How Much Do You Bet With a Set of Aces?

Saturday I went to Player’s Casino in Ventura to toss some cards and chips around.  Otherwise known as playing poker.

The goal was to get out of the house, have some fun, and see if I could manage to come up with a winning session, something that has been all too rare of late.

When I got there, the list for the 2/3 game was quite long, but within minutes of adding my name to it, they called a new game, and I was last person on it to get in.

The game was a little chaotic and wild to start out.  As often happens with a new table at PC, a number of the players in this game were really waiting for a seat at a bigger game—either the PLO game or the 3/5 NL game.  So they were a little more aggro than the average regular 2/3 player.  The first couple of pots played out huge and there had been no limping. Three-betting preflop had been the rule, so when I looked down at Ace-King in early position before the first orbit had been completed, I momentarily considered limping, waiting for someone else to raise.  But no, I did indeed raise, and waited to see how much the three-bet would be.

But my raise to $12 was only called—by two players—not raised.  The flop was ugly. Queen-Jack-Jack.  Well, I did have a gutshot to Broadway.  I held my breath and put out $25.  Only one player called.  The turn was a deuce, no help.  I checked, giving up on the hand.  I was a bit surprised that the other guy checked behind.  My play smelled of exactly what it was—c-bet. a missed flop and then giving up when he called.  This player was one of the ones waiting for the 3/5 game, too.  The river was a 3.  I thought about it and decided to bet it.  The guy’s check on the turn showed bigger weakness, in my eyes, than my turn check had.  And I had a hard time believing the 3 helped him.  I figured what the hell and counted out $35 and bet it.  He folded quite quickly.  Cool.

Not long after I had Ace-Queen and opened to $13 (meant to put out $12 and grabbed an extra dollar chip by mistake).  Again, two callers.  This time the flop was a little more boring, just Jack high.  I tried a $25 c-bet and won my second pot of the day.

After about 20 minutes, they opened a new 3/5 game and all hell broke loose.  Three players from our table left to join the bigger game and everybody at my table left decided to change seats.  For about five minutes, it was like a Chinese fire drill as everyone claimed new seats, and a couple of players who came in new played a hand or two and then moved to another game as well.  Luckily, the list for our game was long and they didn’t have any trouble filling up our table.

I was happy to see the guy on my immediate left take off.  For one thing, he straddled my big blind every time. Also, he was annoying.  He liked to discuss the hands afterward—recreate them—in great detail.  All while the next hand was going on.  I was trying to follow the current hand and he was talking about who raised on the turn on the previous hand.  I really don’t like playing next to a guy who thinks he’s Norman Chad.

One of the seats was taken by a middle-aged woman.  Perhaps middle-aged is a tad generous.  She sure didn’t look like a poker player.  But if we thought she was going to be some timid nit, we were in for a rude awakening.  She played pretty crazy.  Her first few raises (of many) were huge--$25, $20.  Eventually she made smaller raises, and limped a decent amount of the time.  But folding preflop was not anything she liked to do except on rare occasions.  A lot of times she took pots with aggressive play, but when we were able to see her hand we some odd cards.  Her stack fluctuated quite a bit. 

One time when she had fallen below $100, she open shoved.  The fellow on her left had commented to a few of us on her play when she was away from the table earlier.  None of us could really figure her out.  Anyway, that guy raised to $200.  That got everyone to fold, which was his plan.  He showed his hand—pocket Jacks.  She showed her hand—Queen-3 offsuit (she wasn’t a lot below $100 so it was a totally horrific play on her part).  Of course, she caught a Queen on the turn and took the pot.

This lady was responsible for one of the more unusual things I’d seen in a poker room.  By the time this happened, she had gotten to the point where she was limping a bit more frequently than she was raising.  There was one limper and then she put out three yellow chips (in this casino, as in the Bike, the $5 chips are yellow, the $1 chips are blue).  She went oops and somehow indicated that she hadn’t meant to do that.  The dealer said, “You meant to just call?”  She said she grabbed the yellow chips by mistake, she thought they were the blue ones.  The dealer said, to everyone, “Is it ok with everyone if she takes it back and just calls?”  I didn’t think that was allowed, at least not as it occurred there. Has anyone ever seen a player raise and then be allowed to take it back?  Or allow a vote of the players to decide if a bet is a bet?  But no one objected and she limped instead. Someone else raised, the hand went to showdown and on the river, she went all-in.  The only player left was the same guy on her left.  He tanked and folded and said, “Well, you’ve got to show your hand….we gave you that break.”  But she acted like she didn’t hear him and sent the cards back to the dealer face down.  The guy, a friendly, jocular fellow, said, “OK, next time, we’re not giving you any breaks.”

