"Where Are You From?"

This took place quite a few months ago. There was some drama that was quite a bit more interesting than the poker was for me.  In fact, I will spare you all the “boring hand histories.”  Early in the session I flopped a set of 4’s, didn’t get paid for it, and it was downhill from there.

The drama reminded of an incident that I had been involved in personally over a year earlier.  You can read about it here.  In short, I was in bad mood from an incident at another table, and then, at the new table, ran into an absolute maniac who raised big every single time. He was also a non-stop talker and he just infuriated me.  So when I checked a flop, and he didn’t see me check, he decided to ask me, totally out of the blue, with the action on him, “What’s your nationality?”  I was beyond infuriated (read the old post to get the full flavor).

On this night, I originally was seated in the perfect seat at the perfect table to enjoy the Slut Parade.  But before the provocatively dressed young ladies showed up, our table broke and I was stuck at a table in the back of the room, a seat with no view.  It’s amazing I didn’t blow up just for that, but in fact, the drama this night didn’t involve me.

When I got to the table, I had just won a small pot at the previous table (the last hand before they broke it) and the seat I took was between the blinds, so I had to wait a couple of hands to play.  Thus I had my face buried in my phone making notes on the previous hand and also putting down an accurate count of the chips I took to the new table.  Again, as it turned out, this information is not worth relating to you now.   

There was a dealer change so the old dealer had put a “reserved” button in front of me, so I wouldn’t be charged for a missed blind when I was able to take a hand.

Meanwhile, there was a guy at the other side of table who “welcomed” me to the table.  “You don’t know what you’re in for.  I talk a lot.  One guy already left because I talk too much.”  Thanks for the warning, bub.  But I was busy with my notes and ignored him. That annoyed him.  “What, you’re not going to participate?  You’re just going to bury you face in the phone and ignore us?”

I didn’t respond immediately, but in a moment or two, I received my first hand at the table.  I still had the “reserved” button, which I picked up and returned to the dealer..  But not before I waived it in front of me and said to the loudmouth guy, “You see, I had to be quiet because I had the ‘reserved’ button. I had to act reserved.”  That got a good laugh, even from Loudmouth.

The loudmouth was from Chicago, a fact he repeated at least three dozen times.  By the time his night was over, I think he had repeated everything at least three dozen times.  He was one of those guys.

The player he got into it with was a guy who looked like he might have been Asian, but I wasn’t sure.  He never spoke a word at the table to any of us, but every once in awhile his buddy came over and they would talk to each other in a foreign language.  But just as I couldn’t be sure of the guy’s national origin, I couldn’t be sure what language they were speaking.  He never gave any indication that he didn’t understand English, but I never heard him speak a word of it.  I was pretty sure he didn’t live in the U.S. and was visiting from another country.

The loudmouth couldn’t tell where the guy was from either.  And it drove him crazy.  He kept asking the guy where he was from and the guy just shrugged, or stared off into space.  This happened between hands or even during hands.  I assume the guy understood the question and chose not to answer, for whatever reason. If he figured out that it was putting the loudmouth on tilt, he was pretty dead on.

The mysterious man had an interesting playing style.  He played generally very nitty, but every now and then he’d make a really big bet, or a three-bet.  He kept us off-balance.

Loudmouth was already frustrated with the guy when the two of them were in a hand together and the mysterious man put out a huge bet.  I didn’t note the details but it was a big bet and Loudmouth clearly had a good hand. He went in the tank forever.  He was in agony.  So he asked the guy, “Will you show if I fold?”  The guy said nothing.  The loudmouth was infuriated that he wouldn’t commit to showing.  Finally the loudmouth folded.  As the pot was pushed to him, the mysterious man hesitated and then showed his cards.  It was a total bluff.  He had nothing, he never even had a decent draw.  It was garbage the whole way.  I wasn’t sure, but I kind of think that the loudmouth threw up a little in his mouth.  He was really pissed.

On the very next hand, I raised, the mysterious man three-bet, and the loudmouth said, “My fault, I just gave him the confidence to do that.”  I don’t believe that, but whatever.

Loudmouth would only shut up long enough to text on his phone.  Sometimes, when he was blabbering, he was making comments about the other players.  Just mild stuff, I don’t think it was too bad.  I didn’t hear anything about me.  He was saying some things about the mysterious man.  I didn’t write any of it down so I obviously didn’t think any of it was beyond the pale.

Finally he got into another big hand with the mysterious guy.  And they got it all in, and it turned out that loudmouth had two pair but the mysterious guy had flopped a set of Queens.  Loudmouth was now out of chips. 

He was of course really unhappy.  And so he shouted over to the guy, “Now will you tell me where you’re from, you god-damn mother-f***er?”  Again the guy said nothing, just kept stacking his chips.  But the dealer said, “That’s it, you have to leave.  You’re done.”

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a dealer kick a player out before.  As it happened, the shift manager was coming over to the table anyway for another reason, and the dealer explained what happened.  But it didn’t matter.  Loudmouth didn’t argue.  He was already on his way out.  The shift boss just kept on her eye on him to make sure he left the poker room, which he did.

I guess it was only a matter of time before his big, loud mouth would get him in trouble.  Moral of the story:  If someone doesn’t want to tell you where they’re from, don’t press it.

I’ll close this post out with some big boobs.  Because, why the hell not?

What, you say those boobs aren’t big enough for you?

Well, here’s a bigger boob.

Of course, I’m referring to the guy wearing the shirt.  Who would wear a shirt like that? 

Hmm…..maybe there is actually a market for a shirt like this?  Perhaps I should look into marketing them?

