I came into Vegas too tired to really get in the party mood easily. I've been much quieter than usual. Still, I enjoyed some characters:
MGM - A really huge, old Mexican with a huge bushy beard joined the table and joked through the games. I liked listening. I was just too tired to engage him.
Here I lost with pocket Aces three times. Twice it flopped two kings.
CANNERY EAST-
I love poker, but I am understanding that I don't play it well. My home game buddies tell me I am tough to beat, but they come to Vegas and seem to win while I seem lately to lose.
Generally, if I drink I do better because I lose often by playing too many hands. But sometimes I tighten up and still end up many dollars behind.
That was true in one session at the Cannery.
Jimmy, once a regular at El Cortez, and a great limit player joined the table.
He was very annoyed at Ben who was partially blind and took forever to look at cards, check the board, bet. Eventually, Jimmy would leave the table because he was impatient.
Jimmy mentioned that Action Jackson was back in town and I sent a message that I'd like to buy Jackson a prime rib when I hit the El Cortez.
Action used to be a wild player at the El Cortez before he was banned and then allowed back but not allowed to drink, and then banned again. I miss the old dramatic Jackson.
He deals sometimes if he can find work. He once substitute taught and had great rapport with troubled kids, seeing himself in their characters.
Jimmy is very tight and very impatient, so he plays or folds and gets up for a walk or a smoke or to play a nearby slot machine.
He is generally as tight as a drum. If he bets, he has the nuts. He reads players well.
Jimmy is in the big blind when I am on the button. So when I button raise, Jimmy usually folds his blind. Twice I pushed him off what would have won, and it annoyed him.
The first hand I raised and pushed him off, I had to subsequently fold.
After the hand is over,
"I win that hand," Jimmy says in an effort to let me know my raises are annoying him, thinking perhaps he can appeal for leniency. Actually, he merely convinces me that I can get the blind out if I raise the button.
The next time I raise, I have 6-7 offsuit. I just feel like playing and the raise at this table will give me a cheap free card if I catch a draw on the flop.
Jimmy folds his Q-6 big blind.
The flop gives me a set of sixes which my button raise has also now disguised. I can bet out and everyone will think I have a high pair. Of course, I am low kicked for anyone who has the other six, but I will at least bet until someone raises.
I don't know that Jimmy has folded the fourth six.
I get called to the river, and I win. So I have to show.
"You raised with that?" Jimmy exclaims.
With my finger to my lips I say, "Shhhhhhhh. Don't let it get out." And to myself I say that I guess that strategy won't work again.
Jimmy explains that he would have won. He is annoyed and unhappy, but not in any way nasty.
My very next button I have pocket kings on the river and now I raise and figure attentive players will take me for some junk once again, perhaps a guy who always raises the button.
In fact, I am a little afraid that players will give me little respect and stay with anything, but I have to raise with pocket kings on the button.
I want to be first to bet after the flop. If it flops an Ace, even a guy with pocket Aces will check the flop to me and hope to position for a reraise. At least I can then see the turn for free.
Jimmy sees his chance for revenge, calls, and warns me that he will go to the river this time. I understand the warning. He does not really have much or he would have reraised. Maybe he has a good draw.
Since he is rarely in a hand, I am impressed. Also, I am having a good time.
A king comes on the flop.
Now I am having a better time.
Each time I bet and each time Jimmy calls.
But he does not call the river when we are head to head.
AFter the river there are two sevens on the board, so I have a full house. No one has a seven.
I rake in the pot, and in one of my rare moments, decide to show my full house.
I hear the table groan.
I chose to show it because it will let me do my button bluff raise another time and be given some respect or at least elicit some confusion.
I don't want them to think I just pushed Jimmy out with junk. I want them at least conflicted the next time I raise a button.
I am sure Jimmy is happy he did not have a seven. He'd have raised the river if he had a seven.
The whole thing makes me very happy. I have played well against a fellow I consider a hard rock to beat, a guy who has beat me at the El Cortez.
This also says to me that it is not good to let players know what we have noticed about their play. Jimmy gave me information that helped me play the way I played.
I liked to say that this made me money in the end, but I lost heavily by the end of that poker session after Jimmy left, and the game changed in a way I could not figure.
