made a continuation bet and got called. The turn put the second spade on the board. I fired another bet and I was called again. Damn…. Then the third spade hit on the river and I made a pot sized bet as a bluff. My opponent tanked for a while but eventually folded. After that, I decided that someone had to play back on our LAG. I started raising him in position with a wide range. I got folds most of the time and an occasional call. If he called, I fired a large bullet on the flop that ended the hand. This went on for a while and I kind of took away his revenue stream. He turned over to me and said. “Are you going to continue raising all my opens?” “Yep” I said. We both laughed a bit and I did just that.  

One nice hand came up a little later where the LAG opened, and I decided to just call this time. I held T9 suited in clubs. The flop came J-8-7, one club. Wow, what a flop! I c-bet just like I usually did and got a call. The turn brought a low card and I bet half the pot. I was quickly called again, and the pot was now of a decent size. The river brought the second club on the board and more straight possibilities in the eyes of my opponent. This time a threw out a single 5k chip and the LAG tanked for a while. He ended up calling and mucked in disgust once he saw my flopped straight. Sometime later he told me that he had pocket Aces. Those can be hard to lay down, I know all about that.

I continued to build my stack and had a real good feeling. Then I got a text from FM. He was back at his hotel room!! What? He had just busted out and taken his worst bad beat of this trip. He raised with pocket Queens and got 3-bet. He 4-bet and his opponent 5-bet all in. He called, and his opponent showed pocket 5’s! Alright, way ahead and the flop brought another Q and FM almost started to celebrate right there. Here is the catch. There were two diamonds on the board and one of his opponents 5’s was the 5 of diamond. Then the turn and river were runner runner diamonds!!!! He could not believe it. He flopped a set of Queens against a pair of 5’s and ended up busting to runner runner flush with a single 5 of diamonds. Poker can be a bitch some time. His exact words in the text message was: “Busted. Home licking my wounds”.

Ohh well. I continued to play and had a bit more than twice the average. This was just before the dinner break. I looked down at pocket Kings. The dreaded pocket Kings as we all know Rob calls them. The guy to my right opened the pot and I 3-bet. He 4-bet, I 5-bet and he pushed all in. Hmmm, could I be up against Aces I thought for a while. Antonio Esfandiari was in a similar situation against Tom Dwan in a recent Poker After Dark episode. (Check it out here. It did not end well for Antonio’s Kings that time. As I had most of my stack already invested, I felt I had to go for it. When I 5-bet I was hoping I was up against A-K. I pushed my stack in and sure, he flipped over pocket Aces!! Crap! We had more or less identical stacks. I started getting up and grabbing my backpack ready to leave. I stood behind my chair and saw a flop with all low cards appear. Should I have said “One time, I need my one time now”? Nhaaa, I don’t believe in that stuff. As lightning from a clear sky, a beautiful K appeared on the turn. I was fist pumping and suddenly my opponent was in disgust over seeing that King. I said to myself. “Rob… Those Kings are not so dreaded as you keep telling us they are." Then another player at the table told us that he folded an Ace preflop, so my opponent only had one out!! One single out, the last Ace in the deck. I was so sure I was going to get a double up and a very, very playable stack with a great chance of bagging chips for day 2. It felt like an eternity before the dealer dealt the river and I enjoyed every millisecond of it even though it took only a few seconds. And then……WHAMBOOOZA…… THE LAST ACE IN THE DECK HIT!!! I was floored. I could hardly stand. The whole table went “Whooooooooaaaaaaaa. That’s sick, dude”. Alright Rob, I should have listened to you after reading countless stories about the dreaded pocket Kings. 

Once the dust settled and the dealer was finished counting the chips I had less than one ante behind. I could do nothing but laugh of the whole situation. When I finally thought I had a chance after so many days with bad beats I was shot down with a bazooka. With my less than one ante left, I was all in before the automatic shuffler was even finished shuffling the cards. Once I got my cards I did not even look at them. Two guys ended up all in, so my chances were slim. I flipped over T8o. There was an 8 on the board, but the guys going all in had premium pocket pairs. I wished my table all the best for the rest of the tournament and sent a text to FM. He immediately called me and could not believe what he just read in my text. Actually, he was on the way to In-N-Out to buy me a burger for my dinner break as the breaks are quite short on the DSE. Ohh well, I slowly walked towards In-N-Out and sat down at a table with FM. We could do nothing than smile and shake our heads in disbelief. Did anyone say shake? Yes, the Chocolate shake at In-N-Out is the best shake in Vegas.

