Saturday, May 21, 2011

TR Snippet - The Judge at El Cortez


It was a dark and stormy night.
Well, morning.
It was cold for Vegas.
Following my own uncanny ability to plan to go somewhere without a single look at the weather, I have decided to go to the Vegas zoo.
Furthermore, I have decided to wear shorts and a very light shirt.
It had been hot.
Now I am cold.
To complicate matters I walk up to the bus stop near the Cannery East because I have not noted that there is a stop right in front of Sam's Town.
The pavement is wet, and I certainly do not need my sunglasses.
As I wait for the 107, it starts again to rain.
I get on anyway, but halfway down Fremont it is raining at a pretty healthy pace, and I know I am not going to the zoo, not underdressed and with a camera that water will ruin.
Along the way I pass the Blue Angel, an old motel in the seedy part of Fremont that is all blue and white with a tall statue of an angel in white and blue with a halo and wings.  It is a wild view.  I could not get a photo of the Angel, but I think this photo captures the emotions of what it might feel like to stay there.



I really had decided to take a break from gambling for a day, but I am hungry, and I decide I'd like to have Sopa Sieta Mares and horchata at Mamita's Mexican, and then spend the rainy day in the dry and warm El Cortez where I can sit and play without much loss.
Again I am misplanned.
I am too early for food at Mamita's.
I am also too early for a game at El Cortez, but with my name on the list, I decide to play craps a while.
I have a good time, but I lose $25.
When the poker game starts, I have a breakfast of coffee and Sambuca. It is the best laced coffee with real Sambuca, so I enjoy about three of them.
I play practically nothing.
No one plays anything.
Pots are three dollars with a quarter tip.
The table fills up, and a guy they call The Judge sits on my right with Tom on his right and across from me in the first seat is an older guy who looks like a Kennedy with the classic teeth and the fancy hair. He could be Ted's brother and he laughs and tells us a number of people say that.
So, we are all talking and joking and waiting for cards and for some players who will play without cards.

It turns out Tom is from Albany, and so we share the details of our lives and find that we have places in common. He knows the schools where I taught. He has nostalgic things to say about Dan O'Connor and old Mayor Daley that reflect the Irish Catholic heritage of the political machine that ran Albany in the old days.
Tom tells me of Henderson where he lives now. He has come on the same bus I have come on, the 107, but he has come a longer way.
Tom is a bit hard of hearing, and so I must be a bit louder than usual.
I'll blame what happens next on Tom's being hard of hearing, but it might also be the coffee and Sambuca and no breakfast.

Suddenly the judge jumps up, pushing his chair back, stands and at the top of his voice shouts at me.
"Will you lower your voice! I have to push my chair back to get a break from you. Jesus Christ!"

I say nothing.

Without a word Tom takes his chips, cashes out, and gets ready to go.
He stops by on his way out to say he has enjoyed meeting me. At this point, the Judge suggests what he might have suggested earlier before going into his act. He suggests I might want to change seats seats with him, so I can talk to Tom.
It is too late for Tom, however. He is just going.

Then the Judge starts to chatter at me his justifications because he knows he over reacted and he knows he pushed away a fellow who was not a solid rock and who we needed to fill the empty chairs.
However, it is too late for me as well.
"Look, you made your point, and I think you got your way," I say to him, "Why not leave it at that."

And he is quiet.
And so am I.

Soon the seat to my left is open and the Judge moves there, and this lets me talk to the person who takes his old seat, a fine and friendly woman from Alberta who has never played in a casino. Her father sits to her left. This is the second table where I've played with folks from Alberta, and they just are so friendly that they make me want to visit.
We talk about the value of the dollar, and I tell her about Hull, Montreal, and Akwesasne. I also explain how the high hand award works and that she should ask about these bonuses if she plays in a casino, especially about "cracked aces," which is most missed bonus of all. I explain about counting the money in the pot. The El Cortez has only one bonus and pays two high hands every day.
She is not hard of hearing, so I can speak quietly.
I have another Sambucca in coffee.
She plays well. She does not understand the intricacies of this betting structure, so she misses some bets, but she is not a fish. She fills her tray while Dad empties his, and he jokes that it is all the same.
I like them.
And finally there is action at the table.
And I am no longer fuming inside about the judge, but it is still on my mind. I sometimes have trouble letting things go, and this morning my inner thoughts interrupt the mellowing of the Sambuca.

