Poker Articles

Carl was a car fanatic so of course he had rented what I thought was a serious waste of money for the five minute trip from the MGM to the Rio each day. It was one of those Italian sports cars with doors that rose straight up and about three inches of ground clearance. I more fell than climbed out of it as we arrived at the Rio.

We made our way around the main casino to the conference area and checked in at the registration desk. Carl had the foresight to wire money to preregister me for tomorrow’s $1500 buy in nlhe event so in a few seconds we were good to go. Today’s event was for casino employees only so we were only there to check in and maybe play a sat or two to pick up some entry chips.

It was only 10 am local time but out the window I could see the pool area was already filling up with sun worshippers. It was a hot Thursday for the beginning of June and the local forecast was for a high of 104, but inside was cool and comfortable even in my black jeans. I made a mental note to spend a few hours by the pool later and followed Carl into the main room. As soon as we got inside the headache started.

Carl sat in one of the nlhe cash games and I walked over to the end of the room where they held the sats. There were five guys sitting at one of the tables for a $175 sat that paid three $500 entry chips plus enough cash to tip the dealer. I drew a card for my seat and ended up in my favorite spot in the middle. I had just started reading my complimentary copy of “Top Pair” magazine when we filled up and the game began. I wanted to get a quick read on my opponents so I tried to make conversation. “Can you believe the pictures in this magazine?”

“Lemme see that,” said the big man wearing a designer sweat suit and a big cowboy hat.

I was tempted to look under the table to see if he was wearing sneakers or cowboy boots, but I just opened the magazine to the photo spread of the publisher in a tiny bikini and passed it over. As the guys passed the magazine around I got a sense that 8 out of the 10 of us were just here to have a good time. The only wild card was the elderly man immediately to my left.

We all got to talking and laughing a lot as the first round of blinds passed without me seeing a playable hand. Then utg on round two I found AK diamonds and took my time as I read the other players hole cards before I acted. The big blind, who only had 400 chips left had a pair of ducks and I could see he was determined to get all his chips in the pot with them. The only other hands of note was an AQ off in my elderly friend’s hand and a guy across the table who was way too excited about the masturbation hand, JK off.

I raised to 400 and sure enough all three called. The flop comes 369 rainbow with one diamond so I check and expect checks around, but the old man goes all in! The 1 seat tosses his JK into the muck and I think for a minute before deciding to call that ridiculous bluff and let him draw to his three outer. The turn brings a J and a soft moan from the 1 seat and the river brings a K giving me the pot and busting out both guys next to me. So far so good.

A few hands later the jock/cowboy busts out giving the guy who busted him the chip lead. The next hand he makes a preflop raise to 600 on his button with 72 off and even though I only have J9 off in my big blind, I come over the top for half my stack and he folds quickly. Then I use my momentum to become the table bully as the blinds are now big enough to warrant stealing. I steal five hands in a row and then fold the sixth when the big blind goes all in with a QK off even though my A4 had the advantage.

I keep the pressure on and have more than 60% of the chips at the table when a huge hand comes up between the other four players. Unfortunately the chips go to the short stack and we are left three handed instead of heads up. But the very next hand the winner of the big pot tries to press his luck and puts in a huge bluff reraise with 78 spades against my JJ and fortunately my pair holds and he is out.

The thing about heads up poker is that very few people ever just fold pre flop and most of the players who are good enough to get heads up will raise more often than not. I had discovered that my gift made me almost invincible heads up and this was no exception. I played slowly and carefully and busted him in about 10 minutes.

I quickly played another sat and used my entry chips to buy the whole table in so I converted my win to cash. This one didn’t treat me as nicely and I lost too quickly when my flopped set of Qs got drawn out on. It was 11:30 am and I was already tired of poker and wanted to go hang out by the pool, so I went over to Carl and dragged him away from the table for a minute.

“WHAT do you want?? I am in the middle of trying to set these guys up!” He was talking softly but to me it sounded like yelling. My head throbbed.

“I’m outta here man. I’ll take a cab back to the hotel. Call me on my cell if you need me.” As I walked out my head started to feel better and I even whistled a little off key and smiled.