Characters of the El Cortez

In every one of my Vegas adventures over the past few years, the El Cortez poker room has played a memorable part.
Entering the world of live El Cortez poker falls just short of that Twilight Zone "journey into a wondrous land, whose boundaries are only that of the imagination." After a few Myer's Rums, I can easily imagine that you have been transported to another dimension of time and space.

Much of the "romantic charm" of the poker room is due to the sometimes bizarre assortment of characters, most with idiosyncratic personalities that yield table images of grumpy, funny, or caustic....true images, totally unintended.

Last visit I wrote a long narrative of one adventure which many enjoyed. To read that use this link:

http://vegasbirthdaybash.blogspot.com/2008/05/tr-snippets-el-cortez-narratives.html#links

Other than Marine Guy, the characters in that narrative were there again for me to enjoy.
I have played so long and often at the El Cortez, that although I am a tourist, some of them know me, and I get to know more and more of the characters who frequent that unique place each time I visit.

I have written in past trip reports of Action Jackson, the energetic gambler, of Jackie Gaughn, the multimillionaire former casino owner and I saw both of these fellows this trip. Action did not like playing at my table. I was not lucky enough to have Jackie seated at my table, but the players were there in the magic that is El Cortez live poker.

More common were players like Larry. He got so angry that the floor would not change the television station to the Belmont horse races, that he later conspired to intentionally dump a drink on the floor's paperwork. The angry floor person threw him out. I had earlier asked Larry where he played and he had answered that he played all over, wherever they had not thrown him out.
"How do you get thrown out?" I asked.
"Usually, I get into a fight." he answered. And so it was before the end of the day.

Also, playing was an overweight, scruffy old fellow in a motorized car. He seemed to always fall on my left. Then I would try for a seat change. He noticed it and thought it was something personal about him, but it was simply that he might raise, and when he did, I would have to fold or catch. I would have liked him on my right, but he never played there. I did often have good players on my right and I was glad of it. One Vietnamese player, who plays everyday, was there for a while until he got a table change. He once told us he averages about $30 a day playing tight every day. He was another player who I did not want to call, although once I caught him in a bluff.

Having tight predictable players to my right is my preference. In one scenario I had Mr. Loose who raised with anything on my left, and a loose caller on his left. I used them to bet for me when I had solid cards after the flop. The table would call him and then I would trap them in a reraise.
It bothered him.
Eventually, it destroyed him, along with other good play at the table.

This time I also watched Jimmy ( a regular originally from New Jersey) who had that classic Italian look somewhere between Dean Martin and a Soprano's character; he had once been appealing, only now with a good bit of aging and some added weight, he had lost his good looking edge. He did some jokes and talked about being a stand up comedian. He was a master player, playing only a few hands but with perfect confidence. He beat me when his ace-king two pair was higher than my A-8 two pair and I had raised on the river. I could see that Action Jackson admired his play.

I saw again a small, thin Vietnamese player who rarely talks and plays many small cards, so that when it flops little ones and he is betting, the table groans and thinks "small straight."

One regular who reminds me a bit of a rabbit, kept complaining about how badly everyone at the table played this game. Generally I find such complainers are annoyed because they cannot put unpredictable people on hands. However, one had this fellow called on the river was so low that no one who knew the game should have played it. Nothing was said. I wondered if everyone wanted him to keep building this myth that he was the better player, and then lose.

There was also a middle aged woman with good play. She had long brown hair and was quiet and contained. I had not seen her before, but I will remember her. If she was in a pot, she had the nut.

Norman was there every day. He is an old, unhappy fellow, perhaps a German, with unkempt grey hair, a cane, a perpetual grump on his face, who walks or sits staring directly ahead with little aknowledgement of any other players. His companion is a young, smiling college aged boy with long blond hair who looks so femine that I first thought he was an attractive girl. I watched Norm have a fit when he thought he had to post the one dollar blind two hands in a row. He called the floor and complained. he would not give up the argument.
Finally, they just gave him the dollar to move the game a long. "I am not a child," he remarked.
But, clearly, he was in second childhood, or senility. At an earlier time I watched as they repetitively tried to break him out of a long, trance like stare to get him to act. He was very tight, often gone from the table, and yet it seemed when he did decide to play a hand, he chose hands that were not prime. I never played long enough at a table with his companion to know how the kid played.

There were some functional people with interesting stories. There was a fisherman who had just finished catching fine trout way up in the mountains of Utah and discussed recipes with the most adept dealer, Karen, who also likes to cook trout, wrapped in aluminum with barbecue sauce.

There was person preparing to walk to Florida just for the experience. He had done long biking trails and this was next. He said he never trained for such adventures and the first week was hell, but after that it was wonderful to be out walking alone.

