Buck Naked's Excellent Pahrump Adventure (Guest Post)

Remember Buck Naked (see here) and his adventures playing poker and visiting a strip club? Well, he promised “more later” and he’s back with more details.  Recall that he left the strip club with his buddies to head to Pahrump, home of legal brothels.  Take it away, Buck…..

As we made our hasty exit from the Rhino, back out into the blazing sunlight, we had to immediately don our sunglasses, so we could see to exit the parking lot in our rental car, without taking out a few of the other vehicles scattered about.  

I would have much preferred taking Uber or even a taxi at this point, but I was not driving, so I piled into the back seat and buckled up for the ride out into the desert for our "real deal" research mission.

We jumped on the I-15 south, exited onto Blue Diamond, and headed west towards Pahrump. We soon made our first stop at a convenience store for more beverages, so we could maintain our buzz while en route, excluding the driver, of course. 

I did have to constantly remind our eager/young driver to slow down so we could make it there alive and without being detained by the po-po.

Upon arriving at Pahrump without incident, we made a left onto Gamebird trail, and saw jack rabbits hopping around in the road every 100 yards or so.

At this point we all popped the little blue pills, not that we needed them, for an additional confidence boost to go along with the downing of our of "liquid courage" beverages.

We took a left at the 4-way stop and were on the home stretch. About four miles further, after passing a Terrible’s Casino, we made it to the desert fantasy oasis.  There are actually two establishments right next to each other at the end of this road.  

We chose to enter the bigger of the two spots, and upon walking into a sports bar area, we were met by several ladies wearing nighties/bedroom type apparel.  We took seats at the bar and ordered more drinks, with the ladies chatting us up. 

At this point the Madam came to us and asked if we would like to have a "line up" or just continue talking with the ladies at the bar for awhile. We chose to hang with the ladies at the bar. She also gave us a few rules of the establishment: no cell phones and no discussion of prices or services in the sports bar area. She told us that each lady was an independent contractor and could discuss services only in their rooms. She also told us that patrons who seemed too intoxicated would be asked to leave, so we had to slow our beverage roll a bit, though we were encouraged to buy drinks for the ladies.

The variety of ladies here was diverse, to say the least. They really had every type and shape imaginable—tall, short, slim, not so slim, big boobs, small boobs, some with Kardashian asses, some a bit lacking in that area, some were top shelf beauties, some average, but none were butt-ugly or obese.

I personally talked with at least one of each—Asian, American (white and black), Latin, Russian, South African, and Australian. They were from all over the planet; and all eager to discuss services in their rooms. 

We were offered complimentary tours of the property, which included rooms with varying themes, Jacuzzi, dungeon, jungle room, orgy room, etc. We also found out these rooms came at a premium cost. 

Each girl had their own room, and this is where the real negotiating occurred. I took the tour with a tall blonde from Cali, with very nice perky boobs and a bubble booty. We stopped by her room and had a seat on her sofa to chat and get down to the reason why we were there. She was very friendly and asked me what my pleasure was, what i had in mind, and what I was working with. I wasn’t exactly sure what she meant by "what I’m working with" but I finally determined she meant my "party" budget.

This is where my negotiation skills came into play.  I gave her a $ number and she countered with something much higher. So, I told her I was a poker player, was having a terrible losing trip and didn’t have much left to spend, even though she was well worth more than what I could offer.

I gave her a sad puppy face and told her I had come all the way out here only to be sadly disappointed that I couldn't provide the funds she requested. I mentioned to her this was my first time here (not true), and that I really wouldn’t take much time, so we finally came to a mutual satisfactory agreement.

She collected the funds, performed a necessary personal inspection, then covered the bedding with a fresh sheet, and left the room to take funds to the business office, telling me to make myself comfortable on the bed.

When she arrived back at the room, with a fresh complimentary beverage for me, she asked if I would like to shower with her. My response was “hellz yeah!”  After a refreshing and "uplifting" shower, we made it to the bed.

I really do not want to go into specifics here, in case you decide to publish this, but lets' just say i left the room with rosy cheeks, weak knees, no tension at all, and had a big satisfied smile on my face.

On the way back to the sports bar, she did ask me to bring more $$ next time. We stopped at the parlor and I had to take a seat and wait for the Madam so I could give her my evaluation of the girl and my experience with her.  My response was that she was "fabulous!!", and as Anger would say, the experience was “AAAA+++++".

Met my buds back at the bar, where they all sported shit-eating grins and were laughing it up, insisting that we were coming back the next night.  So off we headed, back to Vegas......

On that long desert highway, in the middle of the night, something unfortunate did happen....

More later...........

Oh no!  Other than to say “thanks, Buck!” and say we all look forward to another chapter in this saga, I really don’t have anything to add!

(EDITED TO ADD: The final part of Buck's trilogy is now available for your reading pleasure and can be found here).

The Devil Girl of Fremont Street

As I’m still in Vegas having fun and getting lotsa material, this post will be short and sweet.  Just an excuse really to post a few pics I took the other day when I was downtown playing in the Binion’s 2PM deepstack.

This tournament didn’t go well for me and I was done in a few hours.  I had gotten no hands and so on the button I raised with A-10 offsuit.  I caught an Ace on the flop that had two spades, two more than I had.  I bet and got a call (it was heads up).  I bet the turn even though that put a third spade on the board.  Why?  I was first to act and was sure if I checked he’d bet and put me in a bind.  I was hoping he’d fold to the third spade.  Nope, he called.  By the river there was also a possible straight out there but he wouldn’t have called my preflop raise with Jack-9, would he?

I bet again and he min-raised and I thought there was too much in the pot to fold top pair so I called and sure enough he had raised with his straight even though there were three spades out there.

That crippled me but I hung on, had some ups and downs, shoved a few times, with no calls.  Then I got some chips shoving with Ace-Queen and getting called by the big blind, a big stack with Ace-2.  He missed and I had some chips to play with, I thought.

