The Rude Maniac

On this particular Sunday night—the Sunday night of my first weekend in town—I found myself at the Mirage for some 1/2. There, I encountered one of the most annoying players I've played with in awhile.  I have to give this bastard a name, so I'm going to call him "Appendix," because, let's face it, he needs to be taken out.

He was annoying in so many ways.  Yes he played like a maniac, but there's so much more.  When I first got to the table he was away from it, and there were open seats.  For the first hour or two the game was constantly short-handed, and his numerous visits to the sports book didn't help.  He was gone at least for the first 20 minutes I was at the table.  Then he came back, posted his missed blinds, played two hands, won them both and took off again.  This time he was gone for at least half an hour.

All the time he was gone, I was upset that he was gone so long because of the table already being short-handed.  But once he returned and stayed awhile and played some hands, I began to long for the time when he was absent.

He was super aggro, open raising to $20 or more an awful lot.  Sometimes he'd only open to $15, but never less.  Oh he did limp occasionally and even folded preflop once in a while.  But that wasn't the norm.  And of course, he'd three-bet a lot. 

He had a short stack when I got there, managed to have to rebuy and then started building it up.  You know how it is—some maniac starts raising with and playing garbage hands and gets on a heater and starts hitting everything in sight.  Well that was Appendix this night.  He also won some pots on pure aggression, although once we saw how often he was playing bad cards he got called down a lot.   But during this stretch, he always seemed to catch the card he'd need to win the pot on the river.  You know how it is, he'd shove with bottom pair playing something like 9-4, get called, be way behind to the caller and then catch his second pair on the river when he needed it.

He managed to get his stack to over $1,100 at one point.

He was sitting next to me, but at least he was on my right.  A bunch of players who were originally stuck on his right asked to move to the other side of the table whenever they could.

But he was making the game difficult.  Oh sure, having a guy like that, creating a lot of action can be profitable, especially if you catch a hand and he pays you off in a big pot.  But I was extremely card dead all night.  There was no making a move against this character.  You had to have a hand and then value bet the hell out of it (or, even easier, call all his big bets).  And it was very costly to play any speculative hands as long as he entered a pot.  And if you had a decent but not nutish hand, he always seemed to catch the second card he needed to win when called.

Actually the game wasn't that good anyway.  His big bets were inhibiting a lot of the action from the other players.

In addition to being a maniac, he was very rude too.  For one thing, he was one of those guys—and I seemed to constantly run into them this trip—who liked to sit sideways, taking up my space at the table, kind of locking me into my seat, getting his shoes on me or rubbing his leg up against me.  Why does that last thing never happen when a hot girl is sitting next to me? Why can't people keep their legs and feet under the table, in front of their own chair?  Or he'd put his feet on the bottom ring of my chair, which annoys me (I don't like people using my chair to rest any part of their body—again, there would be the "hot girl" exception to that).

Also, he was an obnoxious winner.  When he won a hand, either at showdown or when his bet wasn't called, he tended to shout "Ship it!" or, "I got you, I got you!" as if he was rubbing it in.  One time on the flop, he re-raised all-in against a guy who then went into the tank and finally folded.  Appendix had three-bet preflop on this hand.  The other guy must have folded a pretty good hand, so after he folded, Appendix showed his cards—3-2 offsuit, which hadn't connected with the board in any way whatsoever.  And so he said, "Well, I did have the best hand preflop."  The other guy was not amused.

I would have asked for a table change but I knew it wouldn't fly because our table was always short-handed.  Finally when the table did fill up and there was actually a wait list, I was about to go up and ask for a table change when the clown asked to borrow my phone charger.  I should have told him where to go, and in fact I did say to him, "Well, I'm about ready to leave the game," but he said he just wanted to try it because his didn't work.  So I lent him my charger and delayed my exit from the game.  It turned out my charger didn't work either—he said it didn't fit his phone (although I had already noticed he had the exact same phone as mine).  He finally borrowed one from the podium and then finally figured out that the USB port in front of his seat was not working.  So he asked if he could try my USB connector and he ended up using that one.  So I not only had to deal with his legs and feet getting in my way but his phone charger cord too.

Also, his buddy was at another table and they were talking and he was bragging to his buddy that he had all these chips....and he was threatening his buddy that he was gonna move to his table and take all his chips.  So I held out hope that maybe he'd move so I wouldn't have to.

But then, he got into a hand with a fairly new player at the table.  The new player bet, and Appendix shoved.  The new guy tanked for quite a while and finally called.  I think this was on the river.  The new player showed his hand—two pair.  And Appendix mucked without showing, claiming he had a pair of 6's and saying he was sure the guy would think he "had it" and would fold.  The new player only had around $150 and Appendix started the hand with over $1,100 so it wasn't a very big hit. It was the first sizable pot I'd seen him lose and he didn't seem upset.  Nevertheless, as soon as the hand was over, he went up to the front and grabbed a couple of racks, took them back to his seat, and started racking up.  He played no more hands.

One of the players who'd been there a long time said, "Oh, you can't take it, huh?"  Appendix said, "No, it's just that I gotta go to a Strip Club with my buddy."  As he was about to leave, he had to get the phone charger out of the USB port I was sitting behind.  Without any warning, he reached in front of my gut and pulled the charger out, and brushed his hand against my stomach.  He didn't hurt me, but it was such a final act of rudeness not to say excuse me first—I could have easily slid back so wouldn't have had to have touched me. Anyway, he was gone.  No one was really sorry to see him take his big stack and leave with it.  Instead, there was a audible sigh of relief from almost everyone at the table.  He was just that much of an asshole.

