Wack Vegas: The Venetian and Nazi Sex Freaks

 

Most casinos on the Las Vegas Strip are owned

and operated by either MGM or Caesars Entertainment, 

but The Venetian is run by Nazi sex freaks.

As we watched a crying prostitute dragged from the casino floor in handcuffs, I started to think over how different things are at The Venetian from the rest of Vegas…

Police Dogs- In town for a bachelor party, the groom had gotten a good price on two suites at The Venetian. At check-in, I watched as a security officer walked a dog through the lobby. A frequent Vegas visitor, I’d never seen this at any other hotel, and made a mental note.

The second day I watched as another dog walked through the poker room, directly between tables packed with players. As I happened to standing with a poker room floor manager, I inquired as to the unusual sight. He explained because the property is a “soft target,” they have heightened security measures.

“Ah,” I responded, “for bombs, suspicious packages, and such?”

“Yes,” said my suited interlocutor, before adding, “and drugs.” I hope I kept my poker face as my mind screamed. In a town with a poker community perpetually wrapped in the aromas of sativas and indicas, this is purely menacing harassment. Hard pass.

Cannabis Prohibition- Marijuana has been legal in Nevada for years now. It’s nothing to see tourists, enjoying their vacation, smoking everywhere. However, one night as we returned to the property, straight from a local dispensary, several people had cannabis products they had just purchased. Only one carried the bright, baby blue branded bag, like a neon bomb in his hand. A security guard, watching us approach, came from behind his special podium in the main lobby and stopped my friend; he stated, while it may be legal in the state, marijuana was still illegal according to federal law, which the property chose to enforce. And he escorted this paying guest towards the door.

My buddy went outside, shocked, but without a word of protest. I waited in the lobby, thinking he would simply remove his purchase, conceal it in his pockets, and dispose of the noticeable bag. But the guard had the attitude of someone who would continue the harassment, and I wanted to see how this mini drama played out. To his credit, my friend, casually walked around the side of the building, until he saw an employee entrance, and walked in, James Bond style, completely unmolested. Cheers, homie.

Racial Profiling- Driving up to The Venetian, whether through front or rear entrances, visitors will notice a couple security officers, stationed by cones, monitoring each lane of traffic. On my first arrival, our Uber was a van, packed with five guys. The officer stepped in front of the van, stating the windows were “too dark,” and demanded the driver open the doors, so he could inspect inside. It was strange and aggressive, and I noted a slight distain in our driver’s attitude as he complied.  

I thought nothing of the imposition until, after coming and going for several days, it became the only time I saw such treatment. When I realized the correlation was the Middle Eastern appearance of our driver that night, his grumbling became clear: just your average, every day, racial profiling.

Bonus Weirdness- While not on the level of these previous transgressions, there were two other highly suspect characteristics of The Venetian.

First, neither suite we occupied, with six registered guests, contained any glasses or cups. I’ve never, in my entire life, stayed at a hotel, motel, or Holiday Inn that didn’t at least have cheap plastic cups. My room at The Bellagio, for example, provided SIX glasses, both tall and stemless options, for a single bed. No idea what’s behind that bizarre management policy.

Secondly, located atop the refrigerator, among the overpriced nuts and waters, was a pastel gray and pink soda can. It looked non-descript, like a fancy sparkling water that any curious child would grab upon instinct. However, upon inspecting the can, one finds a list of sex toys that might be found in a truck stop bathroom: condoms, lubricant, light-up vibrating cock ring, etc…you know, just a grab bag of goodies for your average orgy. In all my decades of visiting casinos and staying in hotels, I’d never seen anything like it anywhere, much less in a multi-billion dollar property like The Venetian. Again, wowzers…

To be sure, The Venetian is a fancy hotel, complete with gold-fringed marble columns, fountains, and fresco murals painted upon the ceilings. But, after spending loads of time under its roof, I would never voluntarily stay there, nor do I intend to return as a player. The specter of Trump mega-donor, Sheldon Adelson still haunts the management style of the casino, and it leaves a grimy flavor of gaudy authoritarianism upon your soul: place is wack Vegas.

A Wish for Dying

I’m the one who has to die when it’s time for me to die,

so let me live my life the way I want to.

-Jimi Hendrix

It’s no surprise that one day the party will end.

We are all going to die. Blah, blah, blah. Big whoopity-doo.

But this mortality places such ephemeral beauty in all of our decisions. Every thought we possess is an irretrievable moment, every action is already lost in history. This humanity makes us all death artists; our lives are our one great performance.

Where we find ourselves at the final curtain call is perhaps the ultimate statement of our personhood.

I often hope to meet death at the poker table:

Cards flying across the green baize,

Surrounded by a table of vague faces,

Mind lost to the clack of riffling chips,

And the distant music of slot machines.

A dreamy cocoon of fantasy. 

I like this thought because it holds a number of tacit probabilities about my future. First, I am healthy enough to still play, and not finishing out in hospice or hospital. Second, I have enough leisure time for cards, likely retired, free of the burden of work. Finally, if I’m still at the table, the game I love hasn’t passed me by.

I wonder how my final hand will play out.
Perhaps I will have just raked in a big pot, piling chips into mountainous stacks in front of me.
Or, maybe the final vision will be a brutal suck-out, where a huge dog hits runner-runner on me.
Will it be one last bluff? A hero call?
Or just a couple of rags, an unplayable hand, junk I automatically flick back to dealer with a wry smirk, happy to have simply played the game.

Well, anyhow, I just pray I don’t bite it in line for the buffet.

My Personal Hall of Shame

Although I had dabbled with the game occasionally as a child, I started to play poker regularly in 2005. I set up a poker room in my apartment, organized a weekly tournament, hosted regular cash games, and even got a Party Poker account online. I totally threw myself into studying the game. The hours on the felt became weeks, and then years, as I slowly absorbed all the subtle nuances that had me completely entranced.

