A Shark in Guppy's Clothing—Revisited

I was recently reminded of this post from several years ago and when I read it, I felt nostalgic.  This is my favorite type of post to write, and I haven't really had the opportunity to write up many like this recently.  I miss these kind of stories. 

What happened was I came across something doing my real job that reminded me of this post, and at the same time made me realize that I had a follow-up to my original post that I never reported to you.  So enjoy this trip down memory lane and then be sure to check out the new epilogue to the story at end.

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You all remember Alicia, right?  She’s the terrific poker player I ran into a few years ago at the Aria tournament.  The story of our first encounter was told here, where I used the pseudonym “Veronica,” Eventually I wrote an article about Alicia for the online magazine ADANAI which you can find here.

Well, this is the story of my encounter with another terrific female poker player.  And it has an eerily similar ending to the time I met Alicia (oops, sorry, I should have given a spoiler warning).  Maybe one day I’ll write a magazine article about this woman too.  I’d like that.

This story took place exactly one week after the big tournament score at Binion’s that I described here.  And at the same tournament, the 2PM Deepstack at Binion’s.  In fact, before the tournament started, a young bloke came over to me to say hello.  It was Leeds, the lad who took first place last week.  We chatted briefly and I asked him how many more tournaments he had won since I’d seen him last.  He said he hadn’t played another tournament since. This would not be the last time I saw Leeds before he returned to the U.K. (I assume he’s back now).  I would run into him and his father later this very day, a story I told here).  Apparently he and his dad like the same two poker rooms I do.

I was getting settled in to my seat (7) when I couldn’t help noticing an extremely attractive young woman approaching our table, seat card in hand.  I can’t say I was unhappy when she took seat 9 at my table (this tournament plays 9 handed).  She was really cute, and her figure got my attention in a way that readers of my blog might expect to get my attention.  In addition, her sweater was low-cut enough for her to be working the Jennifer Tilly effect just a bit. 

I was pretty happy about this turn of events.  I can think of worse things than sitting across of a pretty face for a couple of hours while playing poker.  I didn’t recognize her, at least not from this tournament.  As the day wore on, I started to think it was entirely possible I had seen her in other venues once or twice, but I wasn’t sure and I know we had never really played at the same table together, tho it was possible I’d seen in a poker room or two. 

I’m going to call her “Lois.”  She had a Superman bobblehead doll that she used as card protector.  So I’m naming her for Superman’s girlfriend, Lois Lane. 

I certainly wasn’t the only guy at the table to notice Lois.  Two seats to my right was an older guy I’ve played with a million times before at this very tournament.  He’s a regular so I’ll just call him Reg for short.  Reg was very interested in chatting up Lois. 

It turned out that Lois was perfectly fine with chatting with Reg.  And me too.  She soon revealed herself to be an absolute delight, a real doll, very nice, very friendly.  And from the conversations we were having about poker, a very knowledgeable and experienced player.

As the session wore on and we could all see she was really tough player, she mentioned that she had played a lot of poker all over and had some big successes.  At the WSOP, she had played only in the Ladies event, but hoped to change that this year.  She had had a few big scores at the DSE’s at the Venetian in the past.  And she had once placed 2^nd in the Main Event of a WSOP circuit event held in the Midwest a few years back.  For that, she took home over 6 figures.

One of the dealers did recognize her and asked her what happened to her other card protector.  Apparently it was some kind of fish trinket.  She said a guy had stolen it.  That’s awful, a few of us noted.  Then she said that the guy claimed to have found it, but he was sure he had stolen it.

“Why would he do that?” I asked.

“Because he wanted my number.  He knew he’d run into me again in a poker room somewhere and then he could get my phone number.”

And in fact, he did run into her and told her that he had her fish.  “Did you give him your number?”

“Yes, I had to.  I wanted my fish back.”

Then I asked a question that was surely none of my business.  “And did you go out with him?”

She said she did not.  I expressed relief.  “Good. He sounds sleezy.”

She still uses the Superman bobblehead even tho she has her fish back. I said to her, “You know, I’m not sure that, as a poker player, you want to be associated with a fish.”

But she disagreed.  “No, no…that’s exactly what I want.  I want people to think I’m a fish.”

By this time I knew that she was definitely not a fish.  I conceded that this was not a bad image at all.

Then she said that one time on the 2+2 forums someone described her as a “shark in guppy’s clothing.”  She explained that she was wearing a summer dress at that event.

It was because of Reg that I learned her name.  After the first break, he came back and claimed that he was sitting next to a woman at a slot machine that was her spitting image.  He thought it was her.  So he asked her name and the woman was surprised. “What?”  So Reg said, “Wasn’t I just playing poker with you?”  The woman assured him he was not.   So Reg told Lois that her twin was out there playing slots.  She laughed and then said, “It’s Lois, by the way.”  Except instead of Lois, she gave us her real first name.

Reg had ordered a “Virgin Mary” from the waitress.  When she came back, she apparently had both a Virgin Mary and a Bloody Mary on her tray.  She picked up one to examine and said, “Let’s see…..is this your virgin?”  Lois said, “Yeah….that’s the only virgin you’ll find in this town.”

I had a blast talking with Lois—about her life and about poker.  She would comment on the hands that other people were in (after the fact, of course) and even guess as to what the odds were for a particular player.  Then she would look at her poker odds calculator to check and she was always within a few points. 

She would even give me a little free after-the-fact-advice from time to time.  I found this most interesting because helping out other players is not usually something a good player wants to do. Lessons are extra.