Ben, who sat to my left, told no stories. He had a driver who came for him and was nice and accommodating. The driver came back twice and finally took him home. Ben was not a terrible player. Some said he had taken a good bit of money from a game at another casino earlier.
He was incredibly slow, however, and had to be reminded at each stage of the process. He also called way too many hands. Like a loose player at my weekly game at home, he called too often, but if he bet, he had the goods.
The table was patient.
I tried to help keep him aware of when it was his blind or remind him it was his turn. I did not mind waiting for him or helping him through his confusion, because he was donating a lot of money to the pots.
I had bad cards and took only one pot from him. I was the button and he had to act first. He got a little annoyed because in some way he thought I was tricking him by asking him to bet first, but in the end, he was fine.
Ben did not like to be bluffed. He saw I was just betting a good hand, and he was calling too long. I explained again that it had been his turn to act first, and he was fine then about it.
One of the most annoying players was Barbara who said she was a dealer from Caesar's. Ironically, she had an intense rules argument with another player and then with the floor when they made the ruling and then with anyone who tried to just explain the answer.
Here is the situation:
An older Asian fellow was playing with the last of his buy-in for that day, most of it in quarters. He went all-in on a hand and she called. He showed and won, but he asked her to show.
"I don't have to show," she snapped.
The dealer clarified by saying that the Asian could ask to see a called hand. So he asked.
Well, she argued with the dealer. She was adamant that she did not have to show because she had called him.
She called the floor.
The floor was the easiest tempered young fellow named Brian, and he explained that if someone asked to see her cards, she did have to show them.
She argued with him too.
He was very patient.
Brian explained that actually any player might ask to see any hand.
Well, that was really outrageous to Barbara. She was on the dark side of her bipolar personality.
But it was the rule here at the Cannery East.
Finally, after she had shouted again the reason she did not have to show, he just said,
"Well, in this house you do."
And she showed an Ace-Queen.
But she would not let it rest. She kept saying things to the Asian fellow and bringing it up over and over.
And after a few of her sarcastic comments, the fellow would make some comment.
So Brian was calmly but firmly saying to both of them,
"Okay, I don't want to hear anything more," the way a parent might talk to children.
I loved his attitude and manner very much.
Next Barbara started to create exaggerated false smile faces aimed at the fellow, like a nine year old girl might do.
She also started to talk and talk and talk about everything and Barbara was sure she knew everything.
Later, after the Asian fellow left, the rule was quietly revisited in talk, and she was still sure she was right. Brian calmly explained again, so there was no confusion, and I just added that this was a common rule in many casinos.
Well, that put her belligerent energy focused on me. She told me that she was a dealer and so on and so forth, and she knew what she knew.
I asked her where she dealt. I had to ask twice before she interrupted her rant to answer that question.
"I deal at Caesar's. It is a little casino along the strip," she answered with disdainful sarcasm.
"I know Caesar's," I answered. "That is the room where they won't give players any decent alcohol."
My tone told her that I had not appreciated her sarcasm.
I should have called her on her attitude or asked whether where she dealt, in Caesar's, after the floor had ruled, a loud and arrogant player's attitude would be tolerated.
I missed that chance.
But she agreed with my comment on bad alcohol at Caesar's, and she caught my change in tone, and perhaps knew she had riled me.
Later, it came up again, and I tried again in a calm way to just explain why this rule exists, but players rarely ask it to be enforced. It is a protection against the kind of collusion that might occur in a no limit game. It lets a squeezed player check to see if someone is raising on nothing just to build the pot for a partner who has signaled that he has the nuts.
It is poor poker etiquette to ask because is suggests the asker suspects cheating, but once in a while someone will ask just because they can.
I told Barbara I thought she should ask her supervisor when she went back to work and see what he said.
She was calmer then for a minute and not so personally attacking, and I had a chance to mention places where the rule existed and I had seen it used.
Somehow for my own peace, I had to get a bit more said as the whole thing riled me inside. I realized that my agitation reflected the rules arguments we have in home games which have no easy way to be decided. And I realized how easily I get drawn into these arguments and want things to be clear and consistent.
For her the issue was that she had called the bet. The person who called was not required to show in her mind. She was still sure this was common in other casinos.
For me it taught me that I needed to get a grip on my own inner agitation. I need to read a bit more of the Tao of Poker and get my inner attitude under control.