After he was gone, the dealer said, "He's in here every day, pissing people off.  He raises with 6-deuce, whatever and rubs it in when he wins." 

Earlier, I was amused when one of the players at the table answered his phone (while in the middle of a hand), saying "Joe's Bail Bonds."  I thought, now that is just so Vegas, isn't it?  And for 15 minutes he had a conversation with an associate about some new client who needed to post bail for a domestic violence change (the client was female, for what it's worth).  Joe was mostly concerned about whether or not his potential new client had enough collateral.

There was only one hand of note for me, it took place after Appendix took himself out.  The game had gotten pretty nitty at this point and I was down to about $100 or so.  In late position I limped in with pocket 9's.   Six of us saw a flop of Queen-5-3, two diamonds.  A guy led out for $5 and everyone called.  So, for $5, I decided to call too.  It was a long shot, but it was cheap to see one more card.

Good decision.  The turn card was a 9 of clubs, putting a second club out there.  The guy who bet the $5 checked, but another guy bet $20. I remembered watching this guy call the flop.  He was playing with his chips and I really thought he was about to raise.  Had he done that, I wouldn't have called.  But it seemed like at the last minute he decided to just call.

I wanted to raise, but I didn't have as much money to raise as much as I wanted to and I thought a shove there was unlikely to get a call.  So I bet $50, which left with me ~$50 behind.  He tanked forever and finally said, "OK," and called.

The river was a third diamond.  He checked.  I decided to play it safe and not bet.  I honestly didn't think he'd call me unless he had caught a flush.  So he turned over Queen-3 and was really surprised to see my set.  "I was gonna raise the flop but decided to slow play it, the game was so tight.  I shoulda bet."  Yes, he should have.  Glad he didn't.

I managed to break even for the session after four hours.  When I left, I was on my way to the parking garage when I noticed these boobs walking perpendicular to me.  Well, they were actually attached to a blonde woman.  She was nice looking, wearing a summery dress that was fairly conservative except for the fact that it was wide open on top and her jumbo after-market ta-ta's were practically falling out of it.  I didn't immediately suspect working girl because the dress didn't seem sexy enough (if you ignore the cleavage).  It was neither short nor tight—just extremely low-cut, the kind a lot of ladies visiting Vegas might wear.  Thus, at first glance, she just didn't seem like a hooker to me.

But she stopped in front of me and said "Hi."  Random blondes with big tits don't just say "hi" to me unless they want to sell me something.  I said "hi" back as I tried to keep walking but I guess she didn't hear me. "You can say 'hi.'"  So I said hi again, this time louder.  By now she was thinking she had my interest but after that, I moved fast and just kept walking.  I dunno why I was so anxious to get away from her.  I think maybe if I chatted with her bit I could have possible gotten a better hooker story than I did.  Oh well.

And that was that.

"You See What You Get for $100?"

Just the other day, I happened to remember an old Vegas story that I never blogged.  Even better, it is a hooker story.

However, it isn’t my story. It was related to me by a former co-worker.  So I checked my really old emails to see if I had emailed the story my friends long ago, so I would get the details right.  Well, not only had I indeed done just that, but I discovered another Vegas story in a separate email from the same source—one I had completely forgotten about--that is also worth telling.  Not a hooker story, but still entertaining, I think.  Finally, I did remember another hooker story tangentially related to this same person that is also worth reporting.

These stories took place close to 10 years ago. They go back to my days working the 9-to-5 grind (though for me it was more like 7:30 to 6:00).  Back then I was working for a really, really big company.  Well, to be more accurate, I was working for a moderately big company that had been bought out by a really, really big company and was now a subsidiary of said giant company.  That buy-out had happened a few years before I was hired.

Most of my career I was in middle-management.  For this company, I was managing a department of 8 people (not counting myself).  There had been a lot of turnover (including my predecessor) and I had to hire a bunch of people.  The last of my original hires to staff up was a very young fellow I’m going to call Edgar.

Edgar was like 22, 23 when I hired him and he was a real go-getter.  He was very green, hadn’t had much experience in the corporate world (and this was very much the corporate world).  In fact, he started as a temp and had impressed me enough that I decided to bring him on full-time.

I was very much his mentor.  He had a lot to learn about being a professional.  Fortunately, he had a great can-do attitude and was a fast learner.  I was also kind of his mentor when it came to life in general.  I recall one time he came to me bewildered because he had played a little April Fools Day joke on his then-girlfriend and it had a really bad result.  He thought it would be funny if he texted her that he was breaking up with her, even though he had no intention of actually doing so.  He couldn’t figure out why didn’t laugh hysterically when he said “April Fools!”

I said to him, “Edgar, have you actually met a woman before?”  I must have given him some good advice as to what to do, because they patched things up—at least for the time being.  I believe by the time he and I parted ways, he had become engaged to another girl.  I’m pretty he sure he married her and now has at least one kid.

Anyway, it didn’t take long for Edgar to find out that I was spending all my time off in Vegas.  Edgar had lived in L.A. all his life but had never been there.  So he was constantly asking me for Vegas information, for tips and recommendations.  He planned many trips there that he had to cancel for one reason or another.  But he always got me to “approve” his choice of hotels when he booked them.

He was barely passed drinking age but he definitely had a fondness for demon rum.  He heard a rumor and asked me to confirm it.  “Is it really legal for people to be walking the street in Vegas while carrying an open drink?”