She wasn’t giving tips to any of the other players.  And all her advice was sound, it wasn’t like she was trying to hurt my game.  So I can only assume either she didn’t consider me any kind of threat to her getting into the money, or….she liked me.  Actually, I think that was it, really.  We were having quite the nice conversation all through the tournament.

And once again people had noticed me taking notes and were starting to comment about it.  At one point, Lois also gave me a poker hint to put in my book. Something like, “Put this in your book….don’t shove against a guy who’s running super hot.”  Earlier, she had asked me what I was writing in my book about her!  I kind of shrugged and then was about to say “Until I learned your name, I was referring to you as ‘Beautiful Girl’ in my notes.”  However, either I chickened out or something distracted me right as I was about to say that, and then the moment was gone.

Early in the tournament, who should join the tournament and be assigned to our table by none other than The Bubble Bitch (see here).  This was now just a week after her dramatic exit scene.  No one mentioned anything about that—at least while she was still there. 

And speaking of The Bubble Bitch, on a more recent visit to Binion’s, Audrey came over to discuss that post.  When she read it, she was dying to know who The Bubble Bitch was.  She had a very strong hunch as to the identity but wanted to be sure.  I hadn’t been back in awhile so she finally realized who the T.D. on duty would have been and asked him to confirm her suspicions.  She had totally nailed it.  She had identified The Bubble Bitch from my description of her behavior.

For brevity’s sake (since I’m so good at brevity), I’ll refer to The Bubble Bitch as BB from now on.  BB wasted no time in making more friends.  As last time, she was an aggro maniac.  And so she shoved on a flop even though she had plenty of chips if she had wanted to play it safer.  But the guy next to her called.  He was another regular and of course had some experience playing with BB before.

It turned out that BB had 10-9 and there was a 10 on the board.  That was it.  She had top pair, weak kicker and had gone all in.  But the other player only had Ace-King and had nothing on the board….no pair, no draw.  By the way, it was actually a third player who had raised preflop, neither one of them had.  So BB had called a raise with 10-9.  Anyway, BB was ahead until the other player hit a King on the river.

We all found that hand very interesting.  BB didn’t say anything to other guy at first, but she was shooting daggers at him with her eyes.  You could see the faint hint of smoke coming out of ears.

The rest of us couldn’t understand the hand at all.  Well, I understood the shove—that’s BB.  I had seen her play like that just the week before.  But the guy calling her shove with nothing?  WTF?  He had a shorter stack and so he didn’t bust BB out, but of course, if he hadn’t gotten lucky on the river he would have out of the tournament.

BB and the other guy were in seats 1 & 2, on the other side of the table from Lois and me.  And everyone on our side of the table was quietly expressing our disbelief.  Somebody said, “I don’t understand the call.”  And Lois said, “I don’t understand the shove or the call.”

Well BB and Seat 2 started overhearing our conversation so finally BB started commenting on the guy’s call herself.   And the two of them started arguing for a bit.

This caused a reaction from another woman at the table, a mature woman who was from New York originally—complete with NY accent and NY attitude.  While the other two were bickering, New York Lady (NYL) turned to our side of the table and said, “Oh, she’s so mad at him.  She wants to pull down his pants, take him over her knee and spank him.”

Someone said “He might like that.”  I think it was me. 

Everyone was laughing about NYL’s line about the spanking and Lois said to me, “Put that in your book.”  Of course, I did.

Anyway, her own comment about the spanking got NYL started.  “When she’d pull down his pants, he’d be wearing….what is it…..not briefs….not Speedos….”

“Tidy Whities?”  I was trying to help her out.

“Yes, that’s it.  Tidy Whities!”

She did not look like the kind of woman who would be talking about spanking men or men’s underwear.  But she was just getting started.

This got NYL telling the story of how she took her granddaughter to “Thunder from Down Under” for her 21^st birthday.  That’s a Chippendales-type show at the Excalibur where male dancers get almost completely naked (for a post about a show where there’s no almost about it, check here).  I did find that a bit strange. I’m thinking that, when I was 21, it sure would have been weird and more than a bit uncomfortable to see a strip show with my grandfather.  But times have changed, I guess.

Anyway, NYL took her granddaughter and her granddaughter’s best friend to the show to celebrate her big day.  Then she went on to explain that the girl’s best friend was in fact a guy.  But as she said about him, “He likes men.”  She went on to declare that gay guys make the best friends.

Of course she described the finale of the show. “At the very end, with their backs to the audience, they all pull their bottoms off.  But they don’t turn around…..damn it.

She went on for at least a minute complaining about the fact that the guys didn’t turn around and reveal their…well, their true personalities.  She felt cheated. What a randy grandmother!  We were all laughing at her kvetching.

I’m not going to discuss many hands because I didn’t cash. But one I want to mention was in the 5^th level with the blinds at (300/600).  My initial $20K stack was down to $18K or so. I raised to $1,800 with Ace-10 of hearts.  Good ol’ BB shoved for $6,500.  Assuming it folded back to me, it would have been an easy call for me, knowing BB was almost definitely shoving light.  And if she happened to have woken up with a good hand, well, I’d still have almost 2/3’s my stack.

But it folded to Reg, who was the big blind.  He thought and thought and thought for a long time and finally called.  Damn.  At the start of this hand his stack was similar to mine.  If I shoved, he’d likely call, feeling pot committed.  I considered him a fairly tight player, not a maniac. 

