Thursday, June 14, 2012

The Naked Poker Player, The Cigar Man, & The Possible Hooker

You must be used to the fact that I don’t post my anecdotes in chronological order, right?  This is the tale of my first night in Vegas last month. 
Got into a 1/2 game at BSC and was minding my own business when the fellow to my right suddenly said to me, “You play here a lot, don’t you?”
I figured it was because he’d seen me being friendly with the dealers but no, he said he recognized my “card protector”.  I talked about my card protector in this post.  Anyway this guy is a frequent visitor to Vegas and admitted that he didn’t really recognize me, just the card protector.  Wow.  Guess I would make a good bank robber if no one recognizes me.  Anyway, his wife was across the table from me and she was very memorable.  She had a terrific figure, a skimpy dress and was revealing some very nice “no limit cleavage”, a concept I mentioned, among other posts, here.
A bit later, the husband took off, quickly followed by his wife.  That left the table short-handed for a bit.  The wife’s seat had been seat 1, right next to the dealer.  I was in the middle of a hand when I saw out of the corner of my eye a completely naked woman walking behind the dealer to take seat 1.
Honestly, for a second or two, that’s what it looked like to me.  In reality, she was an extremely attractive woman wearing an ultra-tight dress that gave new meaning to the term “skin-tight.”  She had darkish skin (Hawaiian, perhaps?) and the dress was almost identical to her skin-tone.  At first glance she really did look naked.  I suspect that was kind of the effect she was going for.
 It was certainly attention-getting.  I mean, I’ve seen a lot of strange things in Vegas and in casinos, but a completely naked woman, that would be a new one.  Now, just last summer, while playing in the very same BSC, I did see two really attractive girls walking through the poker room wearing skimpy bikinis and nothing else.  No towel, no cover-up, no nothing (well, maybe some kind of footwear but my eye never got there).  At first I thought they were coming from the pool to exit the casino to walk on the strip, but later I realized there was sort of a back way to the rooms near there and they were probably just walking thru the poker room from the pool as a shortcut, ignoring all the signs asking people coming and going to the pool to wear some kind of cover up when walking in the casino.  I wasn’t complaining about their rules violation.
I wasn’t the only one who noticed these two girls.  Of course a lot of the male dealers saw them, and we discussed this later when they dealt to me.  But the best reaction was from Ginger, the very attractive dealer I first wrote about in the post here. She noticed the two bikini girls the same time as I did and I think her head snapped even more than mine did.  She saw me noticing the girls, looked at me and gave me a classic “WTF?” look.
There was another time a number of years ago, back when I played table games, not poker, that I was playing blackjack at the Hard Rock.  It was the middle of the day in the middle of summer.  I looked up and saw a girl in a very small, white bikini walk very slowly towards the table across from mine, where she started talking to a player—presumably her boyfriend or husband.  The bikini was ridiculously tiny. The girl’s figure was just plain ridiculous.  Seriously, she was unbelievably well built.  All of the players at my game saw her, and our jaws just dropped in unison.  We told the male dealer to turn around to check this out, but he said he couldn’t turn his had away from the—you’ll pardon the expression—rack that he was responsible for.  There was so much incredibly tanned, incredibly proportioned flesh revealed, and her walk to the player had been so slow, that it was pretty damn obvious that this body was god or Mother Nature given (depending on your religious views), and not store bought from a talented plastic surgeon.
But I digress.  The girl about to take seat 1 only looked naked. The dress was, as I said, very tight, I don’t know how she could breathe—or sit down—in it, but she did.  It was extremely short too, the amount of leg I could see before she took her seat added to the “nude” effect.  She was well enough endowed for the dress to stay put even though it was strapless. So there was some nice no-limit cleavage too.  It was pretty damn eye-catching.
Unfortunately, she didn’t play many hands, and didn’t stay long.  I didn’t see a guy with her, but it seemed she was just killing time waiting for someone.  Well, it was fun while it lasted. 
But you want to hear about the poker, right?  Right.  So a guy comes to the table and takes the seat on the other side of the dealer with a big fat cigar in his mouth.  Of course he couldn’t light it, but he kept that thing in his mouth and chewed on it the whole time he was there.  He bought in for the maximum, $300, My first impression was that he was going to be a tough player, but I was proven wrong.
First though, I lost some money to him when I was dealt pocket Queens.  He had limped in, or was the big blind, not sure which, when I raised to $12 and he called (one or two other callers too, I believe).  There were 2 8’s on the flop and nothing near as high as my Queens.  I bet it strongly and he stayed with me.  I ended up losing $100 to him because he had 10/8 and called my raise with that crap.  I gave him too much credit, I didn’t think he’d have called my preflop raise with a hand like that.  I was wrong.
So I figured out that he wasn’t nearly as good a player as I feared, and I used that information, plus a little bit of a screw up on his part, to get my money back.  In early position he tried to raise.  But he messed up and put his $2 out first and then said raise and tried to add more to it.  A classic “string raise” which is not permitted.  Since he had raised before without screwing up, I assume this was just a glitch and not a case of his not understanding the rules.  But I definitely kept that in mind when I looked at my hand, in late position.  It was Ace-King off.
It had been limped around to me and ordinarily that’s a sure raise. 