In the big blind I had pocket 10’s.  It folded to the button, an older gentleman who had a stack about the same size as mine.  He made a normal raise.  The small blind shoved for about 1/4 of my stack.  Thinking he might do that with a lot of hands, I thought it was a reasonable risk to play him heads up.  I shoved, figuring the button had been trying to take advantage of his position and wouldn’t call.  But no, he did.

Small blind had Ace-Queen and the button had Ace-King.  The flop was all low cards.  The turn was another low card.  The river was a damn King.  If it had been a Queen, I would have won more chips than I lost.  If it had been a blank, I would have had a ton of chips.  And if my grandmother would have had balls, she would have been grandfather.

Actually, that saying make no sense. If I my grandmother would have had balls, I doubt my grandfather would have married her.  And if he had, it’s hard to conceive of how they could have conceived a child that would have been my parent.

But I digress.

Before departing downtown, I soaked in a little of the atmosphere on Fremont St. and saw the young lady in the pictures below.  Actually, I was pissed about it, because I had seen the same woman the weekend before and she was more naked the previous week.  She still had the devil horns, but the week before she was carrying a scepter and the body paint covering her breasts covered less territory and was more in line with the devil theme.  Frankly, I don’t understand the devil face with the patriotic outfit.  There was no American flags the week before, it was an all devil theme. And please note....this was the weekend before July 4th weekend, so the American flag theme didn't really make sense.  

On the bottom, the week before, she had a very tiny thong that revealed her entire backside.  This time she was only exposing part of her butt, as you can see.  Also, the tail the week before raised up instead of hanging down, covering not one bit of her tush.

Despite the more conservative presentation, I decided to take a few pics of her this time, as I figured my readers might be interested in the kinds of things that go on down at Fremont Street.  I realized this too late the week before and regretting not taking the pics then, which would have been more revealing.

So here’s the Devil Girl of Fremont.

"Jack-Ball Me!"

I wrote a post on my birthday last month (see here).  It was written after I was awakened around 5AM by a fire alarm. I mentioned in that post that the previous night I had played in a “crazy dealer’s game at BSC.  The game was actually organized by my buddy Mike to celebrate his birthday, which is the day before mine.  Mike usually does this on birthday and that was just one more reason for me to be in Vegas on that day.

This year, Mike was kind enough to actually add my name to the official Birthday event on the Facebook invitations.  Many of the people invited saw my name and had the same reaction.  “Who the hell is ‘Rob’?”  It was actually very touching.

No seriously, it was really nice of Mike to put my name on there. It makes up for all the times he’s bitched about how my blog posts are too long to read (preposterous!) or all the times he’s cracked my pocket Kings.  True, every dealer in Vegas has (or will) cracked my Kings, that’s no great accomplishment.  But Mike’s been doing it longer and more consistently than anyone else.  And honestly, he was cracking my Kings before it was even a thing.

So in an attempt to thank Mike for his courtesy, I am going to start the story of this game off with Mike’s finest moment of the affair. Sadly, I didn’t witness it; it happened after I had left.  So I have to rely on second-hand sources, and I don’t have all the details because I didn’t take notes on it (since I wasn’t there).  But I have three reliable sources for it.  Well, make that two.  Mike was quite drunk and he could easily have been hallucinating.  But both Brent and Abe insist it really happened.

It seems that after I left the game, Brent pushed into deal and pushed Mike the very first pot of his down.  And the next one.  And the next one.  And at least six or seven more.  Seriously, Brent told me the next night that Mike had won an incredible number of pots in a row, from the very first one he dealt.  Mike could do no wrong.  Sometimes he had monsters and sometimes he had weak hands but he won with them all.  Apparently he even won an Omaha hand with nothing more than a pocket pair—it seems everyone else missed their draws.  It was quite amazing.  And since this game had a ½ kill, after the second one, they were all kill pots.

Next time I saw Mike, he had been too drunk to recall if I had been there to witness this incredible hot streak of his.  I informed him that Brent had informed me but I hadn’t seen it myself.  Mike was disappointed.  He wanted his epic run to be immortalized on this very blog.  You see, Mike only reads my blog when he appears in the story.

But I said I would work it in to the post as a personal favor to him.  And so I have.

As with last year, the game was going to rotate Crazy Pineapple and Omaha High.  No stupid “Reverse Hold’em” (as covered in this post).  It was 2/4 limit with the aforementioned half-kill.

The turn-out was quite a bit down from the previous year (when we had three games going).  Not sure why but a lot of folks you’d expect to show up didn’t.  We were never able to start a second table.  One disappointing no-show was Prudence, for example.  In fact, most of the wild, crazy ladies who’ve attended previous such events were absent.  As such, this will almost be a salacious-free post, sad to report.

What salaciousness there was was supplied by Angela, one of the truly wonderful people who works at BSC.  She’s not a dealer and I’ll just leave it at that.  She’s always incredibly nice to me and I suspect she treats people who she doesn’t see as often as me just as well.  I’ve never seen her play poker, but while she was wearing her BSC uniform, she came by the table once or twice to check in on us and say hello (she was on duty).  At one point, of the players in her game ask to see her “ink.”  Until that moment, I didn’t know she had any ink.  And her response was intriguing.  “Well, I’ll have to take my shirt off.”  I don’t think anybody would have objected to that.  Well ok, perhaps her boss.

In fact, later, she did come by with her shirt off.  Her uniform shirt.  She was of course completely covered by a sleeveless t-shirt.  And the ink she was showing off was all on her arm.  At least, the ink that we could see.

And Mike again had his South Park character figurine with the huge balls that I discussed in last year’s birthday post (here).  He was again asking random women he works with if they would like to lick his balls.  Angela wasn’t interested.  Mike said, “I’ll shave them for you.”  As Angela left the table, she shouted, “You’ll have to wax them.”