I didn’t want to put my tournament life in play against two players, one of whom (Reg) could easily have a better hand than I did.  I never really considered calling.  It was either fold or shove, but I just didn’t want to shove against Reg with only Ace-10.  My stack was about an M of 20.  I decided to play it safe and fold.

So they flipped over their hands.  BB showed Ace-5 offsuit, which was actually better than I thought it would be.  But Reg flipped over Queen-Jack offsuit.  WTF?  How the hell could he call $6,500 with Queen-Jack?  I thought he was a much better player than that.

The flop made me ill.  It was Ace-10-x.  Ugh.  Nothing else of consequence hit the board.  BB took it with a pair of Aces, 5 kicker.  If Reg had folded like he should have, I would have won with 2 pair.  If I had called or shoved, I would have gotten a lot of chips.  Ugh.

I was so surprised and more than a bit pissed.  I did something I don’t normally do—I told everyone what I folded.  I explained that I couldn’t call with Reg calling, assuming he had a much better hand than he did.  I came thisclose, I mean really close to saying, “I would have called but I had no idea Reg was such a bad player.”  Knowing Reg’s sense of humor, I know he would have enjoyed that, and laughed.  But I thought better of it.

But thinking about it later, the next day, I kind of figured out maybe why he called.  He knew that BB was a maniac and that Q-J was beating her shove-range there.  But that doesn’t explain why he did that in a pot where I had raised.  He’s played with me enough to know I’m not raising with a hand nearly as crappy as BB’s range.  I guess he was rolling the dice.  He figured I’d likely fold, and if I had a big pair or AK, so be it.

Sometime soon after this, BB did indeed bust-out.  This was much earlier in the tournament than the previous week, a long ways from the money, and she managed to leave without making a scene this time.  But we started talking about her inasmuch as her aggressive play and her verbal jousts with Seat 2 had made an impression on everyone. 

The dealer confirmed that she was a dealer somewhere in town, or at least had tried to be.  He claimed that one time, she had an audition at one of the bigger rooms on the Strip.  The manager ended it within 5 minutes.  She spent the entire five minutes ordering everyone around, so the manager told her, “This audition’s over.  You don’t have the right attitude.”  Shocking!

After that, I decided to tell everyone at our table the story of her exit last week, which of course everyone thoroughly enjoyed. 

By level 9, I was more than a little bit desperate. I shoved with Queen-Jack and the player to my left snap called.  He had me covered but not by that much.  He flipped over pocket Aces. Ugh.  Blank flop.  Jack on the turn.  Queen on the river.  Nice suckout for me.  The guy was now talking about being dead, but both Lois and I gave him the old “chip and a chair” speech.  In fact, this guy had a decent chip stack back by the time I busted.

And then something bad happened.  Lois was moved to balance tables.  As she got up, she told me she enjoyed playing with me and asked my name.  I not only told her but gave her a card with the blog’s URL on it and whispered that this was the real reason I was using the notebook.  She said she would check it out.  I told her she was a delight.

Anyway, I ended up helping the guy whose Aces I cracked make his comeback.  We were both all-in, I had shoved with Ace-Jack, he had called with Ace-8.  And he hit an 8 on the river.  I guess I had that coming.  And I doubled him up again when I shoved with Queen-10 and he called with Ace-Queen, which held.

My table broke and I was sent to the table where Lois had been moved to.  With an M of less than 5, I had Queen-Jack of diamonds.  First in, I shoved.  Lois was the big blind and called, turning over Ace-10.  A Queen hit the flop.  But then an Ace hit the river.  I was done.  Just like with Alicia, I met a terrific female poker player in a tournament and got busted by her.

As I got up, she said, in maybe the sweetest voice I’ve ever heard, “You’re not mad at me, are you?”  I said of course not, she had made the right move.  I told her again what a delight she was.

I hope I run into her again. 

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Epilogue (new):

Well, just a few months after I published this post, PokerAtlas received an email with some minor corrections to our listings for a couple of Vegas rooms.  That email was forwarded to me since that's my responsibility.

I noticed the name on the email.  It was the real name of the Lois that is the subject of this post.  Now, her real name is a rather common name, so it wasn't definite that the writer was the same person I played with a few months earlier.  So, I timidly emailed her back, and after thanking her for the corrections (which I confirmed were correct), I asked if she was the same "Lois" that I had played with at Binion's that time and described enough of the interaction so that she'd remember.  I knew it was a long-shot that even if it was her, she'd respond, but in fact, she responded almost immediately and confirmed that she was that enchanting young lady I met back then.  She said she hoped to run into at the tables again some day.

Well, of course, I decided to tell her that I had written about our memorable encounter and sent her the link to the post about her.

She responded within a day, saying, "Very interesting read!  I'm flattered."  She went on to say that she had recently played a few Venetian Deepstack events, finally tabling two of them.  Also, she was planning to play in a few big events that summer, including the WSOP main event for the first time.  Then she added, "if do make it deep in the Main, you are certainly welcome to write an article about me :)"

I told her if she made a deep run in the Main, I could write about her in Ante Up (though now that I think about it, I probably couldn't do that).  Sadly, I have not heard from her since then, nor have I run into at a poker table anywhere.  According to Hendon Mob, she last cashed in a tournament in late 2017, but that wasn't in Vegas.

Well, who knows....maybe this summer will be the time I see her again. 

"What Else Are Breasts For?"

New Year's Eve, 2016

Part 2

This is the second of three parts.  Part 1 is here.  I’ll post part 3 Tuesday evening.  We continue right where we left off.  Ginger, Faith and Jennifer had been away from the table for over an hour to have dinner.

