Just Another Post From Your Card-Playing Half-Uncle

Persuadeo’s Review of Rob’s Vegas & Poker Blog

Yesterday I was checking my Twitter feed and saw that the blogger, persuadeo had just published another in a series Poker Blog Roll posts where he reviews other poker blogs. Persuadeo is a relatively new poker blogger.  I have been remiss in not giving his blog the attention it deserves.  I only became aware of it fairly recently.  Mr. persuadeo discusses poker and hand histories in a deep, thoughtful way, certainly more cerebrally and educationally than anything you’d find here.  I have added his “Out of Position” blog to my blog roll, and I strongly recommend you check it out. 

I had checked one or two of his other poker blog review posts, wondering if he had found my little corner of the poker blogosphere worthy of mention.  And the ones I had seen made no mention of me.  Now, Mr. persuadeo had on at least one recent occasion (see here) commented on one of my posts, so I knew he was aware of my blog.

But I guess because I wasn’t following his blog regularly enough, I had missed his review of my blog.  In the post he did yesterday (see here), he reviewed a site that purported to list “The Top Online Poker Player Blogs to Follow 2016,” and complained that it listed a lot of blogs and a lot of “really not” blogs that aren’t very active any more. But he claimed that the site did mention Rob’s Vegas & Poker Blog.

Well, as it turned out, I guess by the time he published his post, the link he put in for that listing had been finally updated, and they no longer list my blog on their recommendations.  Oh well.  Mr. persuadeo himself complained about the general worthlessness of the site, so I don’t think I’m losing out on much.

But more importantly, he pointed out that he had reviewed my site previously, and linked back to his post with the review.  And here’s what he said in the newer post:  “One of the few (blogs) to make it through the clutter is soft-porn aficionado Rob, a lovable low stakes grinder in Vegas we’ve already reviewed…”

Well that certainly got my attention. I followed the link to his review of my blog. I read it of course, and it was….interesting.  It was quite flattering….for the most part. It was very funny.  It was accurate and opinionated.  I was certainly glad to be included on a blog that covers poker strategy so much more in depth than I presume to do here.  Mr. persuadeo is an excellent writer and has a definite way with words. 

The link to his post about my blog is here and without asking for permission to do so, I am reprinting his review below before I respond to it.  Perhaps it is bad form to reprint it without asking for permission, but I feel it is fine to do so since it is about my blog and about me.  So here is his review:

http://robvegaspoker.blogspot.com/

Posting Frequency: Superb

Design: Clickbait

Writing quality: Buoyant

Overall rating: One of the Regs

This blog is a pokosphere standard. This blogger has earned it, with hundreds of posts apparently approaching an astounding 875k total pageviews. This is the bottom stakes life of Vegas, and if you are a weekend warrior 1/2 player with a hankering for a trip or to retire in the gambling desert, you can save yourself a great deal of vacation money and trouble by following Robvegas. Amusingly, the second subtitle of his blog is nearly Atari pixelated, and combining that with the out of focus background, contrasted with the very readable black on white text boxes, we get to share the feeling of one of those old dudes who leans forward and squints to read the board… probably not a coincidence.

This blogger is engaged: he posts, tweets and promotes all kinds of poker things. He covers the daily Vegas tournament scene, like a drunk recounting midday happy hour specials, in one of those casino monthlies designed to soak up coffee spills. He has written so much he has four posts in the category of “Penis Mentionings.” This guy, in other words, is poker room furniture. The writing is simple, clear, and is spaced well, a nicety for internet reading. He even generously tries to rescue his own posts with threadsaver photos, dirty granddad style. He’s your card playin’ half-uncle who makes every game and seems to like your mom quite a bit. You have to root for him, because if you’ve read his hand histories, it’s the classic story: the nice guy with all the yarns who loves poker and gives his all for the game, but just isn’t very good at it. It’s touching and fun. Go Rob.

I laughed all the way through it, even though there were a few times I cringed just a bit.

I’ll grant that Mr. persuadeo was exaggerating for comedic effect a couple of times.  I mean, in the new post, saying that I am a “soft-porn aficionado.”  Ok, an obvious reference to the pics I usually use to complement a post.  They are not soft-porn, of course.  They are cheesecake. It kind of started as silly schtick. But readers seem to like it (even the female ones) and whenever I do a post without an “appropriate” pic, I get complaints.

