When It All Began

I’ve been trying to remember when I started playing poker seriously, and it’s embarrassing to say that I’m not really sure.

I know when I learned how to play poker.  It was in 1971, soon after my mom married my stepdad.  In fact, I can remember him asking Mom’s permission; whether it was okay if he taught me and my brother the game (she said she didn’t care).  We got some really cheap plastic chips at Family Drug and a deck of cards.

Back then, there were really only three major variations of poker:  Five card draw, five card stud, and seven card stud.  I liked draw best because it was so cool.  I didn’t like five card stud, and seven card stud was okay but a little challenging for a seven-year old (imagine how much more difficult it was for my four-year old brother).  Consequently, we never played very often while I was growing up.  Dad and I played a lot more chess than anything else – I still have the trophy he got me when I earned my first checkmate.

When I got to college, I played a little bit but I was so terrible that I lost far more money than I could afford to, so I stopped playing.  In my first job after college, one of my coworkers hosted a home game, but again all I did was lose so that dropped my interest down to roughly zero.

I think it was the summer of 2005, soon after I moved to Seattle.  I was flipping through the TV channels one afternoon, and happened onto ESPN.  They were playing one of the reruns of Greg Raymer’s WSOP tournament the year before.  I watched for awhile, and even though it was the first time I’d ever seen Texas Hold’em, I said to myself, “I could play that game.”  It wasn’t all that different from the home games I’d played earlier, or what Dad had taught me long ago.

Living in Seattle made it easy to find a cardroom; in my case, the limit tables beckoned just a jaunt down Ranier Avenue to Diamond Lil’s (I was living in the Central neighborhood at the time).

Why I Hate Poker Rooms

So … did I grab your attention?

Okay, not all poker rooms.  And hate isn’t correct, either.

But it is true that I’d rather go to the larger cardrooms and casinos, and play larger limits, rather than go to one of the local joints attached to bowling alleys and restaurants, like what you find all over Washington state and California (see Poker Room roll call blog entry to identify some of these).  Here’s why:

Let’s take as an example the room closest to my house, only two or three miles away, Roxy’s Casino in White Center.  Roxy’s is actually attached to Roxbury Lanes, a bowling alley on Roxbury Ave. that skirts the southern boundary of Seattle on the west side.  At Roxy’s they have four tables, and you can usually find either a $3/$6 or a $4/$8 limit table.

 Join me as I sit down at the $4/$8 table , pull out a C-note, and buy a rack of blue-and-white one dollar chips.  The cards are dealt to me while I’m waiting for the chip runner, who is one of the dealers not currently at a table.  Looking around, I can recognize about half of my opponents.  Not by name, but I happen to remember who they are, and usually the way they play.  The bearded older guy in a wheelchair is at seat four.  He’s tighter than OJ’s gloves.  There’s the cheerful black guy in seat seven, he plays pretty loose but has a lot of fun, and tries to make sure everybody else does too.  Seat three is that really pretty Asian lady with long, elaborately-decordated fingernails.  She’s a really sharp player – remember to watch out for her, and trust her raises.  Seat eight is that Asian kid who will play any two cards, and keep at it as long as he manages to snag part of the board (not a bad strategy in limit, to be honest, but one that will give you large swings in profit and loss).

As the dealer passes the cards out – I’m in middle position – there are two limpers when the action gets to me.  These players play pretty quickly, and don’t have too much patience for stalling.  I see that I’ve got a Ten of Diamonds and a Two of Clubs.  Since I’m not Doyle Brunson, I fold.  Around this time the chips are delivered to me.  Four more limpers stay in the hand, including the blinds, for a total of six players.  That puts the pot at $24.

The dealer puts the flop on the board.  As he’s waiting for the players to react, he grabs three chips from the pot and puts them to the side; that will be the rake for this hand.  He takes a fourth chip and slides it into a little slot close to the rake door.  That chip gets added to the jackpot, which is awarded to any lucky player who manages to get a four of a kind or better.

The hand plays itself out – the black guy won – and as the pot gets pushed to him, he tosses a couple of chips to the dealer for a well-earned tip.

Can you tell yet what bothers me about all this?

Three dollars go into the rake.  A fourth goes into the jackpot black hole.  Two more end up in the dealer’s tip jar.  That’s six dollars that depart the table during this hand – never to be seen again!

