In Case You Forgot, Pete Carroll Blew This Year's Super Bowl

Pete Carroll doesn’t want me to do this post.

It is my long awaited Super Bowl post, and just mentioning the “big game” will remind you all of what is being referred to as the worst call in the history of sports—the intercepted pass Seattle threw in the final seconds of the game that cost them the championship.  No doubt Pete Carroll would prefer no one ever mention that game again.

But this isn’t a rehash of the game.  Too many words have already been written about it, and this isn’t a football blog.

No, my belated Super Bowl post concerns the poker session I had while watching the game.

This year, I decided to be a total promo whore and find a game in a room that had some kind of special Super Bowl promos.  After exhaustive research, I figured out that the best promo was being offered at the Flamingo.  But, by the time I was getting ready to head over there, I saw that they already had every table in use and had long waiting lists to get into a game.  So no sense in going over there.  By the way, don’t ask me what their promo was, I’ve long since forgotten.

So I settled for the second best big game promo.  That brought me to the Mecca of Vegas poker—the Excalibur.

In case you hadn’t figured it out by the total lack of mentions of the Excalibur poker room before on this blog, I haven’t spent much time playing poker there.  Only twice before, in fact.  Once, when I was playing 2/4 limit, and once for  a really crummy tournament.   So this would be my first time playing NL cash there.

The promo involved cash drawings.  For a few hours before game time, they gave each player a raffle ticket every ½ hour.  Then they gave the players a ticket at the start of every quarter once the game started.  They’d draw 2 tickets after every score, and one at the end of each quarter.  It was something like $50 or $100 each.

I got to the room about ½ hour before game time and got a seat in a 1/2 game right away.  The room was fairly busy—busier than usual, I’m sure—but not packed.  My game was full only most of the first half.  During the second half the game got down to as few as five players and almost broke.

There was one older gentleman at the table whose picture you can probably find by Googling “nit.”  One hand, he called a $10 raise preflop, called bets on the flop, river and turn.  He turned over the nuts. In fact, he had flopped the nut straight, and it had remained the nuts the entire time.  The board never paired, and no flush was possible.  A couple of people said to him, as he pulled in the pot, “You didn’t raise?”  He just said, “no” and shrugged.  Wow.

The one real aggro was the player sitting to my immediate right.  He had a thick Irish brogue.  He liked to raise, and he raised big and usually kept going after the flop.

Early on I had pocket 7’s.  The Irishman raised to $17 in front of me.  The game had been kind of loose and I expected a few callers, so I called.  Four of us saw a flop of 7-6-4, two spades.  It checked to me and I put out $60.  The guy behind me went all-in for $64.  Tough decision, whether to call that $4, but after tanking for about 10 minutes, I did indeed come up with another four bucks.  Everyone else folded.  We didn’t show, and the river was a 6, giving me the boat.  He didn’t show and I took down a nice pot.

The very next hand I raised to $10 with Ace-Jack off.  Four players called.  The flop was Ace-Jack -5, two spades.  The guy who wouldn’t raise when he had flopped the nut straight donked out a $10 bet.  Into a $50 pot?  I made it $40 and no one called.  Easy game.

Then the well went dry for a time and I just lost chips calling raises and missing.   So with Ace-Jack off, I called the Irishman’s $12 bet, as did one other player.   The flop was Jack-high, two diamonds, I called the Irishman’s $24 c-bet, as did the other player.  The turn was a blank and everyone checked.  There was an Ace on the river, and when the Irishman checked, I bet $60 and no one called.

Eventually the dreaded pocket Kings reared their ugly head.  I bet $8, and had two callers.  The flop was 10-9-7, two hearts.  I bet $20, both players called.  The turn was a black 8, one player bet $100, the other guy called.  I was pretty sure my dreaded hand was no good, and I folded.  I don’t recall the betting action after that, but they both had the Jack-high straight.  One of them had actually flopped it.

Against the Irishman I called $8 with Jack-10 of spades.  The flop was King-Queen-10, rainbow.  I called $15.  We both checked the turn, a blank.  An Ace on the river gave me the nuts and the Irishman bet out $20.  I made it $60.  He said, “Damn I knew you were going to call me, but I was hoping you wouldn’t raise.”  Then he shrugged and said, “I know you got it but I have to call.”  He did and showed Ace-King.

