Emily, This Repost is For You!

Emily, are you still out there?  I hope so.  One of the stories you told me the other night reminded me of this incident I first described in a post I did over ten years ago which described an incident similar to the one you told me.....but with a very different result.  So I thought you'd be interested in reading this while you are patiently (I hope) waiting for me to write up the post about the session we had together.  This post was one of the most popular posts from the early days of my blog and in fact I've already reposted it once already!  

You are of course invited to comment on this and perhaps reveal to all my readers the details of your similar situation that had a vastly different result.  If you do want to comment for public viewing, I would prefer that you not mention the name of the poker room your story took place in; remember I keep a good relationship with all the Vegas poker rooms for my work.  Thanks!

One of the rules of the poker room is this:  “Verbal is binding.”  This means that if a person says “call” instead of putting out his chips in front of him, he is obligated to put his chips into the pot.  If he or she says “raise” he must raise the required amount, regardless of any action he takes with his chips (in a no limit game, without stating an amount, the person saying “raise” would have to put out the minimum required to raise).

But that’s not where it ends.  If a person has yet to act, and the person who will be acting next says something about calling or raising, that too is binding.  Even if he doesn’t realize it.

And that little rule created quite a ruckus at BSC last week.  And it was your humble correspondent who was up against the guy who didn’t know the rules—or at least, claimed not to know them.

I was sitting in seat 4 and had about $250 in front of me.  A brand new player took seat 5 immediately to my left and bought in for $100.  This was his very first hand.  He was coming in right behind the button. 

A bunch of limpers in the pot, the action went to me holding 6/7 suited, so I limped also.  Seat 5 raised to $10.  Two or three called in front of me, so I called as well.

The flop was 865, rainbow I believe.  It checked around to the new player, who had last action from here on.  He bet $30.  A guy in early position called as well.  I had him covered but he had close to $200 in front of him.  I felt with the pair and the open ender it was enough to call, so I did.

The turn card was a beautiful 9, given me the second nuts.  Only a 10-7 could beat me.  First guy checked, and I decided to check too.  If I bet there, it would scream “straight!” and I probably wouldn’t get a caller.  If I checked, I thought the new player might bet and then I could figure out what to do based on whether the other guy called and how much the bet was. 

But the guy disappointed me, tanking for a bit, saying, “Wow, you put a straight out there huh?”  After thinking about it some more, he finally said he was just gonna check.

Oh well, I knew that was the risk.  The river was a totally harmless deuce that didn’t change anything (and there was no flush possible).  First guy checks, and, I knew I had to bet to try to get any more value for my hand. 

I started counting out chips and was trying to figure out what bet would be called. Before I got very far in my thought process of what the right amount to bet would be, the new guy, seeing me reach for chips, said something like, “Oh if you’re betting, I’m gonna call whatever you put out.”

OK, if that’s the case, no more calculating on my part was necessary.  The third guy was a good player; I didn’t figure he’d call the two of us unless he had a 7, or worse for me, 10-7.  If this guy was gonna put his last $60 in the pot, I was satisfied with that.  So I said, “In that case, all-in.” 

The dealer was Brent.  Brent is not just a dealer pal of mine but the very dealer who gave me the great story about “protecting your hand” that resulted in my all time most popular post, located here.  Now, we were about to get yet another lesson in poker rules and etiquette courtesy of Brent.

Brent immediately took out the “all in” card and threw it in front of me, and took out the “call” card and threw it in front of seat 5.  Seat 5 said nothing. Brent posed stoically and the action turned to the third player.  But nothing happened for awhile and I looked at Brent and he was still frozen.  So, for a nano-second, forgetting about the third player, or perhaps thinking he must have folded as I assumed he would, I grabbed my cards and said, “Is that in then?”  I hadn’t come close to exposing my hand tho, when Brent stopped me and pointed to the third guy and said he still had to act.  I immediately slammed my cards face down, no one had seen them.  I had barely gotten them an inch off the table.

I then looked over to the third guy for a second, and he was still tanking.  I looked away.  During all this time, seat 5 said absolutely nothing, made no motion, was totally still.  He was definitely not acting like a guy who had a decision to make.  Finally the other guy says, “Well, I guess at least one of you has me beat,” and mucked.

Brent looks at both of us and says “lets see ‘em” or whatever.  I show my hand, he said, “straight,” and then, and only then, did seat 5 speak up. 

“Call? Who called?  I didn’t call.”  Brent told him he most certainly did call.  He told him that what he said before I bet was binding, verbal is binding, and that he said “I’m gonna call whatever you put out.”  That’s binding.

No, seat 5 said, he didn’t say that.  “I said, ‘I’d probably call.’  I said ‘probably’.  I didn’t say I’d call.”   Brent said he didn’t hear him say “probably.” Anybody hear him say “probably,” he asked the table?

No.  A few people shook their heads and said definitely that they didn’t hear him say “probably.”  I said what I knew to be true, that he never said probably.  The rest of the table said nothing, presumably not hearing what he said.

The guy insisted he didn’t call, so Brent held up the action and called the floor over.  We’ll call the floor person “Bill” and like most anyone who works floor this time of day at BSC (or evening, actually), he knows me by name (and has helped me a few times on comps issues, among other things).  He even knows my last name, which surprised me because I didn’t think he’d ever seen my players card.

Seat 5 started making his case and Bill silenced him.  He got the story from Brent first, who accurately re-enacted what happened.  He also pointed out that his comment affected my action, which was true—just not the way the guy had hoped for.  Brent said he was trying to get me not to bet.

Bill turned back to seat 5 and said that “verbal is binding” and that since he had made the call, he had to put all his chips into the pot, as I easily had him covered.  The guy continued to protest, and rather loudly.  He said, “Why would I call when there was a four-card straight on the board?”

I didn’t say anything, but of course, that four-card straight was on the board when he said he was gonna call whatever I put out.  He had noticed the straight on the turn; that’s why he didn’t bet.  But he still said he was gonna call me.

