I Shouldn't Have to Say "Raise!"

This happened at BSC a little more than a year ago.  I was playing at my usual 2/4 limit game, sitting in seat 10 (immediately to the dealer’s right).  By this time I had established relationships with a lot of the BSC dealers, but not the one who was currently dealing, whose name is Barry.  Barry is not particularly chatty so I although I’d been dealt to by him many times, I’d never really struck up much of a conversation with him.

I had been having a really bad run, it had probably been over two hours since I’d last won a pot, even a little pot.  It had been almost that long since I’d even played a hand other than a blind.  That kind of night.  Finally, UTG (under the gun, ie, immediately to the left of the Big Blind), I was dealt A/K hearts.  I debated whether to raise.  I had been doing so badly at the time that there was a great temptation to risk only two bucks until I saw the flop.  Plus, being under the gun, you never know if you raise there you end up having everyone fold and you win a whopping three bucks.  I mean you want players when you have a premium hand like that so you can win some money….you just want the player who has the hand that would otherwise beat you to fold!

But I raised.  It was an average loose 2/4 game and I figured for sure I’d get some callers.  But I was wrong.  Everyone folded around, even the Small Blind, until the Big Blind.  I was starting to get pissed that I’d win a lousy three bucks…..my first pot in two hours!  But the Big Blind called my raise, to my surprise.  I’m thinking, if it had been me, and I knew it was gonna be heads up on the flop, I would have folded unless I had maybe pocket Ace’s or Kings.  Sure you might be favored to win with a lesser premium hand, but how much can you win?  You are getting such poor pot odds, it’s not worth the two bucks.  At least to me.  And if he had a really great starting hand, it would have made a lot more sense for him to re-raise me instead of calling, to at least get some money in the pot.

But BB called my raise.  As it happened, the BB was a new player at the game, having come over from a table that had broken.  He’d only played a few hands at this game before this happened.  Also, I believe he had a bit of a language issue, I hadn’t heard him say anything other than that he was Korean in a fairly heavy accent.  So I had no read on him.  Of course, he had no read on me, either.

Barry dealt out the flop, which was K-Q-5, rainbow.  Of course, that was a great flop for me, giving me top pair and top kicker.  To my surprise, the BB bet out.   So much for “checking to the raiser.”  So of course I wanted to raise to see how he reacted.  Perhaps he had two pair or even a set?  Would he re-raise my raise?  I wanted to see.

At this point in my poker career, I almost never announced “raise” when I raised.  I knew the rule and would make sure I would put out the entire amount of the bet and raise in one motion, over the betting line.  This of course is perfectly acceptable.  This was very late at night at the BSC and it is always very noisy.  Even right next to me, the dealer might not hear me say “raise.”  But he’d surely see that I was putting out four chips instead of two.

Or so I thought.  I put four chips across the line and waited for Barry to announce “raise.”  I believe I saw BB grab two more chips from his stack to call me.  But to my horror before he got the chips out across the betting line, Barry had already burned a card and flipped over the turn card.  Barry didn’t notice that I had raised. 

By the time I said, “Wait…I raised!” Barry had already exposed a King.  Of course, that was a great card for me, giving me trip Kings.  By this time BB had already put his two chips out over the betting line.  But the damage was done.  Barry had screwed up and he said “sorry.”   He immediately called the floor over. 

I didn’t say anything, but I was livid inside.  If I said, “That’s ok, he was gonna call anyway,” I would have revealed that I really liked the King as the turn card.  I was hoping that since the BB had called, they could just continue without me saying anything.  But no such luck.  The floor person enforced the standard rule for such a situation.  Burn another card, deal what would have been the river card as the turn card, and then reshuffle the deck with the exposed King back in the deck so it has a chance to be the river card. 

I was horrified.  But if I said anything, it would have revealed my hand and I figured I was still ahead in the hand.  And besides, as I found out later, my complaining wouldn’t have convinced them to change the ruling.  I tried to keep a poker face but I doubt I did.  The new turn card was a second 5.  Gulp.  If he had bet because he had pocket fives and flopped a set I was dead, dead, dead.  And when BB bet out again, that’s really what I was worried about.  I had two pair, Kings and Fives, but I sure as hell didn’t think I should raise there, having seen one of my outs buried back into the deck.