I was happy when she left to play a tournament.
Delaware Joe was also at the Cannery. He did not tell too many stories, but he had been surfing the net and found my Vegas blog. He recognized me from the photo. It was funny. He is on no discussion boards, but he might put a comment on the blog.
I met a retired woman who had just bought a place in Vegas after ten years of living from a mobile home and traveling the country. Her husband was retired from the Army, so they had the resources of any Army base, but I could see that she was very happy to be settled again in a real house.
One of the most interesting characters was a Polish fellow who was perpetually mixed up about the bonus for cracked Aces and when to bet 2 or 4, but played his cards well. He said that he hosts games in Chicago, the kind where the dealer calls the game and wild cards or whatever are common.
He has played with some of the guys there for many years and seen them sell their jewelry and watches cheaply when they ran out of bankroll.
He rakes two dollars a pot for food and makes good roast beef sandwiches and serves beer and wine.
They start on Friday night and play until Monday morning.
I asked if he wasn't worried because I thought that raking a home game in Illinois was illegal.
"In Chicago, everything is legal." he told me.
He was not popular at the table, but I liked him. His English was heavily accented.
We talked a bit of kielbasa and bigos kapusta and other good tastes. In his opinion Chicago had the best Polish food, but he had not shopped at Wally's market where I have seen a dozen varieties of kielbasa on the wall and been faced with half a dozen great looking blond Polish clerks who did not speak enough English to help me decide which to get for a cookout.
When this fellow was eight, he and his mother were in a Dresden German concentration camp. I asked him about the bombing, and he said that there were so many bombs that they did not know night from day. He laughed that the Germans ran when the Americans arrived.
They all had been living for the most part on potatoes. The Germans ate the potatoes and gave the concentration camp prisoners just the skins. When the Americans came the officer in charge told them to throw away all those skins and served steak and salad and all sorts of good food. He still remembered how happy he was that day.
It was an amazing story because he really told it from the point of view of an eight year old child.
I tired out that night at midnight and started racking my chips to head back to the hotel.
"Why you sleep?" he asked. " After you dead, you can sleep. Now....play poker!"
Generally, if I drink I do better because I lose often by playing too many hands. But sometimes I tighten up and still end up many dollars behind.
That was true in one session at the Cannery.
Jimmy, once a regular at El Cortez, and a great limit player joined the table.
He was very annoyed at Ben who was partially blind and took forever to look at cards, check the board, bet. Eventually, Jimmy would leave the table because he was impatient.
Jimmy mentioned that Action Jackson was back in town and I sent a message that I'd like to buy Jackson a prime rib when I hit the El Cortez.
Action used to be a wild player at the El Cortez before he was banned and then allowed back but not allowed to drink, and then banned again. I miss the old dramatic Jackson.
He deals sometimes if he can find work. He once substitute taught and had great rapport with troubled kids, seeing himself in their characters.
Jimmy is very tight and very impatient, so he plays or folds and gets up for a walk or a smoke or to play a nearby slot machine.
He is generally as tight as a drum. If he bets, he has the nuts. He reads players well.
Jimmy is in the big blind when I am on the button. So when I button raise, Jimmy usually folds his blind. Twice I pushed him off what would have won, and it annoyed him.
The first hand I raised and pushed him off, I had to subsequently fold.
After the hand is over,
"I win that hand," Jimmy says in an effort to let me know my raises are annoying him, thinking perhaps he can appeal for leniency. Actually, he merely convinces me that I can get the blind out if I raise the button.
The next time I raise, I have 6-7 offsuit. I just feel like playing and the raise at this table will give me a cheap free card if I catch a draw on the flop.
Jimmy folds his Q-6 big blind.
The flop gives me a set of sixes which my button raise has also now disguised. I can bet out and everyone will think I have a high pair. Of course, I am low kicked for anyone who has the other six, but I will at least bet until someone raises.
I don't know that Jimmy has folded the fourth six.
I get called to the river, and I win. So I have to show.
"You raised with that?" Jimmy exclaims.
With my finger to my lips I say, "Shhhhhhhh. Don't let it get out." And to myself I say that I guess that strategy won't work again.
Jimmy explains that he would have won. He is annoyed and unhappy, but not in any way nasty.