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These Are Not the Boobs You're Looking For

As I’ve mentioned numerous times—and as anyone who has been following my blog since the beginning can attest—the current blog is not exactly what I had envisioned when I started this thing.

My original idea was that it would be made up of silly and perhaps outrageous stories of things I encountered in Vegas, some at the poker table, some elsewhere.  I really hadn’t expected to be talking about actual poker nearly as much as I have.  But the blog has a mind of its own.  I’m still on the lookout for silly and outrageous stories of course…they just seem to come at me less and less frequently.  And fortunately, I’ve had many, many things to say about poker to make up for it—hopefully some of it is even insightful.

But this past Saturday something happened at the table that was very much in line with the kind of stories I initially expected to be telling here.  In fact, the story reminded me of one I told before the blog was even a month old.  That story you can find here.  Since it is so old, I doubt most of my current readers have ever read it, so you might want to take a look at it, should be new to most of you.

And I dare say, having just re-read that post for the first time in years while getting ready to write this post, I believe this might have been the post that gave Prudence the totally ridiculous notion that I am “obsessed with bosoms” (see here for another one of my earliest posts.).

The surprising thing was that this happened in L.A., not Las Vegas.  I mean, I sure didn’t expect to get another story about a woman almost flashing her boobs in an L.A. casino.  Vegas is usually full of women who tempt the fates and come dangerously close to exposing the boobs, unintentionally or otherwise. I guess that’s one of the things I love about Vegas.  Sure, L.A. has places where that is more likely to happen to, but L.A. poker rooms are not any of the places.]

Usually.

So there I was playing 1/2 at the PC Ventura again.  After about an hour, a well dressed, mature woman took a seat across from me.  Now the star of that early post I linked was middle-aged, and this lady was probably a bit beyond middle aged. I have no idea if this lady is collecting social security, but I’d bet that she is old enough to.  The lady in my original story I called Joan, so let’s call this lady Joan2.  By the way, when I just now read my old post, I had no idea if Joan was her real name or if I pseudonymed her.  I decided to check my name conversations spreadsheet and sure enough, not only was “Joan” on it with her real name, but she was actually the very first entry on it!

As I said, Joan2 was neatly dressed.  Nice jewelry, hair perfectly in place, nice, almost professional looking outfit for a woman her age.  She could have easily gone to work in any office I’ve ever seen in that outfit.  She had a nice jacket on, and underneath that was a top that was perhaps the only problem with the outfit.  It was a tad lowcut, and she was showing some cleavage.  Not much, mostly because that jacket covered most of her, but some.  Of course, I am not morally opposed to cleavage (shocking, I know).  But sadly, I think there is an age-limit for this, and I think this woman was on the other side of the limit.

Still, it wasn’t like it was offensive or anything.  And then, suddenly, I looked up and she was reaching into her top and I saw the white of her bra for a second, and then she stuck her bra back into her top and that was the end of it. I assume she was adjusting her bra.  At least that was all I saw.  Perhaps the dealer, a guy who was probably approaching middle-age, may have seen more.  Or maybe not.  All I know is that Joan2 was laughing and saying something like, “I didn’t mean to do that,” or maybe “I shouldn’t have done that.” And she made some reference to exposing herself, but I don’t think she used either the words “flash” or “boobs” (or any other euphemism for breasts).

The dealer however, was not about to let this go.  He said something like, “Well, I certainly didn’t expect to see anything like that when I woke up this morning.”  Then he added, “I’ve seen smaller pocket pairs.”  A few minutes later, Joan2 won a pot, and as the dealer pushed it to her, he said, “Well there you go, you show me your breasts, I’ve got to push a pot.”  Joan2 giggled with just a little bit of embarrassment every time the dealer made a crack like this.  At one point, she did say to the woman next to her, “I should have gone to the Ladies Room to do that.”

Honestly, I was a bit surprised the dealer would make the comment about the lady showing him her breasts.  Seems rather inappropriate, even if Joan2 was being a good sport about.  I suspect that Joan2 is a regular though, and the dealer probably had a pretty good idea Joan2 was cool.

A few minutes later, as he was dealing the hand, he said to a older gentleman sitting two seats away from Joan2, and obviously a regular, “Now David, don’t you go showing me your breasts.  It won’t work if you do that.”  David insisted he had no such intention.

Had the dealer seen appreciably more than I had?  I don’t think so, but I can’t be sure.  And other than for the purpose of this story, I’m not really worried that I might have missed a boob-flash or a semi-boob flash.  I might have seen a teeny, tiny bit of additional cleavage when she reached in, that was it.

But anyway, those weren’t the boobs I was looking for.  So if I missed them, I didn’t really miss them.  As it happened, again unusual for an L.A. poker room, there actually was a rather attractive, much younger woman sitting immediately on my right.  I dare say, if one of the women at the table was going to be showing more boobage than they intended, I certainly would have wanted it to be the woman on my right.

I noticed her before she got to the table.  For just a brief second, from a distance, I spotted her as she was headed to the table.  I saw blonde hair and cleavage—lots of it—approaching.  But in a nano-second they were gone, as she zipped up her sweatshirt to the very top—and it was a turtle neck.  But she had a very impressive figure.  Both the sweatshirt and her sweatpants (maybe yoga pants?) were form fitting.  Her bosom was several levels beyond being “ample” and the rest of her figure was outstanding as well.  She had curves in all the right places.  And let me just say, I saw her leave the table a few times, and viewing her walking away was a very pleasant sight.

Now, those were the boobs I was looking for.  Sadly, she never unzipped her sweatshirt.