He continued to talk.  He said, “I’m a man of my word,” and thus was trying to act insulted that he was being questioned like this.  He insisted he said “probably.”  Then he went on to say that this was his first time in Vegas and he just came into BSC to see the show in the main showroom and was trying to have a little fun before the show started. 

Somewhere along the way, Bill took the same survey of the other players that Brent had and found no one who recalled saying “probably.”  When Bill once again asked him politely to put his chips into the pot, he again refused and asked to speak to someone else.

Bill said fine, he would call the Shift Supervisor over.  Which he did.  Of course, “Nick,” the Shift Supervisor, knows me too.  I should point out that during the entire discussion, Brent, Bill and Nick referred to me only as “seat 4” and never by name, even tho they all know it.  I assume this is standard operating procedure, and it is an excellent idea.  Since they were siding with me, it only would have made things worse if the guy knew that I was a regular in the room who everyone knew.  He might have felt that as a regular, they were giving me preferential treatment, although that wasn’t true.  They were calling this one by the book.

Pretty much the same thing happened, Nick asked the other players after hearing Brent’s version of the facts.  Then, after hearing seat 5 tell him he was a man of his word several more times, and how this was his first time in Vegas, and how he said “probably” and why would he call a four-card straight and he was just there to see the show…..Nick very, very politely and calmly told him that he had indeed called my bet and to please put his chips into the pot.

Now I must admit, at some point I seriously considered just saying, “It’s ok, let him keep his chips.”  I really did.  The guy was clearly upset and who knew what would happen if this situation was allowed to escalate.  And it was only $60, even if it was $60 that was rightly mine.

But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. As Brent had pointed out, his words had indeed affected my action.  Plus, he had all kinds of time before seeing my hand to say something about not calling.  The “call” card was sitting in front of him for a couple of minutes. Then he saw Brent remind me that another player, the one following him, still had to act.  Why would we be waiting for him to act if seat 5 himself had not already acted?  Of course, even if he protested as soon as he saw the “call” card placed in front of him, there still would have been an issue as to whether or not he had called, but at least it would have been adjudicated before he saw my hand.

So I said nothing.  My only contribution to the discussion was my statement, several times, to several different people, that he didn’t say “probably”.  He said he would call whatever I bet.

The guy was very agitated and repeated all the things he had been saying several times.  Nick once again told him to put his chips (which he had been holding onto tightly since the ruckus began) into the pot.  He said he wouldn’t because he hadn’t called.  Then Nick said he would have to call security.

“Security?  You’re gonna call security?  Are you serious?” he said.  I envisioned this guy hurriedly getting up from his chair and bolting the room (and casino), chips in hand.  Meanwhile the rest of the players were getting impatient, some complaining that this was holding up the game. Finally, he took his chips and flung them towards Brent.  Most of them landed in the rack in front of him. I don’t think any of them hit Brent. Brent calmly and professionally took them all out of the rack and placed them into the pot, which he then pushed to me.  I tipped Brent $5 for his troubles (it was a nice pot, but it didn’t really justify that kind of a tip—I was tipping him for the aggravation and for taking my side—which of course, was the correct side).  I dunno if the guy saw the tip, as he immediately got up and stormed out of the room, presumably to see his show.  But in hindsight, I shouldn’t have given that big a tip in front of the guy.  I should have given him a normal tip and then given him the rest later in the evening, when the guy was long gone.  I suppose he might have thought there was some collusion going on when he saw that tip.  But in fact, nothing was said, or even noticed.

That was the end of Brent’s down, and he moved on.  The new dealer saw just the end of what happened and asked what all the fuss was about it.  We all filled him in, and of course he agreed that the guy had called my all in bet. It took about 20 minutes for anyone to talk about anything else.  One guy expressed concern the guy was gonna come back later and gun us all down!

In fact, that’s not the last I saw of the guy.  Hours later, I noticed him talking to Nick peacefully, away from all the tables.  I saw them talking calmly for about 20 minutes.  I had already had private conversations with Bill and Brent about the incident, both of whom thought the guy was just angle-shooting and was just trying to pull a fast one.  Bill saw me in the Mens Room and asked, “What were the chances that guy said ‘probably’?”  I told him that the guy definitely did not say “probably.”  Brent said that he said to the guy “that’s binding” when he heard his initial comment and threw the “call” card in front of him.  I didn’t remember that and I didn’t remember if Brent had told that to Bill or Nick.

So I asked Nick if that was the indeed the guy I thought it was and he confirmed it.  He had calmed down considerably, he said, but he still didn’t agree with the decision.  Further—and I have to admit, this bothers me a little—he didn’t think the guy was a sophisticated enough player to be trying to angle-shoot.  He actually thought the guy was totally ignorant that he had done anything wrong or that his comment was even intended to affect my action.  But Nick did thank me for my concern, and I thanked him for making the right decision.

I’m glad he calmed down, but I do feel a little badly if he really wasn’t trying to pull a fast one.  But still, he had more than enough time to correct things—or at least to attempt to—before he saw that he was beat.

Near the end of the night, Jack game to deal.  I asked him if he had heard all the commotion and he said he had, he was actually at the next table over at the time.  He didn’t realize, however, that I was the other player involved in the controversial pot.  Since he hadn’t heard the whole thing, I explained it fully to him.  By now, no one at my table was left over from the incident, so they all chimed in.  Jack said that the decision was an easy one, he makes that ruling every night.  He recalled one time it cost someone over $500.  He said the guy was angle-shooting even if he never heard that term.

And hat-tip to Jack, he reminded me that from the next table over, he heard the guy say, “I’m a man of my word” at least three times.  I had actually forgotten that by this point.  He even suggested I use that phrase as the title of this post (and give him a credit for the suggestion), but, while I liked that idea, I decided to go another way, to make sure that the real point of this post is reflected in the title.

Just another fun night of poker at the BSC.

"I Don't Even Play Kings"

Well last Saturday, March 7, I played at PC Ventura.  At the time, I didn't realize it would be the last time I played live poker for awhile.  All the local and semi-local casinos are closed now, and who knows when they will reopen.  My blog output will likely get a lot lighter than it has been, and of course it has already been fairly light.  We live in interesting times.