One potentially wild, crazy lady who did show up, albeit briefly, was Didi (see here).  I haven’t mentioned her in awhile.  She hasn’t been in the room very often lately.  And the last few times I saw her, she was quite restrained, I witnessed none of the antics that I had described in my posts about her.  She didn’t even call me “Patch Adams” when she saw me.  But on those occasions, she was with her boyfriend (a regular player in the room as it happens) and that may have had something to do with her more ladylike behavior.

Didi had some news; she is moving away from Las Vegas. There are poker rooms in the state she is moving to; I wonder how her act will play there?  She also brought us all some cupcakes, which were much appreciated.  But again, she was quite subdued when she said hello to me—and wished me a happy birthday.  She did ask if I would miss her and I said of course I would.

Didi and her boyfriend did not stick around long enough to play, however. I dunno if they would have if there had been spots for them, or if they had to get somewhere anyway.

One person who was there was a regular I’m going to call “Kevin.”  He’s in the room playing a lot, and is pals with all the dealers.  For some reason, I haven’t actually played with him more than once or twice.  I do recall him once seeing me and saying “Hi, Rob” and wondering how he knew my name. 

He’s quite nice guy and certainly didn’t deserve what I did to him on a particular hand.

For awhile, I was just losing chips like crazy.  This despite the fact the game had started out a lot tamer (less raising, three-betting and capped betting rounds) than usual for a game of this nature.  I just couldn’t hit anything and when that happens, you’d be surprised at how fast you can bleed chips even in a 2/4 game.

The only way I could win hand, it seemed, was to get quads.  Which I was getting quite often, at least at first.  In a Omaha hand, I had a pair of Jacks, and an Ace to match the suit of one of the jacks.  Don’t remember the other card.  There was an Ace on the flop, nothing else, but I called a bet (maybe even a bet and a raise).  The turn was an Ace.  Trip Aces isn’t really a good hand in Omaha, so I just called a bet, didn’t raise.  But the river was also an Ace.  Even in friggin’ Omaha, quad Aces is a good hand. I think I bet the hand and only got one caller, but it was a decent pot.

A little later, I had pocket 8’s in Omaha and who knows what else.  I paid to see the flop, which had a couple more 8s on it.            I checked it, there was a bet and a raise which I of course called.  I checked the turn, and someone bet, and of course I called.  I believe there at least three of us left to see the river.  I checked again, assuming the aggressor would bet out and I could make my check-raise.  But this time he checked, and there was no betting action on the river.  “No one bet into my quads?” I exclaimed as I showed my hand. 

Then came the hand against Kevin.  This was Crazy Pineapple.  I had pocket 3’s and some meaningless card.  I limped in and then had to call a raise from Kevin.  The flop was Ace-3-x, two clubs.  I led out because of the flush draw.  Kevin raised, and I called.  Did he have a set of Aces?  Or merely Ace-King, Ace-Queen, that kind of hand?  I just called.  I really was thinking it was set over set, and that maybe I should just call it down.

Until I saw the turn, which was the case 3.  Now of course I checked and Kevin bet and I just called.  I can’t tell you anything about the river card except it wasn’t an Ace. I’m not sure if I led out this time and he raised, or if I checked and he bet.  But he only bet or raised one time.  When I raised, he just called (and remember this was limit, so it was increments of four bucks). Did he really put me on quads? 

Umm yes, he did.  He showed his boat, Aces full. He had flopped a set of Aces.  I showed my quad 3’s.  So I had one-outed him.  He was smart enough to lose the minimum there.  He’s such a good guy, I came as close as possible to feeling sorry for taking his money. I mean, when I apologized for the suck-out, it almost felt like I meant it.

And then I went like forever without winning a hand.  Seriously, I was soon losing money.  How the heck do you lose money in a limit game when you get quads three friggin’ times?  And in case you’re wondering, because we weren’t playing Hold’em, there was no jackpot drop and thus no high bonuses for us.

But somehow I did lose money  In fact, I was getting short stacked.  Now, back when I was a regular limit player, I would never allow myself to get short stacked, because that’s really stupid to do in a limit game.  You need to have ammo if you do get a monster and you control to a large degree how much your risk, unlike NL where your stack is in play on every hand.  I would see players buy in for $20 and think how crazy that was.  They ran out of money long before the river and thus, when they did have a winning hand, they’d win a lot less than they could have.

But by now it was getting late I kind of felt if I ran out of my buy in (I think it was $100 and then I added on $40 when I was running low), I’d just call it a night.  I thought I had enough anyway because there wasn’t as much raising and capping as in the past.  Until this hand.  I had Ace-10 of diamonds and a random card in Crazy Pineapple.  I called a raise but then it was re-raised and I think it ended up being capped before the flop.  I flopped the nut flush draw so I had to call a few bets and raises.  On the turn, I picked up a gut-shot to the wheel.  By now there was a 5,3,and 2 on the board.  So of course I called a bet and a raise.  I had $6 left!

The river was a four, but not a diamond. I really didn’t think my straight was good, fearing the other guy had at least a 6-high straight.  So when he bet (and everyone else folded), I just called and kept the two bucks.  I was gonna throw it to the dealer if I lost.  But all he had was the Ace too and we chopped it up.  There was so much money in from the other players that I actually had a pretty nice stack after that, more than enough to play and call all the raises I would have to without rebuying.

Which brings us to Michelle.  Michelle of course is the dealer who “never pushes me a pot.”  I used to keep a running tally in my head of now many pots she owed me (down from 100, because she once said she owed me 100 pots).  But that’s as a dealer. As a player, Michelle is the poster girl for the term “No fold’em, hold’em.”  In her case, it doesn’t matter whether she’s playing limit. 1/2 NL or even 2/5 NL (or so I’m told), she never met a hand she didn’t like.  At the previous Crazy Pineapple/Omaha game, Michelle’s boyfriend gave her this advice, “Try to fold at least one hand per orbit, honey.”

When Michelle first arrived, she couldn’t get into the game as we were full.  Then Mike took a break and allowed Michelle to play over him (play with his chips).  Of course, in a serious game, this would be strictly forbidden, but the rules are looser in a game such as this, which is basically a home game.