To pick a nit (which makes sense, because I am such a nit), he refers to me as a grinder.  I don’t consider myself that at all.  A grinder is someone trying to make a living at poker, to the best of my understanding.  I’m a recreational player, never claimed I could win enough money to survive at the game.  I make a living in the poker biz, but not as a player.

He did make me re-think the logo on top of the blog, perhaps I should explain.  It comes from a pic I took of t-shirt I got from the Excalibur many years ago for playing in their “Strip poker tournament.”  I seem to recall discussing this recently, or maybe I didn’t.  That was the slogan for the tournament where they had a woman taking off her clothes during a poker tournament.  Since it was in the middle of the casino, the lady only stripped down to a PG-13 rating.  But just to put something up there, when I started the blog and had no idea about graphics, I took a pic of the part of the t-shirt that says “Every pair’s a winner” and used it.  I suppose the blog has been successful enough that I really should make it look more professional, he surely has a valid point.

In fact, not long ago, someone sent me a new, nicer logo to use.  It has the same slogan and you can actually see on it my Twitter profile page, although it doesn’t fit fully there. Unfortunately, I couldn’t make it fit on the blogger template I use at all.  I suppose when I have more time one of these days I will work on the whole look of the blog, I reckon it could use some sprucing up. 

Now, he says, “He has written so much he has four posts in the category of ‘Penis Mentionings.’”  This is just factual incorrect.  In fact, I have 25 posts in that category.  But more importantly, I have 30 posts in the category of “vagina mentionings,” and he fails to mention that at all.

This line totally cracked me up: “He’s your card playin’ half-uncle who makes every game and seems to like your mom quite a bit.”  Again, obviously totally exaggerating for comedic effect, right?  Because you know, I’m much more into 25-year-olds than MILF’s. (Now you see, there was my turn to make a joke).  

But being the serious poker player he is, Mr. persuadeo can’t leave without taking a shot at my poker playing skills—or should I say lack thereof?  “You have to root for him, because if you’ve read his hand histories, it’s the classic story: the nice guy with all the yarns who loves poker and gives his all for the game, but just isn’t very good at it.”  Here I suppose he is not exaggerating for comedic effect.  I take that as a legitimate criticism. 

As I re-explained very recently, I never intended this blog to be in-depth discussion of poker strategy, or to show off my vast poker knowledge (good thing, huh).  But it worked out differently than I intended. You know, I’d much rather be writing the next “vagina mentionings” post than the next post where I talk about how I played (or misplayed) a hand.  But I have to kill time between the “VM’s” with poker content.  So yeah, I know going in there’s an excellent chance I will make myself look clueless about poker when I write about hands.  I do it as a service to my readers, who want fresh content and hopefully, I can make that entertaining for them. And at least discussing my errors gets me some good feedback that can possible help my game (or not).

Mr. persuadeo leaves on a positive note.  “It’s touching and fun.  Go Rob.”

Actually, that’s pretty awesome.  If I can entertain a serious student of the game such as persuadeo with this silliness, I am quite pleased.  And I can also take comfort in the fact that he failed to lay on me the one criticism I get from just about everyone—that my posts are too long. That alone is pretty sweet.

So, in closing, I want to thank Mr. persuadeo for his review, for his support, for his well-wishes and his praise (along with some tough love).  Check out his blog, it’s worth reading even when he isn’t talking about me.

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A Couple of Misplayed Hands

This was a session from December that all came down to two hands that were misplayed.  One of them was misplayed—very badly—by another player.  The other hand was misplayed by yours truly, unfortunately.

It started out as a very tight table and so I decided to become the aggro maniac I’ve always dreamed of being.  Well, not quite.  But I started stealing blinds and limps with marginal hands that I would normally never think of raising with and I didn’t encounter a lot of resistance.  This included low pocket pairs, crappy Ace’s and even crappy Kings. This worked for awhile, but one-by-one all the timid players left and were replaced by much more aggressive players, and my short-lived life as a maniac had to come to an end. 

While the table was in transition a guy opened the pot from the cut-off for $5.  I made it $15 with pocket Queens.  And that was that, no call.

A bit later I got Queens again.  This time I opened to $8 and had four callers.  The flop was Queen-Jack-5 rainbow.  I led out for $25, honestly not expecting a call, but a guy who had been one of the blinds called, and we were heads up.  He was sort of an odd duck. He kept his chips funny—spread out in small stacks—and seemed to be nervous (whether he was in a hand or not).  His hands were kind of shaking though I thought he might have a physical condition causing that.  The turn was a 3 and the flop was still rainbow.  This time he donked out a bet of $50.  Interesting.  Did he really like the 3?  A set of 3’s perhaps?  Would he have called my flop bet though?  I didn’t know, but since I had the nuts at that point I was more than happy to see the bet.