We started to walk relentlessly around not really knowing what to do next. We ended up at a cash table at Harrahs and immediately had the waiter bring us a Budweiser. Man, that Budweiser tasted good and worked like some kind of medicine for the bad beats we had that day. After a couple of more Bud’s we called it a day and went to sleep. We woke up a bit early on Sunday and decided to head downtown for the 11am Sunday tournament at the Golden Nugget. No more Venetian for this trip we said that morning. And get this, we did not have the nutritious breakfast at you know where that morning. Instead we had a couple of sizes of pizza in Fremont street instead. (The real reason we did not have an In-N-Out breakfast was actually because they had not yet opened when we woke up!)

We bought in to the $125 tournament and took our seats. I was immediately card dead and could not get any traction. I was shortly thereafter shot down in flames and busted out. No, I did not re-enter. Instead I grabbed a Bud light and watched FM battle it out. The hours went by and FM was in the money. Sweet. He ended up heads up with a nice lady and after some heads up play they decided to chop. They each got $1,500 and gave $100 to the dealer’s tip box. FM handed me $700 and we walked outside. It could be worse. We finally made some money that day. It was our last day in sin city for this trip.

Somehow, we ended up back at the Venetian just before 7pm. I tried hard, but I could not resist buying in on the last DSE event of the trip. The buy in was the regular $200 for the 7pm events. It was a roller coaster ride, but we managed to be on the right side of the coin flips enough times to last all the way to the bubble. As there were two tables, it was hand by hand. One grueling hour went by with hand by hand play and the blinds kept eating up my above average chip stacks. Finally, the bubble burst and we were both in the money again. FM busted out shortly thereafter and received the min cash of $393. I ended up with the same fate shortly after FM busted out and took the last of the min cash for a mighty $393. Ohh well, after a week of being brutally beaten up by the deck of cards, cashing sure felt like heaven! We went back to our hotel and packed our bags for an early departure the next day.

Once again I found myself in a brilliant business class seat of a 787 Dreamliner and started thinking…… Did it all change that last day of poker? Had our poker mojo returned? Did we finally see the light in the end of the bad beat tunnel? Do they have In-N-Out Burger in Bangkok? Very interesting questions indeed. I do not have an answer to those questions until our next poker trip is due. All I can tell you is they do NOT have In-N-Out burgers in Bangkok!

As it looks like right now, we are hoping to go to Vegas again during the WSOP this year. I can hardly wait!! In the meantime, I have to start looking around for a cheeseburger detox program.

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.

Shouldn't the Dealer Have Told the Floor This?

This takes us back to my first Saturday in Vegas last month, my first full day in town.  Also the first poker I played this trip.  I decided to spend the Friday night I arrived in town seeing The Last Jedi, which premiered that day (or, more accurately, the evening before).  I determined I had to see it right away before it got any more spoiled for me.  You see, some dick on Twitter tweeted out a spoiler that morning.  It wasn’t a dick I follow, but somebody I do follow thought it would funny to retweet that dick's spoiler tweet.  I was not amused.

 Thus, my first poker of the trip took place at the $340 tourney at Venetian, a tournament I've mentioned before—I really like that one. I guess I'd like it even more if I ever cashed in it. Well, ok, I did cash in it once, but that was the two-day version of it.  The single day version of it has yet to be a winner for me and this time was no exception.

I arrived about half way into the first level and the very first hand I was dealt was the dreaded pocket Kings.  Guess how it came out?  OK, it wasn't a total disaster.  An Ace hit the flop and I was able to get away from them fairly cheaply.  A few levels later I got my second pocket pair of the day.  You got it, Kings again!  This time I flopped the second nut flush draw on an all-spade board.  My c-bet took it down.

I lasted to the 7th level, but by then I had a really short stack, definitely fold or shove territory.  They broke our table and I moved to my new table with my pathetic stack.  I recognized one of the players at the new table.  I had actually seen him walking around earlier so I knew he was playing in the tournament.  It was successful pro and WSOP bracelet winner Dan Heimiller.  I had actually seen his picture posted on Twitter once or twice recently as the winner of some low buy-in Venetian events.  I've stated before that I don't recognize a lot of poker pros but I immediately recognized Dan.  That's because I once spent an evening watching him play against our pal MemphisMOJO when they were playing for the Seniors bracelet back in 2014.  I wrote about it here.

I wasn't thrilled having a bracelet winner at my table, as I'm sure you understand.  Worse, he was one seat over from me on my left.  Ugh.  I didn't say anything to him—in a situation like that, I'm always looking for some clever way to acknowledge that I know who they are instead of just saying, "You're Dan Heimiller, right?"  It didn't happen while I was playing. And honestly, there was a part of me that wanted to kick him for making that bad call and knocking MOJO out of the Seniors event back then.