But I had gotten the impression that Cigar man had wanted to raise big, and I thought if I raised, he might 3-bet me.  I really didn’t want to invest much money in a hand that is just a good drawing hand preflop.  So instead of raising, I limped.  No one raised and we saw the flop really cheaply.
There was a King on the flop.  When he bet out, I just called.  I put him on a pocket pair.  Sure it could have been Aces, but my gut told me it was not.  I thought my pair of Kings were good, and if I raised, he might fold, I wanted him to stick around.  Sure enough, as two harmless cards came on the turn and the river, he bet each street.  Finally on the river, fairly convinced he couldn’t beat my Kings, I raised.  He called.  My read was dead on.  He had pocket Jacks.  I took all my money back from him and a lot of his own buy in as well.  It was very nice.
Cigar man lost the rest of his chips soon thereafter, and regrettably, didn’t rebuy.  But his brief visit to the table ensured a profitable session for me, if not hugely so.
There was one other interesting woman at the table, and she was there pretty much the whole time I was.  No cleavage.  She was wearing a big sweat shirt that said “Cougars” in large letters.  Since she said was from Seattle, I assumed the shirt was referring to the sports teams of Washington State University, whose nickname is The Cougars.  She was cute and young if you think late 20’s/early 30’s is young (for me, it sure as hell is).
She was a fun girl, and it was great that there was always at least one nice looking woman at the table, and as mentioned earlier, sometimes there were other females as well.  She was joking and laughing with the guys at the other side of the table, unfortunately, she was too far away from me to hear a lot of what she was saying.  I don’t think she was saying anything too salacious though.  I don’t think I missed hearing any great “woman-saids.”
Because she wasn’t saying anything raunchy, I just couldn’t screw up the courage to say to her the one line I had going through my mind looking at her “Cougars” sweatshirt.  And Prudence was not there that night either.  So I had to wimpily admit to Prudence the next night that without her there to get me in the proper, uninhibited frame of mind, I didn’t have the guts to say to the gal, “You know, you look much too young to be a Cougar.”
I left the room with a small profit and headed to my car.  I noticed that the area of the casino where I’ve often seen ladies of the evening ply their trade was being torn up.  There was a lot of remodeling going on.  I wondered where the ladies would be working since their normal area was not accessible.  But I assure you, based on what happened to me in this post here, I was not even looking for them.  Really.
But I couldn’t help notice an extremely attractive blonde girl in the vicinity. She had either very short shorts on or a very short skirt.  She was really tall, extremely high heels, and a purse big enough to hide a small child.  Her top was rather modest, as far as I could tell.  But I walked right by her and she didn’t say a word to me.  So I assumed she was not a hooker, since I am usually the exact demographic these girls are looking for.  Besides, I got a good look at her face, and I thought she was way too beautiful to be a hooker.  She was really quite lovely.
Well, I wasn’t hanging around there waiting to find out.  I learned my lesson, officer.  So I tried to take my normal route to the parking lot and found it was closed off due to the construction work.  I had to retrace my steps and take an alternate route. When I did this, she had made the same mistake, we passed each other and again she ignored me (she was obviously alone, and like most hookers, talking on or looking at her cell phone the whole time).  So she was kind of following me, apparently to the parking. 
At this point I decided to stop just to see if she would say anything to me or if she was indeed headed out. Sigh. Old habits die hard.  She walked right by me, but then surprised me by heading toward the self-parking and not the valet.  I had observed in the past that most hookers use the valet parking.  From what I’ve seen waiting for my own car when I do use the valet, I think they tip the valets to keep their cars right there in the driveway and not actually park them so they can make a hasty exit if they need to meet a client elsewhere.
So when I saw the gal going to the self-parking I was again convinced she was not selling happy endings.  She was now way ahead of me and I continued my way to the self-parking, where it was necessary to take an escalator.  But as I got near the escalator, suddenly she stopped before getting on it herself.  She was looking down at her cell phone. 
And then I was surprised that as I was about to walk by her, she suddenly looked up, gave me a big smile and said “Hi.  So….where ya headed?”  I remembered the incident with the cops.  I just said, “Home” and kept walking and got on the escalator.  So indeed she was a hooker.  And I noticed her top, when you looked at it straight on, was indeed not as modest as I thought.  It was very classily revealing.  This was definitely the classiest, best looking hooker I can recall seeing.
But I was a little uncomfortable when she followed me on the escalator, and then on the long walk to my car.  But she said not another word to me, she didn’t harass me in any way, and she apparently headed straight to a car, which was on a different level than mine.  No further hooker encounters that night, or I believe, the rest of the trip.
Note:  I was really mad at myself as I started writing this post.  I almost instantly hit upon the perfect name for this post.  It should have been called, “Naked Came The Poker Player.” Just one problem.  I have already used that title.  Yeah, just threw it away, thinking I would never be able to do a post where it would be so appropriate, so I blew that title on my entry for “hooker week.”  You can find that post here, even though there are no poker players, naked or otherwise, in it. Damn, I wish had older post to do over, title wise.