My very next button I have pocket kings on the river and now I raise and figure attentive players will take me for some junk once again, perhaps a guy who always raises the button.
In fact, I am a little afraid that players will give me little respect and stay with anything, but I have to raise with pocket kings on the button.
I want to be first to bet after the flop. If it flops an Ace, even a guy with pocket Aces will check the flop to me and hope to position for a reraise. At least I can then see the turn for free.
Jimmy sees his chance for revenge, calls, and warns me that he will go to the river this time. I understand the warning. He does not really have much or he would have reraised. Maybe he has a good draw.
Since he is rarely in a hand, I am impressed. Also, I am having a good time.
A king comes on the flop.
Now I am having a better time.
Each time I bet and each time Jimmy calls.
But he does not call the river when we are head to head.
AFter the river there are two sevens on the board, so I have a full house. No one has a seven.
I rake in the pot, and in one of my rare moments, decide to show my full house.
I hear the table groan.
I chose to show it because it will let me do my button bluff raise another time and be given some respect or at least elicit some confusion.
I don't want them to think I just pushed Jimmy out with junk. I want them at least conflicted the next time I raise a button.
I am sure Jimmy is happy he did not have a seven. He'd have raised the river if he had a seven.
The whole thing makes me very happy. I have played well against a fellow I consider a hard rock to beat, a guy who has beat me at the El Cortez.
This also says to me that it is not good to let players know what we have noticed about their play. Jimmy gave me information that helped me play the way I played.
I liked to say that this made me money in the end, but I lost heavily by the end of that poker session after Jimmy left, and the game changed in a way I could not figure.
Ben, who sat to my left, told no stories. He had a driver who came for him and was nice and accommodating. The driver came back twice and finally took him home. Ben was not a terrible player. Some said he had taken a good bit of money from a game at another casino earlier.
He was incredibly slow, however, and had to be reminded at each stage of the process. He also called way too many hands. Like a loose player at my weekly game at home, he called too often, but if he bet, he had the goods.
The table was patient.
I tried to help keep him aware of when it was his blind or remind him it was his turn. I did not mind waiting for him or helping him through his confusion, because he was donating a lot of money to the pots.
I had bad cards and took only one pot from him. I was the button and he had to act first. He got a little annoyed because in some way he thought I was tricking him by asking him to bet first, but in the end, he was fine.
Ben did not like to be bluffed. He saw I was just betting a good hand, and he was calling too long. I explained again that it had been his turn to act first, and he was fine then about it.
One of the most annoying players was Barbara who said she was a dealer from Caesar's. Ironically, she had an intense rules argument with another player and then with the floor when they made the ruling and then with anyone who tried to just explain the answer.
Here is the situation:
An older Asian fellow was playing with the last of his buy-in for that day, most of it in quarters. He went all-in on a hand and she called. He showed and won, but he asked her to show.
"I don't have to show," she snapped.
The dealer clarified by saying that the Asian could ask to see a called hand. So he asked.
Well, she argued with the dealer. She was adamant that she did not have to show because she had called him.
She called the floor.
The floor was the easiest tempered young fellow named Brian, and he explained that if someone asked to see her cards, she did have to show them.
She argued with him too.
He was very patient.
Brian explained that actually any player might ask to see any hand.
Well, that was really outrageous to Barbara. She was on the dark side of her bipolar personality.
But it was the rule here at the Cannery East.
Finally, after she had shouted again the reason she did not have to show, he just said,
"Well, in this house you do."
And she showed an Ace-Queen.
But she would not let it rest. She kept saying things to the Asian fellow and bringing it up over and over.
And after a few of her sarcastic comments, the fellow would make some comment.
So Brian was calmly but firmly saying to both of them,
"Okay, I don't want to hear anything more," the way a parent might talk to children.
I loved his attitude and manner very much.
Next Barbara started to create exaggerated false smile faces aimed at the fellow, like a nine year old girl might do.
She also started to talk and talk and talk about everything and Barbara was sure she knew everything.
Later, after the Asian fellow left, the rule was quietly revisited in talk, and she was still sure she was right. Brian calmly explained again, so there was no confusion, and I just added that this was a common rule in many casinos.
Well, that put her belligerent energy focused on me. She told me that she was a dealer and so on and so forth, and she knew what she knew.