And when she was playing with Mike’s money, she was playing much tighter and saner than she does when she’s playing with her own money. She’s actually a decent player when she wants to be.  It’s just that, left to her own devices, she wants to see every flop, almost every turn, and pretty much all of the rivers too.

Mike returned, but soon a seat opened up and Michelle took it.  She was in a particularly good mood.  In fact, although she hadn’t had a drop of alcohol, she was acting rather tipsy.  She played every hand of course, and wasn’t particularly shy about saying what card she needed.

Thus one time, before the flop, she shouted out, “Come on, Jack-Ball me!”  I believe she probably addressed the dealer by name, and it may very well have been Jack—but remember, Jack isn’t his real name, so it wasn’t as ironic as it sounds.  I think the first time she shouted this, Jack did indeed put a Jack on the flop.  My memory is hazy but she might have hit a set of Jacks that time.

Everyone was laughing at her “Jack-Ball me” line and it became a running gag.  For awhile, she said it before every flop, even though she surely couldn’t need a Jack every time. Sometimes there would be a Jack on the flop and she’d actually fold to a bet, and we’d remind her that she had indeed been “Jack-Balled.” But she’d fold anyway.  Other times she’d raise when there was no Jack on the flop and we’d joke about that too.  And once she got tired of saying it (after about 45 minutes or so), we’d always point out to her whenever there was a Jack on the board and remind her that she had been “Jack-Balled.”

It was inevitable that Michelle and I would eventually get into a hand.  Soon after the wheel hand I described, I had Ace-7-6, all hearts, in Crazy Pie.  An off duty dealer had raised preflop and Michelle and I and maybe some others called.  Note: I’m not giving the off duty dealer a blog name because I’m too tired to think of one.  If and when he does something else blogworthy, I’ll come up with something.  Anyway, the flop was 5-3-2, two diamonds and no hearts.  In a game like this, it’s almost always worth it to call a flop bet if you have a gut shot.  The preflop raiser bet, Michelle and I called (and maybe some others) and I threw out the Ace and went for the gut shot.

Which I hit on the turn, a lovely 4, and not a diamond.  What had happened was that the preflop raiser, (a dealer in this very room), had actually bet $4 blind blind before the turn card was exposed.  Michelle immediately raised it to $8 as soon as she saw the 4.  At which point, the dealer tried to claim that he hadn’t actually bet the $4 and tried to take it back!  WTF?  He of all people should have known his bet was binding.  But the actual dealer had to call the floor over to rule.  He tried to explain why it wasn’t a bet—I didn’t quite get what argument he was making—but of course the floor ruled that his bet stayed and Michelle was allowed to make it $8.

Which was great for me because that allowed me to make it $12.  The dealer folded and Michelle just called.  She checked the river and called my $4 bet.  She had just the 6 for the straight and she was pretty sure that I had the higher straight, as I did.  As she said, explaining why she didn’t raise me back, “You can’t raise Robert….he never plays a hand.”  Damn, I do have to loosen up my image, don’t I?

That hand put me pretty close to even and I played until we switched back to Omaha.  I thanked Mike for the party, wished him a happy birthday and said my goodbyes.

In addition to learning about Mike’s incredible run the next day, I heard that after the table thinned, they actually played a round of Razz.  This is significant because it is a game that Abe excels at.  Except that he usually gets the best Razz hands when he’s playing Hold’em.  When he told me he won some nice hands at Razz, I said I assumed he would get nothing but quads playing it.

Anyway, it was another fun birthday/poker affair.    

She Had Him on a Short Leash

Finally I can start blogging about my most recent Vegas trip.  I fear I will not have all the stories posted before my next trip, which is just a couple of weeks away.  Actually, I’m afraid I won’t even have gone over all of my voice notes for the March trip before I return to Sin City.

But I’ll get to them all. eventually.

So let’s start at the beginning, my first night in time.  I was very happy that Prudence was going to join me; in fact, it initially appeared that she would be joining me most nights.  Alas, she didn’t join me for as many as either of us would have liked for reasons I don’t care to elaborate on.

Anyway, on my first night in town, Prudence and I met for dinner and then we drove over to BSC together.  Prudence had been taking a break from poker so everyone at BSC was thrilled to see her. 

We immediately got into a game together, and after a brief period we were able to sit next to each other for most of the night, so we were could exchange gossip easily.  Most of that gossip, sorry to say, will stay between us. 

Prudence got off to a bad start pokerwise when she found herself looking at the dreaded pocket Kings under-the-gun plus one.  You would think that knowing me for so long, and having read my blog, she would have known how to play them and just immediately mucked her hand.  But no, dear Prudence somehow believed the bullshit that was the second best starting hand in hold’em and led out with a strong bet of $30.  I guess the reason she made the bet so big was that the guy to her right had straddled on that hand.

The straddle called and no one else did.  Prudence made a big bet on a rather innocuous looking flop after the straddler checked  He called.  The board paired innocent looking 4’s on the turn, and while I don’t remember the betting sequence, the two of them were all in after that.  The river was a blank and Prudence’s Kings were smoked by the straddler’s mighty 10-4.

Yeah, the guy had called a $26 raise with 10-4.  Offsuit, I might add.  When Prudence questioned that strategy (as she reached into her purse for more funds), he simply shrugged and said, “I had to defend my straddle.”

As you might imagine, Prudence spent a good portion of the rest of the night grumbling about this guy.  But don’t forget about him.  He’ll be back.

At one point I went to use the Men’s Room.  As I was finishing washing my hands, I heard some commotion and saw something a bit odd.  Right outside the doorway area (there’s no actual door for these restrooms, but there’s a corner that protects it from being out in the open), there was a disagreement taking place between a guy and a girl.  It appeared the guy was trying to come in to use the Men’s Room, and the woman wouldn’t let him.  Or, perhaps more accurately, wouldn’t let him out of her sight.  The guy was telling the girl that she couldn’t come in any further—in fact, she had already come in a bit too far—but the girl would have none of it!