I had a remaining stack that I could have easily shoved with there, but didn’t.  I always figure, rightly or wrongly, that from a psychological standpoint, it’s easier to get a call if you bet an amount rather than saying “all-in.”  I don’t know if that’s right or not, but I feel that way.  I made it $125 and had about $30 or so left.  It was hard to tell exactly how much he had, but I thought it was probably pretty close to the same as me.  He took the bait, and announced all-in.  I snap-called, of course.

The river was a 6, making an incredibly unlikely straight possible.  But he turned over his hand and showed….pocket 10’s!  Seriously!  Let’s see, an unimproved pocket pair with two overcards on the board and he is willing to get it in on the turn?  I figured this was my lucky day.  The dealer counted the stacks and I had him covered by just a few bucks.  Unfortunately, he didn’t re-buy. Damn.

As it happens, this was just a few days before Christmas, so after he left the table, I said to the players near me, “I guess Christmas came early for me.”  Everyone agreed.

I started chipping down from there.  I did get Queens for a third time this night, raised with them and took the pot on the flop with a c-bet (Jack-high flop).

Then came the hand I think I misplayed.  I had Ace-Jack offsuit under-the-gun.  That should be a fold.  I don’t know what I was thinking of, but I guess it looked pretty to me and instead of folding I raised to $8.  The guy on my immediate left made it $21 and got three callers before it got back to me.  Wow.  Even though Ace-Jack off is a terrible hand to play out of position, I have to call there, right?  I mean, surely I was priced in.  I guess I need to see what the rule is for calling a 3-bet in a multi-way pot when you raise with a hand you should fold.

So I called, hoping to smash the flop.  Well, I did hit the flop.  It was Jack-high and had two clubs.  My Ace was a club.  I checked and the preflop raiser made it bet $50. It folded back to me.

I probably had over $250 when the hand started, and the other player had a similar stack.  So I suppose if I look at it from a stack-to-pot ratio basis, I should be ok with just getting it all in there with top pair, top kicker.  But I was looking at what the guy was likely three-betting with.  The guy was fairly new to the table and that was his first three-bet, and he hadn’t raised very much preflop.  Yeah, he could be c-betting with Ace-King, Ace-Queen, but into four other players?  Seemed unlikely.  I figured it was very likely he had a pocket pair bigger than Jacks. 

But I did have a hand.  And with the two clubs, I had a back-door nut flush draw. So, $50 into a $100 pot?  I figured I had to see at least one more card and hope for a Jack or a club.  I called.

The 9 of hearts that hit the turn was useless to me.  I checked and he bet $100.  I could have had the best hand, but I felt it was way more likely I was beat.  I tanked for a bit and then folded.

Thankfully, he turned over his hand as he swept in the pot.  It was two Kings.  So at least the fold was right.  Did I misplay the hand?  You tell me.  Obviously I should have folded Ace-Jack off preflop.  Other than that, how was my play?

After a bit, I was actually into negative territory.  I ended up losing a few bucks at poker.  Luckily though, I won $100 on their football promo. So it was a slightly profitable night.

Hmm….I know you all love how short my posts are, but this one seems short even by my standards.  And I can’t think of any specific appropriate graphic to look for.  So I’ll just end this with a few totally gratuitous pics I’ve come across lately.  Enjoy.   

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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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The Original Climate Change Denier

Today I am going to once again take you back to the old days, and tell a story from one of my earliest Vegas trips, many years longer ago than I care to admit.  My previous “blast from the past” can be found here.

Like that story, this one takes place long before I was playing poker in Vegas, and long before I started making regular solo trips.  My partner-in-crime then, as usual, was my buddy Norm.  We’d usually head up to Vegas three times a year.

The drive took about 4 hours, give or take. We did several things to amuse ourselves on the drive up.  Often, the one of us not driving would try to catch a nap (we couldn’t wait to get to Vegas and thus would hit the road at an early hour).  Another activity was that the person not driving would read from a joke book.  Remember, this was before Al Gore had invented the internet. So they actually published paperback books filled with jokes (maybe they still do?).  For reasons unclear to me, the ones we always choose for our trips had titles like, “The World’s Dirtiest Jokes, Vol. VII” or “Totally Gross Jokes, Vol.IV.”  I dunno, I guess this type of humor just got is in the right mood for visiting a city dedicated to every bad habit imaginable. 