Nevertheless, I can still talk about that "last" session, and so I will. There was one good hand to report. I also have some news and a couple of interesting stories.  Well, they're interesting to me, hopefully they will be to you.

First the news.  When I went over to the podium to add my name to the waitlist, I told him I wanted 2/3.  The (relatively new) guy working the podium asked, "Just 2/3 or 2/3/5?"  Huh?  That was a new one.  Without asking details, I reflexively replied, "Just 2/3."  Then I went over to look at the board more carefully.  I had already noted that there were four 2/3 games going when I walked in.  Now I noticed that there was also a column indicating that they were spreading a 2/3/5 game.  And they in fact had two tables of it, and at least 4-5 names of players waiting for it.   There were many more names waiting for the regular 2/3 game, and I was thus hopeful that they would start another table soon.

I was pretty sure I had never seen them spread a 2/3/5 game before.  I do remember that in the past, the sometimes spread a 3/5/10 game, but I hadn't recalled seeing that in awhile. 

While I was waiting I asked the guy what the buy-in was for the new game.  Not that I ever intended to play it.  I mean, you guys know me.  Can you imagine me playing a game where there is, essentially, a forced $5 UTG straddle every hand?  Not bloody likely.  Anyway, the min/max is $300-$600.  The buy-in for the 2/3 is $100-$300 and I always buy in for the max.

When I finally got into a game, I overheard some talk and it appears that they just started offering this game at the beginning of the week, and it seems to be fairly popular.  I just hope it doesn't displace the 2/3 game, as I have no interest in the bigger game.  Even if started getting more tables than the regular 2/3, it would be bad—it might make it harder and harder to find a good 2/3 game.  I hope the 2/3 game remains dominant.  Note: this was written before all the closures.  Who knows what will happen now when they reopen?

Well, I finally got into a game, right before they called down the list for a new game.  I was assigned a corner seat at the existing game, which had bad lighting.  Also the chair was broken so I couldn't adjust it.  And I have problems seeing the board from the corner.  So after a few hands, when the guy to my immediate left got called to that 2/3/5 game. I grabbed his seat.

I hadn't played a hand to that point, and as I moved over one seat, I looked down at a couple of Aces.  You might say "good seat change" but no one had yet taken my old seat so I would have gotten the same hand if I hadn't made the move.

On this hand, there had been a $6 straddle (UTG, the only spot they allow it).  And the next player called the $6.  Then the guy right before me made it $40.  He had about $110 or so left after that bet.

Nice.  That was an overbet to be sure.  I didn't know how the table had been playing and I'd never seen this guy before.  I've seen people overbet like that with the dreaded hand, but it more often is pocket Jacks.  Truth be told, I've seen people with Aces bet like that, as in, "I hate getting my Aces cracked."

My normal three-bet is 3X plus any limpers.  In this case it would be plus the two straddlers.  Oh and by-the-way, would my raise technically be a four-bet since the straddle could be considered a raise?

But I decided that $120 was enough without adding anything for the straddlers.  I figured I was unlikely to get a call from any of the players left behind even at "only" $120.  I assumed there was a good chance though that the guy betting $40 would call, because he didn't have all that many chips left, and unless he was just trying to steal with nothing, he probably really liked his hand to make it $40.

So I put out $120 and it quickly folded to the guy who made it $40.  I thought he said all-in.  But when the dealer said, "Sure you can go all-in," I wondered if the guy had said, "Can I go all-in?" instead.  This was my first clue that maybe he was somewhat of a newbie.  Any experienced player wouldn't have to ask if he could go all-in.  I confirmed with the dealer that he had indeed gone all-in.  So of course I called.  Although it wasn't necessary to do it right away, the dealer counted his stack and told me I need to add $30 to make the call, which I did.

The guy didn't show, so neither did I. The flop was Jack-high and dry.  It remained dry except that by the river there were two 8's on it.  I think we flipped over our hands at the same time.  He had Ace-7 offsuit for….nothing.  My bullets were good.  And I was certainly grateful to the guy by playing so badly and getting me off to a really nice start. Also glad that he had Ace-7 and not A-8.

He left to get more cash.  That was more good news.  Seriously, what the hell was he doing playing Ace-7 like that?  Once I caught his steal attempt (if that's what it was) he should have folded like a cheap suit.

Now the guy did come back, but after another orbit or two he got called into the 1/2 game.  Based on how he played subsequent hands it was obvious he didn't really know how to play and he definitely made the right decision to switch to the smaller game. I dunno if he had ever played poker before but he definitely wasn't ready for 2/3.  I almost felt guilty for taking his money.

Almost.

I managed to win a whopping two more hands for the day.  About 45-minutes later, I looked down at two Jacks.  There was a straddle and a two callers so I made it $30.  Only one caller.  The flop was King-high and I c-bet $40.  He folded fast.

Near the end of my session, in my last big blind, I had Queen-Jack off.  No one raised and four of us saw I Queen-high flop.  I bet a whopping $5 (the pot was only $6 after the rake) and took it down.

Other than that, I was obscenely card-dead.  I think I only got one other pocket pair—8's that went nowhere.  No Ace-King or Ace-Queen.  Suited connectors?  One.  It was 9-8 and I was UTG so I just mucked them.  It was pretty pathetic.

As it happened, the guy who took my old seat a hand or two after I had those Aces noticed how few hands I'd been playing.  He had relocated to the other end of the table.  At one point he must have said something to the fellow next to him, because the fellow responded, "Yeah, he placed Aces once."  I looked over there and the first guy said to me, "No Aces or Kings, huh, sir?"  I just shrugged.

I didn't appreciate the comment.  He's giving free information to the other players—that I haven't played a lot of hands.  You say it should be obvious to anyone else at the table?  Well yeah, it should be.  But believe me I run into plenty of players at this room that aren't paying that kind of attention—why help them out?  It's one player to a hand, after all. 

There was a female player who did a couple of annoying and disgusting things. She apparently moved over from another table, with the waitress following her with her food order.  Apparently she ordered the Ahi tuna salad.  The waitress herself pointed out that the tuna seemed to be overcooked.  The player agreed and the waitress took it back to get it replaced.  Of course the women complained about being hungry the whole time waiting for her new meal.