I said, “Edgar, it’s not only legal, it’s required.  You can actually get a citation if you’re caught walking down the Vegas Strip without at least a beer in your hand.”  I think he believed me for at least half a second.

Finally, after many false starts, he did indeed make it to Vegas. I think what finally got him there was a story he heard from a friend of his about a friend of that friend.  Supposedly, this guy had called one of those “escort” agencies and ordered a girl to come to his room.  The escort took care of the guy’s needs for $400.  What makes the story more noteworthy was that supposedly, this guy’s roommate (male), was in the bed right next to them the entire time this, um, transaction was taking place.

Anyway, not sure if Edgar had a girlfriend when he finally made it there but this was a guys weekend.  He went with a co-worker (from another department, not mine), that co-worker’s buddy (who was supposedly a cop) and Edgar’s cousin.  The cousin was Edgar’s age and the other guys were a few years older.

So Edgar came back with this story.  One night, the other two went to bed (they were all sharing one room) and Edgar and his cousin were walking the Strip near the Flamingo (they were staying at the Mirage).  It was like 2-3 in the morning.  And they encountered just a ton of streetwalkers.  I see lots of working girls inside the casinos, but rarely find them on the Strip these days.  But then, I’m not usually walking on the Strip that late (or should I say, that early?).

Edgar reported that none of the ladies he encountered were even remotely attractive.  They were not at all tempting.  They ignored them all for awhile, just blowing them off (so-to-speak) until Edgar couldn’t help himself.  He had to find out how much such a girl would charge for her services.

When a girl he thought was particularly unattractive approached him, he boldly asked, “How much?”

The girl said that it depends, but it is usually around $150-$200.

Edgar decided to negotiate.  He told the girl that this was his first time in Vegas.  Then he said, “Look, I’m young.  I’m good looking….can you give me a discount?”  The girl laughed and then said, “OK, for you, $100.”

According to Edgar, he said to her, “Oh that’s great.  But I’m gonna pass.”  And then he and his cousin walked away from her.

When he told me that story, I told him that was a very dangerous thing to do, negotiate with a hooker and then stiff her like that.  I told him he could have gotten the crap beaten out of him by her pimp (Edgar was not a big guy by any means).  I also called him a “hook-tease.”

However, Edgar was very proud of himself.  He thought the experience of negotiating with a hooker and talking her down was well worth it.  I asked again how she looked.  He insisted she was “butt-ugly.”

I said, “You see what you get for a hundred dollars?”

Well, Edgar fell in love with Vegas that first trip.  It wasn’t long before he asked me if he could leave early one Friday afternoon for another trip to Vegas. This time he was taking two friends from high school for their first visit to Vegas.  One of them was actually turning 21 so it seemed like an appropriate thing to do.  The other buddy was slightly older and Edgar was the old man of the trio at almost 23.

Edgar was just supposed to miss half of Friday and return to work on Monday.  But when I got in Monday morning, there was a voice mail message from Edgar, left at 1:30AM that morning.  He apologized for not being able to come to work that day as planned.  He said it was after midnight and he was still in Vegas.  And the birthday boy had gotten himself arrested for public intoxication. Also, he had punched somebody. He was still in jail, and they had to wait 12 hours for him to sober up so they would release him.

On Tuesday, Edgar did indeed show up for work on time.  And he told me the whole story—or at least the part of the story that he was willing to tell his boss.  It seems that on Saturday night the three of them went to Pure Nightclub at Caesars (that’s the old nightclub that was right next to the poker room, since replaced by Omnia, which is where the old poker room was). Edgar insisted that he didn’t have a single drink there but his youngest pal did indeed indulge and got completely hammered.  When they left the club, they were outside by the taxi area.  There, the three of them encountered a group of folks, both male and female, approximately the same age. 

Well the drunk birthday boy started flirting with one of the girls in the other group.  Apparently they had met previously inside the club.  The girl was fine with this but a couple of her male companions were not thrilled.  At one point, Edgar’s birthday boy pal got “physical” with the girl (he never gave me any more detail than that).  The girl didn’t object but her friends did.  One of them shoved the birthday boy. At that point, Edgar tried to grab his friend to get him the hell out of there.  But it was too late.  Edgar wasn’t sure who threw the first punch, but punches were thrown and some of them indeed made contact. 

It didn’t last very long.  Caesars’ security showed up almost immediately and broke it up.  The cops were called and showed up pronto.  Statements were given. Two of the guys from the other group, along with Edgar and his two pals, were taken to the nearest police station.  They interviewed the girl involved and she said she was not willing to press charges against Edgar’s buddy.  So, no charges were actually charged against anyone except the birthday boy, and it was only for public intoxication since he was drunk out of his mind.  Thus they had to wait 12 hours until the police would let him go.  He had a court date two and a half months later he had to return to Vegas for. 

I had to ask…what did the girl look like?  Was she worth it?  Edgar insisted that she wasn’t at all attractive.  In fact, on the ride back to L.A., Edgar and his other buddy spent the entire time teasing the hell out of the birthday boy for getting arrested over such an unattractive chick!  Of course, he was totally shit-faced at the time.

When Edgar first told me the story, the timing of it didn’t make sense.  If this happened Saturday night, he still could have made it back to town in time to make it into work on Monday.  When I pointed this out to Edgar, he confessed that he had told me a little fib.  That story actually took place Sunday night, not Saturday night.  It seems on Sunday, after they checked out of their room at the Wynn, they decided to go to the club first instead of hitting the road.  That’s why Edgar didn’t drink.  The plan was for him to drive the other two home in the middle of night (Sunday night, or really Monday morning).  Basically he planned on showing up Monday morning not having any sleep at all.  Thus, he was reluctant to tell me the truth.

