Trip Report
by TIGER123
here's yet another trip report!
enjoy!
tiger
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part 1 - the dumbest play i've ever seen
friday night, i'm playing at a pleasant 5/10 stud table at the
taj mahal. a new player sits down and pulls a three inch-thick
wad of 50s and 100s out of his pocket. he peels off at least
$3000 from his roll, and i notice the drink in his hand. a fill
had just arrived at the table, and, in essence, the new player
buys the entire fill. he stands up again, peels off another 50,
and hands it to the dealer, sean, with the comment, "you're a good
dealer!" sean (who's a cheerful, talkative guy and an excellent dealer)
turns to floorperson tanya for advice. she asks the guy (a happy
drunk - hd), if he really meant to tip the dealer and hd says, "sure!"
sean grins, changes the 50 to reds, and drops them into the tip box.
i pipe up, "dealers!", and start a round of applause for hd. :)
this should be pretty good! :D
hd orders another drink, tips the waitress a red chip, and sean starts
to deal. whenever the action reaches hd, he asks the dealer, "what's
it to me?" if it had been checked, hd bets. if it had been bet,
hd raises. and hd just never bothered to look at his hole cards!
it didn't take him very long to lose his first buy-in, and several
people at the table have won pots of $200 - $300 with single pairs!
but not me..... ::::sigh::::
hd orders another drink, tips the waitress another red chip, and buys
some more chips. he's having a ball! at this point, **incredibly**,
several people at the table start to object to the guy, and they are
stopping floorpeople as they walk past the table. i jump up, and point
out, "hey! this guy certainly is drunk! but he's not loud; he's not
obnoxious; he's not abusing the dealer or any players, and fa' chrissake,
he's just *giving* away his money! let him play!"
but it was not to be....one player manages to convince the taj floor-
people to ask this guy to leave. supervisor ron comes over. ron is
a large, pink-faced, kindly gentleman who will never raise his voice or
lose his temper. he is the most affable and unshakable of all the
floor people, and he's the guy who calms down drunks, talks reason to
fighters, and ends virtually all crises with simple common sense.
every business who deals with the public should have a ron on their
staff - if i could bottle what he's got, i'd be a millionaire. ron
talks to hd, and manages to convince hd that he might be better off
if he walked away from the table for a few hours, took a nap, and came
back the next day...... ::::sigh::::
hd stands up, and his replacement is a rock, who promptly cracks my
aces up with a flush. i stand up and cash in for the session.
part 2 - the tournament
saturday, resorts held a 7-card stud $40 + $10 buy-in tournament that
was scheduled to begin at 12:30 pm. rgp is well-represented there!
i see siona and we chat about jazbo's macanudo win for a while. the
night before, i had seen mitch kramer (bruce's father - the guy who
had knocked me out of the atlarge stud tourney), and told him about
the tournament; mitchk is starting to like tournaments.... there's one
or two other rgp'ers who signed up, and wouldn't you know it? sitting
at my table, nattily attired in his custom-embroidered desert inn poker
baseball cap, and sporting his newly-acquired black satin macanudo
poker championship jacket, is the inimitable jazbo burns! :) jazbo
and i don't have to meet at the final table - we're already sitting
at table 14, where the tournament will end! jazbo is in #6, and i'm
in #4. ***note: as i've said here before, i *hate* sitting in #4 and
#5 - i can't see anything from the middle of the table! and since i'm
already at table 14, if i last to the final table, i won't ever get a
seat change! however, i was in seat #4 at table 14 for atlarge....***
the structure is the same as the atlarge tournament, but we only start
with T200. i hold my own for the first two or three rounds, but poor
jazbo feels a special kinship to broomcorn's uncle! they are both
plagued with the problem of anteing themselves to death! at 25/50,
people start to drop out, and by 50/100, we've lost about half of the
original 50 entrants. here's one big hand i remember: jazbo has got
the bring-in (surprise, surprise), and the king in #7 raises. #8 is
dave, a bartender at the taj, who's had a couple and was playing fast
and furious, but sucking out some amazing cards. dave calls, and so
do middle cards in #1 and #2. #3 drops, and i look at my cards and
see three jacks. i call. on fourth street, dave pairs his door six,
and bets out. #1 calls, #2 folds, and i raise it, showing jack-ten
offsuit. the king folds, and dave just calls, as does #1. dave buys
an ace on fifth, and i get a live seven. dave checks to me, #1 checks,
and i bet. dave calls, and #1 folds. nothing happens on sixth street;
check, bet and call. on the river, dave looks at his card, shuffles
his hole cards, and bets into me. i carefully look at seventh street,
and i find my second ten. i raise; dave makes it three; i go four;
dave just calls. i show my full house, and after he shows his sixes
full of aces, he says he had it on five cards (no way, jose!).