The ladies did return within the allowed time and they were in very good moods.  But then something happened that soured Faith’s disposition.  She and Jennifer were in a hand, as was a third player.  I believe it was on the flop and Jennifer went all-in.  Her bet was a bit less than $100, let’s say it was $75. Faith was next to act.  She had Jennifer covered and she had her chips stacked very high.  She put one of stacks out in front of her. She didn’t say what she intended and she hadn’t counted the stack, but it was clearly more than Jennifer’s bet—quite a bit more.  It looked like it could have been double Jennifer’s bet; if not, it was close to that.

Faith apparently didn’t realize that there was another player in the hand, she must have thought she was heads up with Jennifer.  But before the dealer could ask her to clarify her action, the third player, who had Faith covered, announced “all-in.”  This took Faith by surprise, and then she started taking chips off the stack she had put out in response to Jennifer’s shove.  The dealer said she couldn’t do that.  He was about to count her stack, insisting her bet was a raise.  Maybe only a min-raise, but definitely a raise.  She said, “No, this was just a call, I’m taking back the chips that are more than Jennifer’s bet.”  The dealer stopped her from pulling the chips back and immediately called the floor.

The problem was that since Faith never said “call,” the chips speak for themselves.  Her play would have been fine if it was just heads up but her action was unclear since there was another player to act and that player announced all-in so fast the dealer didn’t have a chance to clarify her bet.  I believe what should have happened was that the dealer should have counted out the chips she had pushed forward and if the extra chips in excess of Jennifer’s bet were more than half of Jennifer’s bet, it would be considered a min-raise (to $150).  If they were less than half, it would just be a call.  So, if it was $120 total, it would be considered a raise to $150, and if it was $100 total, it would be considered a call of the $75 and she could take the extra chips back.

At least, as I understand the rule, that’s the case.  Anyone think differently?

Well, you didn’t really need to count because it was obvious that Faith’s stack was very close to being double Jennifer’s bet, you could just eyeball it and determine that.  Anyway, the shift boss did the count and it turned out she was only $15 short of making a legitimate min-raise, even though she insisted she was only calling.  Faith put up quite the argument, insisting that it was only a call and she was only responsible for the $75.  The shift boss refused to change his ruling, and didn’t care one bit that Faith was a long-time regular in the room (nor should he have).

Here’s where it got a bit dicey for me.  I think he not only should have insisted that all the chips Faith put out remain in the pot, but he should have made her put an additional $15 in there since she, by rule, made the min-raise.  I am not 100% certain of this, but I don’t believe he did that. I think she was just on the hook for what she put out initially and not the extra $15.

But maybe, if I’m correct, it’s ok.  I think I’ve seen situations where players put out excess chips that indicate a raise (or a call of a raise they weren’t aware of) and were allowed to just leave the chips out with completing the bet.  And it was only $15. 

Anyway, Faith folded and the guy who shoved won the pot

But Faith was really pissed. And she took it out on Jennifer, for some reason.  She immediately asked for a table change to get away from Jennifer!  Although the ruling was right, I could understand her being pissed at the shift boss.  That might have encouraged her to change poker rooms—but as I’ve already explained, that would have been difficult on this night.

I couldn’t figure out why she was so pissed at Jennifer that she wanted to get away from her, but she clearly was.  She somehow blamed Jennifer for the whole problem, when all Jennifer had done was go all-in, a perfectly acceptable poker move.  Well, the three ladies were bantering and sorta playing at each other all night.  Perhaps she thought Jennifer was just making a bluff there and because she was so sure she (Faith) had caught her, she forgot about the other player and that the whole problem was somehow Jennifer’s fault.  I didn’t see the hands there, perhaps she got pissed if she found out Jennifer was shoving with air.  But why would Jennifer do that unless she too forgot about the third player in the hand, and I find that unlikely.

So Faith moved to another table, leaving her good friend Ginger behind. I don’t think Faith was mad at Ginger too but then, I really don’t understand women, so who knows?

I’m happy to report that before the evening was over, Faith returned to the table in her original seat, and seemed to have forgiven Jennifer for whatever crime she had committed.

Now, before the three of them had gone to dinner, another person I recognized showed up at the table.  It was Rick, a reg in the room.  Rick almost always plays 2/5 when it’s running, so I hadn’t had much experience playing with him.  Maybe once or twice over the years he was at the 1/2 table with me.  And I’m pretty sure he was the guy who busted me the last time I played in the MGM Invitation (freeroll).  But I knew by reputation he was a really tough player.

Oh, there’s one other thing I should tell you about Rick.  And I tell you this only because it’s relevant to the story.  Rick is a “little person.”

So when Rick came to our table, Jennifer was almost ecstatic to greet him, it had been a long time since she’d seen him.  Rick initially was sitting in the seat to my immediate left. Not too long after Faith left the table, the guy who won that pot left the game.  Rick moved over to take his seat, which was right next to Jennifer. 

But before Rick moved, the salaciousness began.  At one point, Rick and Jennifer were in a hand together.  I’m sure Jennifer has real respect for Rick’s game.  Rick, who was sitting across the table from the ladies at the time, had made a big bet and Jennifer went into the tank.  Then she spoke to Rick from across the table, “If I fold, are you gonna show me your nuts?”  I cracked up but Rick didn’t hear what she said and asked her to repeat it.  I tried to repeat it for him, but at the same time, Ginger also respnded but with a slight variation.  She shouted, “She said, ‘How big are your nuts?’”  Rick was unfazed, and he kind of balled up his fingers and his thumb to approximate the size.  “And that’s only one,” he emphasized.  Remember, Rick is a “little person.”