The river came as a Queen.  The board now had paired Queens and Fives, along with a King.  I had Kings and Queens and I didn’t think that was worth a damn.  Sure enough, BB bet out again.  For four bucks I had to see what he had.  Well at least he didn’t have pocket 5’s.  But he may as well have.  He had Ace-Queen.  Thus the river gave him a full boat.  He was actually behind me the whole way, and hit his out on the river.  The river that wouldn’t have been a Queen except for Barry’s huge mess-up.  You see, it should have been my full house, Kings full of fives, instead of Queens full of fives.  Barry’s inattention had cost me the pot.  As he pushed the pot to the BB, I said, rather sternly and unpleasantly I’m sure.  “I would have had a full house.  I should have had a full house.”  All Barry did was very meekly say, “I’m sorry.”

So I was pissed.  I was pissed at what happened.  I was pissed at Barry.  I was pissed at what I thought was Barry’s inadequate apology.  I wasn’t expecting him to get down and his hands and knees and beg for my forgiveness, but I expected a little more sincerity, a little more sorrow in his voice.  And I was a little pissed at the guy who took down the pot.  I thought he should have apologized to me to, and acknowledged how lucky he was to win the hand.  But he was silent.  That may have been do the language issued I mentioned earlier, although he certainly did speak English.  But mostly, I was just pissed.  Now, the pot was only $23, and if that King had stayed on the turn, who knows if BB would have stayed in, so what I would have won could have even been less than the $23.  After watching BB play for an hour, I knew he was a solid player and wasn’t going to give his money away on a lost cause.  But right then, all I was thinking was that I lost a pot, and it would have been my first pot in two hours. 

I thought I was at about my highest level of annoyance right then, but I was wrong.  Of course the other players at the table had seen all of this occur.  I got a few comments offering me sympathy.  But then one guy, a New Yorker, of course, started yapping.  “That’s why I always say raise whenever I raise,” Then, directly to me, he said, “Yeah, you should have called out ‘raise’; then you wouldn’t have had that problem.”

I said, no doubt in a rough tone, “I shouldn’t have to say ‘raise’—the action speaks for itself.”  I started to go on, but caught myself.  I almost said something like, “If the dealer’s paying attention, if he’s doing his job, if he’s not totally incompetent, then I shouldn’t have to say “raise” in a noisy casino when you can’t hear it anyway.”  I really came close to saying that, but somehow, I restrained myself. 

Since I didn’t consider Barry a buddy at this time, I really did come thisclose to saying that.  But I managed to hold it in, for a couple of reasons.  First, I do have a great deal of self-restraint.  And after the moment past, I realized I was starting to become friendly with a lot of the staff at the BSC and didn’t want to suddenly get a reputation as a major asshole (even though everyone would have agreed I had a right to be pissed). Besides, why embarrass Barry further when suddenly the person I was even suddenly angrier at was this putz from New York? So I just sat there and said nothing more.  I just seethed and sulked.  Fortunately, I didn’t get any cards so my play wasn’t affected. 

After about 10 minutes, I started feeling relieved.  I was beginning to feel very good about not yelling at Barry, at not calling him incompetent.  I told myself that Barry probably felt as bad about what happened as I did, perhaps even worse. He’s only human, after all, and it’s not like I’ve never made a mistake myself.  He didn’t do it on purpose. And also I felt good about not making a scene at my favorite poker room.  It wouldn’t have made a difference, and all it would have done was make me look bad.  Instead, I was taking the high road and starting to feel good about it.

By the time his down was over, I wasn’t ready to go for a drink with him but at least I had stopped mentally sticking pins in my Barry voodoo doll. 

And here’s the kicker to this story.  After not playing at his table for quite a while after this incident (just by happenstance, not on purpose), next time he did come to my table he said hi to me by name (he’d never done that before) and we chatted amiably the entire down.  And thus we’ve actually become pals!  This makes me even happier about how I handled the situation, and you know, I really don’t miss that twenty three bucks.  And I’ve never brought up this story to Barry, and he’s never brought it up either.  But then, there’s no need to.  Some things are better left unsaid.

Playing Like a Dick

A couple of years ago I found myself playing in the 6PM tournament at LC1.  I hadn’t played a lot of tournament poker at this point, and really have only recently started playing tournaments semi-regularly.  I played in it mostly because there was no 2/4 limit game going on there (the place was dead) and I didn’t feel like getting back in my car to find another game.  Besides one of the dealers I was friendly with at the time suggested it, and I was thinking they may have sent her home early if they hadn’t needed a second table for the tournament.  So I was playing as a favor to this attractive lady dealer as much as anything else.