The jokes were mostly lame, and always quite repetitive  We’d see the same jokes, with slight variations, from one book to the next.  Never-the-less, the book would keep us amused for an hour or so.  And often, we’d find one or two jokes that were really good, and might actually give us a punch line that we would use as a catch phrase for the trip (and often, long after). 

So I’ve just decided to give you a few samples from my rapidly failing memory. 

Little Johnny was very rude in school and when it was time for milk and cookies, he refused to line up for them.  The teacher asked what’s wrong, didn’t he want a snack? And Johnny said to his teacher, “F*** you and your milk and cookies.”  The teacher didn’t know what to do so she ignored it.

But the next day the same thing happened.  Johnny didn’t line up for his snack and when the teacher asked why, he said, “F*** you and your milk and cookies.” 

The teacher knew she had to get Johnny’s mother involved so the next day she invited the mother to school and had her hide in the closet. Sure enough, at snack time, Johnny wouldn’t get in line and when the teacher asked him what was wrong, he said, “F*** you and your milk and cookies.”

The teacher then opened the closet door and asked Johnny’s mother what she thought about her little boy’s vulgar language.  And the mother replied, “Well, f*** him, don’t give him any.”

This amused Norm and I no end.  Although it wasn’t actually the punch line, for the rest of the trip, one of us would be saying “F*** you and your milk and cookies” quite often. It was such a wonderful phrase.  So if we were looking for a cheap game to play in a particular casino, and couldn’t find one to our liking, when we decided to give up and leave, one of us would say, “Well, f*** them and their milk and cookies.”  The catch-phrase lasted long beyond that trip.  After any slight, real or imagined, one of us would say, “F*** you and your milk and cookies.”  Or, we might say, if we didn’t like the way were being treated at a particular place and decided to leave, “It’s milk and cookies time.”

One more:

A housewife asked her husband for some money to buy a new dress and he refused, saying money was very tight.  A few weeks later she bought the dress she had been eying and modeled it for her husband.  All he cared about was how she had gotten the money for the dress.

The wife was reluctant to tell him, but finally said nervously, “Well, in order to make some money, I’ve become a prostitute.”  The husband was not as upset as she would have expected.  He asked her how much money she had made.  “Well, I just started and so far, I’ve made $150.25.”

The husband said, “twenty-five cents?  Who gave you the quarter?”

She replied, “They all did.”

Yeah, we worked that one into our conversation a lot.  To this day, if there’s a quarter lying around, one of us will say, “Who gave you the quarter?” and the other one will say, “They all did.”

Of course, those jokes have nothing to do with today’s story.  In addition to snoozing and reading jokes, another activity of ours on the way up was listening to the radio.  We discovered a radio station that existed for the sole purpose of providing “entertainment” for people driving the I-15 to and from Vegas.  It’s still around and calls itself “The Highway Station.”  The best thing about the station is, and was, that they had traffic and weather reports every half hour.  They also played commercials from Vegas hotels about food, hotel and show deals that were of interest to us.  And even if they weren’t, they helped get us in the mood for Vegas.  The problem with the station was that, in between the traffic reports and the commercials, they played the worst music imaginable.  And they still do.

As we got closer to Vegas, we could pick up the Vegas stations.  The first one we could get was always KDWN, 720 AM.  It had a very strong signal.  In fact, often when I’m driving around L.A. at night, I can pick it up.  Then, as now, it was a talk station.  Back then, it was all local hosts and there would be a lot of Vegas information disseminated that was often of interest to us.  And like the highway station, there would be commercials for stuff to do in Vegas.

But perhaps our main interest would be to get a weather forecast, preferably a long range one if possible.  Remember there was no internet back then, and thus, no such thing as Weather.com to let us know what conditions would be like while we were there.  The L.A. Times would have a nationwide weather page that would give a teeny, tiny bit of info on the weather in major cities around the country, and that would be all had to go by as we headed up there.  Unless there was a major catastrophic weather event going on there that made national news, we were pretty much on our own.

Norm and I would usually go there around April (when both our birthdays were), in the middle of summer and then for Christmas.  Of course in summer it was obscenely hot, and at Christmas it was usually quite cold (cold for us L.A. guys, as the winters in Vegas are always colder than they are in L.A.).   April was usually the best weather—winter was over and the brutal heat hadn’t arrived.