Meanwhile, I had fallen into my recent pattern of being incredibly card dead.  I barely played another hand for a long time.  I realized at one point that I hadn’t seen a single pocket pair the entire time I was there.  Not a big pair, not a little pair, and nothing in between.  Nada.  I had maybe seen one medium suited connector and Ace-Queen once or twice that didn’t go anywhere.  I actually looked at my watch to see how long I’d been there.  It was about an hour and 45 minutes.  Seems like a long time to go without a pair.

Just a few minutes after I had done that calculation, I looked down and saw a pocket pair, finally.  And wouldn’t you know, it was a couple of Aces.  Worth waiting for—I hoped.  A couple of people limped in front of me so I made it $18.   Only one player called—the guy I mentioned who was on the lady’s left.  He had been one of the limpers.  The flop was totally innocuous and he checked.  I started to grab some chips and before I could count them, he folded.  But then he turned over his cards—two Jacks.  “I assume these are no good?”  I was a bit surprised, why had he originally limped in with Jacks?  Note: This hand occurred before the hand when he had raised the lady’s all-in to $200 with Jacks.  Still this guy had been reasonable aggressive, and had put in more than his share of preflop raises.  I couldn’t believe Jacks weren’t in his preflop raising range.

So I actually said to him, “Surprised you didn’t raise with those.”  He misunderstood what I meant and said, “No….I wasn’t going to re-pop you with Jacks.”  I got that—it was the first time I’d raised in at least an hour.  I said, “No I mean you limped in with pocket Jacks, I wouldn’t have expected that.”  He just shrugged, said, “Yeah, I limped.”  Ok, I can’t blame him for not giving away his strategy, I wouldn’t have either.

That didn’t exactly open of the floodgates for me, card-wise.  I did get Ace-King again, and won a two way pot with a raise and a c-bet.

Then I just checked with King-Queen offsuit in the big blind. I bet $5 on a King-high flop and got a caller.  I bet $15 on a blank turn and got a call.  The river put a third heart out there and I checked.  Instead of checking behind me, the other player just mucked his cards.  Strange.  That annoyed the same guy who had limped with Jacks earlier.  He said, “Why didn’t you check, I wanted to see his hand?” He meant my hand.  Somehow, this guy had gotten particularly interested in how I was playing.

In the big blind I had 7-3 of hearts and there was no raise.  It was just three of us.  The flop was Queen-5-4, one heart (the 5). I checked and the next guy bet $10.  The other guy folded and I decided to see one more card, so I called.  I was kind of hoping for the 6 of hearts but I wasn’t too sorry to see the 6 of spades instead.  From his play all day, I expected this guy to bet, so I checked.  He didn’t disappoint and put out $20.  Of course I knew that 8-7 beat me, but I dismissed the possibility.  I couldn’t see him playing that the way he did.  I was pretty sure he had a Queen and not really a strong one.  I thought about betting smaller, but decided my check-raise would be to $60.  He took some time to call, but did.

The turn was a 9, no flush possible, and still 8-7 was the nuts.  I went over it in my mind again, and still was convinced he didn’t have the nuts.  I put out $100, which I suppose was too much (but the pot was around $140).  He tanked for a long, long time.  He took a stack of $100, put it close to the betting line, but not over.  And finally, he folded.

Before I relinquished my hand, the guy who had limped with Jacks spoke up.  “I’ll give you seven bucks if you show me anything other than 7-8.”  I laughed.  Now by this time, I was almost ready to call it a day.  So I figured what the hell and flipped my cards over.  The guy said, “Well….almost the same thing.”  But sure enough, the tossed me seven $1 chips.  I laughed. But I actually didn’t feel right about taking them….even though he had committed to it and I had taken him up on it.  After all, “verbal is binding.”  Still, it felt wrong.  I said, “I can’t take this.” and tried to give them back to him.  He said, “Well, here, at least I’ll post your small blind for you.”  So he put two of them back for my small blind.

My initial $300 stack had grown past $350 despite being so card dead.  And I decided that this was going to be my last or second to last orbit.  And I still hadn’t gotten a second pocket pair yet.

I got nothing until, in early position I got my second pocket pair of the day.  Two black Aces.  Well, I guess if you’re going to only get pockets twice in a session, that’s the pair to get, right?

I opened the pot to $15.  And promptly got three callers, including the guy so fascinated with my play.  He was the big blind.  I didn’t really want to play my Aces against three other players, surely someone would hit something.

Well, someone did.  Me. The flop was Ace-6-3, two diamonds.  The big blind checked and I had to decide how to play it.