just before the break (75/150 i think), dave raises with a queen. there
are two callers, and i re-raise with split kings. it's five-handed,
again. dave gets a suited four, but nobody else helps. i bet and get
four callers. on fifth, dave has an off-suit ace, but i've now got
split kings and jacks. four checks to me, and i bet. dave calls, one
guy calls all-in, and we're down to three-handed. on sixth street,
dave pairs his door queen and fires a bet into the pot - "i don't need
no spade!" i'm not gonna get myself involved about thinking on this
one; i raise to put him all in. yeppers. i read it right. he *was*
on a flush draw, and didn't get there. it's a real big pot! :)
by the time we consolidate at the final table, the only rgp'ers left
are myself and "big sam", a buddy of jazbo's who plays at irc. i'm
the second biggest stack, but big sam only has a few chips left. sam
busts out, and so does the other small stack, and i'm sitting at a
table with five people who play poker every day of the week. #1 is
fran (loud, tall, obnoxious guy who won a tournament about two weeks
ago after being down to a single chip). #2 is "glasses" (bespectacled
man about 50, quiet, solid player). #5 is jack (man about 60, with
an unusual way of moving his right arm - i suspect he suffers from
either "frozen shoulder" syndrome or "frozen elbow", caused by some
physical trauma). #7 is nick (man about 65, shock of white hair, who
is *always* at the high limit stud games at the taj). #8 is rico (man
about 60, wearing a wide-brimmed hat, who is also a daily high-limit
stud player). yeah. i'm still in #4.
for a while, we just push the chips back and forth. "glasses" has the
smallest stack, and he's knocked out by rico. fran is now the short
stack, and he raises on a jack. i re-raise with split aces, and he calls.
he pairs his door on fourth and i ponder his bet. i manage to show
my aces as i toss my hand into the muck, and jack murmurs to me that
i might have made an error. hey! it's surely not the first one i've
made in my tournament career! but nick busts fran out a couple hands
later, and we're down to four about-equal stacks.
my last hand comes when rico limps in with a ten, and i raise with
split kings. he makes an ace on fourth and checks, so i bet my split
kings and eights. he calls. nobody helps on fifth, and i bet after
his check. uh oh. rico picks up his stack and measures off four neat
piles of three black chips. i've only got $675 left, and that ain't
gonna go very far at 300/600. i put the rest of it in. he was rolled
up and i didn't help on sixth or seventh. hey! that's ok! fourth-
place money of $160 isn't bad for three hours of fun! :)
tournament assistant director carol page again walks me to the cashier's
cage and i tell her that i could very easily learn to like such trips :)
rico
finished third; jack got second and nick won. i see jack at the cage,
and he asks me if i knew anything about those computer guys who were
at resorts two weeks ago....it turns out that jack has been wanting
to get involved in rgp, but was sick when we were all in town for
atlarge. i give him the url for rgp, and maybe he'll let us know that
he got here! :)
part 3 - end like a hero
i play 5/10/15 at resorts for a while, win a few bets, but i don't
really like the line-up, so i cash in and walk next door. i meet my
buddy ray, and we go to dinner at the new delhi deli (soon to be replaced
by a hard rock cafe). after dinner, i play 5/10 for a while, and get
bored. i decide to get drunk, so i cash in, sit down at a 1-5 stud
no-smoking table, and order a rusty nail. i win the first hand i play,
and announce to the table (1) that i am going to get drunk, (2) that
i'm going to win all their money, and (3) that no one is permitted
to buy a drink as long as i am at the table - they are all on me! :)
three hours later, i'm *very* drunk, and i'm winning close to $150!
i've paid for more than 50 drinks for the other players, and when i
finally stand up and totter away, the entire table starts to laugh
and applaud! we *all* had a great time!! :) i make the 1:30 am bus
by exactly one minute! :D
i'll seeya all next weekend!
tiger
p.s. husband-and-wife jesse-and-karen were esconced in their usual
20/40 hold 'em game at the taj this weekend. dealer richard sooy
told me that he hasn't been able to learn anything yet.
p.p.s. room prices are starting to creep upwards - it's getting
closer and closer to peak season.