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

"I Play Better When I'm Drunk" (part 2)

This is part 2 to the previous post, which was entitled "Unicorns & Rainbows.".  It struck me that it would be a good idea to change the title for part 2, Since part 2 continues directly from where I left off in part 1, you should make sure you have  read part 1 (here)  before reading this post.  Oh, and here’s the only unicorn you’ll see in this part.
Now, I was starting to get a bit worried about her.  Of course the totally uninhibited Prudence, made even more so by excessive amounts of spirits, was fun to be around.  She was cracking me up with her outrageous comments and I knew she was giving me plenty to blog about.  And she had a ride home, her boyfriend Tom, who was actually dealing (and not playing) this nite, so there were no worries there.  But I had no idea how much alcohol this girl could comfortably consume.  Was the end result of this evening merely going to be a dreadful hangover or would it be something worse—if so, what?  I actually started worrying about her tossing her cookies on the poker table.  I was also looking at the clock and realizing that Tom’s shift would soon be over and he’d be able to take her home. So while I probably should have suggested she skip a round or two of drinks, I don’t believe I did.  Does such a suggestion ever work anyway?
Meanwhile the cards were abusing her much more than the booze was.  While I was having a good nite after that big win with Deuce-four, she was losing steadily, and had to re-buy a time or two.  She blamed it on getting no respect because she was female, or the pigtails, or some Japanese kid who she blamed for abusing her people during WWII, but not on her play.  Truth be told, I didn’t really see any noticeably bad play from her….until the hand I’m about to describe (yes folks, I’m actually getting back to poker).
While she was out hitting the ATM for more money to buy chips with, some young guy took a seat across the table from us.  He had almost a full rack of red chips, close to $500 it looked like.  Knowing the maximum buy-in was only $300, I immediately asked him if he was a new player or if he came from another table.  Both the player and the dealer assured me that it was a table change.  Ok.  The position he came into would have been the big blind, so rather than waiting one hand and “come in for free” he choose to “buy the button.”
I found it noteworthy that this guy couldn’t wait one hand to play a hand and had no reservations about throwing three bucks into the pot blindly and having absolutely no reads on any of the players there.  I pegged him as a Loose Aggressive that I need to keep an eye.
When Prudence returned and bought more chips, I immediately told her about this guy and to watch out for him.  It wasn’t very long before Prudence and the LAG guy got into a big pot together, which made me very nervous.  Just from the way she was acting, I kind of got the impression that she was playing way too loose on this hand; my gut feeling.  It was almost like, at least in my mind, she was playing this latest buy-in without any consideration for how good her hand actually was.
I can’t recall the exact betting action, but I believe Prudence had been the aggressor the whole time, and LAG guy was calling.  Except he raised her on the turn and she called.  Anyway, at the river, the board showed four diamonds and a pair of 9’s. ***(see edit at end of this post)  I was absolute convinced that Prudence’s opponent had a boat, especially when she showed me her hand.  She had the Ace of diamonds for the nut flush.  Nice, but if I was right about the guy having the boat, her flush was no good.
The action was on Prudence first, and she just grabbed a bunch of chips, without counting them, without really knowing how much she was betting, and just kind of flung them forward, in front of her.  It was like she had no idea what she was doing, the way she made the bet. Oh my god.  My worst fears were realized, I thought.  She has no friggin’ clue what she is doing!  She just grabbed a bunch a chips and bet without really knowing what she bet, or if that was a good bet based on the size of the pot!  She was incompetent to play poker any more, I thought.
The dealer stacked up her bet so the guy would know how much she had bet (I’m sure she didn’t have clue herself).  When told, he thought for awhile, sized up the stack of chips she had left and raised her all-in.
It had been hours since we had discussed my “safe word” so I didn’t think yelling “bosoms!” at the top of my lungs would mean anything to her, I doubt she would remember it in her current state.  I wanted to kick her under the table but didn’t.  I’m not sure why.
Oh I know why.  It’s because she said “call” so fast I didn’t have a chance.  Damn.
At that moment, I knew what I was gonna do. Prudence was going to lose another buy in to his full house, and I was going to tell her—no, I was going to beg
Well that’s what I was going to tell her if she had lost the pot.  But to my absolute astonishment, the guy turns over two diamonds—I think the highest was a 7 or a 10, and says “I’ve got a flush.”  He certainly did.  But that was it.  No boat.  His flush was worthless because the fourth diamond on the river gave Prudence the nut flush.  Prudence had just doubled up!