Here’s where I’d like your input.  I’m certainly not checking there, not with the diamonds out there. For that matter, any of the players in the hand could have called my raise with 5-4, especially if it was suited.  If it was two or three-handed, I would probably go with a 2/3’s or 3/4’s pot size bet.

But three others in the hand gave me pause.  I wasn’t about to do anything crazy like shove to make sure no flush draw called me.  I’ve seen my opponents do that many, many times.  But I sure as hell didn’t want to make it easy for anyone to call, or for more than one player to call.  I tanked for a bit and decided that, if I was going to lose with a set of Aces, I was damn sure going to give them bad odds to hit it.  I went with $60—a pot sized bet.  Well, I guess a little bit more than pot-sized, when you take out the rake.

The first guy mucked instantly.  But the next guy went into the tank.  He was a youngish Asian guy, but he had not played anything like the kind of “Crazian” you see in Vegas.  He was actually a pretty tight player.   After a few minutes, when it really looked like he was going to call….he mucked.  My buddy, the big blind, folded immediately.

Now I was just a hand or two from leaving, so again, out of character for me, I showed my hand.  That got a few oohs and ahhs.  The Asian didn’t say what he had but said he assumed I had Ace-King, Ace-Queen and thought that he could maybe steal the pot on the turn if the right card came up.

But I ask you, what was the right bet to make there? I have to say, if anyone who had cards had a decent flush draw, I don’t think my $60 bet would have gotten them to fold. I just wanted them to be wrong for hitting it.  Let me know what the right bet was.

And a few hands later I racked up and cashed out.  It was a pretty fun table and I won some money.  My $110 profit wasn’t a lot, but it was a welcome change from the way I’ve been running lately, and I was glad to leave with more money than I came in with.

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All Noon Poker Tournaments Should Serve Free Pizza

Let’s get back to the highlights, which were actually lowlights, of my March Madness trip to Vegas.  The trip was only a week, so just one weekend, the first weekend of March Madness.  It’s actually been awhile since a Vegas visit for me didn’t include at least two weekends.  And generally I only play tournaments on the weekends.

Now as you must have come to realize by now, I have a love/hate relationship with poker tournaments.  They do tend drive me crazy.  I always gripe about the payouts, and they are increasingly inconvenient for me to play.  There are plenty of reasons for me to stop playing them altogether.

And yet….well, here’s the thing.  I’ve become increasingly convinced over time that I am actually a much better tournament player than I am a cash player.  And of course, the best way to get a nice score moneywise is to run really deep in a tournament.  You just have to accept the wider variance.  But I’ve been running deep in tournament after tournament lately, and cashing in my share too.

As an aside, I’ve taken a serious look recently at the tournaments in the L.A. area rooms that are available to me. And you know what?  As a general rule, they tend to suck.  I don’t want to call out any rooms by name (at this point, I have too high a profile in the poker community to be comfortable doing that), so you’ll just have to take my word for it.  The tournaments here that are in anyway comparable (time and/or buy-in wise) to the Aria & Binion’s tournaments I like seem to have pretty bad structures.  And the timing of them (and lack of meal breaks) make them even less attractive to me.

So basically, if I am to going to continue to pursue tournament poker, Vegas it is. 

Anticipating the trip, I was trying to figure out how to play in a Saturday tournament under the new arrangement.  As I mentioned in the post here, Binion’s moved the start time of its big Saturday tournament to 1PM, which is much less convenient for me.  And Aria now starts both its Friday and Saturday tournaments at 11AM, with neither a lunch or a dinner break.  And that post explains why I find that objectionable.  I’m just not ready to try to figure out a way to play a 8-10 hour tournament without meal breaks that starts that friggin’ early.

I thought I had the answer.  Instead of playing Aria on Saturday, I’d just play it on Sunday.  The Sunday tournament, at least for now, is still at 1PM and is still $125 (Friday & Saturday it’s $240 but the buy-in doesn’t bother me).  That seemed like a pretty good solution.

But then, not too far in advance of my trip, I received word (as part of my job) that Aria was going to have a special series of tournaments for the first weekend of the basketball tournament.  Thursday through Sunday, the 7PM tournaments were all cancelled and the daytime tournament would be $355 and start at 10AM.

Yeah, 10AM.  Well, if I don’t like an 11AM start, you can imagine how I feel about a 10AM start.  Especially with no meal breaks.  Totally out of the question.

Another aside.  Without getting any official explanation, I knew instantly why Aria was doing this.  For this weekend, they would be packed.  They could easily fill all their tables just with cash games. They were purposely trying to limit the number of tournament tables they needed so they could spread more cash games.  The early start time helped too.  They would only need a few tournament tables by late afternoon when the waiting lists for the cash games figured to be huge. 