Eventually the waitress brought her back a new meal.  The woman immediately picked up a leaf or two of lettuce off the plate—with her hands—to examine the Ahi, to see if it was cooked to her liking.  She said it was and then picked up a lemon wedge off the plate and squeezed lemon juice over her meal.  Again, she did this with her bare hands that had just been touching the cards and the chips. Has she not heard of the coronavirus? Even before the casino closed, it was in all the papers. It was never a good idea to touch food you are about to put in your mouth with your bare hands after touching casino poker chips.  But these days, it's a really, really bad idea.

Then after she finished eating, she made a call on her cel phone.  And she put it on speaker so the whole table could hear her call.  She was calling Netflix because she was having trouble changing her password.  Seriously?  She had to do this at the poker table?   First we heard the automated attendant thanking her for her call and telling her how important her call was to them.  Then we heard about 15 minutes of that horrific music they play when they put you on hold.  Then we heard her talking to someone from Netflix walking her through what she had to do to change her password.  Yes, we heard the Netflix person through her speakerphone. All this while she was playing poker!

It was annoying and rude.

Anyway, it came time for me to leave.  I had booked a $120 profit.  As he saw me racking up my chips, the guy who had commented earlier about my tight play said to me, "Leaving, sir?  No Aces or Kings?"  I ignored him.  But in order to get to the cage, I had to walk right by him.  So as I passed him, I said to him, "I don't even play Kings."

I had planned to add, "They're Ace magnets, haven't you heard?"  But I saw he had his face buried in his phone and didn't appear to have heard me.  So I didn't say it.

However, the guy who was next to him—the guy who pointed out that I played Aces once—laughed and nudged him and said to him, "Did you hear what he said?  He said he doesn't even play Kings!"

I was gone by the time the guy had a chance to answer, if he did.

Remembering the Good Ol' Days (Part 2)

CAN I SPREAD MY LEGS AROUND THE BUTTON? (PART 2)

Note:  Be sure to read part 1 of this post first, below or see here, before reading this.  This post picks up right where part 1 ended.

After a couple of dealers, my buddy Jack came to deal.  While he was standing by the current dealer, waiting to replace him, I whispered to him that he was in for a wild ride.  I’m sure he’d heard Natalee from wherever he was dealing before.  He asked, “a new blog post?”  I said “Absolutely.”  Later, after a few minutes, and in response to one of her strange or outrageous comments, he turned to me and said, “How do you always happen to be at tables like this?”

I had no explanation, I just giggled, glad that this happened to be the case so often.

Then there was the guy in seat 9.  He was an older gentleman, a regular, and from my brief experience with him in the past, usually a nice guy.  I couldn’t hear anything he was saying to her, but she accused him of saying he wanted to break her finger, and he didn’t dispute that.  She stacked him a couple of times, and he was mostly silent, or quiet enough that I couldn’t hear him with the dealer sitting between us.  After what was I believe the second time she stacked him, he angrily got some more money out of his pocket and threw it down on the table for another rebuy. 

And then almost immediately got into yet another hand with Natalee.  While this hand was in progress, the Shift Manager returned to see what was going on. And also, I think, to address Natalee’s concern about getting another beer, which she hadn’t gotten yet.  I later learned that the waitress herself had kept her cut off.  Natalee began complaining to the Shift Manager about the horrible treatment she was receiving from the other players, and truth be told, I couldn’t disagree with her.  The hand kind of stalled for awhile, with a flop of (I think) K-9-5.  Seat 9 bet the flop, and, while thinking about to what to do (as if there was any doubt), Natalee spoke to the boss.

“They’re mean to me.  There being mean to me.  Aren’t they being mean to me?”  She was asking Jack to confirm that.  He agreed.  “They are being mean to her.”

Then she gave examples, and pointing around the table, she said, “He called me stupid, he called me a bitch, he said he was going to break my finger.  Of course, they’re not going to do anything to me.  They’re all on tilt.”  It wasn’t the first time she said her opponents were on tilt, which was definitely the most accurate statement she made while at the table.  A couple of times as she was hearing comments and stacking their (former) chips, she would say, “It’s called ‘tilt’.  Get over it.”

The Shift Manager warned everyone to watch their language, that any abuse given to Natalee would not be tolerated, that sort of thing.  Wyoming said he called her “biatch”, not “bitch” but the boss said, it was close enough.  Truth is, he did say “bitch” more often than “biatch.” 

He stayed to watch this hand play out.  After careful thought (!), Natalee said, “Well, I have a piece of that, so I’m gonna raise.”  Seat 9 said, “Well, you know what I’m gonna do,” and then announced “all in.” Natalee replied, “I’ve got middle pair.  I know I’m behind but I’m gonna hit it.  It’s gonna be runner runner and I’m going to take it.  Besides, I like sixty-nine.”

With that she called, and Seat 9 said, “and I’m going home.”  She showed her cards, indeed it was 9-6, she had middle pair, as she said.  And just as sure as I’m sitting here, the last two cards were a 7 and an 8 and she made her straight.  I’m sure two pair would have worked too.  Seat 9 had a pair of Kings, got up and stormed off.

By this time, she had huge stacks of chips in front of her, at least $1500 worth of red chips (from the $100 buy in) and my pal Susan came over to offer to color up her chips, which Natalee thought was a good idea.  Earlier, Susan had come over to me and asked what was going on at the table, as everyone in the room could hear at least part of the insanity.  I just had time to say she was really crazy, and she was really lucky, and she was putting most of the table on tilt.

And then finally, your humble blogger got into a hand with the crazy woman.  I was on the button when I woke up with two Aces.  I have to be honest, I almost was unhappy to see them.  I knew the way Natalee was running, the odds of her drawing to beat my rockets were excellent, if not guaranteed.  For a nano-second, the thought of mucking crossed my mind.