Every hand . . . every deal . . . every board . . . five or six or seven more dollars disappear from the table.  By the time the button has made a complete orbit around the table, that’s somewhere around $50-$60 that disintegrate from play.  That means that just to keep the same number of chips on the table, somebody needs to do a $50 rebuy  (or a new player comes into the game with $50).  Fifty new dollars have to appear every round.

Now, I’m not picking on Roxy’s.  That’s just where I happened to be when I figured this out.  Every poker room in the world that spreads $3/$6 or $4/$8 or whatever is going to inflict this experience on the players.  Some places rake $4 or even $5 from each hand!  That’s an astonishing handicap to overcome if you want to walk away winner from a table like that.

So what’s the solution?

Find a home game, where there’s no rake.

Play higher limits, where that kind of vigorish isn’t as large a percentage of the total pot.

If that isn’t practical, then I suppose just realize that it’s happening, and accept that it’s just the price of playing poker.

Celebrity Sightings

This is part two of fulfilling my brother’s request to post some things I’ve told him about.  In this post, it’s the answer to the question:  Which famous poker players have I seen?

In earlier entries, I’ve already mentioned Phil Hellmuth at Rancho Mirage, a bunch of guys at Caesar’s Las Vegas and even more at Harrah’s Rincon WSOP circuit event in San Diego.  The only other players I can remember seeing in real life were all at the Bellagio – Jen Harman, Lane Flack, and David Williams.  (I have to say that it’s pretty cool to be just a few yards away from these guys and see them up close.)  There may be a handful of others that I’ve forgotten about, and more likely other big pros that I just didn’t recognize.

*I just remembered one other pro I’ve seen:  Richard Brodie, aka “Quiet Lion”.  We both were on the same flight once from Seattle to Las Vegas.  He is one of the original developers of Microsoft Word and still lives in the Seattle area.

There is, however, one other significant poker superstar that I believe I have seen, and in fact actually played at the same table with, but I’m just not sure.  The player is Jamie Gold, and the venue was the Peppermill in Reno.  This was a year or two before he won his bracelet.

The reason that I’m not sure is that the guy I’m thinking of looked and acted just a little different from Jamie, in two ways.  First, he wasn’t wearing a hat.  Whenever you see Jamie Gold on TV, he’s always wearing that goofy “Buzz Nation” hat (whatever that is).  But I’ve seen Gold without that hat a few times, and gosh if he doesn’t look just exactly like the guy I played against in Reno, right down to his wire-rim eyeglasses.

The second difference was in overall demeanor.  Jamie Gold babbles a lot at the poker table.  You can’t shut him up.  He’s arrogant; convinced he’s all that, and enjoys saying as much as frequently as practical.  But my opponent in Reno was really rather quiet and reserved.  He had a goofy grin on his face the whole time.  In fact, I kept calling him “Smiley”.

But frankly, the whole experience at the Peppermill is something I remember for an entirely different reason – a big hand that came down which totally educated me in a mighty way in what no-limit poker is all about.

The table was a $1/$2 no-limit with a $300 buy-in.  Smiley was in seat two; I was in seat seven; and in seat five was a table bully who had been running over the table like crazy.  Over the course of the six or seven hours I had been there, he’d steadily grown his stack to somewhere around $2000.  The only other player with a stack anywhere close to that size was Smiley.

When the following hand came up, Smiley was under-the-gun and I was in late position.  Smiley limped; another player limped; the bully limped; another limper; I looked down at Ace-Nine offsuit and limped also, and the blinds both limped.  So there were seven of us in the hand, and $14 in the pot.

The flop came Queen of Clubs, King of Hearts, Queen of Diamonds.  Smiley was first to act, and bet two dollars – the very minimum bet possible.  We all called.

The turn was the Six of Spades.  This time, Smiley bet three dollars, into a $28 pot.  Again, we all called.

The river was the Three of Spades.  Smiley again bet $3 (the pot was almost $50 now).  The next player folded.  The bully raised to around $75.  Everybody else (including me) folded back to Smiley.

At this point, Smiley raised all-in, a bet of around $1500.  It was such a ridiculous overbet that everybody at the table laughed.  The bully called instantly, and turned over a pair of Kings for the nut Full House.

Smiley turned over a pocket pair of Queens, and scooped the pot with his quads.

