TRIP REPORT SNIPPET LIVE POKER

 

LIVE POKER

GOLDEN NUGGET

FIRST VISIT TO THE POKER ROOM

They now deal to 8 people, with particians in between and an uninforced rule on masks.

After each the entire personal area is wiped down.

I was surprised that the plastic partitions were still easy to talk through

although reflections sometimes made it seem like the fellow next to me had cards when he did not.

However, talk was fairly limited to those players sitting near or the voice was raised a good bit.

There was a new use for a card protector. With it, the reflection of my cards which made them seem to be in front of my neighbor made clear what I was seeing in the partician.

The game was really a 2-4 dream. It was very loose with some very poor players.

I was up $100, but only $60 when I decided to quit. Players had gotten better and I had gotten too loose.

I started playing just after noon. I quit just after 10 PM and quite a number of those large 11.55 oz bottles of Perrier with a lime forced down into the bottle.

A Marine Viet Nam vet named Mark turned me on to the soft jazz sounds of Kenny D.

He had gotten this music for his father who loved old jazz.

I asked what music did your father like.

He heard, “What was your father like,” and I got the grandest run of childhood stories and memories from this Marine.

Barbecue and church and prejudice in the Air Force where his father had done service.

Mark's father would invite all his fellow airmen to a grand barbecue in his driveway, and he did know how to do barbecue.

Prejudiced whites not only did not come, but gave those white folks who did come a very hard time when they were back on the job.

The woman next to me and her brother-in-law only spoke Spanish, but I did not try mine because the rule is English only, and they were having a hard time enforcing it.

It used to be just during a hand. Now it is at all times.

One loud fellow never stopped talking and every so often he would change his seat and make people stand.

I was first playing at the end of the table and I don't see well enough to play comfortably. I asked for a seat change button, indicating I wanted a middle seat if one became available.

Seat change guy had no such button when he attempted to take a middle seat that came open. The player next to me spoke up to the dealer and I got the seat.

The fellow was a pushy fellow. He said, “I have this, this, and this and I'm already here.”

“What you don't have is the ticket,” I countered, showing him my seat change button.

Many of the players lost calling second best hands. It was haard to know what to do sometimes because they would bet on just a high pair.

One fellow just could not understand how he lost with his flopped straight to my flopped flush, and my inside draw on a straight flush for bonus money. He had bet it. I had only called because I had the 5-8 of diamonds from the blind and a higher flush could beat me. This guy was oblivious to the flush.

SECOND VISIT TO THE POKER ROOM

2-4 poker is as much about the poker as it is about the players.

At this table I met a teacher from Hawaii who had taught Hawaiian language and culture there for 40 years. Very interesting. We shared teaching stories for a while between hands.

A few years back at this same table I had met a young woman from an Alaskan who explained how her village prepared the salmon.

Also at this table was a Texan who now lives in Vegas and a fellow from California who had experiences soot from the fires.

THIRD VISIT TO THE POKER ROOM

This time there were a couple brothers from Wisconsin who were on their way from this game to Portland, as well as a guy from Oklahoma who had horses.

I shared with him this old Arlo Guthrie song:
Many a month has come and gone
Since I've wandered from my home
In those Oklahoma hills
Where I was born

Many a page of my life has turned
Many lessons I have learned
And I feel like in those hills
Where I belong

CHORUS:
Way down yonder in the Indian nation
Ridin' my pony on the reservation
In the Oklahoma hills where I was born

Way down yonder in the Indian nation
A cowboy's life is my occupation
In the Oklahoma Hills where I was born

But as I sit here today
Many mile's I am away
From the place I rode my pony
Through the draw

Where the oak and black-jack trees
Kiss the playful prairie breeze
And I feel back in those hills
Where I belong

CHORUS

Now as I turn life a page
To the land of the great Osage
In those Oklahoma hills
Where I was born

Where the black oil rolls and flows
And the snow white cotton grows
And I feel like in those hills
Where I belong

CHORUS

Oklahoma also had a brother who lived in Penn Yan on Keuka Lake in the New York finger lakes. My last road trip before the Covid lockdown had been to Penn Yan.

I also told him that in the literary publication out of the Penn Yan library, Bluff and Vine, I had published five haikus, each about a different Finger Lakes fish, and that I had submitted four poems for their next edition.

I'm not sure how the table felt about having a published poet at their poker table.

At one end of the table for a while was a retired Air Force vet who had been to an astounding number of places in the world. He would be sent in, fix a certain type of problem, and then leave for somewhere else.

He had been to Torrejon, Spain where I was stationed, but he did not seem to know anything about Torrejon or Madrid. I suppose if you just duck in and duck out of a country, and probably spend most of your time with other military on the base, you don't really get much of a travel experience.

He had been to Antartica.

He had loved Australia. But he passed on the myth that McDonald's used kangaroo meat for the hamburgers there. It started, as far as I can tell, when Jack in the Box tried to pass off some kangaroo as beef and were caught.

He also claimed that in Austrailia gas was currently $8 a gallon and so we had nothing to whine about here in the US, but I can't find anything like those numbers.

I found nothing like he reported.

FuelPrice Australia | Australian fuel pricing trends

When I researched back to earlier decades, the gas was incredibly cheap, just as it was in the US.

So while poker players may be interesting, some of their stories may just be their own mental fantasies.

It makes me wonder if he also exaggerated his career details.

At any rate, he was soon out of money and off to explore downtown, Las Vegas.

Next to me sat a dark haired woman from Albuquerque. She was very friendly and very attractive.

We joked a bit.

She was friendly, but soon she was on her phone.

She did not play well. While I was in the bathroom, she hit a straight flush, but she did not know that she needed 10 dollars in the pot for the bonus. Too bad.

I had the best hand of my Vegas trip at this table.

I was dealt 3-5 offsuit in the big blind. Most players called the two dollars and I checked.

The flop gave me an inside straight draw by putting up the deuce and the six.

Then the betting started.

The flop, in stages of betting, was capped.

I was squeezed into the cap and uncomfortable, but I felt sure many people had big cards.

The turn was a 4 and made my straight. I bet, and again before we were done the pot was capped at $10.

The river was something like a seven. Again the pot was capped.

One player said he was just betting because he was on tilt, and I believed him.

So, I took down a pot of well over a hundred dollars.

I had been forty dollars down, and I never went below my buy in again, although some of my winnings were lost before I left.

BOULDER STATION

I went to Boulder Station to try the 3-6 game. I like 3-6 better than 2-4. However, I found the players very tight and the pots very small. Perhaps they were gathered just to try for the bad beat as it was up to $196,000.

That happens, and it would also explain why the place was packed.

The people were not in a party mood. They were uninteresting and just there for the poker. So, it was dull.

I won a string of hands which at any other game would have made me a nice profit, but with those small pots I just ended up a few dollars.

I also found the Casino hard to navigate and incredibly crowded. I don't see well, and I get lost easily. It was not like Sam's Town where there is a central isle and great signage. I find it easy to navigate that place.

Finally, to come back on the bus, I had to either walk a long, long way up to light and a long, long way back, or jaywalk.

I should not be jaywalking on Boulder Highway, especially at night, but I did it this once.

I picked a turn off lane, made it there, rested, and then did the rest.

I hated the bus stop. It was in front of some closed business and gated. It was very quiet. One fellow came while I waited. I was not comfortable after dark there.

So, I won't go to Boulder Station again unless I am on my way downtown and just stop off for a visit. The bus stop for buses going toward downtown is right in front of the casino.