Like everyone just discovering the game, I had a lot to learn about the cards, and even more about myself. With the lenses of hindsight, peering through that narrow glint of self-reflection, there are many things I regret.

Here are a couple of my most shameful moments: embarrassing conduct I wish I could erase.  

Acting out after poor play and bad beats – I guess it always seems that awful luck hurts worse on first few stings. Feeling its poison, I frequently yelled and cursed. Who knows how these temper tantrums limited the growth of my game? No guest could be comfortable seeing their host behave like this. My poker room was adorned with wooden chairs that often bore the brunt of my anger. To relieve my frustration during that first year of cold decks, I smashed several to smithereens. On one camping trip, my friends and I cathartically burned the wooden remains, discussing all of the bad hands we had played.

Belittling poor players – The valleys of despair felt marginally worse to me than the peaks of triumph. Most of my irritation over poor play was self-directed, but on one occasion I found another unfortunate target. No doubt under the influence of poor examples set by one of my favorite professional players, Phil “The Poker Brat” Hellmuth, who has a reputation for berating players at the table, I succumbed to the same defect. One night, while dealing for the final two in a single table tournament, I told one kid, that he was “the worse player that ever sat at my table.” He hadn't busted me personally, but he had luckboxed his way into the money, and after watching him call down a hand with six high, I couldn't hold my tongue any longer. He never came back; I still feel terrible.

Obviously, no one can change the past and everyone has imperfections. However, it is important to remember our failures. Facing our faults allows us the possibility of improving as players and growing as people. These disgraceful transgressions of mine can only be mended through the continued practice of self-reflection and the years of penance, paid by carrying guilty memories.

SpongeBob ShovePants and the Blind Straight Flush

“When you use your IMAGINATION you can do anything!”
–SpongeBob SquarePants

At the poker table you often meet fascinating people and see events that you wouldn’t dream were possible. During this past trip to the poker tables of Biloxi, I meet one of the wildest gamblers I’d ever sat beside and observed an incident that I never would have believed had it not occurred in front of my own eyes.

I sat down to a ½ No Limit Hold’em table early Friday afternoon next to a young guy from Jacksonville. His forearms were covered in tattoos and he was knocking back tall vodka cocktails. Around his neck hung a jewel encrusted SpongeBob SquarePants medallion because he liked the popular children’s cartoon.

“SpongeBob ShovePants” liked to play just about every hand. He called large bets with hands that had little chance of winning. He urged other players to put their entire stack into the pot with him before the cards were dealt. His chip stack went up and down like a rollercoaster without tracks. “SpongeBob ShovePants” played poker like it was Russian Roulette; it was frequently all or nothing.

After watching his reckless, financial self-destruction for awhile, “SpongeBob ShovePants” leaned over to me and complained that the cards were simply against him. I kept my thoughts on the matter to myself, but he persisted. To prove his point, before the cards were dealt for the next hand, “SpongeBob ShovePants” put the remainder of his chip stack into the pot blind.

The hand ran out with an older man matching his Ace-King with two more Kings: a monster, virtually unbeatable. However, there were three clubs on the board, making the flush possible. I peeked over as “SpongeBob ShovePants” rolled over one club…then, you guessed it, a straight flush! He jumped out of his chair and started shouting like he had won the lottery.

Although the odds against what had just happened would have been too unbelievable to include in a movie, the money he won on that miracle long shot only lasted “SpongeBob ShovePants” another couple of hands before it was gone. In a little over an hour, he dumped about $1000 into the game. After he left the game, four other players got up. I was sad to see him go.

Don't Scare the Fish!

“There is a lot of money to be made off of stupidity”

-“Alabama Man” 

After playing poker for so many years, there really isn’t too much that bothers me at the tables. One glaring exception is when seasoned, skilled players are condescending or impatient to others who are just learning the game.

A lot of people gravitate to poker as a form of entertainment; winning money isn’t their primary goal. They just want to have a good time and don’t care if it costs them a few hundred dollars. This is an attitude that is often hard to find in poker and it should be greeted with a smile and nurtured with kindness.

Playing cards in Biloxi last week, I was moved to the left of a jovial man from Alabama. He was swilling Coronas like an unemployed Charlie Sheen and punctuating his dialogue with profanity and bleary-eyed laughs. Talking with him, it was apparent that a few hundred dollars didn’t mean too much to him. The way he played poker confirmed this suspicion. His goal was simply to have a good time and there was no denying that he succeeded.

Although I had just sat down, I noticed immediately that no one else at the table was enjoying the “Alabama Man” show. There were a lot of shared grimaces and mutterings about “idiocy.”

The dealers and other players complained about nearly everything this poor fella did. They objected to his language, to his failure to follow the action, and to his general poker strategy. Essentially, they objected to him as a person.

Sensing the animosity at the table, “Alabama Man” began to consider abandoning cards and returning to the casino’s dice game.

One especially egregious example of this behavior occurred from a younger kid at the table who had amassed a large stack of chips. When the kid made a river bet, “Alabama Man” drunkenly shoved out a sloppy pile of chips with each hand in an attempt to raise the bet. The kid complained that “Alabama Man’s” hands crossed the table’s betting line a split second apart and the raise shouldn’t count. Then, in the very next breath, the kid said that he had a good hand and wanted the raise to stand. His fundamental dislike of “Alabama Man” was at war with his desire to make money. It was a weird example of the competing instincts within a lot of poker players.

Moments like these at the poker table bother me. Oftentimes players who are technically proficient fail to understand this basic premise of the game: DON’T SCARE THE FISH! Laugh at their jokes, listen to their stories, offer condolences for their losses, and complement the good plays when they make them. Be friendly because they are your true poker friends. When they are kind enough to throw a party, sit back, enjoy yourself, and have a big ol’ piece of fishcake.