I briefly considered Binion’s at 1PM on Saturday.  But 1PM downtown is tough.  And also, I was concerned I wouldn’t like my parking options downtown on such a busy weekend for the city (I won’t go into detail on that).  So I decide to pass on that.

I was trying to come up with a plan C or D when I heard from Mark over at the Stratosphere.  At sort of the last minute, he was able to schedule a “Stratstack” tournament for that Saturday. I wrote about playing one previously here.  It’s a pretty nice $110 tournament and it figured to get a decent turnout on this particular weekend.  It was an excellent bit of luck (finally!) for me.

Now the tournament starts at Noon and yes, you’re right, that’s earlier than I’d like.  But here’s the really nice thing about the Stratstack.  At the first break, the serve free pizza.  In other words, instead of rushing through a too-early lunch at my temporary residence, I could just have my (free) lunch at around 2PM, a more normal time. What if I busted out before the first break?  Well you can bet I would have hung around to get my free pizza.  After all, I would have paid $110 for it.

The free pizza is such a great idea for tournaments that start early. I wish more rooms would do it. To be sure, it’s not the greatest pizza in the world, but I’ve had plenty that’s way worse and it provides enough fuel to keep a poker player going until dinner.

For $110 you get a $20K starting stack and 30-minute levels.  They ended up with 68 players for a $5,440 prize pool.  First place was $2,067.  Second place was $925, third was $598.  Does that sound right?  How is second place less than half of first?  Another payscale for me to complain about.  They were paying 8 with the dreaded min cash being a mere $218.  Gee, they couldn’t have made it $220 for an even money payback?  Or better, $225 so you could tip $5 and still get double your investment back?  I guess I’m asking too much.

Of course, that’s pretty much my complaint with every tournament I play.  Hence the love/hate relationship.

This was my third day in town and my third consecutive day of being card-dead.  I was actually so very card dead that I was able to last a long time just because I wasn’t losing chips very fast, so few hands did I play.  That is not the preferred way to make a deep run in a tournament of course.

Spoiler alert—I didn’t cash.  I had so little to play that for the first five levels I jotted down about three hands.  I won the very first pot from the small blind with King-4 off on a board of K-3-3.  I did get pocket Queens, raised, had one caller, and took the pot with a c-bet. In the small blind it folded to me with Ace-Jack, I raised and the big blind folded.  I checked from the big blind with Queen-8 vs. the small blind and caught a straight on a four-flush board.  But my straight held.

So, those few small pots, combined with not getting decent enough cards to lose chips with, actually had me ahead of the starting stack  I started level 6 with $24,400 (blinds were 50/500/1000).  And then finally, I awoke from my slumber and actually got a few hands to play in rapid succession.  I was actually unable to keep up with my notes so I may have some of the details wrong.

I opened to $2,700 with Jack-9 of clubs, no call.

In the cut-off, I opened to $2,700 with Jack-10 off.  The big blind called “raise” and put out $5K.  The dealer told him he had to make it $5,400.  The player protested, but the dealer said no, he had to double my bet.  It was only another $400 so he put it out.

Of course, the dealer was wrong.  This was preflop, so my raise had been $1,700.  The min raise was another $1,700, he could have bet as little $4,400. I almost protested myself, I would have preferred $5k to $5,400.  But I didn’t want to advertise the weakness of my hand so I let it go.  I couldn’t fold for such a small amount (especially since I’d have position) so I called and we were heads up.

The flop was King-Jack-10, rainbow.  He checked I bet $7K.  He shoved.  I called and was thus all in.  He showed two Queens and didn’t improve.  That brought my stack to $49,450.

I limped in with pocket deuces but folded to a big raise.

Now at level 7 (100/800/1600), In the big blind I had Ace-Queen off.  The button and the small blind limped in.  I added $7K to my blind.  The button folded, the small blind called for less and showed Queen-10.  I caught an Ace and took it.

After one limper, I made it $8k from the button with King-10 of hearts.  It folded back to the limper who shoved.  It was only $17K total and I couldn’t see folding. He had pocket 6’s.  I flopped a flush draw.  He turned a set.  I missed the river.  That hurt.

That took me down to $38,700 by the time I could count my stack again.

I limped/called $4K with pocket 3’s and missed, folded.

After a limper I raised to $8k with pocket Queens, no call.

Under the gun I opened to $5500 with King-Queen off and didn’t get a call.