As for the poker, there were not a lot of interesting hands.  I was never down too much, and then came back.  I guess the best hand was when I rivered a King-high flush.  I bet the river and just called a raise, fearing the Ace-high flush was out there.  But his was only Queen-high.

At this table, there was not a lot of preflop raising at all.  And the preflop raises there were were all pretty small (less than $10).  What is interesting is that I seemed to be the only one at the table who knew you had to increase your raise if there were a lot of limpers.  So perhaps the most telling hand was when I had Queen-Jack of diamonds in late position.  There were a ton of limpers. I probably should have made it $16 but figured $14 was good enough.  I was right, not one of the limpers, or the blinds, called.  I think anyone else at that table who had a hand they wanted to raise with in my position wouldn’t have made it above $8 and probably gotten a few calls.  I was happy grabbing all the limps and not having to pay a rake.

The worst hand for me was actually one where I dodged a bullet.  I raised to $10 after one limper with pocket Aces. I got three callers which made it one of the biggest preflop pots I saw.  The flop was Jack-high, two diamonds, and the one red Ace in my hand was a heart.  I bet out $30 and a short stack shoved for $67.  I had about $90 at that point.  I think I would have called purely on a stack-to-pot ratio basis but another player shoved as well.  He had me covered by quite a bit.  I just didn’t think my Aces were good against two all-ins, so I folded.  The shorter stack had a set of Jacks.  The bigger stack had King-9 of diamonds.  He missed his flush—but went runner-runner for a straight.  I got off cheap.

There’s one other hand I’ll mention that I was only in marginally, but I thought it was interesting.  A bunch of limpers, then the guy in the cut-off—the closest thing we had to an aggro—made it $6.  Again, way too many limpers for that small a raise.  I was the small blind and decided to take a small risk by calling with Jack-8 of diamonds.  I figured the pot would get pretty large and it was worth a nickel to try to smash it.  But then, when it got around to the under-the-gun player, he bumped it to $26.  Interesting.  He had limped in  It folded to the raiser who tanked forever, and then shoved (over $100).  I had him covered but didn’t waste any time folding.  The limp/re-raiser shoved (a bit less than the raiser). They both showed.  The UTG player had two Aces.  The other guy had Ace-King.  Ace-King didn’t improve and the guy with Aces had a nice double up.

I probably shouldn’t even mention that there was a Jack on the flop and an 8 on the river, so if I had shoved preflop I would have won.  But of course, that would have been a terrible play on my part.

The thing I want to mention though is the guy pulling the ol’ limp/re-raise move.  I thought it was a terrible play on his part.  I did a post about the limp/re-raise a couple of years back (here).  At the time, I just ranted against it on general principles, just because it pissed me off.  But now, I realize that it can sometimes be a very good play.

But not in this situation.  The guy had been at the table long enough to know that there wasn’t much preflop raising going on at this table.  So it was a stupid risk, most likely having to hope those Aces would hold up against 5-6 other hands.  He was lucky he found someone with Ace-King.  Actually, there were plenty of players at this table that wouldn’t have raised with Ace-King.

Anyway, seems to me you have to have a certain kind of table to attempt the limp/re-raise with your Aces.  If you are at a game where preflop raises are the norm, and someone is always raising, then yeah, take a risk that this won’t be the one hand in 10 where everyone limps.  Or sometimes you’re at a table where that one certain maniac raises 90% of the time.  Sure, go ahead and limp, knowing the odds are overwhelming that the maniac is going to raise and you can re-pop it.  But man, at this table?  Dumb move, but it totally worked out for him.

Anyway, that was probably the last session here in town before I hit Vegas for the first weekend of March Madness.  I was experimenting around the past few weeks with the shortish buy-in 1/2  game.  It was kind of fun as a change of pace.  Dunno if I go back to it when I return from Vegas.  Will have to see.  Anyway, I managed to eek out a $20 profit in a few hours.

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Stan Lee, Steven Spielberg & The Truck That Ran Over Me

Yesterday I returned to Player’s Casino in Ventura for my first poker session since returning from Vegas at the beginning of the month.  The way things went, it might be my last for awhile.

I had to wait a bit for a seat.  As the list grew, it was beginning to look like they’d have enough to open a new 2/3 game shortly.  While I was waiting, I noticed the fellow I dubbed “Director” in the post here was also waiting to get in a game.  For the purpose of this post, I’m going to change my mind from that post and let you know that the director this fellow looks like is actually Steven Spielberg.  Keep that in mind.

But there was another guy waiting for a game that caught my attention even more.  He was, ahem, an older gentleman.  And I did a double take when I first saw him, because he really, really, really looked a lot like Marvel Comics guru Stan Lee. You all know who that is, right?  If not, I’m sure that by now, at least 60% of you have figured out how to use Google. “Stan” was waiting for either a 2/3 game or a 3/5 game.  It never occurred to me to tell Stan that he looked like Stan Lee, that’s just something I almost never do. 

It didn’t take long for the new game to be called, and both “Stan” and “Spielberg” as he will now be referred to were there at the start.  Most of the players and all of the dealers knew Stan and called him by his real name.  I assumed the reason I didn’t recognize him was that he is usually playing the bigger game. I took seat 9 right next to the dealer.  Stan was in seat 5, across from me.  Spielberg took seat 7. The guy in seat 8 didn’t look familiar to me either, but it was obvious he was at least a semi-regular in the room.  He probably wasn’t familiar with Stan though, for the same reason as me.  Anyway, I’m not sure there had been a hand dealt when seat 8 said to Stan, “Have you ever been told how much you look like Stan Lee?”