From our discussion together, it was clear “Alabama Man” understood this basic carnivorous principle. Although he may have been a red-shirted rube at the poker table, he was all shark in business. He looked me dead in the eye and opined, in a self-assured and slurred tone, “There is a lot of money to be made off of stupidity.” I nodded my head in quiet agreement.

Haters Gonna Hate

“I Just Watched Bobby Bellande
Win a Hand

 and Started Breaking Shit”

It was 2:53 in the morning, and I was dead asleep, when I got this text message from an unknown number.

Sure, I knew of Bobby Bellande, who used to go by Jean-Robert, complete with the pretentious French pronunciation. He is all over the television, playing poker in the WSOP and on Poker After Dark. He has a semi-popular Twitter handle (@BrokeLivingJRB) that tracks his life of glamour. He even appeared on a season of the reality show, Survivor. And, yes, who wouldn’t be sick of his whole knit cap wearing, chauvinistic, smugness. But I’m not a terribly violent person, so I guess I feel that smashing my belongings just because Bellande is on television might be a bit of an o-ver-re-action.

The Chris Moneymaker poker boom of 2003 has elevated many top card players to the level of pseudo-celebrity. Names like Phil Ivey, Doyle Brunson, Phil Hellmuth, Johnny Chan, and Daniel Negreanu have become B-list household names. However, this national attention has cultivated hordes of “haters” that lurk in poker forums, spewing vitriol upon the minds of anyone within range. Even though the “haters” often know little more about a person than a few brief television appearances, they form strong, and sometimes even violent, opinions on what is usually very little evidence.

This “hater” phenomenon is a strange part of human psychology that the anonymity of the internet only seems to amplify. We often see it at the poker table as a player gets fixated upon revenge after losing a hand. Some players even utilize an obnoxious and abrasive personality as they try to induce tilt in their opponents and get them off their best game. However, it is always better to avoid pulling such blinders of rage over one’s eyes. They have been the death of many chip stacks. All energy wasted on hate is energy that cannot be harnessed for self-improvement and pursuing personal goals.

Hatred is an obstacle of success and happiness.

P.S. I never figured out who sent that text. Don’t want to. Isn’t it better that way?

“It Couldn’t Have Happened to a Nicer Guy”

Years back, when I ran a weekly poker game, I started using a phrase after someone beat me in a pot that began a funny trend. Instead of getting mad, I would simply look over at my opponent and say, “It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.” Among my friends, it became an inside joke that could usually provoke a good chuckle after a tense moment. Other people began to use the line and it was all in the good fun of a weekly home game. I was greatly amused to see Jason Alexander (of George Costanza fame) use the same line a few years later on ESPN.

Playing poker among friends is obviously a much different experience than playing with strangers. It is often more driven by entertainment than the desire for profit. Poker competition among friends develops a special light-hearted type of tension as the chips move from person to person. “It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy” was intentionally designed as a way to diffuse this tension. Handling the strain of defeat with grace and class is a skill that must be practiced and mastered.

Ultimately, poker, like most games, reveals the true soul of a person. Emily Post, in her immortal treatise on manners, writes,

“Nothing more quickly reveals the man whose gentlemanly appearance is only a veneer than the card table, for that veneer melts equally with success or failure. Being carried away by the game, he forgets to keep on his company polish. If he wins, he becomes grasping or overbearing because of his skill; if he loses, he complains constantly about the cards he has been holding and sneers at the luck of others.”
 

Hence, years of playing poker has taught me a lot about myself as well as important lessons in patience and fellowship, even when confronting opponents whose gentlemanly veneer has become badly tarnished in the swings of luck.

Body Shots

A number of years back, when I was first learning the game of Hold’em, some friends and I were sitting around with nothing to do. We had finished all the beer on the premises and the only other libation was a bottle of tequila (Cuervo, I believe). Because none of us particularly cared for the beverage (myself especially), we decided to play poker, with the loser of every hand taking a shot of the noxious liquid. After about half an hour, the bottle was empty, to a room full of regret.

Now sufficiently lubricated, a couple of the guys (for this was a particularly masculine endeavor), decided that we could continue to gamble by exchanging punches to the gut, instead of shots of rotgut. The rules were simple. We dealt the cards face up to two players, a practice in poker commonly called a “coin flip.” The loser received a punch from the winner in the stomach. This game, “Body Shots,” as it might be called, was infinitely more entertaining than traditional poker and elicited riotous cheers from the onlookers. We played until the wee hours of the morning.

The utterly barbaric and juvenile game of Body Shots illustrates several unavoidable truths about the nature of gambling:

1) Gambling is intimately connected with personal risk.
2) The risk of gambling inevitably takes the form of physical pain.
3) Gambling has a curiously self-destructive element.

And, finally…

4) Gambling is more fun, yet vastly more self-destructive, with the addition of alcohol.

Time Warp

Instantly, I was teleported into a future

where this moment was but an insignificant incident,

lost in the miasma of memory.
 

After running bad to start a recent two week Biloxi vacation, I was down about $550 and only had one more, measly $100 buy-in. So, I decided to take a few days off, enjoy myself, meditate a little on what I needed to do, and look for a soft Friday night table at Beau Rivage. When I wandered into the poker room and took a seat at a ½ No Limit Hold’em game, I discovered an anomaly of time and space that I had never experienced before.