Old wrinkled Lila came with her walker and sat next to me one night. She must be near 90 years old and when she had difficulty following the game or was distracted by a lot of talking, she complained bitterly, as she did about all the dealers. She was the classic old grump.
She sat to my left and I had to look right over her cards to see the flop. I tried to tell her to better protect her hand, but she basically told me she only flashed unimportant cards and to mind my own play. Later I felt her old wrinkled hand moving along the bare skin of my leg.
"I don't know exactly where you are going with that hand, ma'am," I said to her.
"I just wanted to warm it up." she explained.
"Well, let me just take your hands in mine, and I'll warm them that way," I offered, and she let me, but told me not to rub them as the arthritis made them sore.
In spite of her craziness, I liked Lila. The dealers did not. She was high maintenance, easily confused, and angry if she felt in the least slighted. She slowed the game. When one of her string bets was limited by one dealer, she announced that she would not tip that dealer. She did not like him. He smiled and told her that he did not really need her money. Later she confused another dealer with him, deciding she did not like that dealer either and withholding more tips.

To my right were young people.
One fellow was playing for the first time, and behind him his girlfriend who was delightedly bubbly with being in Vegas.
I envied her.
Every small part of the casino was new and great fun. She went to get some chips, just so she could clack them together while her man played. They talked in a fast paced banter, mostly about modern video games, a conversation which made me feel the distance of my age, feel as old to them as Lila felt to me. He worked for Hotels.com and we talked a bit about booking with discounters. I shared with him my own marketing ideas and he said they made sense and that he'd bring them up in a meeting, but he was more on the technical end. he did reassure me that there were no cancelation fees with Hotel.com. I had heard this, but never booked with them to experience the truth of it.

The other young fellow, Chris, sat directly to my left and was one of those folks who likes "ritual speech" and perseverates the same talk over and over like a television commercial. One of his favorites was a commercial for the El Cortez which he repeated at least a hundred times. It had to do with winning caps and jackets.

The other ritualistic repetition would always start in this pattern,
"Chris wants more bad beats with his bad beats and even more bad beats with all bad beats, and if he does not get more bad beats with his bad beats, he is going to have to give someone a German."
People laughed at this because the repetition itself was funny, but no one at the table knew that it was referring to this wrestler who developed a hold called the "German suplex' and then went on to murder his whole family and himself.

http://www.idiotbrain.com/wwe-wrestler-chris-benoit-kills-family-himself/2007-06-26

Somehow the story had caught this kid's attention and become part of joke banter with his friends, and so he rehearsed it when he as waiting for cards or when he lost a hand on the river.

I don't mean to suggest this kid was crazy. He was friendly and sane in every way. He was in the army, but he did not talk about it. He was having a great time playing poker on such little money. His buddy John at the other end of the table hit a straight flush that became the second ranked high hand of that day and won him $150. Perhaps the "ritual talk" helped Chris stay calm in tough Army situations. At any rate, he was fun to banter with, and it was amusing when old Lila would admonish us to be quiet and stop having "diarrhea of the mouth."

In between Lila's small rants, her complaints about my talking and joking, I tried to take good care of her, getting her a tray when she needed it, or helping her with her confusion. In spite of her snarly ways, I liked her, and there were times when she laughed and I could see in her the girl of many decades earlier who was strong willed and assertive but good humored, who was not always cold and uncomfortable and in need of a walker just to change seats.

A tourist who played around this time spoke to me at breakfast about all of this. She had enjoyed the poker, but Lila had made her uncomfortable. She taught special ed for a living, but this was strange and new to her. She was perplexed in dealing with Lila. That made me chuckle.

I had a fine and friendly exchange with Q, a black fellow who is in a mood of constant celebration. He is the absolute opposite of Norman. I remembered him from last April. He is cheerful and laughing whether he wins or loses, one of the few at the table who shares my pleasure in the irony or randomness and can delight in the game which ever way it goes.

And there was an old drunk with one of those large, swelled noses that drunks get, who talked constantly and played very badly. He was there twice when I played, but one time he got lucky so he was there a bit longer. It was not so much that he was excessively drunk that night, but that you assumed he was a little drunk most nights. He loved and flirted with one of the women dealers, saying he was still young enough to fall in love. He often decided not to bet a strong hand, and when he did, he talked about how he liked his opponent and was going to play, "like a gentleman."

The true gentleman however is always Jackie, dressed to the nines, and I was disappointed not to play with him. He is failing. I only heard, "One for the money!" once in my three days there. The shuttle driver told me he had known Jackie well years ago when he was still competent. He said that Jackie was always free with show tickets or tips and that he was on of the few bosses ready to give someone who screwed up a second chance. Those were the old days of Vegas, before corporations ran things. I asked too if Jackie had ever traveled and was told he had when his wife was alive. I was glad to here that because I wondered if the business kept him stuck in casinos all the time with no time to enjoy his millions.

Players come in electric chairs or with oxygen in their noses. They come happy or mad. Some get mad at me if I trap them on the river. I definitely know the play of many of them and that helps me pick a seat and decide on borderline hands.

Each trip I collect a few more characters. I play often enough that the floor knows me, but most of the players who I have played with do not remember me because I come for a few days and then I am gone, like all tourists. I more easily remember them because they are usually there when I arrive.

Because of this delightful John Steinbeck-like collection of characters, I always make the El Cortez my final stop in any Vegas trip. This time I was there three days for $60 using a POV coupon. Their free shuttle to the airport adds value to my stay, but I would probably stay anyway, so that when I can't sleep at 3 AM, I can throw on some clothes, not shave, and fit in easily with the motley collection of poker players at the El Cortez.