Neither Norm and I like rain.  We prefer dry conditions when we are in Vegas.  Aside from the obvious, the Vegas sewer system is actually worse than the one in L.A.  Both cities were built with the assumption that it never rains.  It may not rain much, but rain it does and the system is inadequate to keep the streets from flooding if there’s anything more than a drizzle.  In L.A., the streets are flooded after about 30 minutes of steady rain.  In Vegas it takes less than 10 minutes.

Vegas is a desert and it supposedly never rains, right?  But early in our regular Vegas trips, we discovered that it seemingly always rained when we were there.  Not always a lot, maybe sometimes just a little bit, but almost always.  On the rare occasions we’d make it through a visit without rain, there would at least have been a chance of rain in the forecast.  Remember, Vegas is the desert so rain is rare.  I would insist to anyone who would listen that all of the yearly rainfall in Vegas occurred during my visits. 

One of the things we discovered though was that, unlike in L.A., it was very possible—even likely—for rain to hit Vegas during the summer.  July and August is monsoon season and heavy downpours, high winds and thunderstorms come out of nowhere.  Norm and I discovered this during one of our first summer trips.  We were driving on Paradise during a downpour and actually had to make a U-turn to avoid getting stuck in a flooded intersection (pretty sure it was the intersection at Flamingo if anyone cares).  It was strange.  Despite having three times the average rainfall as Vegas, it simply doesn’t rain in L.A. during the summer, pretty much ever.  The Dodgers have been in L.A. since 1959 and have had something like 17 home rainouts. 

Anyway, I’m pretty sure that this particular trip was actual an April trip, the most likely time for agreeable weather.  Although sometimes a late winter-like storm would come through.  But of course, since it was us, rain was always a possibility.  So as soon as we could pick it up, we put KDWN on to hear what was going on in Vegas and also catch a weather forecast. The weather had been fine when we left L.A. and as we traversed the I-15 it was sunny and cloudless and pretty much ideal.  So we tuned into the mid-morning guy on KDWN to try get a forecast for the rest of the time we’d be in town. Pretty sure we had heard this guy before as we had actually gotten to know some of the hosts due to our many trips.

So after talking about whatever the hell he was talking about, it was time for him to do the weather.  In those days, the host did the weather report, it wasn’t the news person.  So the guy starts reading the weather forecast for the day right off the wires, as they say, and he reads that there is a chance for an afternoon shower.  As he’s reading it, he starts to express disbelief, and then, as he finishes it, he starts doubting the forecast he had just read.

I dunno what the percentage chance of rain was, let’s just say it was 20% (probably was something like that).  So the guy says, “Rain?  It says there’s a chance of rain today?  Are they kidding?  Look at it out.  There’s not a cloud in the sky.  It’s beautiful out there.  This must be a joke.  No way is it gonna rain today.”  For the rest of the time we were listening, he would occasionally go back and mention that the forecast said there was a chance of rain and that he didn’t believe it.  Note:  this guy was certainly not a meteorologist; he was some guy who had some personality and was hired to talk about how bad a job the President, the Governor, and the Mayor were doing.

At the appropriate times, he would read the official forecast and then every time he came to the part where he said there was a chance of rain, he’d read it and then dispute it.  He’d say something like…”well, it says here there’s a chance of rain today, but come on, there’s no way it’s raining today, you can ignore that.”

But the best part was one time he did a time-check.  They don’t do that very often anymore because everyone has a watch and a fitbit and a smart phone to tell them the time.  But back then, the host would report the time every 10 minutes or so.  And since it was just a Vegas show, he didn’t have to say, “15 minutes past the hour.”  No, he would say, “It’s 8:06 in the Vegas valley.”  They would often do the time check as a bridge from one topic to another, so you would know that he was changing the subject.  He’d finishing ripping on the Mayor, tell you what time it was, and then start ripping on the Governor. 

And so, Norm and I were listening this particular morning, having heard the guy already dispute the official weather forecast several times, when he did another time check. We were already amused with the fact that the guy kept arguing with the forecast.  And we heard him say, “And the time in Las Vegas—where it’s not going to rain today—is 9:47.”

Norm and I looked at each other and just cracked up.  He found a new way to argue with the weather forecast, totally gratuitously!  It was really funny the way he disputed the forecast as an aside.

We kept referring back to that the entire trip, and from then on, as we were driving up, we would say, as we were tuning in KDWN, “Let’s see if the guy who argues with the weather forecasts is on today.”

Sad to say, for the life of me, I can’t remember for sure if it rained that day or not.  I’d guess not, because otherwise I’d likely remember that after all that arguing with the forecast, the forecast turned out to be right after all.