I asked her where she dealt. I had to ask twice before she interrupted her rant to answer that question.
"I deal at Caesar's. It is a little casino along the strip," she answered with disdainful sarcasm.
"I know Caesar's," I answered. "That is the room where they won't give players any decent alcohol."
My tone told her that I had not appreciated her sarcasm.
I should have called her on her attitude or asked whether where she dealt, in Caesar's, after the floor had ruled, a loud and arrogant player's attitude would be tolerated.
I missed that chance.
But she agreed with my comment on bad alcohol at Caesar's, and she caught my change in tone, and perhaps knew she had riled me.
Later, it came up again, and I tried again in a calm way to just explain why this rule exists, but players rarely ask it to be enforced. It is a protection against the kind of collusion that might occur in a no limit game. It lets a squeezed player check to see if someone is raising on nothing just to build the pot for a partner who has signaled that he has the nuts.
It is poor poker etiquette to ask because is suggests the asker suspects cheating, but once in a while someone will ask just because they can.
I told Barbara I thought she should ask her supervisor when she went back to work and see what he said.
She was calmer then for a minute and not so personally attacking, and I had a chance to mention places where the rule existed and I had seen it used.
Somehow for my own peace, I had to get a bit more said as the whole thing riled me inside. I realized that my agitation reflected the rules arguments we have in home games which have no easy way to be decided. And I realized how easily I get drawn into these arguments and want things to be clear and consistent.
For her the issue was that she had called the bet. The person who called was not required to show in her mind. She was still sure this was common in other casinos.
For me it taught me that I needed to get a grip on my own inner agitation. I need to read a bit more of the Tao of Poker and get my inner attitude under control.
I was happy when she left to play a tournament.
Delaware Joe was also at the Cannery. He did not tell too many stories, but he had been surfing the net and found my Vegas blog. He recognized me from the photo. It was funny. He is on no discussion boards, but he might put a comment on the blog.
I met a retired woman who had just bought a place in Vegas after ten years of living from a mobile home and traveling the country. Her husband was retired from the Army, so they had the resources of any Army base, but I could see that she was very happy to be settled again in a real house.
One of the most interesting characters was a Polish fellow who was perpetually mixed up about the bonus for cracked Aces and when to bet 2 or 4, but played his cards well. He said that he hosts games in Chicago, the kind where the dealer calls the game and wild cards or whatever are common.
He has played with some of the guys there for many years and seen them sell their jewelry and watches cheaply when they ran out of bankroll.
He rakes two dollars a pot for food and makes good roast beef sandwiches and serves beer and wine.
They start on Friday night and play until Monday morning.
I asked if he wasn't worried because I thought that raking a home game in Illinois was illegal.
"In Chicago, everything is legal." he told me.
He was not popular at the table, but I liked him. His English was heavily accented.
We talked a bit of kielbasa and bigos kapusta and other good tastes. In his opinion Chicago had the best Polish food, but he had not shopped at Wally's market where I have seen a dozen varieties of kielbasa on the wall and been faced with half a dozen great looking blond Polish clerks who did not speak enough English to help me decide which to get for a cookout.
When this fellow was eight, he and his mother were in a Dresden German concentration camp. I asked him about the bombing, and he said that there were so many bombs that they did not know night from day. He laughed that the Germans ran when the Americans arrived.
They all had been living for the most part on potatoes. The Germans ate the potatoes and gave the concentration camp prisoners just the skins. When the Americans came the officer in charge told them to throw away all those skins and served steak and salad and all sorts of good food. He still remembered how happy he was that day.
It was an amazing story because he really told it from the point of view of an eight year old child.
I tired out that night at midnight and started racking my chips to head back to the hotel.
"Why you sleep?" he asked. " After you dead, you can sleep. Now....play poker!"
I played morning tournaments at Sam's Town and met a few of the locals who come here. Hoppy, a Texan who made his life owning and running transmission shops, was very friendly to me. I liked him. He played this tournament every day. First he would open up the shop near there because his son was not an early riser. Then the son would come and Hoppy would play the tournament. Afterward he would go back and work a while, but the son was doing most of it.
riding the 107 from Sam's to downtown you can see the sign for Hoppy's on the right.