Not really.  After all, it wasn’t the dreaded pocket kings! The truth is, outside of the blinds, I don’t think I’d really played a hand yet.  Maybe I limped in a couple of times with medium pocket pairs.  I was down to about $150 (from $200) without really having played yet.  I had been waiting for a premium hand to play, and this was the very first one I’d gotten at the table, and of course, it was the most premium hand you could get.  I was going to play it strong and hope for the best (odd thing to say with the best starting hand in Hold’em, but that’s a reflection of the run that Natalee was on). (I should repeat here what I said in part 1, I was really completely card dead, and hadn’t gotten any hands I would have played under more normal circumstances)

I was kind of hoping this would be one of the few hands Natalee would muck preflop,   I would be happy to play those Aces against anyone else at the table.  But sure enough, Natalee led out with a raise to $15.  It folded to me.  Since I’m sure no one could remember me playing a hand, everyone must have been surprised as I counted out chips and made it $45.  Actually, more accurately, I’m sure no one could even remember me being at the table, they were all so focused on Natalee.

It folded back to Natalee who commented about having a good hand, what was she gonna do?  And she called.  The flop came 10-high and she checked.  I shrugged, announced “all in” and waited for her inevitable suck out.

She actually took some time before she called.  I really think, crazy as she seemed, she probably noticed that of all the guys at the table she had stacked and put on tilt and sucked out on, I was none of them.  I’m pretty sure she was coherent enough to realize that I hadn’t been much of a participant in the poker up until then and that I probably really did have a hand.

But call she did, and why not?  The way she was running, as long as she wasn’t drawing dead, with two more cards to come, the odds were actually in favor!  Well, not really.  I immediately showed my Aces, and she flipped over Ace-King.

Two things there.  One, that was probably the best starting hand she raised with all night, by far, except for the Aces she had when she stacked Wyoming with KK.  So, when she raised there, she actually had a hand.

Second, except for the fact that she was the world’s biggest luckbox, it was a terrible call on her part.  I’ve seen other people make that same call with AK and I never, ever get it.  Not in a cash game.  In a tournament, sometimes it makes sense to call in that situation.  But in a cash game, where the flop misses you and you can walk away losing only $45, why would you call?

But again, even though she probably knew I had her beat, why not call with the way the deck was hitting her?  Truth be told, when I saw her hand, I was debating in my mind whether she was going to beat me with runner runner Kings or runner runner Queen-Jack for the straight.

But no, this time she didn’t hit her hand.  Maybe it was good karma from me because I was one of the few guys at the table who wasn’t nasty to her.  Whatever, my Aces held and I had a nice double up, now over $100 up for the session.  After basically playing one hand of poker in 90 minutes.

I think while I was still stacking my chips, Natalee lost another hand, and might have now been down to only about $1200 plus in front of her.  Sensing her incredible run was over, and no doubt being unhappy over some of the hostility she had been receiving almost from the minute she had sat down at the table, she did what she had been threatening to do for some time.  She took off.  Susan helped carry her chips (now, mostly green, $25 chips) and she took off.  I couldn’t help notice that she did give Susan a couple handfuls of $1 chips as a tip, both for helping her stack up and color up, and for helping carry her chips.

Despite the fact that several of the players there truly despised Natalee with every fiber of her being, those same guys were all sad to see go.  Not sad, mad.  They didn’t want her to take all that cash they’d given her and give it away to the casino at the blackjack table.  Well, to some degree, they had only themselves to blame.  If they had been nice to her, she might have been willing to stay after her luck changed and given them a fair shot to get some of their chips back.  But by being so nasty to her, they just encouraged her to take off once she sensed that she was going to hit runner runner straight every time she needed to.

In fact, while dealing, Jack had been whispering to me how stupid it was for the guys to be so nasty to her.  She’s the kind of player you want at that table, once her luck runs out, as it inevitably must.  I suppose she might have left anyway, but who knows?  I guess the guys were so tilted by her, they couldn’t help themselves.  Or they were complete idiots. 

But that isn’t the end of the story.  A few minutes later, after she had exited the poker room, the waitress who was serving our table came over to me.  All the regular waitresses at BSC during swing shift know me and my order, of course.  But other than saying hi or confirming that I want another drink, they don’t really speak to me much.  Of course, the waitress knew me as a most regular regular in the room, so she wanted to discuss Natalee with me.

She got besides me and crouched so she could speak with me quietly.  “What the hell was with that woman?”  I just shrugged and said she was crazy.  She asked if I’d ever seen her before and I assured her I had not (I’m pretty sure I’d remember!).  She told me that she had been cut off, which I knew, but then she explained that it wasn’t just the Shift Manager who had cut off.  The waitress had actually gone to her own supervisor (in beverage service, or whatever they call it) to complain about her!  I didn’t know that.

But then the waitress told me that she looked familiar to her, and either she had served her before or she just looked just like some other crazy woman she’d served.  They she asked me if I thought she was really drunk or if it was just an act.  Hmm…..I have no idea if the waitress knows anything about poker, although she has been serving in that poker room for as long as I can remember.  She wondered if the woman was acting like that to drive the other players nuts and thus this was actually a strategy, an act if you will, and not some drunken sideshow.  I had to consider the possibility.

Then Susan walked by and I called her over to ask if Natalee had really gone or if she had just moved to a less hostile table.  No, she was really gone.  She said, loud enough for all the players around me, including Dirk, to hear, “She was really scared.  She was really scared .  She was scared of the guys here.”  I was surprised but Susan insisted she was frightened.  The other guys weren’t really believing her. 

Later, Susan pulled me aside privately and said she was just saying that to see how seat 4 (Dirk) would react to it.  Apparently she wasn’t really scared.  And Natalee had also given the Shift Manager a big tip too, which surprised me since she seemed pissed at him for cutting her off and also for perhaps not “defending” her strongly enough from the tilting guys at the table.

A few hours later, despite Natalee’s exit, Dirk was still on tilt.  He kept getting sucked out on time and again.  Wyoming was doing his best Natalee impression in terms of calling with weak hands and hitting what he needed on the turn or the river, or both.  He was visually angry and started swearing so much that the dealer called the floor over to warn him about using the “f-bomb.”  He eventually busted out of his last buy in and at least initially, refused to say goodbye or shake the hand of Wyoming, who he had initially been pals with (they had a mutual dislike of Natalee to share).  But he did eventually do a fist pump with Wyoming before leaving in a huff.