So the guy said, “You can’t come in here!” and she replied, “I’m not going anywhere.  I’m not leaving.  I’m staying right here.”  And she leaned up against the corner, where she was visible to any guy using the sinks, and she could at least see that part of the restroom.  She wasn’t looking in, however.  Once the guy got away from her in order to do his business, she took out her cell phone and began talking to someone.  “Yeah, she’s in the Ladies Room.  I’m in the Men’s Room.”  I didn’t hear the rest, But she was telling someone that she was in the Men’s Room, which she kinda was.

The girl was wearing one of those standard issue “going to a club” dresses that you see on virtually all young or youngish females that time of night.  It was gold lamé, extremely short and extremely tight.  Frankly, she really didn’t have the figure for a dress that tight, if you ask me (but she didn’t).  She was a bit heavy for it, and really, it wasn’t a particularly good look.  So this poor guy was not only stuck with a—dare I say it?—crazy bitch for a date that night, but one who was failing miserably in her attempt to look sexy.  I have no idea if the guy had done something to deserve this sort of treatment, of course.  But one thing was certain; the girl in the too-tight dress was keeping her guy on a very short leash.

That was the thought I had when I left the Men’s Room and when I told the story to Prudence, she had virtually the same comment about the short leash.  I should point out that the next night, I made a point to check to see what the gal could see from where she was standing.  It appeared that, if she was interested in that sort of thing, she could probably have seen a couple of guys using the urinals in the mirrors over the sinks.  

Of course, this is far from the first time I’ve seen a woman in a Men’s Room in Vegas.  My best story about that appears here, but there was a period there where it seemed like I’d encounter just that situation at least once a trip.  I’m sure if I scoured my old hand written notes I could come up with a couple of stories of that scenario for the blog. 

Back at the table, Prudence was making a comeback with her favorite trick, pulling a Jack out of her ass at the last possible instant (hmmm, that sounds a lot dirtier than it really it is).  I know there are one or two posts on this blog about how she got it all in with pocket Jacks vs pocket Aces, and managed to river the needed Jack to complete the suck out.  Last time I checked, though I couldn’t locate those posts, dammit.  (Edited to Add:  Fellow Blogger FlushDraww came through and actually located the two posts I was talking about and put them in his comments below.  You can find them here and here.  Thanks, FD!)  Anyway, this time she got it all in with JJ against a guy who had Ace-King.  A king on the flop put her stack in jeopardy, but sure enough, she got the set she needed on the river. 

This led Prudence to tweet out, “I am considering a new tattoo where two jacks are sailing in a canoe on a big blue river.”  I tweeted back, asking for the proposed location of this tat.  She responded “On one of my cheeks.  Can you guess which one?”  I of course replied, “The left one?”

Yes, we were sitting right next to each other and could have just had this conversation between us, but it was so much more fun to share it with the twitterverse.

Prudence began indulging in adult beverages at some point.  The alcohol may have been kicking in when someone asked if she was professional player.  She said, “No, I’m just f***ing one.”  Then she caught herself.  “Actually, no, we got married, so I’m not f***ing him anymore.”

Later in the evening, a guy sat next to her and immediately starting chatting her up.  And by chatting her up, I mean, trying to get her to do to him what she claimed she was no longer doing to her husband.  Prudence showed off her wedding ring and told the guy she had very recently gotten married and was quite in love with her husband.  The guy persisted.  He tried to get her phone number so he could text her a flier for his business—a business she had no interest in.  She then said, rather loudly so that everyone at the table could hear it, “Listen to this guy.  He’s trying to get into my pants.  I just got married and he’s trying to get into my pants!”  That inhibited his pathetic attempts at seduction only slightly.

This guy was a bit of a character.  Later he ordered a sandwich.  At BSC, they will deliver food to you while you play from the nearby deli.  It is ordered and picked up by chip-runner or a dealer on brush. 

He ordered the sandwich and then was very upset when they didn’t give him any barbeque sauce for it.  He hadn’t asked for it, but he either knew or assumed they had some.  He actually called the shift supervisor over and asked him to “radio the deli” to send over some barbeque sauce.  Prudence and I had a good laugh over that.  Somehow, he got his barbeque sauce (I’m guessing they actually sent a dealer or a chip runner back over there to get it).  “Don’t forget the barbeque sauce” became a running gag between Prudence and I the rest of the trip.

I suppose at this point you must be wondering if I myself actually played any poker this night.  Yes, yes I did.  And rather successfully, as it happens.  The night started out slowly for me, as I was completely card dead for well more than an hour.  I managed to win one small pot and was otherwise playing so few hands that I was actually slightly in the black when I finally got a hand.

With a little more than my $200 buy-in in front of me, I was dealt pocket Aces in early position.  Of course I raised. I only got one caller, an aggro guy wearing a New York Mets cap.  He and Prudence had been battling all night, it seemed like he was in every hand she was in, and she was commenting about that fact, as she is wont to do.  The guy had been raising quite a bit preflop, and never seemed to limp.  If he got into a pot, he either called a raise or entered with a raise.

The flop came King high, two diamonds.  The other two cards were fairly low.  I guess I bet out about $15 and he came over the top with a bet of $30 or so.  Hmm.  I’m fairly adverse to losing a lot of chips with just an overpair, even the best overpair there is, but I had to consider the source.  He was such an aggro player that I had to believe there was a good chance I was comfortably ahead.  He might do that with Ace-King, or any King.  Sure he could have hit a set, but I felt should call and see another card.

I liked the next card, which was an Ace, and not the Ace of diamonds.  So with my set of Aces I led out with a bet of $35.  I’m kind of guessing at that, I didn’t write it down and wasn’t sure the next morning when I did my notes.  Seems like too small a bet.  Anyway, he raised to something like $80 or so, which was fine with me.

With the stack I had left and the size of the pot, a shove was my only option and I was more than happy to do it.  I stopped myself from insta-shoving there.  I decided to Hollywood it up just a bit.  I wanted him to call.  So I waited and acted like I was thinking it over.  I even looked at my cards to make it look like I wasn’t sure what I had.