In reality, when Edgar and his other pal were released from the police station at 2AM Sunday night/Monday morning, they checked into the Imperial Palace (now The Linq) and crashed there until they could pick up their friend Monday afternoon.

 There’s one other somewhat relevant story I remember from my days working with Edgar. It doesn’t have anything to do with Vegas, but you’ll see it is somewhat related.

During this period, former basketball great Charles Barkley was arrested for a DUI.  You probably remember.  I’m too lazy to look up the details, but if memory serves, he was driving his car in a bad section of town (I think it was Philadelphia, but not sure) and had picked up a streetwalker, ran a stop sign and then was stopped by a cop who realized he was intoxicated.

Anyway, this was all over the news and on some website (and I have no idea if this is reliable or not), they quoted Barkley explaining to the cop why he ran the stop. He said that he was going around the corner so the girl could give him a blowjob.  Then he explained to the cop that he had met with the girl the week before and she had given him the best blowjob he'd ever gotten in his life.

Well, when Edgar brought up Barkley’s arrest, I couldn’t help telling him this juicy piece of gossip.  And after I told him Barkley’s supposed excuse for his running the stop sign, Edgar replied.  “Oh wow.  And they still arrested him?”

A Low Key, Positive Start. Oh, and Yes, Hookers

OK.  So let’s go back to the beginning of my June Vegas trip and discuss my very first session.  Recall that my previous two trips to Vegas earlier in the year had featured pretty much nothing but runbad.  My luck was better back in L.A. and I had some decent winning sessions there.  But it seemed like forever since I’d had a decent result in Vegas.

Now, at the beginning of what was going to a 20-night stay in Vegas, it was important for my mental state that I get off to a good start—or at the very least, avoid getting too deep into a hole right off the bat.  I was wondering if it was possible for me to win at a Vegas poker table ever again.  That’s not the best attitude to take into a poker game, for sure, but I knew that it would likely take a winning session or two to “cure” me.

I already mentioned here why my first session of the trip was at the Mirage.  The game I was sent to turned out to be quite nitty, which I didn’t mind.  If I didn’t have to risk a lot of chips to play this first game back in town, it was fine by me. 

It was a 1/2 game and I bought in for $200 as usual.  Early on I had Queen-10 of diamonds and just limped in.  No raise, four of us saw a flop of Q-8-4, rainbow.  I was going to bet $5, but someone behind bet $5 out of turn.  So I just checked and let him make his $5 bet.  I was the only caller.  The turn was a 10 and this time I did bet, $10.  He called.  The river blanked and I bet $15.  He called.  He showed Queen-4 for a flopped two pair.  Nice turn card for me.  It was a nice little pot to win to welcome me back to Vegas.

I limped in with pocket 5’s and it was 7-way.  The flop was Ace-5-3 rainbow.  Someone led out for $5 and two players in front of me called.  I decided to just call, hoping I could keep more players in the hand to pay me off later.  The turn was a Queen and this time it checked to me so I had to bet.  My $20 bet was not called and I took down another small pot.

With pocket 7’s it folded to me on the button.  I made it $6 and only the small blind called.  The flop was King-Queen-8 and I c-bet $10 and took the pot.

In late position I called a raise to $11 with Ace-Jack offsuit.  Five of us saw an Ace-high, rainbow flop. The preflop raiser bet $16 and I called.  My thinking was to get a showdown as cheaply as possible since my kicker might not have been good.  But a bet like that for the size of the pot was likely an indication that he was on the weak side and a raise there might not have been a bad idea.  We were heads up and he bet $16 on a blank turn, I called.  And again when the river blanked, he bet another $16 and I just called.  He showed Ace-10.  I think he might very well have folded earlier to a raise from me but you never know.

Last hand I made note of I had 9-8 of diamonds in the big blind.  Four of us saw a flop that had one diamond on it, no one bet.  A second diamond hit the turn and no one bet.  When the Queen of diamonds hit the river I bet $5 with my medium flush.  A lady raised to $10 and I figured she had a bigger flush, but I couldn’t fold for five bucks.  But it turned out she only had a Queen and I won that little pot.

I was pretty tired from getting up early and the long drive into town, so I was fine with making it an early night.  I was up $80 and settled for that.

After saying goodbye to my friends in the mixed game, I wandered around the Mirage.  Over in one of the pit areas, a woman caught my attention.  I believe I had already determined that their nightclub wasn’t open this night, so I was surprised to see a girl in what I initially thought was a slut parade type dress.  It was powder blue and it was incredibly tight. It looked like it was spray painted on.  The girl had what I refer to as an “exaggerated figure.”  By that I mean she seemingly couldn’t stand up perfectly straight, she was slightly bent over, which accented a rather large derrière and a rather large chest. Honestly, neither of those body parts looked natural.  The dress wasn’t as short as some and it wasn’t low-cut (just super-tight everywhere, including across the bust) and I’ve seen many a club-going girl dress like that.  So I assumed she was going to be going to a club somewhere.

Well, she was on her cell phone and as soon as she got off, another gal came up to her and greeted her by slapping her right on that unnatural looking butt of hers.  That got my attention.  Now from the angle I first saw her, this new gal looked to be dressed very plainly, much more demurely than her friend. Of course, I only saw her from the back.