And there was a question about the size of a related part of his anatomy.  I didn’t catch the context, but Jennifer said something about “six inches.”  “That’s six inches,” or something. Rick responded, “I don’t know if it’s six inches.  I know when I walk, I get carpet burn.  Is that six inches?  Or is that eight inches?”

During this back-and-forth, Jennifer said something which Rick took as a slight on his ability to, um, get a woman.  I didn’t hear the set up, but I heard Rick say, “What? You think I can’t get laid?  I’ll have you know I’m getting laid tonight!”

Now to explain this next part, I have to discuss something I don’t like talking about—cleavage.  OK, that was silly—no one would believe that.  Well, in the entire history of cleavage, there was never more of it to talk about than this night.  Even better, there was never more to see than on this night.

Seriously, the eye candy was noticeable at 4PM when I got there, and even early in the evening, long before the club goers usually show up, they were out in force.  From the time I got the preferred viewing seat right after dinner, there was almost a non-stop stream of girls, dressed to the nines (or perhaps more aptly, barely dressed to the nines), walking by. 

As I’ve explained before, there are three elements to a Slut Parade dress, which is pretty amazing, because there’s barely enough material in those dresses for one element. The dresses are generally very short, very tight, and very low-cut. Most dresses emphasize two of those three elements.  Often, the girls wearing tight, short dresses aren’t showing much (if anything) on top—except perhaps due to the tightness of the dress.  So, some nights, there isn’t that much cleavage to admire, and also, on some nights, the ladies that show up are not as great looking as on other nights.

This night was something else.  It seemed like virtually every woman who walked by had picked an outfit out that really showed off her boobs.  There was cleavage, there was side-boob, there was under-boob.  There was just a lot of boobs. And a ridiculously high percentage of the ladies were smoking hot.  Sizzling, in fact.  The average wait time to see at least two really gorgeous women walk by was 1.7 seconds.  Ok, I might be exaggerating a bit.  But not by much.  I’ve heard that there are men with an above average interest in women’s breasts (not that I know anybody like that).  This was in incredible night for any such man.

Honestly, since I’ve observing the Slut Parade, this was without question the most girls I’d ever seen.  And the highest percentage of really hot girls.  And the highest percentage of really revealing, really low-cut dresses.  What was there not to like?

It would have been a great night to have hidden about a dozen (or maybe 100) video cameras at various locations in the casino to record the lovely young ladies there to celebrate the new year.  Unfortunately, doing so would be extremely illegal.

At one point during the evening, I tweeted out the following:  “The cleavage on display tonight is unreal. Of course, I mean that in both senses of the word.”

I don’t want to imply that on this night there only eye-candy for the tit-men.  Not at all.  Leg-men and ass-men were also extremely well served.  As were fans of virtually all body-types.  There was something for everyone—and a whole lot of it.

The one problem with the view from the poker room was that, at various times during the evening, passersby would decide to stop at the rail of the poker room, right in front of our table, and just park themselves there, watching us play.  I doubt most of these folks were poker players and I have no idea what they found so fascinating about watching us.  But they did.  And thus, they were partially or mostly blocking my view of the foot traffic.  Often, there would be only a small window to peak thru to enjoy the ladies as they passed by.  It was frustrating.  Frequently I didn’t get a chance to admire the short dress, or the tight dress.  I so wanted to shout at those looky loos, “Get the f*** out of the way, you’re blocking the view!”  But I managed to avoid doing that.

So, it was in that context that Jennifer started complaining about the traffic.  It wasn’t that she objected to the girls in their revealing outfits.  It was that it was just unfair.  She couldn’t help but notice how distracted all the guys at the table were by ladies.  So she said, “There’s nothing for us to look at.  Look at the guys, there’s no guys worth looking at. It’s only the girls.  Only the girls are worth looking at.”

“And they’re all fake.”

Ginger disputed that there was nothing for them to look at.  “I like looking at good-looking people of either sex.”

Then Jennifer, noticing all the boobage on display, stated flatly, “Anything more than a mouthful is a waste.”

The dealer at the time, a male and a long time co-worker of both Jennifer and Ginger responded, “Is that true for men, too?”

Jennifer replied, “No, your equipment has multiple functions.  Breasts are just for two things—babies use them, and for sex play….What else are they for?  Milk and sex play.  That’s it.”

I dunno…..I think they’re also nice to look at.  When properly displayed, they tend to turn men into blithering idiots.  When properly displayed at a poker table, they can distract male poker players from playing well.  This is known (by readers of this blog, anyway), as the Jennifer Tilly Effect.

But that was all Jennifer had to say about breasts and their usefulness, and we moved onto other topics.

And thus ends part 2.  The final chapter will see two dealers having quite the argument, and a “delayed” celebrity sighting.  See here.

Cleavage Redhead

Question of the day:  If a person peers over your shoulder and reads something you wrote that was not meant for her eyes—or anyone else’s eyes, for that matter—and is offended by what you wrote about her, is it your fault, or hers?

As you know, I take notes during my poker sessions so I can reasonably accurately report on the more interesting hands I am involved in.  When I started doing this, I was a total luddite and took these notes in a small notebook that fits in my shirt pocket.  For months (years?) people have been suggesting that it would be more efficient and more practical to use my smart phone to take these notes. I resisted because a) I was used to doing it the old-fashioned way and rather set in my ways, and b) I have trouble entering text fast and accurately with the virtual keyboard that smart phones have.  I knew whenever I tried this, it always took longer than just scribbling the notes with a pen.  And that meant I was even more distracted from the game doing it that way than by hand.