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All's Fair in Love & War—and Poker, Right?

I’ve been sitting on this story for a few months.  Actually, I was never sure I was going to tell this story until….well, until I actually hit the “publish” button on my blogger software.

You see I have to admit to doing something that might be a little bit….well….I dunno what the word is.  I think “unethical” is too strong a word.  Slightly less than above board?  Not really sure.  If I was sure what I did was really totally unethical, I wouldn’t tell the story at all.  I’d also like to think if what I did was unequivocally unethical, I wouldn’t have done it in the first place.

But I guess if I do go ahead and hit the publish button, I’ll be looking forward to reaction from my dear readers to see if you think what I did was wrong or not.

Another reason for my hesitancy is that this is kind of a hard story to figure out how to tell.  So you’ll have to bear with me.

This happened during my October trip from last year.  That was the really bad trip, poker wise.  The Venetian was just beginning their Deepstacks and I decided to play in one of the events.  It was a $250 event that had three starting flights.  I played in the first of the Day 1’s on a Monday.  Had I survived to day two, I would have had to return to the V on that Thursday for the second and final day. Spoiler warning:  I didn’t come close to making it to Day 2.  In fact, my evening cash session was the one that took place in the post here, so you know this really was a terrible day for me at the tables. The $250 buy-in was in my price range, and the prize pool would be pretty big. The guarantee was $150K.

So I bought in to the tournament and took my seat.  While waiting for the event to get started I checked my Twitter feed.  At this point, I’m looking to see if anyone I know is also playing.

Or should I say, I’m looking to see if anyone I “know” is also playing.

I put the “know” in quotes because knowing someone can mean something different nowadays than it used to. In the old days, to know someone meant you had most likely met them face-to-face.  You had had a real conversation with them at some point, at a minimum.

But in this time of social media, there are you people you know who you don’t really “know,” right?  I mean I follow a lot of people on Twitter that I’ve never met.  And a lot of people on Twitter follow me who have never actually met me.  But I feel like I know them.  We’ve exchanged tweets, maybe just one or two, maybe a lot.  Since my Twitter account is tied in with this blog, no doubt a lot of people who follow me on Twitter read my blog, or at least have read it. For that matter, there are a lot of people out there who read my blog that I’ve never met, and in fact, I may not even know they exist.  But I’m sure they feel like they know me….and in some sense, they do. 

So maybe there was somebody I knew who was in the tournament.  It might be someone I’ve met before in person, or maybe a blog reader I knew about, or maybe a total stranger that I follow on Twitter.

So, reading over my Twitter feed, I found one person I followed tweeting about playing in this tournament.  It was Ryan, someone I’d been following on Twitter for some time. As far as I knew, we’d never met in person. Although I think he used to be active on the AVP forums years ago, so it’s very possible we’d been communicating that way before Twitter came along.  And he follows me as well, so he at least knows of me.  No idea whether or not he’s ever checked out the blog. Ryan is a Vegas grinder, mostly tournaments.  He seems to play all the series when they are running. 

I seem to have recalled that one time he actually posted a pic on Twitter of his entry slip for a tournament.  So I wondered if he would do that again, so I could see his seat assignment and thus it would be easy to find him. There were well over 100 entrants already when the tournament started, and I had no idea what he looked like, so he wouldn’t be easy to find.  But I checked his Twitter feed and he didn’t post a pic of his entry slip. 

But in the meantime the tournament had started and I had to pay attention.  I was in seat 1 I think (might have been 2).  The guy in seat 5 looked like your rather typical Vegas grinder, baseball cap (worn backwards, alas), big headphones.  Red Bull in front of him, and in addition to his cell phone, he had an iPad.  
 

I checked the Twitter feed quickly whenever I had a second.  And Ryan tweeted out that he was having a problem tweeting from his phone and that he would be tweeting from his iPad instead.

And so when I noticed the grinder in seat 5 typing into his iPad and then later saw a tweet from Ryan, it started dawning on me that it was Ryan right at the same table with me.  He posted some shots of his stack, and yeah, it sure did look like it was the stack across from me.  Though between the very different angle and the time lag (creating differing sized chip stacks), I couldn’t quite be sure.

My first thought was that I could tweet to him, “Hey, is that you at Table X, Seat 5?  I’m the guy in Seat 1.”  In fact, I think that’s pretty much the way I met my pal Jeannie (see here).  But I was too involved in the tournament to do anything other than read the occasional tweet from Ryan and with each one, I became more and more sure that he was the fellow in seat 5.