Meanwhile, with my short stack, I looked down at pocket 6's in early position.  It folded to me and I thought I had to shove.  The guy on my immediate left shoved too—he had me covered by a ton.  He said to me, "I'm giving you protection."  Everyone else folded and he showed Ace-Jack.  I survived the flop and the turn.  But not the Jack on the river.  I was done.

For some reason, I felt compelled to say hello to Dan.  During the brief time I was at his table, he had spent most of his time looking at his phone, not really engaging with anyone.  I got up from my seat with all my stuff and waited for him to fold the next hand.  Then I said that it was honor to play with him, however briefly, and put out my hand.  He shook it and just said thanks.  I added, "You're a great player."  He pointed to his stack, which was on the short side and said, "Well you can't tell by my chips."  And with that I took off.

Later that night I was playing cash in another room.  I won't mention which one because I don't want to get anyone in trouble if I'm right and the dealer make a procedural error.

My results in this cash game were unremarkable.  I somehow managed to lose only $20 while continuing to be card dead.  There were no hands worth reporting on.  Well, none of mine, anyway.

But something interesting did happen.  This particular room has high hand bonuses and the payout for a Royal is $500.  The pot must be $20 to qualify for any high hand bonus.

There was a small, heads up pot.  A player who was fairly new to the table made a bet on the turn and didn't get a call.  The dealer flipped the board cards over and started pushing the pot to the player who had bet.  That player struck me as either a newbie poker player or perhaps just a newbie at playing in a brick and mortar poker room.  Anyway, he turned over his cards, which were the Jack-10 of hearts.  I hadn't been following the action much but I had noticed at one point that a Royal was possible on this board.  The turn card was the Queen of hearts and the flop contained the Ace and King of hearts.  At least, that was my memory.

The way the player turned over his cards without saying anything, I'm really not sure if he did it because he knew about the bonus or if he just wanted to proudly show his Royal.  After all, if I was in a room that didn't have a bonus for it, I think I'd show a Royal if I had one anyway (note:  I have never had a Royal in any kind of real poker game).  The dealer apparently hadn't paid much attention either.  He looked at the two exposed cards, froze, and then said, "Was this a Royal Flush?  What was on the board?"  A few of the other players, including me, confirmed that it was indeed a Royal. By now, however, the board cards he had turned face down had gotten confused with the muck.  But he seemed to have two stacks of four cards each that were isolated.  He turned over one stack and it was all black cards, definitely not the board.  He turned over the other stack and sure enough, the Ace, King and Queen of hearts were all there, with some other random card.

But then he had to make sure the pot was big enough and that was a big deal for him.  He counted the pot--$17 he was about the push to the player with the Royal.  There were two dollars in the rake slot about to go down the chute and another buck right next to the slot for the promo drop. Yep, $20 exactly.  And then, he even re-created the betting action mentally to confirm the $20.  Again, he convinced himself it was $20 and thus qualified for the $500 bonus.

He called the floor over.  I expected him to show the floor the Royal but also explain that he had had to turn the board back face-up because he had flipped it over before he saw the player's Royal cards.  But that didn't happen. Instead, he went into a long explanation about the pot and the rake and the jackpot drop and how it all totaled $20.  He repeated this at least twice to the floor.

But at no point did he ever say anything about having to flip the board back face up to verify the Royal.

Is that ok?  I mean, I would think for his own sake he would want to make sure the floor knew that.  I actually wondered if, upon hearing this, the floor would call surveillance and have them verify that the board was what he "re-created" before paying out the $500.  But the dealer didn't mention it.

My thought is, he could easily get in trouble for it.  If someone looks over the footage and sees what he did, they would confirm (or worse, deny) that the Royal was made.  Wouldn't they want to know that he had pointed this out to the floor?  Would he get in trouble for trying to cover up what he did?

Or….is it a case of them routinely checking the tape on any high hand bonus payout so he didn't have to call it to his floor's attention?  I only thought of that when I was writing this up just now.  I don't know how it works.

All I know is if I was that dealer, I'd sure as hell cover my ass by letting the floor know exactly what happened. I would think if you're a dealer and anything out of the ordinary happens—especially if there's a bonus involved—you'd want to let the floor know. If somebody in surveillance did see it, they could easily think that maybe the dealer was cheating for the player to get him the bonus.  And if somehow, we were all wrong and the player really didn't have a Royal Flush, oh boy.  I said that I thought the player was a newbie. I can't recall if he won any other hands this way previously—it's at least remotely possible he turned over his cards because he thought he had to to claim the pot.

Can you imagine if they gave the guy the $500 and then later someone noticed the tape, saw what the guy did, examined it further and saw there was no Royal?

Maybe it's nothing.  But I thought about it a lot.  Any dealers/floor people out there think this was handled poorly by the dealer?  Or is it standard?