On the button, after two limpers I made it $9K with pocket Aces.  Both limpers called.  The flop was all spades and I didn’t have the Ace of spades.  The first player checked, the second to act shoved, for about $17K.  I knew this guy. I recognized him as an MGM reg.  I’ve played with numerous times before, and he’s a major nit.  Seriously, he sits there in the cash game and plays fewer hands than I do.  So I was sure there was no way he would make that move without a very big hand.  There was just no chance my Aces were any good.  I reluctantly folded.  The other guy tanked for a bit and then called.  The MGM reg that I had pegged as a total nit showed Queen-8 off, no spades.  He had nothing.  Zilch, nada.  It was a total bluff. You could have knocked me over with a feather. The other guy had King-Queen, the Queen was a spade.  I couldn’t believe I had folded the best hand.  No, the flush didn’t hit.  Instead, the MGM reg (just a cash game nit, not a tournament nit, apparently) went runner-runner for a straight using the 8.  Unbelievable. I made a bad play but it turned out to be the right (results-oriented thinking). 

In the big blind I called a short stack’s shove with Ace-King off.  He had Jack-8 of spades.  There was both an Ace and a Jack on the flop.  Nothing else came.  He was done for the day.

I think that was level 8 and I failed to make note of the change.  There was actually a level there that there were relatively few hands dealt.  First, our table broke.  We actually were down to two tables when I moved.  Then, at the new table, there were two huge stacks all in against each other.  When the hand was decided, it appeared that the loser had the smaller stack, but there was no way to be sure without counting both stacks.  And the dealer had a bit of a problem doing that, she had to start over.  It took a lot of time to confirm that the loser was busto, but he was and we finally got to play another hand.

So we were now at level 9 (300/1500/3000) and I was down to $26K.  In other words, desperate I open shoved with King-Queen and the big blind called.  He had King-Queen too for the chopped pot.  He said he only called because he was the blind.

I was under $20K and my shoving range was wide.  The big stack at the table limped into a pot. He was the guy who had one won that monster pot that took so long to count.  Since then, he had entered a lot of pots preflop, sometimes raising, sometimes limping. It folded to me and I was only a few hands away from being the blind.  I had Ace-2 of hearts and decided to shove.  I figured the big stack had a low-medium pair or big cards but not an Ace.  I was sure he would have raised with an Ace.  In hindsight, I’m not sure if my logic was solid.  I think with his stack, compared to mine, if it folded back to him and he would have called even with just a pair of threes.  And with any pair he had, it would have been worse than a coin flip for me.  So I guess my shove was a mistake.

I was very surprised when he flipped over Ace-Jack.  At that point in the tournament, and with his stack, how the hell could he not have raised with Ace-Jack?  Seemed very strange.  The Ace on the flop didn’t change anything, but the Jack on the turn left me drawing dead.  And I was done.

I had played about 5 hours and I busted something like 17th or 18th.  No money to show for it.  But I had a long run and actually had a brief period where I was getting cards to play.  It gave me hope that things were getting better.

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Do You Like To Gamble?

Do You Like To Gamble? 

Well another Super Bowl has come and gone and unfortunately, this year I didn’t make it to Vegas for it as I have the past three years.

But I was on Twitter all through the game and with everyone tweeting about it, I felt like I was watching the game with a crowd.

One thing that always interests me is all the prop bets that I see my friends make.  I was amused when I saw that a few folks were putting serious money on the over/under for how long it would take to finish the National Anthem. Do people really feel they have a knowledge edge about this that they can somehow turn into a +EV wager?  Apparently they do.

What about those of you who like to bet on the coin toss?  Do you feel you have an edge picking heads or tails? (It was tails this year, wasn’t it?). 

I’m not much of a sports bettor. but if I was, I think I would personally stick to the bets more directly related to the outcome of the game.  But maybe I’m just too boring.  When I see the bets that people talk about making, I can sort of imagine it would be fun to bet on something that might seem silly just to have some action on it.  I hope my pals don’t risk too much on bets like that—and certainly not the rent money. 

But is it really any different than poker?  I mean, who amongst us hasn’t made a call or an attempted a bluff with a kind of a “what the heck” attitude?  No matter how tight one plays, sooner or later you’re gonna make a play that you know is a real gamble (like betting on a coin flip) more than it is the +EV play).

People do like to gamble.  And the thing with those prop bets, if the game gets boring, you still have an interest in it because some of your prop bets are alive.  I get it.

People will bet on anything.  The Academy Awards are coming up, and people like to bet on that. I heard a rumor that there’s a big election coming in the US in November, and somebody might want to bet on that.  Vegas won’t take those kind of bets, but there’s always an online option for that.