Now, I hadn’t recognized any of the dealers there.  I mention that only because it’s not that unusual for me to go into a Vegas poker room I rarely play in and recognize a dealer from another room—either someone who works in more than room (very common) or perhaps someone who had left the room where I knew them from and moved on to this new room.  Most of the dealers were, well, let’s just say, getting on in years.  Finally this blonde woman came to the table, clearly the youngest dealer I had seen all day.  Now the dealers all had name tags, and unlike most rooms, the name tags have both first and last names.  At least I assumed they all did, but I hadn’t noticed it before.

So I was sitting across from the dealer and I suddenly read her name tag.  It said, “Jennifer Gay.”  Hmm….that name rang a bell.  It took me a second to search my memory banks but I soon realized that this was almost definitely the Jennifer Gay who I have seen comment on Tony’s blog in the past.  And who also (sometimes) does her own blog (here).  And who Tony once asked me to find a baby sitter for (here).  And of course, who also is my fellow columnist for Ante Up.  It is actually strange that we’d never met before.

So after a couple of minutes I said to her, “Do you work for Ante Up Magazine?”  She said she did.  “Well, me too, I’m Rob. I cover Vegas. It’s good to finally meet you.”   We chatted a bit about our Ante Up duties.  She told me that the Golden Nugget would be hosting the Ante Up poker tour this summer, which of course, I already knew.  I told her that I had just written a profile of the new Golden Nugget manager for the magazine.

We had a nice chat during her down and she was totally delightful.  At one point I said to her, “I haven’t seen you comment on Tony’s blog in awhile.”  This was the first mention of Tony.  She said she would never comment again.  “There’s no point.  He doesn’t listen. He never takes advice.”  Hmm, I wonder if Tony’s ever heard that before?  And she lamented that she never has time to update her own blog anymore. 

She told some great gossip about some noted poker pros, some very famous, some just notable grinders about town.  But I can’t violate her confidence by repeating it here.  All I will say is that she said Phil Ivey is a really good tipper.  I don’t suppose Phil will mind having that said about him.

Anyway, as I said, our game was short all through the second half of the football game, and I couldn’t get anything going.  No one at my table was ever called for any of the cash drawings.  Our table was about to break when things just came to a standstill as we watched the last few plays of the game. 

Pete Carroll’s pass play cost a couple of people in the room money….had they scored they would have drawn a couple of more tickets.  So the last drawing would be held at the end of the game, just one ticket.  The person running the promo decided that the game ended when the pass was intercepted.  She pulled a ticket and read the number, only to be informed that the game still had about 30 seconds to go.  So we had to wait until the Patriots ran out the clock.  Then she read the number again, and the promo (and Pete Carroll’s reputation) came to an end. 

I cashed out up a little over $100, so I couldn’t complain.  It was a fun little session, I got to see Pete Carroll make a fool out of himself, and I met the wonderful Ms. Gay.  A good day.  As I strolled out into the Vegas evening, all I could hear were the sounds of both happy and sad football fans saying the same thing.  “Why didn’t he give the ball to Lynch?”

What to Do With the Dreaded Pocket Kings

Sometimes I get emails instead of blog comments.  Reader Ed, who has sometimes left comments on the blog, recently emailed me about a couple of hands from a session he had recently played in.  It was a 1/3 game, I believe in his local casino (not Vegas).  You'll see why he thought of me when you get to the punch line.

Going to go over situation I had recently in cash game..  I was playing cash game, flopped trip 10's on a Q-10-3 board.  Ist player raises to $50  2nd player calls $50  I call $50.  Turn  2.  No flush or straight.  Ist player makes it #100. 2nd player folds. I call $100.  River  8.  Ist player all in and covers my last $180.  I tank and say if he has trip Q's so be it.  I call  He turns over Pocket AA.  I win and have  $520.     

Three hands later here comes pocket KK's.   Ist  player makes it $60 to go and I smooth call $60.  Player to my left ( who is a dealer and a maniac) goes all in for last $95.  This is where it gets interesting.  This reopens the betting and 1st player goes all in for $550 and has me covered.  I say to myself do I want to dump all the money I just made?  The answer was no.  I open folded KK's  and the table went nuts.  Of course he had AA and the board blanked all the way.  AA was good and I saved all my profits.  This was the first time I have ever done this but sometimes you get a feel.