I cracked up, and immediately said, “Yeah, I thought the exact same thing.  Totally.”  But Stan denied knowing who Stan Lee was.  Seat 8 gave him a brief primer, and said how glad he was that they were finally making movies out of the comic books.  I added, “Yeah, and most of them are good.  In the old days, the ones they made sucked.” 

And then seat 8 turned to the guy next to him, Spielberg, and said, “And this guy looks like Steven Spielberg!”  Spielberg just kind of groaned and nodded.  “Yeah, I get that all the time.  I just wish I had his money.”  I said, “Just 1/10^th of his money would be more than enough.”

I whispered to seat 8, “I’ve thought that since the first second I laid eyes on him.”  He responded, “I guess we’re both revealing our nerd side.”  Note:  I was reading comics long before it was cool to do so.  And now that it is cool, I no longer read them.  I was about to ask him if I looked like anyone famous (like Gabe Kaplan, or Costanza), but we got sidetracked.  He would have said something if he had noticed though, for sure.

The dynamic of the game was impacted almost immediately by a couple of incredible luck boxes at the table.  One was Stan, the other I’ll get to shortly.

Stan opened the first two pots with huge raises, and at least one shove on the flop.  But he started showing his hands when he wasn’t called, and he always hit something.  If he only had top pair, it was a poor result for him.  He’d hit two pair with two crappy cards time and time again.  If there was any way he could make a straight, he’d do it.  At least once he played two really crappy suited cards (not even close to be connected) and turned a flush.  Once he hit two pair with Jack-4 (he had limped in) and said, “Doesn’t everyone play Jack-4?”  We were all in agreement that he should play any two cards, they were all like Aces to him.

He would raise big preflop.  At first he wasn’t called very often, but then players had to start calling.  Frequently then, he’d shove on the flop, always an overshove.  Sometimes he would get called by a smaller stack; other times he wouldn’t, but he’d show a good hand.  He was kind of surprised himself, saying he couldn’t remember having a run like this.

The shoves were interesting.  I think most of the time, he was actually shoving so that players wouldn’t call and loss their chips.  Seriously.  Although there were other times when he was shoving to prevent a draw from hitting.  One of the oddest times I recalled was when there were a bunch of limpers (he did limp quite a bit after all, but very rarely didn’t enter a pot at all).  The flop came 9-8-7, rainbow.  It checked to him and he said “all-in.”  It was an $18 pot and he had by this time around $600 in front of him.  No one called and he said, “I had to shove, I had to prevent any draws, I had the bottom end,” and he showed 6-5.  So it was an interesting playing style to say the least.

After about 20 minutes, he was called to the 3/5 game.  To no one’s surprise, he turned it down, preferring to stay put, where he was catching cards like nobody’s business.

I’d only played a few hands, one was a pocket pair that missed, and I think I raised with Ace-King and whiffed. There were many callers and I folded to a donk bet.

So it was still early in the session when I was dealt two Aces in early position. I had around $260 when the hand started.  I opened to $15.  That’s actually more than my standard open here ($12) but bigger raises were being called.  I probably should have made it $20 or $25.  Only 4 players called me. The flop was 10-8-2, two spades (no spade in my hand).  I led out for $50.  It folded to the button in seat 6.  I was very relieved Stan had folded, I would have bet that he had at least two pair or a set or the flush draw.  Now set 6 was yet another look-alike.  It took me awhile to figure it out but I eventually realized he looked like Prudence’sex, Tom, if Tom had a beard.  So let’s call him Bearded Tom.  Bearded Tom took a long time to decide, and then finally called.  His stack was pretty close to mine, probably just a few bucks more.

A red 9 hit the turn, and I really wasn’t concerned about filling in a gut-shot.  I led out with $100, with maybe $95 left behind.  Bearded Tom immediately announced all-in. 

Ugh.  Well, I knew I might be behind and possibly even drawing dead.  But based on the size of the pot and the amount I had left, I couldn’t see folding.  I had made that bet of half my stack prepared to get the rest in anyway.  With stack-to-pot ratio of just a bit over 3 on the flop, that’s what should happen, right?  I called.

The river was a meaningless deuce or something.  He showed pocket 9’s for a turned set.

Pocket-freaking-9’s?  I said nothing.  I rebrought, and just simmered.  As soon as I got my chips, I took a break and walked outside.  Ugh.

He called $50 on the flop and then hit is god-damned two outer.  Yeesh.

So I’ve been trying to figure out if I made any mistakes on the hand  Would welcome feedback.  The problem is that the pot was so big preflop that I almost had to bet enough to commit me if the turn wasn’t scary. At first, I thought he just made a bad play and got lucky.  Well the lucky part is true, but calling me on the flop maybe not so much.  I could have just been making a c-bet with an Ace-King type hand. Although with four players, including luckbox Stan in the hand, that seems unlikely.

I know, for this table, I should have raised more pre.  But even if I had opened $25, I’m sure that Stan would have called it with any hand that he’d call $15.  Bearded Tom almost certainly would have called with 9’s if Stan had called. So even if it was just the three of them, the pot would have been the same, and could have been more.

I think my flop bet is ok….2/3’s the pot?  In hindsight, a few bucks more may have gotten a fold, but I think that was a good size bet, no?  Maybe a pot-size bet would have discouraged his float there?

I really wasn’t worried about the gut-shot.  But should I have checked the turn just to avoid getting it all in?  I thought I wanted to get it all in.  And if he was on the flush draw, I wanted to charge him.

So any thoughts would be appreciated.

As a result of this hand, Bearded Tom became luckbox number two.  He also started catching cards, just like Stan. He rivered a straight flush against Stan, but Stan didn’t call his bet.  He flopped a boat.  I mean, for awhile there, they were just taking turns hitting flops.  The rest of us were basically spectators to the show.