So I'd like to think that what I do next makes poker sense and is not simply a search for revenge.
I hold 9/7 off suit in the blind, and after the flop I have an open ended straight draw.
I check.
The judge now on my left bets $3 and there are a few callers, and when it gets around the table to me, I raise.
The next card gives me a pair of nines along with the straight draw.

I check again, and the judge says,
"Well, now you can check raise me again."
So this is the second inappropriate thing he has said to me this morning. This one borders on collusion. No one catches it. Talk is easy at the EC. But I am mad because that is just what I am going to do, but I don't want it to appear that we are playing together, with me building his pots and trapping other players when he tells me to.

His bet is called around by some, and I check raise again and still read that the judge does not yet have the straight because he does not reraise me. The check raise is a good way to find that out before I have to face the river with three 9's. The river can be a $6 bet. Double any of the other rounds.

The river gives me nothing.

I only have my pair of 9's with a 7 kicker and there are two players to act behind me, the judge and the Kennedy look alike.
One cool thing is that the $6 river bet in this game can seem huge.
I have check-raised twice, getting as much money in the pot as possible.
Now I quickly bet out $6.
This says to everyone that I have the best hand, that I have probably had the straight for a while.

The judge says, "Well, I guess you have that straight," and with Kennedy to act yet behind him, and a possible bet of $12 to call , he does what seems to be the sensible thing and folds his second best possible hand, but the winning hand.

I put the guy who looks like Kennedy on not very much. But he thinks, and wonders, and looks at his cards. I know he does not have the straight, and he should also fold, as I've now represented the best hand three separate times.
He should put me at least on two pair, certainly not on a 9 with a low kicker.

He calls.

"Good call!" I say as I turn over my cards to show my 9-7.
He does not turn his cards over, but just shows them to the dealer.
This is rude.

I say,
"Sir, I can't really see what you have."
The dealer points to my kicker which is higher than his and tells the fellow that it plays.
Kennedy has called two check raises and a $6 river bet with just a pair of nines and a 5 kicker.

"Wow!" I say. "You must have read that I was weak." And he likes it that I compliment his read. I would rather do that than embarrass him by mentioning that those cards demand a preflop fold.
Perhaps he did note something in my manner that indicated a bluff.

The judge is steaming inside, but he is not saying much.

As I rake in my chips, I remark to him,
"I did push you off the winner, right?"
He tells me that, yes, I did.
And whether I was motivated by revenge or not, at this point I can't resist my opportunity.

"You know, Judge, since you stopped me from talking so much, I have had more time to concentrate on my play. I'd never have been able to make that bluff if I had been still in a conversation wtih Tom."

He says he had to complain when he did.

"Not the way you did it," I comment, "With the jumping up, the chair pushing, and the cursing." Just letting me know quietly that I was making you uncomfortable would have been enough to solve the problem..

He has now nothing to say. And that speaks well for him.

And we left it at that.
I'd bluffed a judge.
I'd lectured a judge.
And I had quite a few more chips.
So it was enough for me as well.

I never got to Mamita's because the brush gave me a $5 voucher for the Cafe, and I took a break and ate prime rib.

I so liked this game that I considered just staying at the El Cortez until later in the evening, but soon the players who could be beaten left and the regular tough guys took their seats. So I decided to go back to the Cannery East and see how my one square was doing with the baseball pool.
I missed the first bus, so I went in the Western to play just a few minutes of craps.



I really thought I had more time, but when I arrived at the Cannery, I had missed the first drawing and payout. I had one square out of a hundred. Guess who won and had not been there to collect the hundred dollar prize? 

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