Thanks, Ed.  That is certainly one way to play the dreaded pocket Kings. Great read, Ed. Congrats on the nice session.  Usually, I'm not good enough to fold pocket Kings, although you would have thought I would have learned by now.  But there actually was a time when I did fold the dreaded hand pre-flop.  That post can be found here.  I too had a good read, based on a conversation I had with the person who had the bullets.

I liked Ed's story and appreciated him bringing it to my attention.  But something about the telling of the story bothered me.  No, it wasn't the fact that he folded KK preflop.  I should do that every time.  It was his saying that the raise from $60 to $95 (an all-in) reopened the betting.  That didn't seem right to me.    I was sure that in a no limit game, the all-in must be at least as big as the previous raise in order to allow a re-raise.  Sure it was more than half of the original bet, but I thought the "1/2 rule" only applied to limit games, not no limit.

I went on Twitter to reach out to my my followers, many of whom are poker dealer (or near full time grinders).  Most of the responses agreed that if the case I described, the player with the pocket Aces would not have been allowed to re-raise. He could only call the $95.  But a few players said they know places where it would be allowed, that is the rule in their room or some room they play.  Others insisted that they have seen dealers and floor people make that mistake in this situation, and it is just that, a mistake.  In other words, if you ever saw a player allowed to re-raise an all-in that was less than the full amount of the raise (even if it's only $1 less), it was a mistake, not a house rule.  The TDA rules are quite clear on this.  Of course, not all rooms use TDA rules, and even if they do, they might not follow them in a cash game.

I wrote back to Ed to point that out to him.  He came back to me and said that he very well may have gotten the details wrong in the first email.  It might have been that the raise was not to $95 but to $120 or so, making a legitimate raise.  Ok then.  So it may have been a moot point.

But I still feel it was worth talking about, because of the reaction I got on Twitter when I posed the question.  Apparently there is some real confusion out there about this rule, even among poker dealers and poker floor people.  So if it's important to your action, you should probably ask for a clarification  first before you act.

And remember to fold those damn Kings when your opponent has Aces.

The Luckiest Bastard on the Planet

Just to be clear, the person I'm referring to in the title of this post is not me.  Definitely not.

I’m also not referring to the person who arguably could be considered the luckiest person on the planet.  Maybe even the luckiest person in the history of the world.

That would be Richard Starkey, Jr. of course.  The reasons that Mr. Starkey—better known as Ringo Starr—is the luckiest bastard ever should be obvious, but I’ll briefly explain for those of you who can’t figure it out.  First of all, Ringo was the least talented of The Beatles, yet he shared equally in the fame, fortune, and, dare I say, women, that the Fab Four enjoyed.  For that alone he would be considered lucky.  But what made him even luckier was that he happened to join what was about to become the most successful rock group in history at the last minute, replacing their original drummer at virtually the exact moment the group was about to explode on the music scene.  Or, as we would say now, just as they were about to go viral.  Talk about great timing!  Definitely the luckiest bloke on the planet. 

But since this is not a music blog, we’ll move on.  No, the luckiest bastard on the planet was the guy who came to the same poker table as me one night.  He was in the right place at the right time.  He got the right cards in the right place at the right time.  And in getting those right cards in the right place he had the incredible good fortune to come up against a donkey on a mission.

In case it is unclear, the “donkey on a mission”?  That would be me.

It was early February and because I was in the neighborhood, I ended up playing at Caesars Palace.  I had been meaning to go back there anyway, as the last session I’d played there had been very successful, as I explained here…..except wait, I actually haven’t actually written up that post yet.  It’s on my “to do” list.  I’ll get to that very nice session from my December trip soon.  For now, all you need to know is that it was a very profitable session, and I wondered why it took me so long to make it back there.