I immediately noticed an elderly woman on my right whose shock of white hair rose up like the Bride of Frankenstein. She sat like a flesh-colored statue, draped with a jet-black, fur shawl, reminiscent of someone hunting Dalmatians for a new coat. Only a single, claw-like hand, adorned in golden rings and nail polish of the same color, protruded from its shadows to handle her chips and cards. In half an hour of play, she spoke not a word and didn’t play a hand. Like a lot of weak players, she was timid and even broadcast intended folds by the way she held her cards. I instantly knew I was better than her, wished I was sitting on her other side, and began to salivate over her stack. Easy pickings.

After a couple of limpers, I was sitting in the big blind and looked down to see A-7 suited in spades. The flop was exactly what I had been waiting for: J-9-5…all spades! I had the best possible hand and watched as Bride of Frankenstein bet out a single $5 chip. “Weird,” I thought to myself, but just called, setting the trap and got another player to call as well.

The next card was a beautiful 6 of hearts. I still held the nuts. B. of F. pushed out $10. I flat called, as did the other player. The river card was the 8 of spades, not the best card, but, still holding a monster possible hand, I began to think about how to make the most money. B. of F. dropped another $5 chip in front of her. “Super weird,” I thought. Rarely do you ever see someone reduce the size of their bet as the size of the pot grows or such a tiny river bet, not even one tenth the size of the pot…total amateur hour.

I made my move and raised to a modest $25. The other player, I was hoping had the K of spades, folded. I watched closely as B. of F. picked up some chips with a quivering hand and added them to her original bet. It seemed like she was just trying to call and the kindly dealer helped her by moving out the chips. To my surprise, she min-raised me to $45. WTF!?!

After the other weird moves she made during the hand, this didn’t faze me all that much. I was thinking of money, her money specifically, and how nice it was going to look sitting in front of me. I looked down at the roughly $60 remaining in my short stack, paused, and then said, “all in.”

As B. of F. studied the cards on the table, I cautioned myself to be nice and give the dead money time to pay me off. “Come on old lady,” my soul arrogantly mused, “I need those chips.” Instantly, I was teleported into a future where this moment was but an insignificant incident, lost in the miasma of memory. I had robbed this helplessly enfeebled senior citizen, used her money as a tool to extract hundreds more from the table, and had a fantastically leisurely conclusion to my vacation. There were days on the beach, racing jet skis, succulent steak dinners, and all the booze I could dump down my bloated gullet. It was probably only about 20 seconds or so in real time, but, in my mind, I lived out an entire week.

When she finally called, I turned up my nut flush and heard an impressed whisper from across the table. And then it happened…

she rolled over pocket 5s

and the final card on the board magically

 metamorphosed from an 8 into a 6,

giving her the winning full house!

In an instant, I was sucked out of the time vortex of my reverie, all the fantasies built on the presumed domination of the weak and ignorant, and I was back in the present again, sitting beside an elderly woman with horror-show hair. I had made the most basic of poker mistakes, usually reserved for first-time players; I misread the board!

“Nice hand,” I said and stood up. She said nothing, but simply began stacking my chips.

Always Show Your Monsters

A few years back, I was playing poker at Caesars, Las Vegas for the first time. Their card room, a stylish forum meant to host big events, was still quite new. The action was pretty good, although nearly any place in Sin City can produce a respectable game these days. It is a clean, well-lighted place with high ceilings and a great poker atmosphere. There are tons of flat screen televisions lining the walls, which were not on the typical sports or news channels, but constantly cycling through various numbers that I barely noticed.

After a few orbits at a $1/3 NLH game, I was dealt pocket 7s and saw a flop bring…two more 7s. BINGO! When you have the deck completely crippled, like flopping quads, it is very hard to actually get paid. It is a long shot that any one else has anything decent and you are usually lucky to get a token bluffer making a tiny stab at the pot, which is all I earned in this instance. After my opponent folded, I exercised monk-like discipline and quietly slid my cards to the dealer, showing no one.

The following day I learned what a mistake it was to keep my hand a secret. It turns out that the number cycling televisions, that I paid little attention to, were advertising high-hand jackpots. Had I simply turned up my four sevens to show off my luck, I would have won over $300. When I watched an elderly player collect on a made straight flush, all I could think to myself was, “Ugghhh…”

This example doesn’t illustrate the real reason that you should showoff your monster hands. Showing monsters is good for the game. By “monsters,” I am referring to the ultra-rare hands, like quads and straight flushes, not full houses or below. Flashing a monster can help to alleviate some of the tedium of a long session at the table; it energizes the game a bit, particularly those players who are new to the game and play only for the entertainment factor. Furthermore, showing a giant hand like this builds a friendlier table. The friendlier the table, the easier it is to beat. If your opponents are distracted by socializing, they will not play at optimal levels. Seeing you flash your cards will subtly influence them to show theirs and earn you information in the future. Showing your monster also manipulates your table image. People will remember the beast you had in the pocket and give you a little more room to get creative.

The Legend of Boobarella

Charles Town has joined the growing trend of adding casino facilities to racetracks, and created Hollywood Casino. It is a much larger and more stylish facility than one would expect from the mountains of West Virginia. Watching the hundreds of players lining up for the slots and crowding the table games is like witnessing the slow death of Atlantic City. Many cities, all across the country, are desperate for a piece of the gambling industry and states no longer seem content to let Nevada and a few others monopolize this lucrative market uncontested.

A little while back, I was playing some $1-2 NL Hold’em at Charles Town when there was a sighting of a legendary creature, known, in most circles, only as Boobarella. Boobarella is the poker equivalent of Sasquatch and Santa Claus, all rolled up into one. She is an extremely rare, almost mythical beast, but when she appears, there are presents for everyone. She is from the same family of poker degenerates as “Drunkie Red Nose,” who haunts the swamps of Tunica, and “Twitchy McSniffles,” who likes the low limits in Downtown Vegas.