In the game Hoppy got down to one 25 dollar chip. He went all in dark and won. He did that a few times, once when I had Ace-Queen and he had Ace -6 and flopped two pair. It was quite a comeback, and he did manage to accumulate enough to really begin to play again, but eventually he lost.
I won the first tournament. I was very high chipped when they asked if the four of us wanted to chop, and I apologized, but I said I wanted to play.
A fellow at the El Cortez reported that he had played when they limited the end of the play to just four hands.
The two I knew I could eliminate were husband and wife. They did not play together, but they did not play against each other either. That made it hard for them to compete. They also did not play very well. So when they got unlucky, they were eliminated.
I ended up head to head with an older woman who had played excellent poker all the while she was at my table, but for some reason she called me when I bluffed an all-in to push her out. I had 9-4 with a pair of 4's. She had a pair of 3's.
Did she put me on that bluff?
That defeated her. She had just a few chips left, and it was not hard then to take her out because the high blinds made it impossible for her to do more than play each hand.
The tournament cost $23. I tipped $20, so I ended with $242 in profit. They have these every day. The first hour is limit and then the no limit starts.
I had annoyed one old player by just beating him twice by a little bit. Once I had the queen of spades and four spades were on board, including a turned king. I bet into him. He called me. Another time I beat him with a higher kicked.
My best hand however, was when I held K-J, flopped two pair, and then rivered another king. There were four people all in for that hand and two of them were eliminated. I was very lucky. l got good cards and never lost a big hand. By the end I just could wait while the others tried to eliminate.
My second tournament was less promising. I did well in the limit and then had some defeats and lost chips.
After the break, when the no limit started, I went all-in with pockets twice and stole the blinds. I needed to build some chips to play with.
Later, I went all in with A-7 spades and lost to an Ace with a higher kicker.
Hoppy had a huge stack of chips after the limit game and if he did not win, I am surprised.
My third try was not very memorable. I was down even in the limit section and could not do much at all.
My other play has not been good. I played at the Cannery twice because Sam's did not have the 3-6 game, just Omaha. This seems to be the popular game now. Folks said that Boulder is so wild a player needs a bankroll of $500 just to have a shot and the pots are capped preflop. I guess I'll skip Boulder.
Sam's 3-6 on a Saturday was not well attended and the players who were there were regulars, rocks, and very good. I lost a lot of money.
I won't chose that game again.
I'll walk down to the Cannery or take a bus into the strip.
I love 3-6 but this was the toughest poker I have seen and I did not get cards.
There was one fish who just went through rack after rack. He had no idea he was the fish. I made a push bet and everyone folded except him. In the end, I had nothing. He had played 2-3 offsuit and not folded his pair of 2's.
Later I had a blind hand of 4-7 and two pair on the flop. Again he was the only one to call me to the river when his K-3 gave him trip 3's.
I folded to him enough to suspect that I was not always beat, but generally there were others acting after me. I did not have the cards to raise.
They paid cracked Aces here as well, but my only pair flopped trips and everyone folded to the river.
Twice my A-K was beat with Aces that made two pair. I was pretty visible on those hands because I raised them and bet them. I called the river.
That may have been a mistake, but I did call. Perhaps the mistake was betting just the Ace on the turn and allowing a raise there, but it can't have been better to give a free card. I don't know.
A-2 beat me as well as A-7.
I left down almost $300 after eight hours of play. It is very discouraging. Luckily, that night I got it back at Deuces VP.
I went back on Sunday and pretty much determined that it is not the game for me. It does lack maniacs, but the guys all know one another and play at the same table all the time.
Also, the tone is serious. They are friendly enough but little is said and no one is interested in me. No one asks where I live or what brings me here.
It is not much different than the El Cortez or Cannery East, even different than Turning Stone or Foxwoods here at home.
For a party community and more interesting characters, I like the 2-4 at the Cannery, the El Cortez, and the strip places. Too bad, because I have really pumped money in the Deuces Wild here and I expect I'll get some room offers.
PS: Some commentary on a part of the snippet can be read here:
http://www.vegasmessageboard.com/forums/showthread.php?p=517794#post517794
PS: Some commentary on a part of the snippet can be read here:
http://www.vegasmessageboard.com/forums/showthread.php?p=517794#post517794
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