I got into a game quickly and was in seat 7.  It soon became obvious it was a wild table, there were at least three maniacs at the table, the biggest one was seat 6 to my right.  He was an older gentleman with some kind of European accent but he didn’t talk much.  I think he played at least 98% of the hands.  About 90% of the time he raised or three-bet, or at the very least, called a raise.  There were almost no limped pots at the table.  He was generally aggressive post flop, c-betting or raising and only rarely would he fold before the river.  He caught some cards of course, but also made some pretty big bluffs that I saw.

Towards the end of my session, he made one of the oddest plays I’ve seen in a poker game—he folded for $1.  On the river, in a three-way hand, he was first to act and put out an $80 bet (a reasonable amount for the size of the pot).  The next player went all in for $81.  The other guy called the $81.  The maniac folded.  Yeah, for a dollar, as I said.  No one could believe, both the other two players in the hand said to him, “You folded for a dollar?”  He was embarrassed but admitted, “I didn’t expect either of you to call….it was a bluff.”  I dunno, if it was me, I think I would have put the buck in just to avoid the humiliation of folding for a buck when the pot was at least $325-$350. 

The other two maniacs left after a bit, but seat 6 was there the whole time, making it impossible to see a flop for cheap.  His raises were all over the map (and didn’t seem to relate to what he had), but anywhere from $12 to $25 to open was well within his repertoire.

So I came up with a plan.  The plan was simple, like my cousin Kenny.  But unlike Kenny, this plan just might work. Be patient and wait for a hand, but also open up my calling range so I could nail him with middle pair or even less. 

I dropped down under $80 just calling his raises and missing.  I added another $100 and finally, in the big blind, got a hand—the dreaded pocket Kings.  A few players limped, and then, to my dismay, the maniac only put in a buck to call from the small blind.  One of the few hands he didn’t raise.  I made it $17 and he called, it was heads up.  I c-bet $25 on a Jack-high flop, he called.  The turn was a Queen and we both checked.  The river was 9 which made a straight possible (no flush) and he led out for $60.  I was already planning to call any bet he made short of a shove, so I snapped.  Yeah, he certainly could have had a lucky two-pair or even the straight but I figured it was much more likely this guy was full of it.  He showed King-9 offsuit for a rivered pair of 9’s.  My dreaded hand was good, and I had a small victory over the maniac.

It was short lived.  I called a raise from him with Ace-Jack.  In hindsight, if ever there was a player I should have three-bet Ace-Jack against, he was it.  The flop was 6-6-2 and he checked, I checked behind him.  The turn was a Jack and I just called his bet, and also called a bet on the river.  He showed 8-6 offsuit.  Glad I didn’t raise.  This cost me most of my profit from the Kings hand I was down to around $175-$180.

The maniac was still in my sights.  I’d be glad to win money from the other players too of course, but it was obvious that one way or another, I’d have to go through him to win any money as long as he was there.  I kept waiting and waiting for another opportunity.

Then, right before the crucial hand of the night, the player to my immediate left took off.  Just as a new player was about to claim seat 8, the player in seat 4 requested a seat change to seat 8.

This is absolutely crucial for the climax of the story.  Seat 4 moved to seat 8 and so the new player, who we will hence forth call “Lucky Bastard” or LB for short, took seat 4. 

The guy who moved to my left had been there longer than I had.  One of the first hands I saw was this guy going all in for a nice amount.  I had already discovered the game was wild and thought based on that he might be one of the maniacs.  But no, in this case he shoved with a set of Kings and was paid off by one of the maniacs (not seat 6, one of the guys who soon left).

From then on, seat 4—now seat 8—barely played a hand.  I swear he was tighter than me.  And I suspected he wanted that seat change to get behind of the maniac in seat 6 and have position on him.  No doubt he was tired of acting before this maniac.  It made perfect sense.  In fact, earlier in the evening, I had a chance to move to seat 1, one of my preferred seats, but stayed put because I couldn’t think of a better seat than to maniac’s left.  So seat 4—now seat 8—had moved to the second best seat at this table.

LB had only played a hand or two—maybe three at the absolute most—when the hand happened.  LB was in the big blind for it.  After the under-the-gun player folded, the maniac made it $17.  I looked down at pocket Jacks.  Oh man, or man, this was the hand I’d been waiting for all night.  A pair of Jacks was so crushing this maniac’s raising range.  This was absolutely the perfect time to three bet those fish hooks.  I was practically salivating as I put out my bet of $50.