And then I softly said, “all in.”  The guy took his time.  He asked the dealer for a count.  I seem to recall the amount being $138 which seems about right.  The guy had me covered by just a small amount of chips.  He finally called.

The river was a blank and I flipped over my Aces.    Mets Cap Guy just mucked. He said, “You dodged a lot of bullets.”  As I started stacking my chips, I said, “I liked the turn.”  I didn’t expect a response but he said, “I liked the turn too.  Like I said, you dodged a lot of bullets.”

I didn’t pursue it, but the dealer said, “So, you had like 12-14 outs huh?”  The guy nodded.

Hmm…..well, assuming he had Queen-Jack of diamonds, the Ace would have given him the gut shot in addition to a flopped flush draw.  That would make 12 outs.  I couldn’t account for more than that.  I didn’t see an open-ender on the board at any time.

Whatever, he had played his draw very aggressively and it didn’t work out.  He might have gotten me to fold on the flop with his raise….except I had him pegged as an aggressive player who wasn’t necessarily betting the best hand. 

Anyway, it was a damn nice double up for me.

A little later I won a little pot against one of the regulars.  I’ve played with this guy many times before and I know he is a professional grinder who hangs out a lot on Two Plus Two.  He’s usually friendly but can get a bit grumpy when he’s losing.  In the big blind I had 5-3 spades and no one raised, a number of players had limped, I got to see a free flop.

Two spades on the flop, the 6 and the 2.  So not only did I have a flush draw, but I had the gut-shot straight draw and even the gut-shot straight flush draw.  When the 2+2 guy led out with an $8 or $10 bet, it was easy to call (I had checked at first) with so many cards out there that would help me.  I think one other guy called.  The turn was a blank and I wasn’t sure how much of a bet I’d call with only one more card to come.  I checked, the other guy checked and then, to my surprise, 2+2 guy checked behind us.  So I was lucky, I got to see a free card.

I missed my straight flush but the 9 of spades gave me the baby flush.  I’m always a little worried in that situation that someone has a better flush, but I led out with a bet ($20 or $30?).  The other guy insta-folded and 2+2 guy thought about it for awhile.  Then, in disgust, he mucked and started muttering to himself.  Prudence heard him saying, “I shoulda bet the turn.”

I had a couple of hands against Prudence’s 10-4 offsuit buddy.  In early position I raised to $8 or $10 with Ace-Jack offsuit.  He was the only caller. Flop was Queen-Jack-10, two of a suit that I didn’t have.  I probably would have made a continuation bet no matter what, but I actually had something—middle pair and a gutshot draw to Broadway.   I bet $15 and he raised to $40.  Hmm…..did he have a draw?  Had he somehow already made a straight?  King-nine was possible but I suspected this guy would have re-raised my preflop raise with Ace King.  I knew this guy was also aggro so I called.

The turn was a King, and not of the flush suit.  I had the nuts at that point.  I put out $100.  I was surprised when he called.  I thought the King would scare him into folding, and if not, it would mean he had the same hand and we’d chop.  In which case he might have re-raised just to be sure.  But he just called.

The river blanked, no pair, no flush card.  Nothing could beat my hand.  I shoved.  Probably not the smartest play.  He folded, but was there a bet I could have made that he might have called?  I doubt it in this case.  He said something about missing his draw when he mucked.  So he likely wasn’t calling any bet there.  Still, I should have been more thoughtful and tried to make a bet he would have called if he had something beyond a missed draw.

One more nice hand against this guy (I guess I was getting Prudence’s revenge for her—not that I offered any of the money I won from him, which was once hers, back).  Pocket Aces again.   Again, he was one of two callers to my preflop raise.  King high flop, with another paint card and a low card, rainbow.  First to act, I bet $30.  He was immediately to my left so raised to $100!

The other player folded.  I thought he might be making a move or betting a draw.  I just didn’t feel like he was ahead of me.   But if he was on a draw, I didn’t want him to have good odds.  So I shoved.  I had him well covered, he had about $200 or so left after his bet.  He folded fairly quickly, saying “I guess pocket 10’s weren’t good there?”  I guess not.

After these hands I was up over $450 for the night.  That was great, but I knew I had to monitor myself to see if I was afraid to play right because I was overly eager to “book the win” (see here).  At first I was ok, mostly because I wasn’t getting any cards to play in almost any situation.  And when I did get some playable hands, I played them the way I normally would.  This got my profit down to close to $400. 

Then I got Ace-King in middle position with two limpers already.  I didn’t hesitate to raise and made it $12.  Then things got interesting.

The guy on the button re-raised to $36.  Hmmm…..Despite his ethnic background that might possibly make you think otherwise (see if you can guess, hint here), he was not at all an aggressive player.  He’d been there about an hour and hadn’t raised very often, limping into most of the pots he’d played.  And this was definitely his first three-bet that I had seen.

It folded back to me.  What do I do there?  I’m not in love with Ace-King.  And from my experience, when you see someone three-bet in a 1/2 game, and it’s the first time you’ve seen him three bet, you can pretty much put him on one of two hands.  Pocket Aces or Pocket Kings.  Yeah, Queens, Jacks or even 10’s are possible.  So is Ace-King, maybe.  But my gut tells me it’s 80%-90% AA or KK. 

The only possible hand I can put him on that I’m not behind is AK and I’m not making any money if that’s what he has, barring a flukey flush.  To me, there’s an 80%-90% chance if I hit my hand, it hits him harder. 

I never considered a call. If I like the flop, I still don’t know where I am.  What about a re-raise?  Well, he had about $150 in front of him and I had about $600.  So if he had Queens or less, or AK, I suppose I could bet enough to get him to fold.  But he’s not likely good enough to fold Kings (see here) no matter how much I bet.  And he’s not folding Aces unless he not only sees my hand but can see into the future and knows the flop is coming QJ10.