But I was walking in their direction and as I got past them, I turned and saw her from the front.  Did I say demur?  Ha!  Her top was open down to almost her navel, revealing what were, in all likelihood, surgically implanted flotation devices of the super-size variety. Real or fake, that was a boatload of boobage she was exposing.  I was about to get a second look when, from behind me, I heard her say, “Hi honey, how ya doing?”  I was pretty sure she was saying this to some other guy, not me.  But I beat a hasty retreat and said to myself. “Holy shit….they’re hookers.”  As I’ve pointed out, usually hookers dress more conservatively that that.  Anyway, it was just my first night in town and I had already gotten my first hooker sighting out of the way.  I was officially in Vegas.

And even though it wasn’t a huge result, it was good to enter that first session into the ledger with black ink instead of red.  I followed it up the next night with an even leaner $45 win at MGM, another pretty nitty game.  But it was a good way to ease into a long Vegas trip.

"What's Important is That We Had This Quality Time Together"

As I discussed in the post here, I played in a bunch of tournaments In Vegas this last time.  And that post explains why I played the tournaments I did.

The first one I entered was the Planet Hollywood 7PM, for $100, my first Monday in town.  I’d been in Vegas a few days but had stuck to cash games up until then.  The tournament was called the “Value Deepstack” and it had a $10K starting stack and 30-minute levels.

This was part of their big summer series, Goliath, and it was held on the hotel’s mezzanine.  It’s a pretty decent place to play, although the lighting could be a bit better and the proximity to the restrooms isn’t great. 

Soon after the tournament started, I was reminded of one the advantages of cash games over tournaments that you don’t usually think about—the ability to ask for a table change.  And I don’t mean because the players were too good or too nitty.  There were two players at my table sitting near me that I would have preferred be playing in a tournament in another casino,  Preferably in another city.

One was a distinguished looking older gentleman, nice enough fellow.  But he could not stop coughing.  He had a high collared shirt, and he was constantly pulling the front of it to cover his mouth to cough.  Aside from that being extremely annoying, I was concerned that I might catch whatever terrible disease he had.

But what I really feared was that I might catch the disease the other player had.  This guy was a young fellow who sounded like he was from England.  And there was something odd about his eyes, or at least one of them.  It was quite red, and it looked to me like he had pinkeye. Great.  He was sitting one seat away from me, and with him touching the cards and the chips…well you get the idea. 

That said, I’m relieved to report I didn’t come down with either a respiratory condition or conjunctivitis after the tournament.

As it turned out, I didn’t play with those two guys all that long.  In the middle of the third level, I was about to be the big blind when someone came by and moved me to another table.  It turned out I was moved to a new table they were starting.  It was a mix of a few other players who moved from existing tables and some players who had just bought in (or were alternates).  The problem was that it took quite a few minutes for enough players to show up for the dealer to begin dealing.  I’d say I went nearly 10-minutes of this level without being dealt a hand.  It was a bit frustrating, since time is so important in a tournament.  I guess it can’t be helped, and it was just luck of the draw, but still annoying.

And speaking of annoying, I should mention the issue with the chips we were using.  I’ve seen this before and I saw it again the very next night (different location), but two denominations of the chipset we were using were almost indistinguishable from each other. The $100 chips were black (or gray, or maybe black that had faded to gray), and the $500 chips were dark purple.  From any kind of distance, they pretty much looked the same.  Even right in front of me, I noticed I had stacked them wrong a few times, mistaking one for the other.  It wasn’t that big a deal I suppose, you just had to be real careful to check what the bet was.  I know I asked every single time whenever one (or, shudder, both) were bet.

And while still on the subject of annoying, the last player to join our newly assembled table made me wish I was back at my original table with The Hacker and Pinkeye (hmm, that sounds like a great name for a buddy cop movie).  Let’s call this player Roy.  Roy was a youngish Asian fellow.  I didn’t have to even look at him to know he was Asian.  He told us.  Repeatedly.

Seriously, Roy told us he was Asian about every 15 seconds.  No matter what the subject, he somehow found a way to mention his Asian heritage.  Or he’d just bring it up out of the blue, as in, “I’m definitely the cutest Asian at this table.”  Needless to say, he was the only Asian at the table.

He made a lot of jokes.  Or at least attempts at jokes.  By the next morning, I couldn’t remember most of them, which is lucky for you because otherwise I might be tempted to repeat them here.

When another player tried to top his jokes with better ones (which weren’t really better), Roy called the guy a “dickfore.”

The guy asked, “What’s a dick for….”  Ooops.

When he first arrived at the table, as the dealer was finally getting ready to deal us our first hand, he announced, “I want you to know….I hope you won’t hate me for this, but I hope you all lose and I win. I’m sorry. I hope you can deal with that.”

Then he added, “But what’s really important about tonight is that we all have this quality time to spend together.”

That was actually amusing and it got a bit of a laugh and he repeated that line quite a few times.  And other people started repeating it.

His other bit of schtick was to fold by sending one card at a time back to the dealer.  And then he’d say, “Oh look, a string fold.”

Roy came to the table with a bag full of Chinese take-out and proceeded to eat it while playing.  To be fair to Roy, he did offer to share.  It was annoying for me because I just didn’t like the smell of it, and it was right next to me.

There were two things that Roy did incessantly.  Talk and raise.  If he wasn’t talking, he was raising.  If he wasn’t raising, he was talking.  Oh yes, just for good measure, there were plenty of times when he talked and raised simultaneously.