This particular Friday night, Boobarella wandered down from the mountains of Appalachia and took a seat at my table. She looked to be about 57, but might have been aged a few decades by years of “hard livin’.” Boobarella had selected a low cut pink top that would be inappropriate in most social situations, including being a 57 year-old-woman, of her generous proportions, in any situation. The eyes that sat above her exposed cleavage had the glint of someone who has traded sex for money, drugs, or perhaps both, at one time or another in her life, and maybe recently. Her tone of speech and topics of conversation suggested the same.

Although her teeth were not her own, Boobarella was in a wonderful mood. She regaled us with tales of her broken marriage and the man she chose over a glamorous career in Hollywood. On her lap, she clutched a large purse, from which she regularly produced bottles of pills and bags of candy, before gobbling up the contents. A nomadic individual by nature, it is the custom of Boobarella to play a few hands before mysteriously disappearing for long periods of time. Where she goes, we can only speculate.

Unfortunately, luck was not on Boobarella’s side this evening. She got run over like a baby ocelot at a fur trapper convention. After bleeding off several hundred dollars, she began to playfully accuse people of picking on her. It was about one in the morning when Boobarella desperately shoved in the last of her money with King-2 suited. It was not a winner.

If she didn’t met the guidelines of mentally disabled, there are certainly some psychological acuity tests that Boobarella would not perform very well on. As he riffled the remnants of her stack, a friend of mine reflected that he almost felt bad taking her chips. Not me. Other people’s money is easy to spend. Some nights, the hopelessly fishlike creatures, like Boobarella, bite back. And when they do, they don’t contemplate how bad it feels to win.

Good Luck, Bad Luck, Who Knows?

I read a parable the other day about the nature of luck. It goes like this: One day a man’s favorite horse runs away. His friends say he is unlucky, but the man says,

“Good luck, bad luck, who knows?”

A few days later, the horse returns with a herd of beautiful, wild stallions. His friends all tell him that he is very lucky. He simply says,

“Good luck, bad luck, who knows?”

The following week, while his son is trying to ride one of the new horses, it breaks the boy’s leg, crippling him. The man’s friends all offer consolation, saying they are sorry for his bad luck. The man replies,

“Good luck, bad luck, who knows?”

A month later, his country declares war and, because of his injury, the man’s son is exempted from military service. Shortly after this, the unit his son would have been a part of was ambushed, and all the men killed.

“Good luck, bad luck, who knows?”

There is a common debate in poker about how much of the game is luck and how much is skill. Everyday people at poker tables around the world reiterate the same cliché: “I would rather be lucky than good.” Personally, I would rather have it the other way around. Luck only exists in the short term, skill lasts much longer. Every time I take a bad beat, I try to remember all the bad beats that I have given out over the years. My own preferred saying about luck is: “It all comes out in the wash.” Unlucky one day, lucky the next, ultimately, skill determines long term success.

At the top of the ledger where I record my poker results, I have taped a small saying from a fortune cookie. It reads: “Behind bad luck comes good luck.” It is a very handy saying to ponder during the rough stretches all gamblers encounter. It helps cheer me up as I review the long list of numbers, filled with lucky ups and downs. Also, just as importantly, it helps to balance my mood after a big win and evens out the emotional highs and lows that can be absolutely torturous.

Who is to say whether winning at gambling is actually lucky at all?

Penny Poker Rage: Microchip Muscles and the Loser’s Theme Song

Ever since I moved my address to a new state and lost my regular poker game, I try to get my Hold’em fix online. I prefer to stick with the micro or low stakes, just to keep fresh for my casino trips or to practice the madness of mutli-tabling. If you have never tried 9 tables at once, then let me assure you, the game is evolving into new realms of undiscovered chaos.

As I finished a session the other day and prepared to stand up from the virtual table, a player with the screen name “Eagle1512” sat down. What ensued was among the strangest and most entertaining examples of poker tilt I’ve ever seen on micro tables. I copied the chat box transcript and present pieces of it here, for educational purposes.

Eagle1512: ust dumping will tell what i have
Eagle1512: but all in every hand
Eagle1512: i will not lie

This was quite an eye-catching way to open the conversation at a new table. Many people are essentially donating at the table, but few are conscious about it and even fewer like to broadcast the fact. It is always hard to trust anything said at the poker table, so I had to stick around and see the results.

Eagle1512: 10 J off
Eagle1512: k 6 off
Eagle1512: Q3 OF DIAMNDS

After each of these claims, Eagle shoved an absurd 40 times the big blind. After no one called, he showed his hand and built a bizarre “come bust me” credibility. I figured we would see someone wake up with a real hand, bust him, and that would be the end of it.

Eagle1512: aC6H

After this 4th pronouncement, his strongest hand yet, a player with the screen name “jerrekjones” called, turned up a shocking 10-3 off-suit, sucked out, and won. Clearly jerrek didn’t care, but why wait until Eagle’s hand got stronger and his own hand was so weak? I made the decision that if Eagle reloaded, I was sitting back down. Maybe this was a vengeful ex-wife or a parent teaching an under-aged child a lesson about gambling.

Eagle1512: GOOD FOR U
Eagle1512: EVEN ON THESE TABLE IDIOT S THAT MAKE CALLS LIKE THAT ARE REWARDED
Eagle1512: THIS SITE IS A RIGGED PIECE OF C HIT

It should be noted that Eagle has shifted to caps lock at this point, online poker’s version of screaming. This moment also marks the introduction of personal attacks and profanity into the conversation. I like to call this phenomenon “microchip muscles.” People will spout out with offensive language online that they would never use in a face to face discussion, simply because they know they are in absolutely no physical danger. In addition to microchip muscles, we are also treated here to the “loser’s theme song.” It has two primary components: the other player is an idiot and the game is fixed. Eagle delivers these in textbook unison.