Now, to me, the guy was pretty dumb.  He hadn’t been able to get her to laydown her draw to the nut flush, and on the river, with that fourth diamond and a paired board, how do you raise there.  I can see making a crying call in case the drunk girl is bluffing—or has a weaker flush.  But with a low flush, where any diamond paint card beats you, where a full house beats you, how do you raise there (I don’t remember the details, but it cost him at least an extra $100)?
Well, there was maybe one thing that he might have been thinking.  Maybe he noticed the way Prudence was acting, and betting, and they way she seemingly mindlessly splashed her chips there, and thought she was too drunk to know what she was doing, and that therefore he likely had a better hand that the drunk.
Hell, that’s what I thought!  So perhaps Prudence had inadvertently discovered a great way to outmaneuver your opponents.  Act so plastered that everyone will think you’re clueless and they’ll bet into you when you have them beat.  Hmmmm…
Well, since she was stacking her chips, I decided not to tell her to stop playing. What the heck do I know?  It worked, right?  I congratulated her, told her how scared I was for her, told her how happy I was for her, and just otherwise shut up about her drunken play.  Well not quite, I did tell her I was going to suggest she stop if she had lost that hand.  She just chuckled.  “I play better when I’m drunk.”
And here’s the funny thing.  That hand turned her night around, pokerwise.  She started winning.  Not big pots like that one, but a few nice medium sized pots and soon she had a nice big stack of chips in front of her. It was one of the most unlikely turnarounds I’d ever seen.
Now, since this is actually my blog, one hand I want to mention that happened after this involving me.  I want to mention it because I think it shows the progress I’ve made as a poker player, particularly a No Limit player.  In late position, I had A/Q offsuit.  It had been straddled and there were a bunch of callers on the straddle ($4).  So I raised to $20.  Prudence is very annoyed at me but folds (she was immediately to my left).  The LAG guy who lost a bundle to Prudence calls, as does a relatively new player.
The new player is a local, this I learned from the conversation he had had with Prudence.  I had seen him play just enough to peg him as a kind of tight, weak player.  The flop was 9 high, missing me completely.  Both players before me checked.  I made a continuation bet of $40 hoping to take it down right there, since it didn’t look like the board could have hit anyone too hard.
LAG guy instafolds but local thinks a bit and calls.  Damn he must have something.  Medium pocket pair?  Perhaps he had A-rag and had middle pair?  He had to have something to call me.  There were no good draws out there (maybe a baby straight).
Ten on the turn, but he checked.  I really have nothing so I check behind him.  I don’t remember the river card but it didn’t help me and looked like it probably didn’t help him.  If he bets, I’m gone.  But he checks.
I was about to check and show my Ace high but thought better of it.  He must have some kind of pair, whatever it is.  If I check there’s no way I can win the pot.  I was pretty sure from the way he was acting/thinking he had something, not a busted draw. So I decided to take a shot at it.
I carefully counted out $80 and bet it.  It was a total bluff.  I knew if he called he’d take it down.  He really thought a long time and I was sure he was leaning towards calling.  But finally, he resignedly mucked!  I’m sure he thought I had raised pre-flop with a big pocket pair which was still bigger than whatever pair he had.
So I took down a decent pot, and it was the kind of move I never would have made just a few months ago.  I almost felt like a poker player in that moment.
I didn’t want to make it too obvious that I had bluffed the guy so all I said to Prudence was “remember this hand.”  But Tom had come by at that moment and he saw what she had thrown away to my raise.  He said she would have had top two (pair) if she had stayed in.  Good thing my raise was to $20!  The next day she confirmed that she threw away 10-9 offsuit to my raise.  She said I was lucky I folded.  That’s true, but I said if she had stayed in, I would have played the hand total differently.  She would have bet her top pair on the flop (I think she was the small blind) and I would have insta-folded.
Anyway, that was when Tom had come by to take Prudence home.  His shift was over.  But she didn’t want to go home, at least initially.  Suddenly she was in the money and wanted more poker.  But he finally convinced her it was time to go.  I left not long after that. That little bluff I pulled off (sorry, local guy) was a nice little capper to a successful run at poker I had that night, more than doubling up.
On her way home, she texted me that she actually ended up the evening ahead, which was a nice turn of events considering how she was running for much of the nite.  She also reiterated that she seems to play better when drunk!
I did text to the next morning to find out how hungover she was, and she said not at all.  She felt fine.  That was nice to hear.
So….playing poker with Prudence is fun.  Winning at poker is fun.  Doing both at the same time is a real blast.