If you want to know what Roy looks like, just look up “Crazian” in the Urban Dictionary.

After we had been playing together for awhile, Roy turned to me and said, “I know you.  I’ve played with you before.  A lot. Like 40 times.”  There was a pause, I tried to rack my brain, but came up empty.  Then he added, “Do you play a MGM?  I used to live here, used to play at MGM like four nights a week.”  I acknowledged that if he recognized me that was likely where he saw me. 

I still didn’t recognize him.  So I said to him, “Funny….you’d think I’d remember a guy as quiet as you.”  He replied that he isn’t usually this talkative.  I found that hard to believe.

Roy was impressed with one of the cocktail waitresses.  I should explain how they were doing cocktail service.  They had two waitresses working as a team, using a pretty large cart to serve the drinks.  I guess there was no bar on the mezzanine so after taking orders from everyone in the room, they’d go downstairs to the bar, fill that large cart with the drinks and take the elevator upstairs. 

I believe the two girls handled the entire room.  There were at least four tournaments going on at once—an 11AM event, a 4PM event, and at least one or two that had started on previous days.  So they had a lot of ground to cover. Service was a bit slow but considering the territory they had it was actually pretty good.

Unlike some rooms that bring in servers who don’t wear the casino’s traditional outfits, the girls were wearing standard PH cocktail waitress attire: Partially open blouse (that usually shows off a bit of bra in addition to the cleavage) and tight short-shorts.  It’s pretty sexy.

One of the two girls was reasonably cute as you would expect.  But the other girl…well, she was a bit unusual.  Now, as my readers know, I pretty much never notice a woman’s breasts.  But in this case, I just couldn’t help noticing this gal’s mammary glands.  Hell, Stevie Wonder would have noticed them (note: is that joke too politically incorrect for the age we live in?  If so, I apologize.) Her breasts were beyond huge.  They were beyond gigantic.  Each one deserved its own separate zip-code. I mean, they had to send her to the mezzanine to work because I’m pretty sure her breasts would not fit in the regular poker room.

Well, I had noticed those gazongas her first time through the room.  By now the two gals were on their second pass, and Roy and a couple of the other guys at the table had actually been able to notice something else about the overly-endowed waitress.  Her shorts were really extra tight and extra short.  She was actually revealing a whole lotta butt-cheek.  And in fact, it was a damn nice view at that.  Truth be told, because her breasts were actually way too big for their own good, the view from behind was a lot more enjoyable.  It was pretty clear that Roy had totally fallen in love with her derriere. 

Anyway, when she came around to take orders, Roy added something to his order.  “I’ll have a water, a Jack & Coke….and a hug.”  Everyone laughed, including the waitress. But a couple of the other guys also added “and a hug” to the end of their order. 

I was pretty sure she wasn’t going to give anyone a hug.  But when she came back and gave Roy his drink, he stood up, said something like, “and a hug, right?”  And indeed he hugged the busty waitress.  One or two of the other guys got hugs from her too.  I hope they tipped well for the extra service. 

There are only a few hands worth discussing.  When I moved to the new table, I had pretty much my starting stack.  Sitting on Roy’s left made it hard to do much unless I actually had a decent hand since he raised so damn often. 

I did open the pot once with the dreaded pocket Kings and didn’t get a call.

Then, after Roy made a standard opening raise, I three-bet him with Ace-King.  It was my first three-bet of the night and the second time I’d raised at this table.  Nevertheless, Roy complained, “You always do that to me.”  I pointed out that he was full of crap (politely, of course).  Then he gave me a little speech.  “Oh man, my hand is so bad, you’re gonna be real mad if I hit it.”  And he called.  We were heads up.  I totally whiffed on the flop, but I c-bet and Roy folded.

By level 5, with the blinds at 25/150/300 I had about $13K.  And so once again, I looked down at pocket Kings.  As he did almost always, Roy raised.  Of course I three-bet.  Sorry, I didn’t note the amounts, but Roy put out a normal raise and I bet more-or-less three times his bet.

It folded back to Roy who went into full Hollywood mode.  He stared at my stack, he stared at his stack.  (I had him covered by about $6K).  He bitched and moaned.  He made it sound like he was in total agony, not knowing what to do.  “Oh man I don’t know….I don’t know….should I gamble?  Should I gamble?”  He tanked for a long, long time and then finally said, “Well, I’m gonna gamble.  All-in.”

No matter how much I might have read his Hollywooding as him trying to entice me into calling, there’s just no way I’m folding my Kings there.  Not against him.  Not against the all-time Crazian.  I certainly thought he could do that with AK, or QQ, or JJ.  He might realize my three-betting range against him is wider than usual, and maybe he gets me to fold a pretty big hand.  Re-entry was still open and he might very well have been willing to bust and re-buy. 

So the question is….do you ever fold pocket Kings preflop?  Do you ever do it against this kind of a maniac (Hollywooding or not)?

I would make that call in that situation 100 out of 100 times.

So I called and of course he flipped over two Aces.  Second time this trip I ran my dreaded hand into pocket rockets (see here for the first time).

I picked up a flush draw on the turn but missed. 

Although I guess I understand his little acting job, I was really pissed at him at the time.  It felt like a slow-roll to me.  And we were friends!  I mean, we’d played together at MGM at least 40 times, right?

Now short-stacked, under $6K, I was in bad shape.  Especially since before it got to me Roy would raise almost every time.  I had to wait for some kind of hand to make my one move.  I was never going to get the luxury of opening a pot when it folded to me.