Thanks to the information age, I was quickly able the retrieve public data surrounding Eagle’s player history. In roughly 4,000 hands at micro and low stakes, across three different sites, on all of which he was a loser, Eagle was down over $500. Apparently, Eagle had met a lot of “idiots” online and found out that all poker sites are “rigged,” probably just like his own home game.

Eagle1512: I TOLD U WHAT I HAD AND CALLED WITH 10 3 OFF YOU PHUCKING MORON
Eagle1512: BUT THE SITE REWARDED UR STUPIDITY
Eagle1512: I HAVE DUMPED MY LAST FEW DOLLARDS AFTER GETTING TOTALLY PHUCKED BY THIS SITE THE PAST 2 DAYS
Eagle1512: REMEMBER TO MAKE UR TRAILER PAYMENT

After roughly 15 minutes of this, I found the premise of what I was witnessing becoming more and more humorous. Soon, the enraged Eagle began to attack jerrek’s nationality (Canadian) and cite scholarly evidence from the annals of world history. I have removed jerrek’s replies because they are actually rational and not nearly as hilarious.

Eagle1512: JUST REMEMBER AS S HOLE IF IT WASN'T FOR THE YANKS YOU WOULD BE SPEAKING GERMAN @&@ HOLE
Eagle1512: AND IF CANADA WAS WORTH ANYTHING IT WOULD BELONG TO THE USA
Eagle1512: YOU GUYS DID $!#$ ON A LITTLE DEFENDED BEACH U BUNCH OF CANADIAN PUSSIES
Eagle1512: OBVIOUSLY U HAVE NO GRASP ON REALITY OR HISTORY
Eagle1512: SO YOU SPEAK THE SAME MONKEY LANGUAGE AS THEY DO BIG PHUCKING DEAL THEIR ARMY IS A BIGGER BUNCH OF PUSSIES THAN YOURS
Eagle1512: IN THE WAR OF 1812 WE KICKED ENGLANDS #&& AGAIN DUMB PHUCKER

So, in summation, Eagle sits down, announces a strategy by which he would intentionally break himself, goes broke, and then explodes at the result. Unfortunately for me, he never reloaded…another 80 cents. That’s right, all of this rage was over the contents of a couple of couch cushions.

I conclude with Eagle’s closing remarks and wonder why people across the globe often have such a bad opinion of Americans.

Eagle1512: UR COUNTRY SUCKS AND SO DO U
Eagle1512: U DUMB ASSS DIK BREATH

Eagle1512: GO WIPE THE CUM OFF UR CHIN

The Absolute Stone Cold Nuts?

Any half decent Hold’em player can look at a flop and determine the best possible hand. For example, if I said the flop was K-J-10, all different suits, then it would be rather easy for you to tell me that “the nuts” would be A-Q, completing the straight. This is both the right and wrong answer.

Awhile back, I was playing 1-3 NL in Tunica when I encountered a hand identical to this example. With only on opponent, I was first to act and holding A-Q with a K-J-10 rainbow flop. I checked the nuts, setting a trap. The villain was a Tunica regular, an older man whom I had played with several times before. He was a silent person who never said a word at the table and a patient player who only bet premium hands. When he put in out a small bet, my unconscious poker instincts must have felt it was slightly suspicious. I just called; the turn card brought a four and a second spade. Still holding the nuts, I checked and the silent old man bet out, bigger this time. He didn’t have much more than one big bet left in his stack, so I check-raised all in. With the speed he called, I instantly knew before he turned over his hand what I would see: a matching A-Q. However, and this is the point of this particular recollection, his hand was suited in spades, giving him a flush draw as well. So, while we both had the nuts, his hand was the absolute stone cold nuts. Fortunately, fate was kind to me on this hand and the river card was a harmless blank.

When I first started playing Hold’em, I used to laugh derisively at commentators who pointed out the potential of backdoor flush draws as even worth mentioning. Now, years later, I understand how backdoor odds must always be considered in the play of a hand. A-Q might be the best hand, but it isn’t always the absolute stone cold nuts.

My First Live Royal Flush

When I began to take poker more seriously I played mostly online. The 20-30 sit’n’gos I averaged each week dwarfed the one single live tournament I played during the same time period. Therefore, it was no surprise when I caught my first ever Royal Flush online. It was rather anti-climactic; my opponent was all-in preflop, so I didn’t even get to bet it. I guess I wasn’t surprised when I also caught my second Royal Flush online as well. Or even my third (strangely, they were all in diamonds). After awhile I began to find more opportunities to play live and I spent a lot less time in the virtual poker room, waiting for the day the Poker Gods would bless me with my first live Royal Flush.

I kept playing and loving the game while waiting and waiting for the ultimate poker hand to come my way in a live game. Because I have always been borderline obsessive about statistics and record keeping, I know the exact date: the 2nd of March, 2008 and the suit was clubs. We were playing our regular friendly .25/.5 No Limit Hold’em game. I was sitting in the big blind and everyone except the small blind folded. There was no action until the river when I hit the gutshot Royal Flush bingo card, turning my 10 high into the stone cold nuts. My opponent checked and I bet the minimum 50 cents. His cards were in the muck almost before I got my bet out. I turned over the rarest of poker hands, one that I had waited almost 400 live games to catch, and raked in the absolute minimum profit.

The appearance of a Royal Flush is among the most anti-climatic experiences a poker player can have. Probability dictates that the deck will usually be crushed and the hand will receive little action. Your best hope is that some high hand or bad beat jackpot comes into play. So, as lucky as you have to be to catch a Royal Flush, you have to be even luckier to actually get paid for it.

C’est la vie…deal.