So, I thought raising was –EV.  Reluctantly I folded.

Prudence had missed that hand and I didn’t get to discuss it with her until the ride back to her place.  But I couldn’t stop thinking about, wondering if I made the right play.  And as important, I wondered if my folding there was indicative of my getting too conservative, being too cautious in trying to book the win and not giving myself a chance to win.  If I had left then, I would have started my very first session of the trip up over $400 and that was sounding pretty good.

I couldn’t convince myself that I played that hand too tight—but I wasn’t 100% sure.  Then came the hand that convinced I me should have quit.  In middle position, I had Jack-10 spades.  A bunch of limpers were already in.  It was a perfect position to make a raise there, and I had done that with a similar hands a few times earlier, stealing a few pots but having to give up on others.  I should have raised, but no, I just limped.  The button raised to $10 (too little with all the limpers, I think).  It was the same guy who three bet me when I had AK.  Everyone who had limped called, so of course I did too, the pot was really big preflop now. 

The flop was Jack high and 2 diamonds (one spade).  I felt myself almost checking there, but I figured I had to bet out to see if my top pair was any good.  Maybe the preflop raiser had a big Ace and would fold.  So I bet out $25—which was too small for the pot, which was $50-$60.  The preflop raiser counted out the call, then counted out more chips and made it $75. It folded back to me and I wasted little time in folding. 

I wasn’t concerned with the fold, I was sure that was correct.  But I realized I had played that hand not to lose, instead of to win.  I should have raised preflop.  If the button raises me again, so be it, I can easily let go of Jack-10 there.  But it showed me I was being too cautious to play right.  Prudence was making a recovery and seemed in no hurry to leave—and I was her ride—but I knew I was done.  I had a few more hands until the blinds came around, and didn’t get a hand I would have played under any circumstances.  I racked up my chips and told Prudence I was done, but that she could stay as long as she wanted.  I’d be happy to hang around as long as she wanted while she tried to make up her losses.  She played an orbit or two and was ready to go.

I cashed out slightly under $400 ahead.  Would have been a bit over that if I had folded the Jack-10 hand, which I should have done if I wasn’t prepared to play it aggressively.  Still a good night.  I just stayed one or two orbits too many.  We discussed the Ace-King hand which was still in my head—did I play it right?  She thought maybe I call there and re-evaluate on the flop.  So on the way back to drop her off, she called her ex-boyfriend (ex, because he is now her husband instead), and asked his opinion.  He said he would have played it the same way I did, inasmuch as I didn’t have position.  If I had had position, he would have called and then re-evaluated on the flop.

That made me feel a lot better, and I was already feeling pretty good with the nearly $400 extra in my wallet.  I would like to hear from my readers on that Ace-King hand—do you think I did the right thing?  Or,or course, your comments on any other hand I discussed are always welcome.. 

Orleans Tournament Disappointment

I mentioned in this post here, posted while I was in Vegas, that I was very disappointed with The Orleans  Friday Night 7 PM tournament I had just played in the night before.  Here’s the details on why I was so unhappy with the tournament itself.  And no, it wasn’t because I didn’t do very well in the tournament; that’s poker. 

This was the second time I played in this Friday night Vegas tradition, the first time I played is documented here.  As I discussed in that post, this tournament is one of the most popular regular tournaments in town, if not the most popular for its price range ($125).  Back in April, they had 307 runners and now I was told they expected more.

You see, the Orleans was starting it’s “Orleans Open” the next day, a weeklong series of higher buy-in, longer structured tournaments, the kind of which most of the bigger rooms in Vegas have from time to time. I stopped by the day before because I wanted to make sure the regular Friday night tournament was going to be held.  I saw that they were already set up for the week long tournament series, with extra tables extending into the casino.  I inquired and was told that not only would the regular tournament be held the next night, but that, because they had all those extra tables ready to go, they expected a record crowd.  Frequently the alternates for this tournament don’t get seated, there are just too many people who want to play and not enough tables and dealers.  But traditionally, on the Friday before the Orleans Open begins, they use the extra tables that have already been set up, and the extra, temporary dealers they have hired, so that the regular Friday night tournament is sure to get everyone who wants to play seated.

Oh wow, I thought.  More than the 307 I encountered last month?  I knew I had to play in this one!  (BTW, I think the final count of this tournament was over 370 runners!) So on Friday night I got there early enough to buy my entry before it got too busy and have my dinner at the nearby Subway (where I had no problem getting all the fixin’s I wanted).

I wasn’t in the Orleans for five minutes before I saw two old “friends.”  Just as I had the previous time I played in this tournament, I saw both Kathy (the “cleavage poser”—see here) and of course “Poker Genius” himself (see here).  I think it’s it a pretty safe bet I will see both of them whenever I decide to play in this tournament.  Call it a hunch.  If either one saw me or recognized me, I didn’t notice.  I have some suspicion Kathy may have read about my post about her—for sure she knows about it—but am I pretty sure Poker Genius knows nothing about my post about him.  And if even if they had both read their posts, I doubt they would recognize me in person.

Anyway, I mainly want to talk about all the things I was unhappy about during this tournament. Most of my disappointment has to do with the way Orleans poker room management ran and set up the tournament, but the first complaint I have has nothing to do with the Orleans.  It had to do with the player I had the misfortune to sit next to, he was on my immediate right.  I’m pretty sure I’ve seen this guy before, a local and a regular player in Vegas poker tournaments around town.  He was an older gentlemen, yes even older than me.  The first thing that bothered me about him was that he was wearing a baseball cap backwards.

Let me explain.  I have a pet peeve about baseball caps being worn backwards.  I hate that, I really hate it.  It just strikes me as stupid to an extreme degree.  Now it’s bad enough when some young punk, I mean kid, wears his baseball cap backwards.  At least I can blame that on the sins of youth.  He just doesn’t realize that by wearing his cap that way, he might as well be wearing a huge sign that says, “Hey, look at me, I’ve got no class whatsoever.”