But the appeal of doing it on my phone has become more and more obvious to me lately.  For one thing, my handwriting is really bad, even when I am not rushing.  Often I would read my notes the next day and have no idea WTF I wrote!  So that was a problem.  Another problem:  it really attracts attention writing notes at the poker table, and I was drawing undue attention to myself by doing it.  I was getting tired of having to answer the question, “What are your writing?  Are you taking notes on the game?  Are you taking notes on me?”  Note: my standard answer was that I was working on my grocery list.  Or that I was working on a novel.  No way would I ever admit that I was taking notes for a future blog post.

But tapping into a phone attracts no attention whatsoever because pretty much everyone at the table is doing it.  It’s pretty normal these days.  They assume I’m texting someone about dinner plans.  Or perhaps trying to book a booty call on Tinder. 

I should mention that the typed notes aren’t always that much easier to decipher the next day, thanks mostly to auto-correct.  I usually rush thru them and don’t take the time to see if auto-correct has made my notes totally incoherent.  The weirdest thing that auto-correct does is arbitrarily change numbers.  I don’t get it.  Why does it think that 100 is what I meant when I typed 10?  At least I know I didn’t open raise to $100 with King-10 suited.  But sometimes the numbers are changed in stranger ways than that, like 18 becomes 313 or something.

Anyway, so far this trip, I’ve actually been exclusively using the phone to take notes, and am getting more and more comfortable with it. 

There is a problem doing it this way, however.  The fact that the notes are easier for me to read means that the notes are easier for someone else to read.  In fact, I already mentioned this in a previous post, when somebody sitting next me did read something I typed into my phone, and actually assumed I was texting someone reports of the salacious dialog that was taking place at the table (see here).  If only I remembered that story—and acted on it—on the night a few weeks back that this story took place.

I was minding my own business, playing some 1/2 at BSC when an attention-getting woman took the seat immediate to my right.  I guess she was in her 20’s and she had really unnatural looking red hair.  Actually, in thinking about it the next day, it was more magenta than red.  But at the time I was thinking she was a redhead, because as far as I know, there’s no such thing as a magenta-head.

OK, there was one other thing about her that was attention-getting.  Maybe two other things.  The girl was wearing a loose, low-cut top that revealed a lot of cleavage.  And truth be told, she had a lot of cleavage to reveal.  And I’ll say this for her… there was enough revealed to lead me to think that unlike her hair color, her chest was most likely a gift from mother nature. Another clue to this was that the girl was, ummm, not at all skinny.

She also wasn’t at all talkative.  Until the moment I’m about to describe, she didn’t say a word the entire time she was there.  I don’t think she smiled or looked at all like she might be enjoying herself—but in that way, she wasn’t different from any number of male poker players her age.

Anyway, at one point a very nice hand went my way.  The actual poker from this session will be reported in some future post, no time for that now.  But the important thing to know is that on the hand in question, the girl to my right started things off by raising preflop (note: I didn’t win most of the money from her, there was a guy at that the table who was my main benefactor in this hand, the girl just started the action). 

When the hand was over and I had dragged in a rather nice pot, it was time for me to type the notes into my smart phone. I had taken a few notes about previous hands, but this was the first decent pot I’d won, and also the first time I had reason to mention the redhead in my notes.

So I started my note—meant only for my eyes, so that, if this session turned out to be worthy of a blog post, I’d have the details right—by typing, “Cleavage redhead raised to $8….”  I continued the note with the rest of the hand, or at least some of it before I had to put the phone down to play another hand before I finished the note.

I could have just referred to her as “girl” or “lady” I suppose (“player on my immediate right” takes too long to type), but as it happened, there was another female at this table, a rather nondescript middle-aged woman immediately to my left (actually, she reminded me of someone I went to high school with, but that’s not really relevant).  So I had to distinguish this girl from the other woman at the table.  So it was “cleavage redhead.” I should point out that the "predictive text" feature on my phone's virtual keyboard--for reasons I can't even begin to figure out--always seems to predict "cleavage" whenever I begin a word with "cl."  So it's real easy for me to use the word "cleavage" on my phone.

In retrospect, I’m real glad I didn’t go with the other option I was considering for identifying her, which was, I must confess, “Big tits.”

Anyway, as soon as we were both done with the current hand, and before I could pick up my phone to finish my note about the big hand, she finally opened her mouth and spoke, and directly to me.  She said, “"Could you please not take notes on everything I do?  I can see everything you're writing."

Oh shit.

I was mortified. 

All I could think of at that moment was that I had referred to her as “cleavage redhead” and I was 100% certain that’s what she was referring to and that was what had ticked her off.

I didn’t know what to do, or what to say.  At least I hadn’t referred to her as “Big tits.”  So there was that.

I put my phone away and didn’t say a word.  It took me a few seconds to realize that neither one of us was going to be comfortable there for the rest of the night.  And no way could I continue taking my notes as long as we were at the table together.  I didn’t think going back to my hand-written notes in my notebook would fool her.  And honestly, there’s no way I want to be prevented from taking notes, I have a blog to write and cannot depend on remembering details the next day.

I felt I had no choice but to request a table change.  So I got up and asked for one.  Fortunately it didn’t take too long for me to be called to a different table.  The few minutes I spent back at the table sitting next to her were among the most awkward of my life.