But before that, we heard the dulcet tones of Natalee speaking to us from afar.  Yes, just outside the poker room, puffing on a cigarette, was dear, sweet, Natalee.  “Hi guys, I’m back,” she shouted over to our table.  By now, only Dirk, Wyoming and I remained from the gang that played with her.  “I lost all your money at the blackjack table.”  Nice twisting of the knife there!  But at least I could say that she hadn’t lost any of my money at blackjack!

To my astonishment, I saw Dirk get up and go over to talk to her.  They seemed to be chatting amicably, and when he returned, he wouldn’t tell us what they discussed.  Perhaps he was enough of gentleman to apologize to her?

Natalee disappeared, and I was getting ready to leave, still having my $100 profit or thereabouts.  It had been up and down for me since she left, and since I was able to start actually playing poker again.  The original dealer we had when Natalee joined us returned to deal.  He asked me if things were a bit different at the table now, and I said they sure were.  Then he told me she was playing again, and pointed out a table as far from ours as physically possible, where I could see Jack was dealing.   I said I was surprised I couldn’t hear her!

A few minutes later, I got up to get a rack for my chips, and at the front, the same Shift Manager was there and saw me.  Natalee’s new table was the closest one to the front.  The Shift Manager made some comment about what a wild ride we’d had earlier, and asked me what I thought of the woman.  I started to shake my head and was about to say something about her being crazy when I heard her pipe up from the table she was at.

“I can hear you!  I heard that.  I’m wearing these earbuds so I can hear you.”  Actually, I’m not sure what she said she was wearing that enabled her to hear us.  Amplifiers?  I dunno.  But as she was saying this, she got up and came over to talk to us.

“I can hear you guys,” she repeated when she was standing right next to me.  The Shift Manager told her he hadn’t said anything negative (though both of us were about to).  “I put all those guys on tilt, didn’t I?”  I told her she indeed had.  She started to go back to her seat and as she turned away from me, she said, “I’m a Jewish woman.  I know how to annoy people.”

I had no possible response to that. I just shook my head.  But it did make me once again consider the possibility that everything she had done was an intentional act to put people on tilt, and if it was, it had worked brilliantly.  I peaked over and noticed she had at least $500 in red chips in front of her, and I would be shocked if she had bought in for anything other than $100 again.

By the time I’d gotten my chips racked and was walking to the cashier, Jack had moved to another table, and I whispered to him to make sure he emailed me with any good stories he could report about his latest down with Natalee.  He nodded.

I was stopped by one more person before I got to the cashier.  A female floor person came by and started telling me about the crazy woman!  I don’t think I’d seen her back there when Natalee was at my table, but of course she knows me as a regular.  “That woman’s crazy.  Did you hear what she just said?”

I told her I had not.  “She said, ‘Is this a gang-bang or a ménage-a-trois?’”  I laughed and she immediately was called over to do something for one of the players, so I never got a chance to ask her exactly what the context of that comment was, if she even knew.  The funny thing is, I’ve had hours and hours of contact with this lady floor person, and she’d dealt me thousands of hands of poker before she became full time floor, and I had never, ever heard a provocative or risqué comment from her.  So I found that especially amusing.

Jack dealt to me the next night and his first words to me were, “How’s the blog post coming?”  I said I had barely started on it.  He did have one more item of note.  After I left, and after a shift changed brought a new Shift Manager, this one female, the same waitress who had talked to me about Natalee was still insisting she wouldn’t serve Natalee a beer.  So Natalee had gotten on the phone and called her Casino Host.  And sometime soon thereafter, the Casino Host came over and had a talk with the new Shift Manager.  The result of that conversation was that the female Shift Manager personally delivered Natalee a beer a few minutes later.

I was only left to wonder how many guys Natalee put on tilt at that table.

Remembering the Good Ol' Days

Sigh.

I miss the good ol' days.  The good ol' days of Vegas, of long trips there, of playing a whole lot of poker and getting lots of great stories.  I miss getting great stories and looking forward to writing them up and I miss the fun of writing them and then seeing the reaction I get to them (if any).

Mostly, I miss the "woman saids." 

Those were always my favorite stories.  But going to Vegas so infrequently, I just don't get them like I used to.  Truth is, I wasn't getting very many of them the last few times I spent weeks in Vegas.  It's been a while since I've really had a good one.  I dunno when I might be able to come across another one.

So, since I am not accumulating material at the rate I used to, I thought I'd go back into the archives and reprint one of my favorite stories from the early days of the blog.  Of course it is a "woman said" 

This is a two-parter, second part to follow.  I hope you enjoy this trip down memory lane! 

CAN I SPREAD MY LEGS AROUND THE BUTTON? (PART 1)

So I ran into a crazy lady at BSC. I have no idea this lady’s name, but we’ll need to give her one.  So I’ll call her Natalee for reasons which will be explained later.

I had only been at the table for an orbit or two and was still trying to get a feel for the players and the action when a seat opened up and a thin, middle aged woman was escorted to the empty seat.  To say she changed the dynamic at the table would be a gross understatement.

As she took her seat and bought in for $100, she was given the option of coming on the next hand or waiting two hands and come in behind the button.  She chose to wait.  As the dealer tossed a “reserve” button in her spot to indicate that she wouldn’t be getting a card this hand, she asked if that meant she did something wrong.  And she sorta fixated on that.

“Did I do something wrong?  What did I do wrong?  You know, I’ve been playing blackjack all day.”  She said that as if it was going to explain her actions.  It struck me as odd, but she was merely getting started. 

She saw a floor person walk by and asked if she had done anything wrong, and repeated that she had been playing blackjack all day.  The floor insisted she had done nothing wrong.  Yet, anyway.