As the tournament was about to begin, an extremely attractive young girl took the seat to my immediate right.  She was barely old enough to be in a casino, I assume she was carded before being seated.  She was way beyond cute and had a killer body.  Unfortunately, despite this being summer in Vegas, she was not wearing anything skimpy.  Too bad.  She had on fairly tight shorts (but not that short) and a very tight t-shirt.  It was obvious she had a terrific figure, very thin waist and plenty of curves elsewhere.  But she was probably the only girl her age that I saw on this entire visit to Vegas that wasn’t showing any cleavage, sadly.

Her outer-beauty, however, sadly masked a not very beautiful woman on the inside.  She had come to the table with a guy her age who apparently she had just met playing slots.  They sat at opposite sides of the table and talked to each other incessantly during the tournament.  From the conversation (and from reading her players card upside down), I learned the girl’s name was Abigail.  Abigail clearly thought of herself as the world’s greatest poker player.  

From the moment she sat down, she was bragging that she was going to win the tournament.  She said this not just to her friend but to all of us around her.  At first I thought this was just good-natured banter, that she was just kidding around.  But as the tournament progressed, she kept repeating it, and any hint of fun or sarcastic bravado left her voice.  It was clear she meant it.  I’ve heard tournament players kid about winning before and since, but never have I heard anyone this adamant, this serious, and this obnoxious about it.  I began to think that if I looked up the word “arrogant” in the dictionary, I would see her picture.

She wasn’t restricting herself to bragging about winning or her poker expertise.  She started criticizing the other players, and guessing what cards they had from their bets and what they would do….and what they should do….as a result of her guesses.  In hindsight, I have to assume these comments were not said loud enough for the dealer to hear because otherwise she should have gotten warned for talking about the hands, especially hands she wasn’t in.  But out of the blue, if a player raised 3-4 times the big blind pre-flop, she might whisper, “He’s got Jacks” or “She’s got Queens or Tens” or some such.  

The sheer amount of words coming out of her would have been annoying no matter what she was saying.  But as she started criticizing players, it got really off-putting.  And every third sentence of hers was something along the lines of, “I’m gonna win this thing….no one here knows how to play.”  After about half an hour of this, and hearing all of it since I was sitting right next to her, I started to think to myself that she could be sitting there stark naked, look every bit as good that way as I suspected she did, and I’d still would have wanted her to leave.  

Early on I got a personal taste of Abigail’s obnoxiousness.  I had AK suited and hit a King on the flop.  I made a good bet, and she went all in.  She had me covered.  As I mentioned, I didn’t have a lot of tournament experience under my belt.  She could have flopped two pair or even a set.  Did I want to risk my tournament life with top pair/top kicker?  I thought about it for a good 5 or 6 seconds.  My gut told me that she had read me as a timid player (basically true) and that the bet would get me to fold a better hand than she had.  I decided to call thinking I probably had her beaten already and if not, I could still outdraw her.  So I called.  She turned over a medium pocket pair that the board had not hit.  I turned over my AK.  She knew she was in trouble, but wasn’t mad at her luck….she was mad at me!   “Shit, you have AK? What the hell took you so long to call?”  In other words, I was an idiot for not calling her all-in bet instantly.  I of course she have known that my top pair was good and that she hadn’t hit her set. I didn’t bother to respond to her criticism.  Nothing that helped either of us hit on the turn or river and I won the pot.  As I said, she had me covered so she was still alive in the tournament.

Now there were two middle aged guys sitting next to each other at this table that were friends.  And they were even bickering with each other like an old married couple.  They actually joked about being married to each other but it was just in fun, they both mentioned that this was a guys night out from their wives.  One of the guys got into a hand with Abigail and folded pocket Queens to her all-in bet….she showed a fairly weak hand like K-10.  She was quick to criticize the guy’s play.  She wasn’t gloating, she was actually critical of the guy for folding.  Because she knew exactly how to play every single hand properly.

Just a few minutes later, the two of them got into another hand together.  Abigail pushed all in pre-flop, and the middle-aged guy thought long and hard.  He had her covered, but not by much. He would be crippled if he called and lost. While he was thinking about it, Abigail offered that she had a pocket pair….and not a big pocket pair.  The guy thought long and hard…..about 30 seconds if not more, before finally calling her.  She flipped over a pair of fives.  He flipped over a pair of Jacks.  