But when some old fart does that—some guy even older than me, even—it is beyond what I can tolerate.  And totally inexcusable.  People are supposed to get smarter as they get older, what’s your excuse, Grandpa?  So this old guy wearing his baseball cap bass-ackwards already had one big strike against him with me.

But that was the least of it. The much bigger problem was that this guy stunk.

I don’t mean he was a bad player.  He was a decent player.  No, I meant he stunk, literally.

He had really bad body odor, and I was stuck right next to him.  My guess is he hadn’t bathed since last week’s Orleans Friday night tournament, if then.  If this had been a cash game, I would have asked for a table change—or possibly a casino change—faster than you can spell “B.O.”  But no such option was available to me.  So I was stuck with this foul-smelling old geezer with the backwards baseball cap for a couple of hours.  Not fun at all.

But I can’t really blame that on the Orleans.  The rest, I can.  One issue was the extra tables they had added which were in the casino, adjacent to the poker room, where there are usually slot machines.  They really, really, really jammed them together, way too close for comfort.  This is exactly what the Bellagio is famous, or infamous, for, but it was much worse than the Bellagio.

Once the tournament started, we were totally squeezed in like sardines, and it was impossible to maneuver in or out of my chair.  Thank goodness I never needed to use the restroom before the break, because I wouldn’t have been able to get out of there if I had to!  I guess however, if I had just peed in my pants, it only would have actually improved the aroma what with Mr. B.O. constantly fouling the air.  A related issue was that those tables were located far, far away from any restrooms, so that if I had been able to leave to use the restroom while play was going on, I would have almost certainly missed a blind just from the walk.

Another problem was that, having been assigned to the extra tables in the casino, there were no TV’s to watch.  That was a problem for me because this took place during one of the NBA playoff games that the Lakers were playing—before they got unceremoniously eliminated.  As I’ve mentioned before, the NBA is my game and the Lakers are my team.  So I had to keep looking at my cell phone to check the progress. Very annoying, to say the least.

Another issue—the air conditioning.  Or lack there of.  It was stifling hot in the area where those extra tables were, and there was no air circulation. This was no doubt made worse by the fact that we were all packed together like sardines—and I was stuck next to the stinky guy.  It’s amazing I didn’t pass out.

The last big issue for me—and for everyone—was the quality of the temporary dealers they had brought in.  My goodness, some of them were just awful.  This is a hand shuffle event, and the dealers were incredibly slow and unsure of themselves shuffling.  But they were also pretty clueless as to how to deal a tournament, or poker in general.  Now I didn’t see any pots attempted to be pushed to the wrong player.  But they were just generally clueless.

One girl was so nervous and clueless she held up our game for several minutes because after a player busted out, she didn’t know whether to put out the seat card or not.  Rather than just deal the next hand while waiting for the floor to come over, she sat there waiting for an answer before dealing the next hand.  The players finally convinced her to deal the next hand.

Also, she could not keep track of the antes.  When she was one ante short, she had no idea who had shorted it and had no idea even which side of the table the shortage came from because she hadn’t paid any attention at all.  This also created a big delay, until one player just came up with the ante to get the game going again.

But the worst moment was when I managed to win a small pot.  I put my hole cards in front of me as I racked my chips.  The clueless girl shuffled the cards and started dealing the next hand from the same deck when I noticed she hadn’t retrieved my cards from the last hand, so she was dealing from an incomplete deck.  And after I pointed out my cards, she took them but kept dealing without calling back the dealt cards and reshuffling.  The players had to tell her that she couldn’t do that, that it was a misdeal since you generally play with 52 cards, not 50.

The one thing they did right was start breaking the tables from the casino area, so after a couple of hours, I was mercifully assigned another seat, this time in the poker room.  My stack was depleted, throughout the entire tournament I was as card dead as I can ever remember being, but at least I got away from Mr. B.O., into the main poker room where there was air conditioning, and there was a TV in my view that had the last few minutes of the Lakers game on (this was the only game of the series that the Lakers won, btw).  So I was now a bit happier than I had been for the past two hours.

The person to my immediate right at the new table was someone I recognized.  No, not a person I’ve ever mentioned on the blog, but a dealer I recognized from a room I play a fair amount.  He recognized me too and we chatted.  I noticed he was actually wearing his dealer’s uniform shirt from his room.  He said he had rushed over there after his shift and didn’t think he’d get into the tournament if he had stopped at his place to change.

But more interesting was a blonde girl across from me at this new table, one I barely noticed at first because I was watching the game and talking to the dealer.  But when I heard her say something about a parent being proud of her—I didn’t hear whether it was her mom or her dad—and I took a better look at her.  Was this, could it be…Crazy Marsha?  The “punch thrower” from these two posts here and here?  I wasn’t sure, I hadn’t seen her since the night of that second post.  She looked familiar but…..then I noticed she was wearing short sleeves.  I looked at her forearm and saw the bizarre tattoo I had described in my posts.

Yeah, it was her. During the break, I overheard her talking to another player and they talked about her poker bloodlines.  She even confirmed that she was indeed the daughter of “Mike McDermott”, using the name.  So it was her.

She didn’t seem to recognize me or even notice me.  I made no effort to say hello or remind her of the time we played at a limit game together many months ago. This girl had told me the story of how she—totally unprovoked—punched a guy for no reason whatsoever.  So I was fine with not letting her know I knew her.

I busted out soon thereafter, the tournament was so bad for me I have no memorable hands to report. I was just getting nothing to play all night, and every time I tried to steal a pot, I was foiled.  It was a bad night of poker, but it was mercifully over in a few hours.  But worse than the cards was the way the tournament was run on this particular night, sad to say.  Hopefully the night before the next Orleans Open, they learn from their mistakes.

((Edited 7/21/12 to add:  Poker Grump caught the smelly guy with the backwards cap last nite at his game--picking his nose!!!!  Here's the pic Grump took, he's the old guy standing up.  He deserves the public humiliation.  See here. ))