A Winning Vegas Wedding

Before I had ever attended one, Vegas weddings triggered for me images of Elvis and Brittney Spears. However, after watching two friends get married in a nice little ceremony in the back of the MGM casino, I learned that even a Vegas wedding can be somewhat “traditional.” Afterward, we drank overpriced champagne before a lavish dinner at Craft Steakhouse. All in all, it was a thoroughly enjoyable time.

Because we played poker together regularly, a few of us, including the bride and groom, decided to try a tournament at Paris the following night. With five entrants, we excitedly discussed the strong chance of one of us cashing and we even pooled money for a first out booby prize. Busting first of our group was the highlight of an uneventful tournament for me, but two of us did make the final table, including the bride, who won the whole shebang! After she pocketed almost a cool thousand dollars, we strolled over to the Bellagio for celebratory drinks, railbirded a few well-known pros in their high-limit room, and then watched the famous fountain out front explode into the night sky.

Of course it takes a great deal of luck to win a poker tournament, but it wasn’t luck that propelled my friend to victory (she had used up all her luck finding a great husband). I know she won because she can play a mean game of cards, but I could never help but think there was something more to the victory. Looking at the happy couple posing with a mountain of chips and the winning hand, I get the sense that it was also the completely content state of mind found in a new bride. There is certainly a direct correlation between happiness and ability at the poker table. If you take a seat filled pessimism and distraction, you will usually lose, but if you are unencumbered with these emotional sandbags, then fortune will find you.

The Man Who Ate Cheese: The Grossest Poker Story Ever Told

A few years ago I was playing in an underground poker game when I heard the kind of story that instantly sears itself onto the brain.

The atmosphere surrounding the game, a healthy mixture of fun and danger, is important to note when considering the details of the story. It was the kind of poker game run by some midlevel bookmakers with security doors and video cameras. The guys were very friendly to all the players, but had the usual guns and muscle around to ominously back up the smiles. You know, the free pizza and soda buffet; but I tell you things got uncomfortable for a half hour one night when the cameras captured a random police cruiser flashing outside.

After a few sessions at a good game, you slowly get to know the dealers and players. Between all the bluffs and calls, the same stories are told and retold. It is a natural way to fill the silence between riffling chips. The outrageous and humorous stories passed around the table, “poker stories,” come to define players' identities as much as the way they play their hands. They are typically brief, only the duration of a hand or two, and sometimes smothered in a gravvy of bravado.

At this particular game, there was an older gentleman who was the source of the grossest “poker story” I’ve ever heard.

I first heard the story a couple weeks earlier from one of the burly dealers. Though the story borders on unbelievable, I knew it was generally believed by a group of guys who knew the subject better, and had seen far more in their lives, than I. Its disgusting details are the only reason I ever had to doubt it. True or not, it remains the grossest “poker story” I’ve ever heard.

The "gentleman" was a retired car salesman, who had likely dabbled in other, less above the board businesses. Despite the old man's advance years, he was a still a large, lumbering, who enjoyed a drink, and no doubt had experienced more than one fight in his life. Although he was battling some serious health problems, in his flippant behavior, I could detect the possibility of truth behind the tale.

Apparently, the older "gentleman" I sat beside at the poker table had been involved in a fight during his younger years. As he pounded the victim, who owed a debt, his opponent began to vomit.

Our hero was less concerned about the puke and more intent upon sending a message. From the puddle on the ground, he plucked up a yet undigested piece of cheese, and, you might easily guess... ate that cheese, right it in front of his face, just to fuck with him.

I'm not sure if after hearing these details if any of us remembered to ask if he ever got the money back.

Usually, a man carelessly wth money, as this "gentleman" certainly was, has purchaced a good share of stories in fair trade.

Dealers Are Human Too

To those unfamiliar with poker, it may come as a surprise that professional dealers make mistakes. For the most part they are like well-oiled, flawless poker machines, but for every 50 hours or so of grinding, I seem to see a mistake. I don’t mean a simple misdeal…those occur quite often. The mistakes I’m referring to are the more egregious type: misreading the board and pushing the pot to the wrong player. However, on my last run at Tunica, I saw an error that put these simple mental lapses to shame.

I was playing $1/3 No Limit Hold’em at The Horseshoe on a very busy Saturday night. It was at the tail end of an innocuous hand for what was about a $35 pot and I was only half paying attention. An elderly gentleman to my right, who had been playing solid poker all night, tossed up his cards and inadvertently hit the river card, knocking it out of place. The dealer instinctively straightened the cards, looked at them and then pushed the small pot to the gentleman’s opponent, a younger guy who seemed to be more interested in entertaining his friends sitting behind him than playing cards. No big deal, seen it a million times. After the hand was over, the attentive kid to my left told us what we all missed, including the dealer, the elderly gentleman, and the “entertainer.”

When the dealer straightened the gentleman’s hole cards,
he accidentally swapped one for the river card!

In an instant, the gentleman’s hand went from being a Q-10 to a 10-7. With another 10 on board, he still had a pair of Tens, but the “entertainer’s” hand went from a lowly Queen high to a winning pair of Queens! With the next hand underway, the table was atwitter with shocked murmurs as the events were made public.

As bad as the dealer’s mistake was, it was the gentleman’s duty to correct it immediately. From our conversation together, I knew the gentleman had been playing cards since he was 17 and his girlfriend’s mom was stealing his winnings. I can only assume he momentarily forgot his kicker and didn’t want to make a fuss over what might be nothing. In what I estimated to be roughly 50 years of poker, he admitted he had never seen that happen before, and chances were the mistake was his.

The “entertainer,” being endowed with a courteous demeanor, offered to estimate the pot size and return it to its rightful owner. The gentleman declined, apparently eager to have the incident disappear forever into the realms of poker obscurity.

Falling Up an Escalator

We have a patron down! Patron down!

 

A couple of years ago, I innocently visited Iowa for a cousin’s wedding and ended up in a bloody casino escapade.