Her first hand, someone raised to $15.  She looked at her cards and said, “I’m suited, so I’m gonna call.”  I don’t remember the exact play of the hand, but she either called or made some fairly large bets, and won the pot with 2 pair, Jacks & 8’s.  But she hadn’t lied.  Her Jack-8 were both hearts.

She was still somewhat fixated on what she had done wrong, and when she asked the dealer a question about the next hand, she then said, “I’m sorry I ask a lot of questions.  I’m a Jewish woman.”  I really didn’t see the connection, but one of the guys who was about to go on tilt responded, “You don’t look that Jewish.  You look more Vegas.”

I guess I was a bit put off by that comment (see here).  But I sensed something well out of the ordinary poker session was about to happen, so I didn’t say anything.

She wouldn’t stop talking.  If I had a dime for every time she told us she’d spent all day playing blackjack, I would be able to play the main event.  Once or twice she also mentioned that she had lost a lot of money playing the blackjack.

But she was also talking about the poker.  And every hand she had.  “I got a piece of that, so I’ll call.”  “I have a good hand, so I’ll raise.”  “I’m suited, so I’ll raise.”  With every decision, she would comment.  I think she pretty much crossed over the line of talking about the hand, but I guess she didn’t go quite far enough past it to get warned about it.  She verbally reacted to any bet or any raise someone else made, asking what they could possibly have, or revealing that she had a pair, or two pair, or whatever.

And when she wasn’t telling us about her day of playing blackjack, she took to telling us she was in “relapse.”  I thought at first she meant “rehab” but no, she kept saying she was in relapse.

Her non-stop chatter of course got some reactions from the other players.  She was in seat 7, I was in Seat 1.  The three guys to my immediate left had all seemed friendly enough before Natalee showed up, and were getting along swimmingly with each other.  Suddenly seats 2 & 4 were headed for tilt, as was an older gentleman in seat 9.  Truth be told, I have never in my poker life seen a player put so many other players on tilt so fast.  Within 5 minutes these guys were already tilting.

Some of that had to do with the poker, which I’ll get to shortly.  But a lot of it had to do with her overbearing personality, her non-stop talking, the nature of her comments, and frankly, her rather unpleasant voice.  The guy in seat 2, who was from Wyoming, in particular got into verbally jousting with her from across the table.  Her dress had stripes, so he asked if she was a leopard, then realized his error and said, “I mean tiger, I guess it would be a tiger.”

She replied, “Tiger?  No, I’m a cougar.”  Then, just to make sure we knew that wasn’t an unintentional joke, she added, “I like younger men.”  Wyoming said she was too young to be a cougar, but she indicated that she was older than he apparently thought.

By now, only one thought was going through my mind.

Blog post!  

Truly, a “woman said” blog post was happening before my eyes.

She was wearing ear buds and frequently would ask questions saying she couldn’t hear what was said, and then would tell us she had ear buds in her ears.  But she rarely took them out.  And when she started getting some hostility from some of the players, she would tell us she was going to tune us out and that she was listening to Eminem.  She didn’t really look like an Eminem fan, if you know what I mean.  One time she told us she was now listening to Frank Sinatra, causing me to comment that Eminem and Sinatra were an unusual combination.  But the guy in seat 3 said it sounded like his play list, so maybe it wasn’t that strange.

Finally the dealer button came around to her.  She said, “Oh goody!  I’ve got the button.”  Then she asked the dealer, “Can I spread my legs around the button?”

That got everyone’s attention, and then she added something about liking to straddle.  So it was her rather unique way of asking if she could button straddle.

Wyoming had already had his fill of her, so he said, possibly loud enough for her to hear, “Ugh, that button would be so sticky, and so stinky, it would be disgusting.”

She had a beer in front of her and I don’t remember if she brought it with her when she took her seat or if she ordered it once she got there.  But when the waitress came around to take orders, the waitress told her that wouldn’t bring her another drink.  She was certainly acting like she might be drunk, but I couldn’t rule out just plain crazy as a viable alternative.  The Shift Manager came over and told her that she wouldn’t be getting another alcoholic beverage until the bottom of the hour, which was a bit over 30 minutes away.  Besides, as he correctly pointed out, she still had more than half of her beer remaining.  She gave some explanation of why she wanted another beer brought to her now, which I couldn’t hear, but essentially, she was cut off for at least the next half an hour.

Let’s talk about the poker.  Before she showed up, I sensed that this was a rather aggressive, action table.  But her presence really upped the ante in that regard, almost immediately.  She played almost every hand, called almost every preflop raise, and made a lot of raises herself.  Seeing the hands she was playing, I can tell you two things for sure.  One, she was a terrible player, calling raises she had no business calling time and time again.  And two, she was a major, major luckbox.  She was having the run of her life.  In less than a half an hour, she had run up that $100 buy in to $500, and she was just getting started.

It was the combination of her refusal to ever shut up, along with her amazing ability to suck out on the other players, that put so many of the players on tilt so fast.  She would keep calling bets and raises when way behind, and would somehow, some way, catch the exact card she needed to win the pot.  The original guy in seat 4 was a nice guy who was pleasantly chatting with seat 3 and Wyoming when I got to the table.  Suddenly, he was in a hand with her and raised her on the flop.  It was something like 10-5-4.  She said, “What are doing that for?  What, you got a set of 4’s, is that it?  What if I’ve got a set of 5’s?  Did you think about that?”  And she shoved.  This was early in her run and Seat 4 had her covered.  He called.  She said, “Well, I don’t have a set of 5’s, but I’ve got something.”

Yeah, she had 5-something, so a pair of 5’s. And of course she caught her second pair on the river and the guy just gave her a look of total hatred and mucked. I assume he had at least a pair of 10’s, or an overpair.

This put seat 4 totally on tilt, and he didn’t say another word while there—to anybody.  Even as his new pals in seats 2 & 3 tried to console him, he sat there in total silence and just stared at Natalee.  He got into it with her two more times, giving her stoned cold silence and a total death stare as she babbled on about her hand and speculated on his.  And she took all his money, playing crap cards and hitting whatever she needed to take the pot.