For that matter, there’s an online option for those of you who can’t get to Vegas to bet the Super Bowl, or March Madness, or the World Series, etc.  And of course, there’s an online option for those of you who want to play poker, or slots, or other casino games too..  More can be discovered here. 

As for the actual game this year, I didn’t have a strong rooting interest myself.  I was happy with the result though, Peyton Manning is too good a player to have to retire with only one ring.  It is ironic, however, that he gets that second ring when he is about 1/10^ththe QB that he was in his prime.  But man, what a dominating defense Denver had.

So what about you folks?  Do you like to make prop bets?  Do you bet on the Academy Awards?  Anyone have any money on who are next President will be?  Let me hear from you, what appeals to you about bets like that?

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"What's Your Bra Size?"

Last night, as I was writing this post, it dawned on me that the next day (now, today, Sunday) would be the 4^th anniversary of the start of this blog.  It was officially launched on September 20, 2011.  Now over three-quarters of a million page views later, I won’t be celebrating the anniversary in any special way here, but it is appropriate that my post on this anniversary will be all about my pal, Prudence,since so much of the credit for this blog taking off is due to the posts I did about her in the early days, as I was trying to build an audience.

It’s been almost a full year since I did a post starring Prudence. You can find that last post with here.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned it before, but Prudence is single again. And as I was preparing for my most recent visit to Vegas, she made it clear she wanted me to meet her new gentleman caller.  So on the first Saturday I was in Vegas this month, we arranged to have dinner together, followed by a poker session at MGM.

Did I not mention that Prudence’s new fella plays poker?  He does indeed, though I’m pretty sure that was just a coincidence, not something that she was looking for in a beau. Prudence had pretty much “retired” from live poker, preferring to play online, something totally legit in Nevada.

We will have to assign a blog name for Prudence’s boyfriend, won’t we?  Now, as you will read, in the course of this night, I promised to give him a really horrible name, but I’m going to cut him a break he probably doesn’t deserve and refer to him as “Aaron.”  

As I later learned, somewhere along the line Prudence told Aaron about her poker playing buddy Rob, i.e, me.  And then she had a difficult decision to make.  At what point in their relationship was it safe to reveal to Aaron that her buddy Rob had a poker blog?  And that there was a character with multiple appearances on said blog by the name of “Prudence” who was in fact Aaron’s new girlfriend?  If you recall some of the past posts involving Prudence, you could see that this might be a dilemma for the average woman.  But, as you know, Prudence is not the average woman.

Eventually, Prudence told him about my blog, told him she was Prudence and thus Aaron started reading my old Prudence blog posts. He found them highly entertaining. So much so that he wanted to play some live poker with her and see the “real” Prudence in action.  He likes to play live, but had been only playing on WSOP.com with Prudence to this point.

So, before I got to town, I was given the heads up that Aaron was about to take Prudence to a nice dinner at a major Strip casino, after which they would play live poker together.  And I was told that, during the course of the evening, Prudence might indulge in an adult beverage or two, which could quite possibly bring out her more outrageous side.

I did get a report from that night, from Prudence.  She was relating to me things she had forgotten that Aaron reported to her the next day.  I only wish Aaron had written a guest blog post for me the next day—it would have been memorable.

But I did learn that Prudence was warned by the floor for some of her comments (not sure if it was just the sound level of what she was saying, or the actual content).  At one point, she got a nasty look from one of the female dealers when Prudence referred to the dealer as “busty.”  Apparently her breasts were practically resting on the table, covering her, um, rack.  Oh, the irony.

But the best moment was when a tourist was racking up for the night.  Apparently he was a total luckbox and had taken some big pots from almost everyone at the table.  His last victim, I guess, was Aaron.  He made a hero call and took a lot of Aaron’s chips.  And so, Prudence said to him (loudly, I assume), “You may think you’re the big winner but you’re not the one getting a killer blowjob later.  And you can’t put a price on that.”

I’m pretty sure there are some ladies working the casino late into the night who do, in fact, put a price on exactly that, but I digress.

So on this particular Saturday evening, I got to meet Aaron who turned out to be a real nice guy (and a good poker player).  The three of us enjoyed a meal at the sports bar next to the MGM poker room.  As is custom when I eat there with friends, I dipped into a relatively small portion of my voluminous poker comps and covered the meal at no actual cost to me.  And Prudence did indeed enjoy an adult beverage, as did Aaron.  She was just getting started.