So I heard my name called to a new table and I racked up my chips.  As I was about to depart, I leaned and whispered to the girl, “I apologize.”  She grunted something unintelligible.

I was rather bummed out about the forced move—I thought the table I had left was a pretty good table.  The guy who had paid me off on the hand that started the whole kerfuffle was still there and I thought quite capable of paying me off some more.  So that sucked.

I stewed for a while and had trouble concentrating on the new table.  I cursed my decision to use the “cleavage” descriptor in my notes.

But the more I started thinking about it, the more I wondered if I was overreacting.  I mean, first of all, I have every right to take notes at the poker table, right?  A lot of poker coaches tell their students to take notes on big hands to study later, away from the table.  I could have just been doing that (in fact, I do take notes on hands or from sessions that won’t make it into the blog just so I can possibly learn something from them).  And who is she to tell me I couldn’t do that?

You see, if only I had not used put the adjective ‘cleavage” (which of course is not actually an adjective but I used it as such—this is your grammar lesson for the day) in front of “redhead,” I would be totally guilt free.  She couldn’t complain about being referred to as a redhead.  I would have been well within my rights to respond to her request with a retort such as, “I’m sorry, but I like to take notes on my hands to help me improve.  I’m doing nothing wrong. If it bothers you that I’m taking notes, I suggest you request a table change.”

I suppose I could have said that anyway, but when she first spoke to me, all I was thinking about was the rude way I had referred to her in my notes.

In my notes.  My notes.  Notes meant for no one else’s eyes but my own.  Was it my fault that I was sloppy and let someone see what I was typing (yes, but mostly because I wouldn’t want someone to read what hand I had played if it wasn’t tabled), or was it her fault for reading notes that weren’t meant for her to ever see?

I mean, if you read something that wasn’t meant to be seen by you, isn’t that the chance you take?  It’s like the downside of being able to read minds that no one ever thinks about.  Sure it would be great—especially at the poker table—but you’d always “hear” some pretty nasty thoughts about yourself from the people around you, and would you really want that?  If she could have read minds, I’m sure she’d hear a lot of nasty comments about how ridiculous her magenta hair looked. 

The more I thought about it, the more I felt like the aggrieved party, and what the hell was I apologizing for?  She sticks her nose in my notes, and doesn’t like what she reads, that’s her fault, not mine.  Am I right?

It's just that, in my mind, she had seen the word "cleavage" and probably jumped to the conclusion that I was writing other salacious comments about her.  Of course, it's not like what I did write was so bad.  She couldn't deny she was showing cleavage.  I'm sure that was pretty obvious to her when she selected that she was wearing.  I dare say it might have been an intentional attempt to work the Jennifer Tilly effect on the guys at the table. 

It's just that it was tacky that I had reduced her to just her physical appearance/attributes.  But again, that was just for my own use.  I suppose if she had never said anything, if she had never seen my words, I probably would have figured out a way to mention that this anonymous girl was wearing an attention-getting top in addition to the attention-getting hair when I blogged about the session. But she would have been long gone by then and there would be almost no chance she'd ever see it.

Anyway, from now on, I’ll try to be more careful about keeping prying eyes away from my typed notes.  And I’ll avoid descriptions that might offend those prying eyes.  Not that I should have to.

The punch line is that it turned out to be a good table change for me, I did even better at the new table than I was doing sitting next to Cleavage Redhead (again, details in a future post).  So I guess I should be grateful to her and her prying eyes.

Busting The Busty Blonde

((NOTE:  Before we get started with your regularly scheduled blog post, I want to point you in the direction of The Trooper's very latest video.  I'm sure after my last post you've all subscribed to his Vlog, but just in case, you need to check this out.  He calls the video "The Slut Parade," and no, I won't be suing him for copyright infringement.  But he does shoot some video that my readers have been demanding for years.  Watch it here and enjoy!))

As long time readers have figured out, there are a lot of things that annoy me.  Here’s one I haven’t mentioned before: Playing poker 9-handed in a table made for 10 players.

This only pertains to poker tables that have built-in cup holders.  If there are no built-in cup-holders, it’s not an issue.  Although, the fact that the table doesn’t have built-in cup-holders is a totally separate issue. 

Anyway, if a game is meant to have nine players, the cup-holder will be conveniently located in the center of each player.  This is good for two reasons.  First, it puts the player’s drink in the most convenient place possible.  Second, it gives guidance to every player as to where their chair should be situated.  The dealer can rightly tell each player that the cup-holder should align with the person’s belly button.  Simple.

If the game is 10-handed and the table has 10 cup-holders, that too is not an issue.  But some rooms have both 9-handed games and 10-handed games, and that can create a problem. 

These days, most no-limit games in Vegas are 9-handed, and not a lot of rooms spread limit games very often.  But, most of these rooms play their tournaments 10-handed.  Some rooms, like the Venetian I think (but don’t quote me), have all their tables with 10 cup-holders since during the Deepstacks events, almost any table could be used as a tournament table.  Other rooms have some tables that have 10 cup-holders and some that have 9 cup-holders.

MGM is one such room.  Although they seldom get any limit games any more, they do run tournaments.  So a number of their tables have 10 cup-holders.  And of course, sometimes they need to use those ten-handed tables for cash games, particularly on the weekends when they don’t run their evening tournaments. 

Why does it bother me?  After all, they have an extra cup-holder, so what’s the big deal?  Who would complain about extra cup-holder?