What do you do in a situation where two people are getting hit by the deck like that?  I mean, if there are obviously better players than you at the table, you should ask for a table change. But if they’re just lucky, the luck should even out eventually, right?

I figured I’d wait for that to happen.  In less than 10-minutes after returning from my cooling off break, I found myself looking at the dreaded pocket Kings in the big blind. OK…..

An early position player made it $10, and then Stan bumped it to $45.  I made it $100, which was too little.  It made absolutely no difference as it turned out, but I should have made it more.  I guess I was just thinking about how lucky Stan had been, and how it was so likely he’d smash the flop if he didn’t already have pocket Aces.  The first guy thought for some time before folding, and then Stan called.  I had decided that I would shove over a raise from him and call his shove if he had shoved.

Do I have to tell you that the flop was Ace-high?  I don’t remember the other two cards, but neither of them was a King.  Before I even had a chance to act, Stan, totally acting out of turn, announced all-in.  Well that made it easy for me.  There was no way he didn’t have at least an Ace.  I checked and folded to his shove.  He showed his hand…Ace-King.  So I’m rather certain there was no four-bet I could have made that would have gotten him to fold, though I suppose he might have thought twice if I had shoved initially.  But that wouldn’t have been the right play.

I guess I got off lucky. My too-small four-bet ended up saving me some money.

I got Kings again not too long after.  Stan limped in from early position and it folded back to me.  I made it $25.  This time, everyone folded including Stan.

I might have won another small pot when I raised with Ace-King after a few limpers and no one called.

My stack had dwindled down to about $120, and I was about finish, time to leave. Actually, a bunch of players, including Stan, announced they were about to leave so the table was likely to break. I called a $6 straddle with pocket 7’s. It was like 6-7 of us seeing the flop, including Stan.  The flop was all hearts, something like 10-7-3.  Stan led out for $40.  It folded to me.  Well, if I lose the rest of my chips on a flopped set, so be it.  I shoved, sure that Stan would call and hoping he didn’t already have the flush.  It folded back to Stan, who had announced that this would be his last hand and had already racked his chips.  I was sure he’d call, it wouldn’t have been all that much more and he had had a great day.  But he said, “OK, I’ll let you have it.”  He showed a 10.  So I got some money there, just not that much.

Actually, it was a very friendly table, a lot of laughing (mostly in awe of Bearded Tom and especially Stan) and tons of politically incorrect jokes (so extreme I can’t relate them here). At one point, Stan asked a dealer if he had seen the Asian lady he was playing with the day before.  He had not.  He said, “She had tits that wouldn’t quit.”  Who wants tits that quit?  He claimed that he told her that he couldn’t play at her table, she was too distracting.  I think there was more to the story, but he got distracted by another flop he had just smashed and never finished.

And that was it.  I cashed out down over $400.  I think I would have been better off playing with the real Stan Lee and the real Steven Spielberg.  The tits wouldn’t quit, but I did.

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Julius Caesar & Princess Leia (Halloween 2015)

This Vegas Halloween report (aka, the Halloween Slut Parade) will be a bit different from the past two, which you can find here and here.  Although it was wonderful night for people watching, there’s less for me to tell you about than in previous years.  Describing costumes is a lot less interesting than seeing them for yourself, and I think I pretty much have run out of ways to describe them by now.  Plus, there were just fewer interesting relatable stories from this year than in the past.

But unlike previous years, I was able to get some of my own pics from the night.  However, none of these pics were posed, and I kind of got them surreptitiously. I could tell  you how I got them, but I’d have to kill you.  The last three pics in this post were not taken by me and are not pictures of ladies I saw on Halloween.  The other ones were all from yours truly.  Since they weren’t posed, the quality might not be that great and I certainly don’t necessarily have the best angles, and I apologize for that.  But hopefully it’s better than nothing.

I played in two rooms on Halloween.  I started out at Planet Hollywood late in the afternoon.  The interesting thing about that is that PH allowed their staff to dress up if they wanted to.  This wasn’t necessarily a good thing.  The hot girls dealing in the “Pleasure Pit” were generally wearing less sexy costumes than their normal outfits.  Same thing with the cocktail waitresses who decided to come in costumes.  None of the outfits in the pit that I saw were all that interesting,

A couple of the poker dealers were in costume.  The one that made me take notice was a guy wearing a toga and a laurel reef (he had a t-shirt on so it wasn’t inappropriate).  As he pushed in, I looked at his named tag.  It was definitely an official Planet Hollywood name tag.  And it said, “Julius” and I started laughing.

“Julius, huh?” I asked. “What’s the last name, Caesar?”  He put his fist to his chest and then stuck his arm straight out, the Roman salute.  The whole table was laughing.  Another player inquired and lo and behold, Julius wasn’t his real name.  Somehow he had gotten a hold of the perfect badge for his costume.  Then he said he was going to use the tag next year with some kind of “orange” theme.

I played there a few hours and, like so many sessions from this trip, it was totally unremarkable and contained nothing to blog about.

I moved on to MGM, where I anticipated another great night of the Halloween Slut Parade.  I wasn’t disappointed. Somehow, just by pure coincidence, I found myself sitting in one of the primo seats to view the parade, I mean the costumes, as the folks headed to and from the club.

Now, there weren’t that many costumes that stood out for their uniqueness or creativity.  As usual, there were a lot of costumes I couldn’t identify.  The ones I could identify weren’t all that imaginative, with a few exceptions.  I think the most memorable costume was on a guy.  He was naked except for briefs.  He was covered head (bald) to toe in silver paint—seriously.  He was the Silver Surfer.  I knew this because of the “surfboard” (also completely sliver) he was carrying.  Although it was actually an ironing board.  He was with a woman in a costume I couldn’t identify, it was colorful and somewhat bikini-like but with a frilly bottom and a frilly top.  But honestly, this was one time I was paying more attention to the guy than the girl. 