Abigail was pissed.  Not because she was way behind, but because the guy had taken so long to call her.  By now her buddy had busted out and was standing next to Abigail, watching.  So Abigail said to the player who had called her, “What took you so long?  That’s an obvious call there.  I even said I had a small pocket pair!  Why were you hesitating?”  Of course, no one ever lies at a poker table, right?

The guy actually started to tell her what he was thinking (like it was really any of her business).  In the meantime, Abigail’s friend was agreeing with her that the guy was a fool for taking so long to make the call (probably because he thought that was a good way to get into her pants).  He said something like, “Yeah, what was the big deal?  Why did he need two minutes to call you?”

Abigail had an answer for that, “Oh, he was just acting like a dick.”  If the guy was upset over that, he didn’t show it…instead he continued his explanation, which no one (including me) was listening to.   But the dealer, an older guy who always struck me as quite humorless, definitely heard what Abigail said.  Rather than continue the play of the hand, the dealer held up the action and said to Abigail, “Excuse me.  You just said something not very nice to one of our players.”

Abigail wasn’t interested in the dealer’s comments.  She told him, “Just deal, please.”  But the dealer wasn’t buying.  “No.  I’m running this game, not you.”  He called the floor person over and told him that Abigail had called another player a “dick.”  The floor person lectured and warned Abigail.  Abigail protested.  She said she didn’t call the player a “dick.”  She said he was “playing like a dick.”  OK, big distinction, right?  The floor person didn’t care and said it wasn’t nice, and insisted that she apologize to the player and warned her that next time, she would be asked to leave.    She apologized to the player and the rest of the players too.  But she made a show of looking at the name badges of the dealer and floor person, as if she was planning to report them to some higher authority.

The floor person left and the hand continued.  The turn and river cards didn’t help Abigail, leaving her busted.  As she got up, to her credit, she again apologized to the guy who busted her out.  

She was walking out of the room with her friend, but for some reason stopped at the cashier.  Thinking she was heading straight out of the room, I said to the entire table, “Wow…she was a piece of work, wasn’t she?”  The entire table cracked up, and she looked back from the cashier.  Not sure if she heard what I said or was just reacting to the laughter.

We all agreed that it was a great thing the guy did, busting her out.  The dealer mentioned that she had criticized my play just a few hands earlier.  I had almost forgotten.  We talked about Abigail for quite a while after she left, enjoying her absence. One of the players joked that he thought the player who busted Abigail out was actually named “Dick.”  I had overheard her say that she was a dance instructor and mentioned this.  So someone asked what kind of dance she taught.  I said, “What, you think it might involve a pole?” Everyone had a good laugh at that.

At break, as I left the Men’s Room, I saw “Dick” talking on his cell phone, presumably to his wife.  I overheard him say, “So far, it’s been a pretty bad night.  I’m not doing well in the tournament.  And I’ve already been called a ‘dick!’”

Just a short time after the break was over, I busted out myself.  I didn’t cash in the tournament, but I scored a good story and an unforgettable character.  Thanks, Abigail.

Olivia (she wasn’t a Jack Off)

This story happened during a summer afternoon at BSC some time back.  I had been at this game about an hour and had noticed this rather young woman, barely old enough to be in a casino, playing at the 2/4 game.  She was cute and was there with her boyfriend, who was sitting at the other end of the table, and another couple.  The male of this couple was also playing at this game, but his girlfriend was elsewhere.  Although I didn’t know it at the time, the girl at the table was named Olivia.  And that’s her real name, and you’ll see why I didn’t change it when I get to the end of this story.

Olivia was a nice enough girl but was experiencing a run of extremely bad luck.  In the hour I was there (she was there for quite a while before I joined the game), I had not seen her pull in a single pot.  And she wasn’t even remotely quiet about it.  She was complaining quite a bit about losing so much.  She was bitching and moaning loudly and frequently about how unlucky she was.  No one likes losing but it can get to be annoying to hear someone bitch this much, and she was getting to that point.

She had just run out of money and had reached into her purse to get another $100 out for more chips.  Soon thereafter, in a hand I was mercifully not participating in, I noticed that on the turn, there were two Jacks on the board.  Olivia bet aggressively.  I assumed she had a Jack in her hand.  The river card as yet another Jack, and again Olivia bet aggressively.