It folded to LB in the big blind.  No reason to think LB would do anything other than fold; he hadn’t played any of the few hands he’d been dealt in thus far.  That was fine with me.  I wanted to be heads up against the maniac.  If he (the maniac) were to repop it, fine, I’m more than happy to shove against him with my Jacks.  I figured my Jacks were as good as Aces against the maniac.  If he happened to actually have Aces or Kings or Queens this time—well that would surely suck, but you know, that’s poker.

But LB didn’t insta-fold.  He didn’t bet at all at first.  Instead, he said to me, “Fifty bucks?  Why so much?” 

Wait, what?  I said absolutely nothing but in my mind I was saying, “What do you mean, why so much?  It’s three times the bet I was facing.  That’s a perfectly normal three-bet.  Besides, you just got here, watch and learn, and when you see this maniac play for an orbit or two, you’ll know exactly why I bet ‘so much.’  Now sir, this hand, and my bet, is of no concern of yours at all.  Fold your cards like a good boy and then come back after this maniac doubles me up on this hand.  Thanks for playing.”

LB said something else to me, but I couldn’t hear what it was.  At that point, the dealer warned him not to talk, there was no discussion about the hand allowed in a three-way pot.

LB said, “I can’t talk huh?”  Then he shrugged and grabbed some chips.  He didn’t put out $50.  Nope, the son-of-a-bitch put out $100.

Damn.

Maniac took a few seconds to think about it and then folded.  Oh joy.  This plan was working so well.

What to do, what to do?  This was not at all the way it was supposed to go.  I was supposed to be heads up against the maniac, possibly all in preflop.  The maniac was my target.  I didn’t know LB from Adam.  This was the first time he’d done anything at the table other than play with his chips.

The guy was youngish (mid-20’s), wearing a baseball cap (the right way), no sunglasses, no hoodie, no earbuds.  Normally my default is to assume a new player plays tight until he shows me otherwise.  And yeah, I know when players talk, they usually have it. OTOH, I’ve seen many a player make a really aggro move on one of his first hands just to establish an image.   So I had absolutely no read on this guy, and by the way, what the f*** did he think he was doing spoiling my well-designed scheme to take down the maniac?

So I ask you, dear readers, what should I have done?  What would you have done?

I thought about putting the rest in but on the chance he was doing that with Ace-King (and that was certainly a possibility), I just called.  I bet you’re all going to say that’s an easy fold for me, but I just couldn’t do it.  I hadn’t really stopped salivating from when I saw those Jacks after the maniac made it $17.  I guess I was having a brain freeze from the unexpected turn of events.

The flop was low, 10-high  I believe.  When he checked, I shoved (about $75 or so).  He snap called and flipped over two Aces, of course.  I did nothing.  The last two cards were blanks and I just mucked without saying a word.  I stood up, grabbed my jacket, my card protector, my half finished drink and left the table without saying a damn word.  I heard one player say, “he must have had Kings.”  They had all seen how tight I was playing, what else could they put me on?

What a lucky son-of-a-bitch that guy with Aces was.  First, two or three hands after he sits down, he gets Aces.  And he gets Aces against a guy who gets Jacks.  There’s a maniac at the table who raises with jack-shit so the guy with Jacks three-bets and builds the pot. The guy who has Jacks—normally the tightest player in the game—stupidly calls his four-bet because the maniac had turned him into a donkey on a mission.  The stars really aligned for him on this night.

And here’s another way he was lucky.  Remember he only got that seat—the one where he got Aces on his second or third hand—because someone left that seat to get better position on the maniac.  The thing is, he had been at the table for such a short period of time it is entirely possible those Aces would have been dealt to seat 4 even if the other player never moved away from—as would have happened in a just world.  And if the original player in seat 4 had made it $100, or raised to anything, I would have folded like a cheap suit.  That guy hadn’t played a hand in 90 minutes.  But as I said, I had no information on LB.

So that’s the story of the luckiest bastard on the planet, at least for this night.  Now, I’m pretty sure that Ringo Starr, deep down inside knows how lucky he is (check out his wife, below),.  I wonder if LB knows how lucky he was.