We had some nice conversation over dinner and then it was time to get to the poker portion of the evening.  Since this was the first time she’d played at MGM since the post I linked to at the outset, Prudence had some old friends to say hello to that she hadn’t seen in quite some time (some players, but mostly dealers).  I was the last of the three of us to join the table we all settled into, and who was dealing there but none other than my pal Mike.  As a favor to him, I will not link to any previous posts featuring Mike, you’ll just have to remember that he’s the guy who always deals me pocket Kings and cracks them (ok, so he’s not alone there) and also likes to give me a hard time about how long my blog posts are (again, he’s not alone).

Prudence had already caught up on what was new with Mike when I finally got to the table—I was the last of the three of us to be seated.  As I took my seat, I nodded to another player I recognized at the table, someone who had made it into the blog in the past, and he said to me, “Hi Rob, it’s been a long time since I’ve played with you.”  I said, “yeah, Ace-Queen!”  We talked about the hand that made it into the blog and then he asked, “You still doing the blog?  I haven’t it checked it in awhile, guess I should check it again.”  It was Warren, and I will give you a link to the last time I mentioned him (here).  He had been playing in a different room for awhile, and since returning to MGM several months ago, I’d seen him a lot but we just never ended up at the same table until now.

Before I could answer Warren’s question, Mike kindly answered for me, saying something to the effect, “Oh yeah, he’s still doing it, with those long posts that put you to sleep. I’m ‘Mike’ on the blog, by the way.”  I of course gave my usual retort, which is, “Mike just can’t handle it because I use words with more than one syllable.”

“No, it’s not that….they just run on and on, run on paragraphs, with flashbacks within flashbacks within flashbacks.”  You see, he’s referring all the links I put in to past posts.  But Mike: except in the case of multi-part posts, it isn’t really necessary to click on all the links to follow my stories.  Those links are bonus material.  Consider them “value-added.”  Prudence chimed in, “You’re too young, you want instant gratification.  Rob’s into details.”

Anyway, I suddenly realized that with the dealer, Warren, Prudence and Aaron, at least half the table was familiar with my blog.  That’s pretty unusual unless it’s one of those games with my fellow bloggers.

Now, one of the reasons Prudence wanted to do this on a Saturday night was so that Aaron could see the Slut Parade for himself.  Unfortunately, the table we all ended up at was in the very back of the room.  And the seat I was stuck in for most of the evening had my back to the walkway. This was not lost on Mike.  “Why are you in that seat, it’s the worst seat in the house?”

I just shrugged and said that’s where they sent me, but Prudence piped in with, “Oh yeah, the titty-brigade!  We gotta see the titties!”

Mike asked me if I saw the girl twerking a little while ago.  I had not.  Prudence said, “Well, butts are not his thing anyway, he wants tits.”  Mike said, “Well, she had those too.”

The next dealer was an Asian woman, an old friend of Prudence’s (who is also Asian, in case you’ve forgotten).  They caught up right away.  Amazingly, despite the fact that this dealer has dealt to me for years, I have never given her a blog name before.  So we will now be calling her “Joyce.”  I’m not sure how it came up, but almost immediately Prudence started discussing Joyce’s chest.  Specifically, she asked, “What’s your bra size?”  I’m sure there was context for that which I missed, though perhaps Prudence now asks all her female friends that.  It was then that I pointed out that she had told me that she’d gotten into trouble commenting on a lady dealer’s breasts the last time she played live.  But Prudence was undeterred.  Since she was sitting right next to the dealer, she even grabbed and snapped Joyce’s bra strap through the side of her shirt.

And sure enough, Joyce revealed the size of her bra.  Now, since there are other dealers in the room who (unlike Mike) do read this blog, and since it would too easy for Joyce’s colleagues to figure out who she is, I will not reveal the identified bra size.  I am much too much of a gentleman to do that.  But in keeping with this blog’s tradition, I will give this wonderful woman a pseudo-bra-size.  You know, in addition to the pseudonym I just gave her.  So, we will say that her blog bra size was revealed to be 46-DD.  Again, that is not the size she revealed.

Prudence nodded when she heard the actual size and said, “Well, that’s pretty impressive for an Asian.”

Warren heard some, but not all of this discussion and asked what we were talking about it, and Joyce said, “Oh nothing, nothing.”  But Prudence said, softly I think so that Warren could not hear it, “Just bra sizes.”

They moved on to status updates on their romantic lives.  I didn’t catch the beginning of this, but I did hear Joyce say, “Well, I’m very fussy.”  To which Prudence replied, “Yeah….unlike me, where any penis will do.”  Warren heard this and said, “I don’t think I’ve ever heard that said at a poker table before.”  Obviously, this was his first time playing with Prudence.