I didn’t play a hand the rest of the level.  The next level the blinds were 50/200/400 and I needed some kind of hand to shove with.  Finally, in late position, Roy open limped.  I was shocked that he just limped.  I looked down at King-9 of hearts.  In my position, it was a monster.  So I shoved.  It folded back to Roy who tanked and asked for a count of my chips and made another speech.  He stared at me, and then said, “Well, since you’re my friend, I’ll give you action.” Gee thanks, “friend.”  When I flipped over my hand he said, “Oh, you got me crushed.”  He tabled King-4 of spades.

No, he didn’t beat me with a flush. The flop was Ace-5-3.  And he caught a 2 on the turn to complete a straight.  And I was out.

I’d played about three hours or so and by the time I was out, they were up to around 100 players.  And my poker evening was over.

You know….I ended up thinking that time we had together wasn’t really very important.

"What's Your Bra Size?"

Last night, as I was writing this post, it dawned on me that the next day (now, today, Sunday) would be the 4^th anniversary of the start of this blog.  It was officially launched on September 20, 2011.  Now over three-quarters of a million page views later, I won’t be celebrating the anniversary in any special way here, but it is appropriate that my post on this anniversary will be all about my pal, Prudence, since so much of the credit for this blog taking off is due to the posts I did about her in the early days, as I was trying to build an audience.

It’s been almost a full year since I did a post starring Prudence. You can find that last post with here.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned it before, but Prudence is single again. And as I was preparing for my most recent visit to Vegas, she made it clear she wanted me to meet her new gentleman caller.  So on the first Saturday I was in Vegas this month, we arranged to have dinner together, followed by a poker session at MGM.

Did I not mention that Prudence’s new fella plays poker?  He does indeed, though I’m pretty sure that was just a coincidence, not something that she was looking for in a beau. Prudence had pretty much “retired” from live poker, preferring to play online, something totally legit in Nevada.

We will have to assign a blog name for Prudence’s boyfriend, won’t we?  Now, as you will read, in the course of this night, I promised to give him a really horrible name, but I’m going to cut him a break he probably doesn’t deserve and refer to him as “Aaron.”  

As I later learned, somewhere along the line Prudence told Aaron about her poker playing buddy Rob, i.e, me.  And then she had a difficult decision to make.  At what point in their relationship was it safe to reveal to Aaron that her buddy Rob had a poker blog?  And that there was a character with multiple appearances on said blog by the name of “Prudence” who was in fact Aaron’s new girlfriend?  If you recall some of the past posts involving Prudence, you could see that this might be a dilemma for the average woman.  But, as you know, Prudence is not the average woman.

Eventually, Prudence told him about my blog, told him she was Prudence and thus Aaron started reading my old Prudence blog posts. He found them highly entertaining. So much so that he wanted to play some live poker with her and see the “real” Prudence in action.  He likes to play live, but had been only playing on WSOP.com with Prudence to this point.

So, before I got to town, I was given the heads up that Aaron was about to take Prudence to a nice dinner at a major Strip casino, after which they would play live poker together.  And I was told that, during the course of the evening, Prudence might indulge in an adult beverage or two, which could quite possibly bring out her more outrageous side.

I did get a report from that night, from Prudence.  She was relating to me things she had forgotten that Aaron reported to her the next day.  I only wish Aaron had written a guest blog post for me the next day—it would have been memorable.

But I did learn that Prudence was warned by the floor for some of her comments (not sure if it was just the sound level of what she was saying, or the actual content).  At one point, she got a nasty look from one of the female dealers when Prudence referred to the dealer as “busty.”  Apparently her breasts were practically resting on the table, covering her, um, rack.  Oh, the irony.

But the best moment was when a tourist was racking up for the night.  Apparently he was a total luckbox and had taken some big pots from almost everyone at the table.  His last victim, I guess, was Aaron.  He made a hero call and took a lot of Aaron’s chips.  And so, Prudence said to him (loudly, I assume), “You may think you’re the big winner but you’re not the one getting a killer blowjob later.  And you can’t put a price on that.”

I’m pretty sure there are some ladies working the casino late into the night who do, in fact, put a price on exactly that, but I digress.

So on this particular Saturday evening, I got to meet Aaron who turned out to be a real nice guy (and a good poker player).  The three of us enjoyed a meal at the sports bar next to the MGM poker room.  As is custom when I eat there with friends, I dipped into a relatively small portion of my voluminous poker comps and covered the meal at no actual cost to me.  And Prudence did indeed enjoy an adult beverage, as did Aaron.  She was just getting started.

We had some nice conversation over dinner and then it was time to get to the poker portion of the evening.  Since this was the first time she’d played at MGM since the post I linked to at the outset, Prudence had some old friends to say hello to that she hadn’t seen in quite some time (some players, but mostly dealers).  I was the last of the three of us to join the table we all settled into, and who was dealing there but none other than my pal Mike.  As a favor to him, I will not link to any previous posts featuring Mike, you’ll just have to remember that he’s the guy who always deals me pocket Kings and cracks them (ok, so he’s not alone there) and also likes to give me a hard time about how long my blog posts are (again, he’s not alone).

Prudence had already caught up on what was new with Mike when I finally got to the table—I was the last of the three of us to be seated.  As I took my seat, I nodded to another player I recognized at the table, someone who had made it into the blog in the past, and he said to me, “Hi Rob, it’s been a long time since I’ve played with you.”  I said, “yeah, Ace-Queen!”  We talked about the hand that made it into the blog and then he asked, “You still doing the blog?  I haven’t it checked it in awhile, guess I should check it again.”  It was Warren, and I will give you a link to the last time I mentioned him (here).  He had been playing in a different room for awhile, and since returning to MGM several months ago, I’d seen him a lot but we just never ended up at the same table until now.