His tweets were very general.  He’d mention how many chips he had, and whether he had just chipped up or had lost some.  Nothing very specific.  And with each tweet, I became more and more convinced Ryan was in seat 5 at my table.  Finally we went on break.  I believe I had to make a hurried trip to the Men’s room, and when I returned, he was still on break.  I checked twitter and saw a pic of his stack, with the Red Bull can in the pic. And since Ryan wasn’t there, I was able to view his stack from the exact view that he the picture would have been taken from. I can’t recall if I had seen him take the pic or it happened after I left, but there was no doubt that the pic on Twitter completely matched the live view I was seeing from behind the chair for Seat 5.  It was definitely Ryan at my table.

I figured I’d introduce myself to him when he returned before the cards were in the air.  But I believe he got back from the break late, and play had resumed, so there went that idea.  As I was debating whether to tweet to him hello, or just wait for the next break (and hope we’d both be alive by then), another idea came to me.  And here’s where it gets murky.

It occurred to me that I seemed to recall that Ryan’s in-tournament tweets were sometimes informational about the big hands he was involved.  Not necessarily full hand histories, but he might mention what he had and what the other player had when he won or lost a big hand.  And also might mention if his read was right or wrong. 

Hmm…suppose I just kept it to myself that I was reading his tweets, that I knew who he was?  He might tweet out some information that would prove, well, useful to me, shall we say?  Now, I did a quick “ethical check” in my mind.  This wouldn’t be like seeing his cards while the hand was live, right?  I mean, if the player next to you is flashing his hole cards to you, you should tell him to be more careful.  You should definitely not take advantage of the situation by continuing to look at his cards.

But this wouldn’t be like that.  By the time I saw any of his post-hand tweets, the hand would be over. So I didn’t think it was cheating and I decided to play it that way without a lot of thought.  But I have to admit, after the tournament, I did spend more time thinking about how Kosher what I did was, and really couldn’t convince myself either way.

At the time, I figured if I could find out what he had in a hand where he didn’t have to show, I could maybe use that info down the road.  Or get some insight as to what he was thinking on a  hand—especially if it was against me.  And even if I didn’t learn anything from his posting about hands (and most of his tweets were just chip updates and very general info), perhaps I could get his insight on some of the other players.  Since he does this for a living, his reads on the other players would likely be better than mine, and something I could use against those other players down the road. Of course, I ran the risk of reading something I wouldn’t like, right?  Like, “Man, I can’t believe how badly that old fart in Seat 1 played his pocket Kings!”  But it was a risk I was willing to take. It might be like he was coaching me, in fact.

So for better or worse, I didn’t identify myself to him, and made sure to check my Twitter feed every time after I saw him tapping into his iPad.  But the truth is, he didn’t tweet all that much.  And the bottom line: During the time we played together, he never tweeted out any useful information at all.  So ethical or not, I gained nothing for my little scheme.

The other thing was, much to my surprise, Ryan would occasionally show his cards when he didn’t have to—so I got some of the information I was looking for anyway. For example, there was one hand where, by the river, there were four spades on board.  I had been betting with top pair but I checked the river and he bet out.  I had to fold, and he showed me one card—a spade. 

Aside from that hand, we were only in one or two hands together.  Near the end for both of us, I raised with Jack-10 off, and he shoved his short stack.  I wasn’t yet ready to play for everything with that hand and I folded.  He expressed surprise, said something about guessing I didn’t have a pair, and showed Ace-Queen (all the cards I mentioned were diamonds, so between the two of us, we had a draw to the Royal).

And he actually busted out before me.  Not much before me.  He took off, so I never got a chance to introduce myself. Until this blog post appears, that is. Not long after Ryan was gone, I had to open-shove my short stack with Ace-10 and was called by Ace-Queen.  There was both a Queen and a 10 on the flop, and I was done.

So what do you think?  Was I a cheater?  Was I unethical?  Was I angle shooting?  Am I a bad person?  Would you have never done the same thing?  Or, is all fair in poker?  Let me know.

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Vegas Poker Scene (March Ante Up Column)

Here's my newest column for Ante Up.  The link for it on the Ante Up website is here.   Remember, my contribution is embedded in the entire West Coast report.  So below is just my Vegas report.  The magazine should be in your local poker room soon.

CAESARS PROPERTIES: The WSOP.com site is sponsoring the Players Choice Tournament Series at six Caesars Entertainment poker rooms in Las Vegas. These are weekly $125 buy-in tournaments in each room. Online $10 satellites will be offered at WSOP.com to give players the opportunity to win seats to these tournaments.