There was a hand where Warren raised preflop and Prudence was one of the callers.  Warren c-bet the flop and Prudence min-raised.  Everyone folded including Warren, and for some reason, Prudence decided to show her hand.  She had flopped a set.  Warren thanked her for showing and then asked….”Wow, why did you let me off the hook, why did you let me know you were so strong so early?” I guess he felt she should have slow played it.  Prudence said, “I’m nice…..I have a vagina.”  Warren laughed—everyone did—and Prudence went on, “I have a va-jay-jay…..it was the estrogen…..respect the pussy.”

As Joyce’s down was coming to an end, Prudence asked her who was pushing her.  She thought about it for awhile and then came up with the name of a male dealer who also happens to be Asian (and is someone who Prudence knows well). But it turned out the next dealer, was not the dealer that had been named but some other male dealer—who was also Asian.  This guy had only recently started dealing in the room and I wasn’t familiar with him either.  But as Prudence laughed about that, she started quizzing the new dealer and learned that this new dealer was actually the brother of the dealer she had been told was pushing in.  This totally amused Prudence, that Joyce had identified the wrong Asian brother as her push.  And thus she said, “See, even to other Asians, we all look alike.”

Another time, out of the blue, she looked at me and said, “I want to go on a platonic date with you next week.”  To which I replied, “All my dates end up being platonic.”  That got a few laughs and perhaps some sympathy.  I was just joking, I couldn’t let Prudence be the only one at the table getting laughs.

And that’s where I’m gonna leave part 1.  Part 2 will feature the British Invasion, and I’ll actually get to some poker. Also it will be a bit longer than part 1, because after all, this post is definitely too short.  But don’t worry, more outrageousness from Prudence will be revealed as well.  Stay tuned.  And now, you can read part 2 here.

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So I Had Pocket Aces.....

Well, I’m back home, Vegas is just a distant memory.  But I do have plenty left to blog about, once I return to my normal routine (if such a thing even exists).

Now, in a session about a week ago, there was one hand that has been running through my mind since. I don’t think I played it wrong, but since I can’t get it out of my mind, I figured I’d share it with my readers and get some feedback.

I think I was down to about $130-$140 or so (from a $200 buy-in in the normal 1/2 game).  I’d won a couple of hands early (once with Aces on a c-bet and once flopping a set of 4’s that turned into a boat) but had just been dripping down after that.

There was a really, really big stack at the table—over $1K easily.  He had that stack when I got there.  He hadn’t been particularly aggressive since I’d been there, not raising preflop more than average and not being especially aggressive post flop.  I would say that the only evidence that his play was affected was by his big stack was that when he did raise preflop, it was usually more than the average prelop raise ($12 or $15 rather than $7 to $10).

On the hand in question, he opened to $12.  I had two Aces.  I made it $35.  Before reacting, he asked to see my stack and took awhile to finally call.  The flop was Queen-Jack-rag, rainbow.  He checked.

What am I supposed to do there?

Well, I bet.  I put out $50.  I didn’t count for sure, but I think it was a pretty good estimate of half my stack.  He thought for a bit and then announced, “all-in.”

Gulp.

He might have called my three-bet with Ace-Queen, Ace-Jack, or King-Queen.  But would he check raise me with those hands?  Especially when I had already put more than half my stack in the middle and a bluff couldn’t possibly work?

Still, considering what I put in the pot already and what I had left, it didn’t make any sense to fold.  Obviously it would be pretty easy to believe he had flopped a set.  Perhaps he was being aggro with Ace-King and a gut-shot?

Well the board bricked out and he flipped over two Jacks.  Time to re-buy.

But I had to ask myself if I had played that badly, or if, I’m “supposed” to lose my stack there.

My gut tells me I’m supposed to lose my stack, because it just wasn’t very big.  Now, of course, if I have the same $1K stack as the villain, and I lose it all on the flop there like I did, that would be a really, really bad play

But could I have played it better? Preflop, I think is fine. But with two face cards on the flop, am I supposed to check behind him?  He’s going to bet the turn if I do, and I won’t know if he’s got Ace-Queen or the set.  But he probably won’t shove the turn if I check the flop.

But if he bets the turn, and I call, he’ll shove the river and why would I fold then?  He might have Ace-Queen and think I have Ace-King.

Perhaps I could bet smaller on the flop, so I wouldn’t be committed?  But is there a bet size I could make that doesn’t get me all in by the river anyway?

I think the stack-to-pot ratio dynamics indicate I should get my stack in there with an overpair.

Still, is there any way I could have played it better?

Or is it a case of “that’s poker”?

Thoughts?

Anyway, after re-buying the session didn’t get any better.  I ended up breaking almost even on the second buy-in before calling it a night.

Was there a way to play those Aces better?

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