***Edited to add:  If you read Prudence's comments below, she maintains that there were 2 Aces on the board, not 2 9's, and thus she had trip Aces until she hit the nut flush on the river.  Despite her comment about losing her brainpower, we've had a conversation about this hand and it turns out that she keeps records and is pretty sure she has it basically right, and thus, my original recap is in error.

Although my notes are pretty clear, I am willing to concede that since she was in the hand and I wasn't, she is likely right.  Although she did have a lot to drink that nite.  Perhaps I got a contact high and had lost my bearings just from watching her consume all that booze (I had no drinks that nite, as usual).  Her recollection is that she had two diamonds in her hand, including the Ace, and there were only 3 diamonds on the board, no pair of 9's on the board, only the aces.  

Even assuming her recollection is clearer than mine (a scary thought for me), what I said about how she was acting while playing the hand is still accurate and valid, again, leading me to the conclusion that she was incapable of playing poker in her current state.

Until she won the hand.  My apologies to my readers for (apparently) getting it wrong and to Prudence for reporting her hand erroneously.

Sunday, June 10, 2012

Unicorns & Rainbows (part 1)

In keeping with my recent habit, this will be another two part post.  This is part one, the second part is now up directly above this post.

This is the story of the last night I played poker with Prudence on my May trip to Vegas.......

To continue reading this post, please click here