No doubt to Olivia’s surprise (and delight), another player raised her.  That got me to look at the board more closely.  The last Jack was the Jack of spades, and the two cards on the board that weren’t Jacks were the King and 10 of spades.  So it was possible that someone had rivered a straight flush (if they had Queen & 9 of spades) or a royal flush (if they had Ace-Queen of spades).  From the betting I was convinced Olivia had the case Jack for quads.  This could be one bad beat if indeed the other player had a straight or royal flush.

The guy who raised was new at the table, he had only played about two or three hands before this one.  So there was no way to know what kind of player he was.  Perhaps he was as stupid as the guy who bet into my 4 7’s (although this story pre-dates my 4 7’s story).  It was too early to tell, but for sure I was paying attention….and so was everyone else at the table.

Olivia raised back, not a care in the world.  The new guy raised again without a second’s thought.  The betting round had started heads up so this was a legitimate instance of there being no cap…..they could keep raising each other until one of them run out of chips.

Which is what happened.  Olivia gleefully kept raising, and New Guy did the same.  On and on.  I had seen enough of Olivia’s play to be fairly certain that she wouldn’t keep raising like this if she didn’t have the fourth Jack.  And the more New Guy kept re-raising, the more I became convinced he had Olivia beat.  With three Jacks on the board, it would have been obvious to even the dumbest player that Olivia had the fourth Jack, and wasn’t raising every time with just a full house—or worse, a flush or a straight.  With trips on board, a full house isn’t a very good hand…..not one you would risk all your money for, anyway.

Although no one said anything, you could somehow feel the murmur through rest of the players at the table that this was a straight or royal flush vs quads, and someone was going down hard. Finally, Olivia ran out of money, and New Guy called her. of course.  She had put almost $100 into the pot.  When called, Olivia flipped over her two cards and literally sang, “I’ve got four Jacks, I’ve got four Jacks!”  In addition to the singing, she stood up and started dancing.  She was raising her hands and rocking her hips and slapping her ass as if some uptempo go-go music was being played.

Eventually all the other players’ eyes turned to New Guy, who calmly turned over his Ace and Queen of spades and in an unbelievably restrained monotone said, “I’ve got a royal flush.”  All the other players nodded, agreed that this is exactly what we were expecting, and congratulated the guy on the hand.  I even said to him, “A Royal Flush?  Wow. You don’t see those every day.”  In fact, in my over three years of playing poker, it was the first one I’d ever seen.  He replied, “Well I sure don’t.”

We looked back to Olivia.  She was standing there, frozen, having stopped her singing and dancing.  She looked at the board and his cards as the dealer pushed all the chips, all her chips, to the player with the Royal Flush.  I expected her to scream, or to cry, but she was totally silent.  After standing there frozen for a few seconds, she just took off.  I mean, she actually ran away from the table, and towards the front entrance of BSC, to the Strip.  She said nothing.  But we all noticed the look of absolutely horror on her face before she left.

The rest of the players were concerned for her well being but her boyfriend and his friend were actually kind of amused.  They were laughing.  Olivia left behind a sweater, some shopping bags and a half eaten bag of potato chips she had been working on.  Since she had no chips left and hadn’t said she was coming back, the floor person came by to clean up her seat so another player could replace her, giving her belongings to her boyfriend.

Some of the players, including myself, were concerned about Olivia.  “Is your girlfriend ok?  Shouldn’t you go after her?”  He scoffed, insisting that “she’s fine.  She’ll be ok.”  Eventually even the boyfriend’s buddy was worried, pressing his buddy to look for her.  But he insisted she was ok.

Finally, after about a half an hour, she did indeed return from the outside.  She came over to her boyfriend and I couldn’t hear what they said to each other, but she did get her belongings from him.  Then she bravely faced the entire table (and the guy with the Royal Flush was still there) and said to us, “I want to apologize to all of you.  I’m sorry I reacted like that. Obviously, I didn’t see the Royal Flush on the board.  I’m fine.”

We all kind of nodded and indicated we were glad that she was ok, and we offered our sympathies.

“Oh, and one more thing,” she added.  “When you all tell your friends this story—and you will—my name is ‘Olivia.’”  And with that, she was gone again.

Thanks, Olivia, for being such a good sport, and for such a good story.  Here’s to you!