The issue for me is with the placement of the cup-holders.  It seems invariably when I sit down at one of those tables, I want to rest my arms exactly where my drink is.  I either have to rest my arm to close to my body or two far away from it (and thus too close to the person next to me).  I feel like I’m always intruding on the space of the person next to me—or that they are intruding on mine.

OK, it’s not the end of the world.  There are bigger things to complain about.  I get it.  But still, it’s a minor annoyance and all other things being equal, I would take a seat at table with 9 cup-holders over a table with 10 cup-holders.

So that is one of the reasons I got up to change my table on this particular Saturday night in Vegas. I was stuck at a 10 cup-holder table.  My arm kept trying to rest exactly where my drink was. 

Another reason was that I wasn’t getting any cards where I was, and it was kind of a boring game.  I mean, the first time I got a playable hand, it was pocket Aces.  I was in the big blind.  It folded to the small blind.  He asked if I chopped, I said yes, showed the Aces and said, “I wouldn’t want to play these anyway.”  About an orbit and a half later, I got Aces again.  It folded to me in middle position. I bet $8 and no one called.  Ordinarily I wouldn’t show, but I couldn’t resist.  I showed them and said, “I guess these things are worthless.”  Somehow, I managed to lose about $80 at that first table.

But when I noticed they were starting a new game at a table right in the front of the room, a table with only 9 cup-holders, I might add, I asked if I could move into that new game was given the ok.  I assure you, it was just a total coincidence that this table offers the best view of the Parade de Sluts that was about to start any minute, this being a Saturday evening.  It never entered my mind.

There were only two seats left when I got to that table, the ones on either side of the dealer.  Again, by sheer coincidence, these two seats happen to be the two best for watching the scenery that was about to pass by.  I took seat 1, and eventually, a young woman ended up taking seat 9.

I got a quick glance at the woman.  She definitely was attention-getting.  She was young, blonde, extremely attractive, and dressed to impress.  I mean, impress anyone who is interested in large breasts. Personally, I don’t know anyone like that, but I hear they exist.  Her top was very low cut, and she appeared to be particularly blessed in this particular area.  And honestly, there was enough on display to convince me after only a quick glance that her talents were god-given.  

But it was a tragedy that she had to take seat 9.  It mean that the view she was about to experience—from other young ladies dressed as provocatively as she was—was going to be totally wasted on her. What a shame.  She was of course the only female at the table and sadly, the guys facing her wouldn’t be able to easily see the club-goers easily.  They would be forced to look at her instead.

Which of course, wasn’t a bad deal.  Except for me, as I had the worse possible seat to see the attractive blonde.  I guess you call it a bad beat. By the way, the busty blonde had a wedding ring and it looked like her husband was sitting at a nearby table.

Almost immediately, it appeared that the blonde was unsure of herself at the poker table.  She had trouble handling the chips, looking at her cards, figuring out when the action was on her or knowing how much she could bet or if she had to bet.  Wow, a really good looking woman, built like her, dressed like her, who has no clue what she is doing at a poker table?  Pretty much the ideal person to have at your game, right?

Well, the two guys sitting to my immediate left didn’t think so.  They started talking and they quickly developed the theory that she was putting on an act—that she was really a good player who was acting like the helpless female just to take advantage of us.  Hmm, if they were right, then the blonde was intentionally working the “Jennifer Tilly Effect” (see here).  I was leaning to believe she was the novice she seemed, but I carefully observed her play to see if I could tell what she was up to.

My determination was that she honestly didn’t know what she was doing.  She shoved once with top pair, weak kicker on a very scary board and I honestly couldn’t see any decent player doing that, especially since the other player didn’t have enough chips to fold any reasonable hand.  I can’t recall the details, but when she shoved, the other guy had the hand I put her on.  To me it was evidence of a newbie.

She wasn’t the only bad player at the table.  In the big blind I had 9-3 of hearts, and there was no raise. Six of us saw the flop, which had two hearts.  A guy bet $2.  I called, I think most players folded.  A blank hit the turn and he bet $2 again.  Did he think this was a 2/4 game?  Well, thanks for giving me odds to make my hand.  Which I did on the river.  I bet $10 with my flush, and he called (it was heads up by then, those mighty $2 bets had gotten everyone else out).  He mucked when he saw my flush. 

I later caught a straight when I limped in from the small blind with 7-4 offsuit (because almost everyone had limped in). I won a small pot.

Then, I limped in from the small blind with Ace-Queen.  Five of us saw the flop, including the blonde who had limped from the button. Because of the hand I described earlier that convinced me that her bad play wasn’t an act, she was now seriously short-stacked (you’ll pardon the expression). The flop was Ace-high so I led out for $6.  It folded to the blonde who made it $20.  I called.  The turn was a blank and she went all in for her last $12.  I called.  The river was a blank and she showed Ace-Jack.  When she didn’t rebuy, I had some regret about winning that pot.  I had busted the busty blonde.  I did get some nasty looks and comments from some of the other guys at the table.  The two guys sitting right across from her seemed especially pissed, for some reason.  In my defense, remember, I had the worst view of her.  She went over to the game where her husband was and watched him play for awhile, before leaving the room.

Sadly, busting the busty blonde was the highlight of this poker session.  I won a few more small pots, lost a few small pots, but never really had much going on.  I came close to breaking even, but didn’t quite make it.  Oh, and those two times I had the Aces and never saw a flop (and won a whopping three bucks)?  The only time I saw Aces this night, of course.