One costume that got the attention of all the guys at the table was a gal in a German beer hall outfit, or maybe she was supposed to be St. Pauli Girl.  She had a low cut top, with a heavy duty push-up bra.  The resulting boobage was quite abundant. One of the guys at the table commented that the boobies we were seeing were definitely “after-market.” The dealer said, “Yeah, way after-market.  Like at least 10 years after-market.”

Well, she disappeared but after some time she came back, walking the other way.  She was with a guy, and I have no idea if he was in costume or not.  Anyway, the girl got our attention again and the guy noticed that suddenly everyone at our table was looking at his companion.  So he stopped and said to us, “Come on….they’re just titties.”

Apparently I missed the best costume of the day by leaving Planet Hollywood too soon.  A guy at my table said he had seen the best costume over there earlier.  It was probably about an hour or so after I had left.  In the main casino, he noticed a woman wearing a really accurate Princess Leia slavegirl outfit.  Apparently, she was wearing it really, really well.  She was just wearing the hell out of it.  Anyway, he watched as she and a guy dressed as Han Solo walked over to the poker room, where he was headed anyway. Although to hear this guy tell it, she was so smoking hot I think he would have sat at any casino game she was playing just to get a better look. Leia and Han were seated at the same table, and this guy requested a table change and eventually managed to get a seat right next to Leia.  Then he told us that it sure as hell looked like Leia was not wearing any underwear.  I believe he spent most of the time at the table with her trying to determine this for sure, and finally reached 99% certainty she was commando.

He then he told us, “Unfortunately, after about a half hour, Obi-Wan came by to get them and they left.”

I found that highly amusing. “Wait, no Luke?  Where was Luke?”  Apparently, Luke was off trying to destroy a Death Star or something.

Although the costumes as costumes weren’t all that memorable, an awful lot of the females wearing costumes were showing an awful lot of skin. This did create a significant distraction from the poker, as you can imagine.  Although there were plenty of legs, and partial buttocks, and bare midriffs, this year there seemed to be more cleavage than in the past.  I mean, Geez, was there a lot of cleavage.  On more than one occasion, I felt compelled to get up and ask the ladies to cover up.  Yeah, you can be sure that happened. 

And boy was the club packed that night.  I was there during the first month the club opened and it was busy as hell.  But I never saw anything quite like this.  There was actually one line that went all thru the front of the casino, outside into the alley, almost reached the Strip.  I guess it was kind of a perfect storm, what with Halloween falling on a Saturday, and it also being the end of Daylight Savings Time, so an extra hour to party.

But again, another unmemorable poker session.  I played over 5 hours and finished up $10.  I took several very nice scenic tours around the casino when I was done, and as I said, managed to get a few pictures worth publishing.

Hope you enjoy them.

Note, the pics above were all taken by me, but the pics below were not.  I included a Wonder Woman because as with last year, that was the single most common costume for girls to wear.  I can assure you tho, none of the Wonder Woman I saw looked anything like the WW below.

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One Promo, Two Hookers, No Johns

This is the one night in Vegas last month where the promo paid off for me (guess I should have given you a spoiler alert, huh?), but I basically have a crazy reg and the upstanding young ladies that make up The Slut Parade to thank for it.  Oh, and there are even hookers to talk about.

Now I did a big post about promos here, but the promo I was mainly chasing this night was the NFL promo.  It was a Sunday night, so they were giving away cash each time a team scored.  I wasn’t sure how much longer I’d be playing after the football game was over.  I was in the midst of that much-discussed bad run I was having.  Plus I intended to get up early the next morning to play at one of the Venetian Deepstack events.  I dunno if that tournament will ever make it into a blog post or not, but the fact that I haven’t mentioned it here before should give you a pretty good idea of how I did. 

Not only was I planning on making it an early night, but I got a late start too. I missed the beginning of the game because I was in my room slaving away, trying to get a blog post written and posted.  The sacrifices I make for you guys.

By the time I got in a game, I’d already missed the first score of the NFL game.  Also, my pal Don, most recently mentioned here, I believe, was already there.  I ended up at a different table. I asked for a table change but it the football game was nearly over by the time I was able to move over.

Before that, at the first table I was sent to, I got stuck sitting next to Norman Chad.  No, it wasn’t really him.  I just called him that because as I got there, he was busy analyzing a hand that had recently happened with the reg on his right.  And boy was he analyzing.  And analyzing it.  He could not shut up about all the things that were going through his mind through every street, what he had, what he assumed the reg had. Boy was it annoying.  This hand occurred before I got to the table, and it didn’t sound like it was that big a pot, but man was this guy obsessing over it.  And by the way, the reg was not even responding at all, preferring not to give away any information.

It was distracting.  He kept talking about the board cards from that hand, and I kept thinking he was inappropriately talking about the hand we were playing.  I sure didn’t want this guy in my ear all night if he was going to spend 20 minutes talking about every hand he was in like that.  Plus, he was coughing pretty regularly.  I took the first opportunity to change seats and get as far away from him as possible as soon as I could.

I left that seat even after I actually one a pot with the dreaded hand.  It was the third hand I was dealt, and Norman was still talking my ear off (he wasn’t actually talking to me, but he might as well have been).  I raised to $8 with the two cowboys and had three callers.  The flop was an innocuous 8-8-6 and no one called my $25 c-bet.  Hey, for me, with Kings, that was an epic result.