Weddings are almost always among the most fun events to attend, especially big ones. My Iowa relatives truly went all out to make sure everyone had a great time. It was a monstrous event with a cathedral style assembly hall filled with hundreds of people. I let them know my appreciation by periodically bellowing “IOWA!” as loud as my lungs would permit. The groom’s friends, being the youngsters they are, put on a good show and even had me playing the drinking game with a dangerous punch: Flip Cup. Ahh…good times.

It had been years since I visited Iowa. Life out there has a slightly different pace to it; everything is about a half hour drivem through endless corn fields, and every breath delivers the faint hint of cow manure.

In Iowa, there seems to be a universal bonfire that you eventually discover at some point in the night. After the rehearsal dinner, I was heavily plied with alcohol when we ended up there, and somebody mentioned a casino located in nearby Des Moines. My card playing cousin was miraculously sober, so off we went.

It turns out that this beautiful country is literally infested with places to gamble; God, I love America!

Prairie Meadows Racetrack and Casino doesn’t have the opulence of Vegas or the beach of Atlantic City, but it has the only thing that matters: action. Drunk as I was, I deftly sniffed out the poker room on the top floor and was saddened to discover an hour long waiting list for the tiny room. Dejected, I returned to find my cousin parked at a roulette table with a stack of chips.

Now, I know I was severely intoxicated because I actually decided to pass the time by playing a few spins of the wheel (by the way, if you ever catch me playing roulette, I freely invite you to give me a good healthy smack in the face). However, I hit a lucky streak that night and my patented “IOWA!” cheers reverberated around the casino. I was making such a scene that people started yelling back “CAROLINA!" One woman, playing blackjack at a neighboring table, even had me placing bets for her. What can I say? Stupidity is infectious.

The hour passed rather quickly; in no time I was racking my chips and heading upstairs to claim my seat in the poker room. The difficulty arrived when I tried to utilize the escalator; in my state of intoxication, operating the device was surprisingly challenging.

My sandal refused to obey my commands and tripped on the first step; I fell hard on the sharp metal, and my chips scattered about in the chaos. Stunned at the sudden turn of events, I desperately tried to scoop them up, fearing they would be lost in the teeth of the machine as it approached the top. In the final panicked moments of the ride, I scooped up the last one and rolled forward off the final step.

Dazed, and trying to figure out what just happened, I looked up to a security guard speaking hastily into his radio:

“We have a patron down! Patron down!”

In the moments it took to force myself back to my feet, two more guards had come running. Despite the long scrapes, and blood trickling from my leg, I insisted I was fine and tried to slip around them as I counted my money. I was half sure they would try to kick me out, right then and there, through door, or even window.

When I miraculously escaped to the poker room and located my seat, I noticed all the players eyeing me with more suspicion than is typical when at a new game. I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned to see a security guard motioning me out of the room. “Damn,” I thought to myself, but it turned out, that unknown to me, I was bleeding rather profusely from the chin, no doubt aided by the alcohol in my bloodstream.

After being bandaged, I returned to play some cards.

I’m sure the players were licking their lips to get their piece of this new arrival reeking of booze, but I had to disappoint them and showed I could actually play, even in my condition. I hit a couple of sets and ended up making a few bucks.

I’m not sure why, but the casino has a no profanity rule that my drunken attention span couldn’t seem to grasp; my foul mouth violated it worse than a hotel heiress in The City of Lights. It all goes to show how far a casino will go to keep an inebriated patron inside…as long as he is gambling.

Dude, I Can See Your Cards!

In the world of amateur poker, there are loads of players who don’t understand the basic premise of protecting their hand. They lift them too high, hold them too far out, and unknowingly show the world their holdings. Many good natured people (myself included) will be kind enough to help these players and tell them to protect their hand. I’ve seen it many times and it often becomes the source of drama…

Years ago, when I started to get more serious about the game, I organized a weekly tournament among friends. In our very first game, we all gathered around a hastily constructed table, made of two pieces, and short of chairs, the girl to my left took a low seat on the couch. It was her very first time playing the game, and, in the friendly nature of the game, she was intentionally showing me cards and even occasionally asking advice. A few hands were inadvertently lifted cards high enough that they crossed my field of vision. I wasn’t deliberately looking, but she lifted them so high, they often interrupted the casual angle of my eyes. It was just that kind of game. One hand, she lifted Kings out of the pocket. She happened to be in the hand against her husband and I watched her catch a third King and waited to see how much see could win. Then, amazingly, she decided to dump it! I was so astonished, that I made an absolutely colossal mistake; I told the table what I had seen. All the camaraderie of our group evaporated in an instant as I had all but accused the couple of cheating. As suspicious as the play was, I should have kept my fool mouth shut. To this day, there are few poker regrets I have bigger than this decision.

People often get very offended when you tell them to protect their hand. On my very first trip to Las Vegas, I was playing at the world famous Binion’s Horseshoe when the player on my right (a young guy, stinking of weed, in a Carmelo Anthony jersey) was lifting his hand way too high. Politely, I discretely told him to guard his cards, but he apparently took offense and asked to change seats. Another time, we were playing Omaha at my home game when a player made a big call and turned over Ace high to win! With two players, holding four hole cards each, the chance a simple Ace high is a winner is a marathon long shot. Everyone at the table was completely floored for a few hands before the player sheepishly confessed he had seen his opponent’s hand. He was trying to be a friend, but, as usually happens, the player took offense and stubbornly didn’t change a thing about the way he held his hand. Shockingly, he ended a loser.

When someone tells a player to protect their cards, they should be treated like a good friend. Instead of taking every dime a player has, this saint offers an olive branch worth its weight in platinum. If anyone ever offers you this token of good will, take the advice, swallow your pride, and give genuine gratitude.