The schedule for the live tournaments is as follows: Rio, Sundays at 7 p.m. ($2K guarantee); the Linq, Mondays at 1 p.m.; Planet Hollywood, Tuesdays, at 11 p.m. ($500 guarantee); Harrah’s, Wednesdays at 10 p.m., ($2K guarantee); Caesars, Fridays at 6 p.m. ($2K guarantee), and Bally’s, Saturdays at 8 p.m. ($2K guarantee).
All players who enter these tournaments receive WSOP.com card protectors and the winner of each tournament receives a champion’s WSOP.com coin. Additionally, the winner will receive entry into a $1K online monthly freeroll. The prize pool of the freeroll is funded by WSOP.com. The freerolls will be March 25, April 22 and May 20.

All CET poker rooms, including the Flamingo, are offering players a free buffet for playing poker. Players who earn 50 tier credits in a 24-hour period will get a coupon for the buffet of their choice, with the exception of the buffet at Caesars Palace. It takes three hours of live play to earn that number of credits, except at Caesars, where only 1.5 hours of live play is required.

LINQ: The four-table room on the center Strip added a new promo. Cash drawings are twice a day, at 5 p.m. and midnight. Two $100 winners are awarded each time. Players earn tickets by making hands. Each straight earns one ticket, two tickets for a flush, three tickets for a full house, five tickets for quads and 10 tickets for a straight flush or a royal. Only one card in the player’s hand must play. You must be present to win, but need not be playing at the time of the drawing. Tickets earned before 5 p.m. remain in the drum for the midnight drawing, after which the drum is emptied.

The Linq still offers high-hand bonuses. It’s $50 for quads, $100 for a straight flush and $200 for a royal. Daily $45 tournaments are offered at 11 a.m., 3 p.m., 8 p.m. and 11 p.m.

The main cash game is $1-$1 NLHE. The minimum buy-in is $50 and the max is $300. Sometimes a $1-$1 PLO game spreads (also $50-$300 min-max) and a $1-$3 NLHE game with a $100 minimum and no max.

BALLY’S: The 14-table room announced it’s decreasing the maximum rake for all cash games to $4. The main cash game is $1-$2 NLHE, with a $100-$300 min-max. There are high-hand bonuses for quads ($50-$500), straight flushes ($100-$500) and royals ($200-$500). The room offers a $6K weekly freeroll for 12 hours of live play. The top 20 finishers are each awarded $300.

WYNN: The Wynn Classic runs through March 14. The $1,600 championship event has three starting flights beginning March 11 and offers a $500K guarantee.

SOUTH POINT: Qualifying begins March 1 for one of the city’s biggest freerolls at this locals’ favorite on the south end of the Strip. The total prize pools will be $155K with first place taking home $35K and 60 places will be paid. Players need to play 100 hours by May 31 to get a seat at the freeroll. The three players each month who play the most hours will win $2K, $1K and $500, respectively. The freeroll will be June 6-7, with the final on June 11. Entrants who don’t make the final get $100.

Busy cash games always are available. The $2-$4 limit hold’em game has a half-kill and a $20 minimum buy-in. The $1-$2 NLHE has a $100-$300 min-max buy-in.

GOLDEN NUGGET: Dan Serban took home $7,200 for winning the Golden Saturday tournament on Jan. 23. Celia Aragon grabbed $6,400 for second and Joan Champagne earned $5,800 for third. There were 577 players, each paying $140 to enter. The prize pool was $60K.

PLANET HOLLYWOOD: The $600 main event at the PHamous Weekend in January drew 388 players. Wendy Freedman of Las Vegas earned $55K for first, William Reynolds of Las Vegas took home $34K for second and Maziar Keshavarzi of San Antonio, Texas, scored $25K for third. The prize pool was $250K.

VENETIAN: The $400 River Card tournament was part of the New Year’s Extravaganza. It drew 660 entrants for a $225K pool. California’s Edward Tsai took the $46K first-place prize, with Raymond Muzyka of Canada claiming $28K for second and Reza Pazuki of Las Vegas earning $21K for third.

EUREKA: The poker room in Mesquite held its semi-annual Eureka Open in January. The main event was a $200K freeroll that players earned their way into with tournament and live play during the series. The top three finishers were Bill Thomas of Mesquite ($5K), Johnny Ibarra of St. George, Utah, ($3,500) and Jed Kimber ($2K). Nearly 150 players entered.

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