Before I could answer Warren’s question, Mike kindly answered for me, saying something to the effect, “Oh yeah, he’s still doing it, with those long posts that put you to sleep. I’m ‘Mike’ on the blog, by the way.”  I of course gave my usual retort, which is, “Mike just can’t handle it because I use words with more than one syllable.”

“No, it’s not that….they just run on and on, run on paragraphs, with flashbacks within flashbacks within flashbacks.”  You see, he’s referring all the links I put in to past posts.  But Mike: except in the case of multi-part posts, it isn’t really necessary to click on all the links to follow my stories.  Those links are bonus material.  Consider them “value-added.”  Prudence chimed in, “You’re too young, you want instant gratification.  Rob’s into details.”

Anyway, I suddenly realized that with the dealer, Warren, Prudence and Aaron, at least half the table was familiar with my blog.  That’s pretty unusual unless it’s one of those games with my fellow bloggers.

Now, one of the reasons Prudence wanted to do this on a Saturday night was so that Aaron could see the Slut Parade for himself.  Unfortunately, the table we all ended up at was in the very back of the room.  And the seat I was stuck in for most of the evening had my back to the walkway. This was not lost on Mike.  “Why are you in that seat, it’s the worst seat in the house?”

I just shrugged and said that’s where they sent me, but Prudence piped in with, “Oh yeah, the titty-brigade!  We gotta see the titties!”

Mike asked me if I saw the girl twerking a little while ago.  I had not.  Prudence said, “Well, butts are not his thing anyway, he wants tits.”  Mike said, “Well, she had those too.”

The next dealer was an Asian woman, an old friend of Prudence’s (who is also Asian, in case you’ve forgotten).  They caught up right away.  Amazingly, despite the fact that this dealer has dealt to me for years, I have never given her a blog name before.  So we will now be calling her “Joyce.”  I’m not sure how it came up, but almost immediately Prudence started discussing Joyce’s chest.  Specifically, she asked, “What’s your bra size?”  I’m sure there was context for that which I missed, though perhaps Prudence now asks all her female friends that.  It was then that I pointed out that she had told me that she’d gotten into trouble commenting on a lady dealer’s breasts the last time she played live.  But Prudence was undeterred.  Since she was sitting right next to the dealer, she even grabbed and snapped Joyce’s bra strap through the side of her shirt.

And sure enough, Joyce revealed the size of her bra.  Now, since there are other dealers in the room who (unlike Mike) do read this blog, and since it would too easy for Joyce’s colleagues to figure out who she is, I will not reveal the identified bra size.  I am much too much of a gentleman to do that.  But in keeping with this blog’s tradition, I will give this wonderful woman a pseudo-bra-size.  You know, in addition to the pseudonym I just gave her.  So, we will say that her blog bra size was revealed to be 46-DD.  Again, that is not the size she revealed.

Prudence nodded when she heard the actual size and said, “Well, that’s pretty impressive for an Asian.”

Warren heard some, but not all of this discussion and asked what we were talking about it, and Joyce said, “Oh nothing, nothing.”  But Prudence said, softly I think so that Warren could not hear it, “Just bra sizes.”

They moved on to status updates on their romantic lives.  I didn’t catch the beginning of this, but I did hear Joyce say, “Well, I’m very fussy.”  To which Prudence replied, “Yeah….unlike me, where any penis will do.”  Warren heard this and said, “I don’t think I’ve ever heard that said at a poker table before.”  Obviously, this was his first time playing with Prudence.

There was a hand where Warren raised preflop and Prudence was one of the callers.  Warren c-bet the flop and Prudence min-raised.  Everyone folded including Warren, and for some reason, Prudence decided to show her hand.  She had flopped a set.  Warren thanked her for showing and then asked….”Wow, why did you let me off the hook, why did you let me know you were so strong so early?” I guess he felt she should have slow played it.  Prudence said, “I’m nice…..I have a vagina.”  Warren laughed—everyone did—and Prudence went on, “I have a va-jay-jay…..it was the estrogen…..respect the pussy.”

As Joyce’s down was coming to an end, Prudence asked her who was pushing her.  She thought about it for awhile and then came up with the name of a male dealer who also happens to be Asian (and is someone who Prudence knows well). But it turned out the next dealer, was not the dealer that had been named but some other male dealer—who was also Asian.  This guy had only recently started dealing in the room and I wasn’t familiar with him either.  But as Prudence laughed about that, she started quizzing the new dealer and learned that this new dealer was actually the brother of the dealer she had been told was pushing in.  This totally amused Prudence, that Joyce had identified the wrong Asian brother as her push.  And thus she said, “See, even to other Asians, we all look alike.”

Another time, out of the blue, she looked at me and said, “I want to go on a platonic date with you next week.”  To which I replied, “All my dates end up being platonic.”  That got a few laughs and perhaps some sympathy.  I was just joking, I couldn’t let Prudence be the only one at the table getting laughs.

And that’s where I’m gonna leave part 1.  Part 2 will feature the British Invasion, and I’ll actually get to some poker. Also it will be a bit longer than part 1, because after all, this post is definitely too short.  But don’t worry, more outrageousness from Prudence will be revealed as well.  Stay tuned.  And now, you can read part 2 here.