Natalee definitely noticed the “if looks could kill” expression on this guy’s face.  So she said to him, “I know you want to Van der Sloot me right now.”

Seat 4 said nothing.  I honestly don’t think he was capable of speech right then.  But a bunch of us laughed, and a couple of guys asked or wondered what the hell that meant.  It seems Van der Sloot is old news and nobody but me could remember the guy who was accused of murdering poor Natalee Holloway.  I knew the reference and knew what she meant, but I couldn’t recall his apparent victim’s name until I looked it up later.  But seeing as how she was using Van der Sloot’s name as a verb to accuse seat 4 of wanting to kill her, I decided to give the star of this post the pseudonym “Natalee”, spelled the same way the victim did.

Here’s the thing.  With both this guy and a couple of other guys, even with her incredible luck, the hands she was hitting weren’t that good, generally.  Guys were betting big with pretty mediocre hands apparently (they never showed), playing right into her hands.  What a stupid plan.  It was clear that she was pretty much going to call every bet, so trying to bet her off a hand was like pissing into the wind.  And seeing how lucky she was at the moment, these guys were just throwing money at Natalee as if she was the world’s sexiest stripper, which she was so very clearly not.

Speaking of strippers, at one point, after taking a boatload of money from one of the guys on tilt by hitting some ridiculous draw, she said, “Sorry about that.  I guess I should buy you a lapdance.”  She did say “buy” and not “give.”  Phew.

As for me, well, within a few minutes of Natalee coming to the table, I knew that I was not going to be able to concentrate on the poker while she was there.  You may be wondering why, if I knew that to be the case, I didn’t ask for a table change.  Isn’t the reason obvious?  I didn’t move for you, my dear readers.  I did it for this blog post.  So what if I was giving up on a chance to play real poker and win real money.  I knew I would get a good blog post out of this session.  Nothing is too good for my loyal readers.

I was paying more attention to Natalee’s comments and her outrageous behavior than the poker, but I was following enough about the poker to quickly figure out how to play in this situation.  With Natalee being so loose-aggressive and so many players going on tilt because of her presence—playing even crazier and more aggressive than they ordinarily would—I knew that the only way to play was to be extremely tight.  I’m a tight player anyway, but now I became uber-tight.  I wasn’t going to play any speculative hands, any borderline hands.  No, I was going to wait for a true premium hand to play.  That’s the only way to play at a table full of maniacs and that’s what this table was.  As it turned out, I was totally card dead anyway, and I didn’t really get a hand that I’d play under more normal circumstances, especially with a raise in front of me.  And there was almost always a raise in front of me.

Wyoming was already on tilt when he got into a preflop raising war with Natalee.  Now as I said, she was raising a lot preflop (but rarely, if ever, 3 betting), and with very light holdings.  I believe on this hand, Natalee made the first raise, Wyoming made a big re-raise, Natalee re-raised and Wyoming shoved, she called.  I may have the order backwards.  Wyoming was so happy, he was sure he had trapped her, and revealed his hand.  Yes, it was, of course the dreaded pocket Kings.  He was sure that based on her play to that point he had her crushed.

Not this time.  Of course, she turned over two Aces.  Nothing on the board hit either of them, and Wyoming was stacked, about $300 lost to her.  But here’s the thing.  There’s no doubt in my mind that if the hands had been reversed, and she had the KK, she would have caught a king on the board (or a lucky straight or flush).  That’s the way her luck was running.

Although Wyoming was still kind of joking around, even after getting stacked with his cowboys, he was demonstrating pretty blatant hostility towards Natalee.  He was calling her a bitch (or “biatch”), calling her ugly, saying he hated her, loud enough for her to hear.  She didn’t react, at least initially.  Later she said something like, “You’re treating me this way because I’m a woman.  I’m a woman.  I’m an abused woman.”

Wyoming responded, “I can see why.”

I guess that may have been the reason for a comment she made a little later when they got into it again.  She bet $10 on a hand and he raised it to $30.  She couldn’t see how much so she asked the dealer, and before she heard the answer, she continued, “How many inches is that?  Is that an inch?  Is it about an inch you’ve got there?”  I’m pretty sure she wasn’t asking about the dimensions of the poker chips. 

Wyoming just laughed and said, “Oh, an inch is way more than I’ve got.”  And then he proceeded to lose more money to Natalee.

Another time, he bet or raised and Natalee thought about it for awhile and then said, “You’re full of caca.  You need a laxative.  I raise.”  She won that hand, too.

The guy originally in seat 4, who may still not be capable of speech yet, was replaced with a guy visiting Vegas from Germany, so let’s call him Dirk.  Dirk was very much the stereotypical Aggro Euro.  In other words, he was the perfect prey for Natalee.  He had only been at the table for a short time when this hand happened, but that was more than long enough for any even half way observant player to figure out what kind of player Natalee was.

He raised preflop on the button after a bunch of limpers came in, and of course Natalee called.  All that meant is that she had two cards.  The flop came something like Q-9-4, rainbow.  I think there might have been a bet and a raise, and then Dirk shoved.  I guess he had about $200.  Natalee, by this time sitting behind a stack of at least $1,000, thought for a bit and finally called, saying, “I need help.”

Of course, there was no doubt that she would get the help she needed.  Except this time, she didn’t need it.  Dirk kindly turned over his cards.  King-3.  Yeah, it was a stone cold bluff.  Against a player who couldn’t possibly be bluffed!  It may have been the single dumbest move I’ve ever seen in a poker game.  Natalie showed her pocket 3’s and to the surprise of no one at the table, they held up.

Rather than realize that his own play had been monumentally stupid, he proceed to bitch and moan about Natalee’s horrible call there. True, it was a horrible call.  But Natalee had run up a $100 buy in to $1000 making exactly those kind of horrible calls for the past hour.  So Dirk called Natalee’s call stupid, and then asked if her name was “Stupid.”  She ignored that, at least at first.

And that’s all for part 1.  Despite all the complaints I get about doing posts that are too short, I’m going to stop it here and pick up the story in the following post.  In the second part, you’ll get to read about what happened when crazy Natalee got into a hand with me!  See here.