I texted Don that I was considering staying at that table for awhile because it must be a good one for me if I won with Kings.

Our table was frequently short-handed by a person or two, making it impossible for me to move.  I think it was late in the 4^thquarter when I finally heard my name called for the table change.  By this time, my $200 starting stack was down to $186.

When I got to Don’s table, I saw that my buddy Mike was dealing. Of course, I felt obligated to insult him, because that’s what friends are for.  As I went to take my seat, I said, “Damn, they didn’t tell me this dealer would be here.  Maybe I should go back?”  Then Don said, “Well, he’s already won with Kings tonight, so it’s your turn to crack ‘em.”  Mike, of course, is the dealer who has been known, in the past, to deal me Kings an inordinate amount of the time.  I had no idea if Don knew that Mike was the dealer famous for cracking my Kings, or if this was just an incredibly fortunate coincidence.  And you know what? I forgot to ask him later.

I was still unracking my chips when Mike dealt my first hand at this new table.  It wasn’t Kings.  It was, in fact, the only hand better.  Welcome to the table, Rob, here are your pocket Aces.  Before it got to me, someone had made it $12 and another guy had called.  I made it $50 and the original raiser called, the other guy folded.  The guy who folded had a bigger stack than mine, but the guy who raised and then called only had about $30 or so more behind. It didn’t really make sense for him to just call, he should have put all his chips in.  But that didn’t have any bearing on the hand.

The flop was Queen-Queen-Jack, not exactly a great flop for me.  But there weren’t enough chips behind to worry about.  When he checked, I bet enough to get him all in, and he called.  The board bricked out and he had King-10 offsuit.   Interesting that he called my three-bet.  He’d never seen me before, but do I look like the kind of guy who would three-bet with a hand that didn’t crush King-10?  Well, maybe Gabe Kaplan would.  Or Costanza.

I had taken seat 9 (the games are 9-handed) and suddenly the guy in seat 1 started pissing and moaning.  He wasn’t in the hand but it turned out that he had been in seat 9 all evening and had moved over to seat 1 right as I was taking seat 9.  This was the first hand he’d been dealt at his new seat.  If he had not changed seats, those Aces would have been his.  Timing is everything, right?  Frankly, since seats 1 and 9 are on either side of the dealer, I don’t get why you would change from one seat to the other, but his odd decision worked out very nicely for me. 

Now is a good time to talk about the other promo, the cash-drawing.  When I got to the room (about two hours before the 8PM drawing) I learned that there was still one $1K envelope left—it was the one that had 5 $200 winners.  I was hoping that it would be drawn for the 8PM drawing so that I would not be so tempted to hang around until midnite trying to cash in.  With only two $100 prizes at stake, I could convince myself it wasn’t worth hanging around just for the drawing.  But no, at 8PM they only gave away $200 total and I wasn’t one of the winners, mainly because I didn’t have a ticket in the drum. The $1K was still in play.  My inclination was not to hang around for it though, because I wanted to make it an early night. 

My immediate plan, after the 8PM drawing, was to wait for the end of the football game and then grab some dinner, which I desperately needed. 

In the meantime, while the game went on, my buddy Jack came to deal.  It was about 8:15—a long way from the next drawing—when he dealt me Ace-6 of clubs in the big blind.  Four of us saw a flop.  It had two clubs and two 7’s on it.  No one bet it.  The turn was a blank and no one bet it.  The river was a club.  The pot was only $8, which meant if no one called whatever bet I made, I wouldn’t get a drawing ticket (has to be $10 in the pot).  In that situation, what you’re “supposed:” to do is bet $2, because almost for sure someone will call a $2 bet.  But since I wasn’t really playing for the ticket (or at least I thought I wasn’t), I bet $5. It folded to a rather quirky reg, the last person with a chance to call.  He did so.  So I showed my hand and since the pot was now $18, I not only won it but Jack gave me a drawing ticket.  The reg didn’t show his hand, but it turned out to be a great call for me.

I joked to Jack about keeping me there until midnite, but man, I really, really didn’t want to be there that late.  I almost gave him back the ticket without filling it out.  I really almost did that.  But then, before I could do that, I suddenly found myself on auto-pilot, filling the damn thing out.  In my mind though, I was thinking….the odds of my getting picked are really, really small anyway, the most that ticket could be worth was $200….so I certainly will not go out of my way to stay long enough to be around for the drawing.  I really felt at the moment that there was almost no chance I’d be playing at midnite to have a chance at winning the drawing.

The game ended, I told Don I was running off to a late dinner.  He had eaten before the game.  I wasn’t sure what I was gonna do after dinner.  I cashed out of the game thinking I wouldn’t be back, but if I was, it wasn’t really busy enough for me to worry about getting a seat again, and this table wasn’t great anyway.

A few minutes after getting my comp and then getting a sandwich at the deli, I heard from Don.  It seems the table had actually broken, and he saw too many regs at the table they were sending him to, so he cashed out as well.  He asked if I would like some company while I finished eating.  Next you know, it was a couple of hours later, the two of us sat there at the deli discussing poker and life for all that time.  It was around 11PM and it was at the point where I was either calling it a night or I wasn’t really calling it an early evening.  So I headed to the parking structure and Don headed out as well, also deciding he was done playing poker for the evening.

On my way to the parking garage, I couldn’t help being reminded that it was a Sunday night and the club was open.  Yes, there were plenty of elegant ladies in somewhat proactive dress to remind me. Because I had completely forgotten that fact.  Yes, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. So I was walking rather slowly to better enjoy the view.

Near the exit, I stopped to see a few large crowds of young girls eager to hear the exciting sounds of the nightclub.  Or something.  Then, another woman, who didn’t have music on her mind, got my attention. She was a rather tall black woman who was just standing there, trying to get the attention of any male passersby.  I believe the term for this type of woman is “hooker.”  She had on a tan dress that was neither short nor low cut.  But it was super, super tight, which revealed the most noticeable feature of her figure.  She had enormous tits.  Pretty sure even a leg man, or an ass man, or a foot fetishist would have noticed that.

I really didn’t want to get hassled by her, so I avoided her and I’m pretty sure she never saw me.  I did notice that she had a very small purse, however. 

By coincidence, the next day I heard from Don, and around the same time I noticed this young lady, he too encountered a working girl.  He had gone over to the Bellagio to check out the conservatory.  And there, he told me, “As I was walking away from near one of the tables, I was approached by a working girl, who told me ‘don't run away baby’ as I was walking in a different direction. That's as much of her spiel as I heard, saying ‘no thanks.’”

This was odd for him. He said, “Even though I live in Las Vegas, I almost never get propositioned by "working girls." I guess I look like too much of a bum to afford their services.”

I told him I’m sure it’s more that he looks like too much of a stud to ever have to pay for it.

I asked for a better description of the young lady he encountered, specifically in regards to the size of her….purse.  Because that’s a debate I’ve had (mostly with myself) here on the blog.  Do hookers prefer really small purses or really large ones (average size purses seem to be the rarest).  He didn’t notice the purse, but gave this description:   “All I noticed was that she was to be polite ‘heavy-set’ and was wearing stupidly high heels. She was wearing a rather low cut purple dress -- so low, I actually thought she was a club goer until the approach.”

By the way, Don credited this unusual—for him—encounter with a hooker for changing his own luck with promos.  The next night he played again at MGM, had a ticket for the midnight drawing, and was the first name called, awarding him, in that case, $400.  It was his first time ever hitting one of the MGM promos. It was also the only ticket that he had in the drum. And he wondered if somehow, the unusual-for-him approach by the hooker had somehow changed his luck with promos.  Because, well, we were promo whoring, right?  So if you promo whoring and you run into an actual whore, maybe that helps with the promo, right?

Since I’m talking about the world’s oldest profession, I might as well include here the one “conversation” I had with hooker.  This happened a few nights later. As I was about to get n the escalator at NYNY to get to the garage there, a woman said to me, “Hi.” Pause.  “What’s up?” Pause.  “Come here.” She was sitting at a slot and I didn’t get a good look her at all, I was deep in thought about another lousy poker session. I totally ignored her.

Anyway, I was about to head to my car when I suddenly remembered I had not parked in the MGM parking garage, I had actually parked across the street at NYNY.  So I turned around and headed back to the other end of the casino, which took me right past the poker room.  Since the walk was again slowed down by these wonderful “distractions,” it took me awhile to get there and by the time I was near the poker room, it was now 11:35PM or so and thus it was definitely not going to be an early night. 

But the poker room was really quiet.  I could see that there weren’t a lot of games going and that there were seats open.  Damn.  I did have the one ticket.  If I got into a game and was thus eligible for the drawing, I might very well have a much better chance than normal of hitting it, as I could imagine there were not only fewer tickets than normal but it was also likely that a lot of the tickets in there would belong to people who had left and they’d have to keep picket tickets until they found people still there.

What the hell, twenty-minutes wasn’t going to kill me. I had actually booked my first win of the trip when I cashed out earlier to get dinner…..a bit less than $100.  But since it had been nearly three hours since I cashed out, I didn’t have to buy in for what I cashed out with (see here).  In fact, I decided to just buy in for the $100 minimum instead of my normal $200.  I figured I wasn’t really going to play poker.  I was filling a seat to be eligible for the promo.  It wasn’t that I was that concerned with keeping my meager profits from the “real” session, it was more that, well, it usually takes me at least an orbit or two for me to learn the players and the table before I play my normal game anyway, and so I’m usually even five times the nit I am normally for that period.  I figured I’d likely be keeping that pattern, so unless I saw a golden opportunity, I’d just be a folding machine.

In fact, I kind of laughed to myself, as I took a seat at a table where I recognized nobody, that I’d only play Aces, Kings or Ace-King suited (and even that last hand was iffy).  So of course, after folding my first hands of total garbage, the third hand I got was pocket Queens.

Oh well, I managed to ignore my pledge to fold anything less than Kings.  And no, I didn’t just limp.  I raised to $8, had two callers.  The flop was 8-8-7.  I bet $20 and took it down.

I managed to lose that small profit over the next 15 minutes, calling a few raises with low pocket pairs or suited connecters.  Nothing else interesting came my way.  I was back to about $100 when they announced they were indeed giving away $1K, five $200 winners.

They started the drawing, and after three names were drawn (one of which was for someone not present), I heard my name.  Sweet. I don’t know what was better—the $200 I had just won, or the fact that everyone would have rubbed it in my face the next night if I hadn’t been there to claim the prize.  As soon as they brought me my money, I left, my poker for this twenty-minute session was exactly dead even, with a nice $200 bonus.

So when I cashed out, my buddy Stan was there to convert my chips to currency.  I told him that I had come thisclose to missing the drawing. And I added, “And you would have given me such shit the next day if I hadn’t come back.”  He agreed that’s exactly what he and all my buddies would have done.

And you know, this incident, including the comment there, might have contributed to my stupid play regarding the promos the rest of the trip.  So maybe like often happens in poker, I learned the wrong lesson.

But at the time, that $200 sure felt good in my wallet

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