At this point, all hell pretty much broke loose.  The bully started yelling and screaming at how “bad” Smiley had played the hand (personally, I thought it was genius).  After he finished paying off Smiley, he had only around $200 left.  It was pretty much breathtaking.  Here this guy had been playing A+ poker for hour after hour, and he donked it all off in one hand.  He ended up leaving just a little bit later.

This gave me quite a lesson in the power and danger of no-limit poker.  And honestly, except for that Caesar’s Palace hand I’ve written about where my set of Jacks ran into a full house, I’ve never put myself in that kind of situation in a cash game.  Knock on wood!  I think that is my biggest fear though, donking away all my hard-earned chips off in one bad call.

If I ever get the chance to talk to Jamie Gold, I’ll ask him if he’s ever played the Peppermill in Reno.  I really think it was him.

A Hollywood [Park] Story

My brother asked me to post a couple of poker stories that I’ve told him.  One of them has to do with my experience at the Hollywood Park casino in Los Angeles.  The other is a question about famous poker stars I’ve seen.  I’ll make it two posts; this one will be on Hollywood Park and a later one on famous poker stars I’ve seen (and in one case, even played against – I think).

I actually had forgotten all about the Hollywood Park until he reminded me.  I had to go back and add it to my roll call list.  It was the first poker room in the L.A. area that I’d ever been to, but I don’t really have any interest in going back there, as my story will reveal.

The Hollywood Park casino is actually a horseracing course that added a card room some time ago.  It’s really close to the L.A. airport (LAX) in a pretty bad part of town.  As far as the player demographic . . . well, let’s just say I was one of the few people there with blue eyes.

I was playing at a low-limit table, I think it was $4-$8.  I was doing okay; the players were pretty pathetic and even that early in my poker experience I was able to hold my own against really bad players.

There was one player in particular who was really loose and starting to lose a bunch.  The more he lost, the more tilty he became.  He was seated in Seat 1, I was in Seat 5.  I could hear him muttering under his breath, mostly English but occasionally he lapsed into his (probably native) Spanish.  I won a big pot from him, and he glared at me with truly evil eyes and started saying, “I’m going to cut you, I’m going to get you.”  I just ignored it; for some people, trash-talking is just part of the game.  The volume of his threats continued to rise and fall, never getting really loud but never really tapering off to silence either. 

I won another  decent-sized pot from him.  “I’m going to get you, I’ll get you in the parking lot, I’ll cut you.”  Yeah, whatever.

Finally, one last big hand did him in, I had felted him.  He got a little louder but was jabbering in Spanish, so I couldn’t follow it too closely.  He got up from the table, all the time glaring at me, but as he was walking away behind the dealer he took his hand and (rather lightly) cuffed the back of the dealer’s head.

All of a sudden, a huge swarm of security guards descended on the guy.  I don’t even know where they had come from, maybe Scotty beamed them down from the Enterprise.  Before he had walked three more steps, he was grabbed and taken away.  I don’t think he’s ever been heard from again, frankly.

That’s actually when I started to get a little concerned.  This guy had been peppering me with terroristic threats for half an hour, which didn’t seem to alarm anybody particularly.  But one little tap on the dealer, and he was taken out.  The more I thought about it, the more it troubled me.  So I ended up cashing out a little later (a slight winner on the night).  And yes, I did ask security to walk me to my car.

*** News Flash ***

Congratulations to my friend and co-worker Steve from suburban Chicago!

He entered a $100 online tournament last night and came in first place for a $6750 payday.  Great job Steve!

But win many more of those and you may not be my coworker much longer??

Home Games

I listed the poker rooms I’ve been to earlier; now as promised here are the home games I tend to participate in (and a couple of, hopefully, humorous stories to go along with it).  The two hosts are John in Kent, and Thom in Burien.

(I've been to a few other home games.  Geoff used to have a game at his office in the Fremont neighborhood of Seattle; and Moto, who is one of the nicest guys I've ever met at the table, had a game once at his house in SeaTac.)

Poker John in Kent I’ve already written about, but as promised, here is an interesting tale from one of my earliest visits.

John hosts a wide variety of tournaments at all levels of buy-in, from $40 up to $500 depending on the circumstances.  On one occasion (this was way back in October of 2006), he decided to host what he called a “High Roller” tournament with a $100 buy-in.  Unfortunately, he could only find fourteen players that could afford those stakes, including me.  So he decided to host a satellite tournament earlier in the evening, with a $20 buy-in, that would give a few more players the $100 needed for the high-roller tourney.  If five players played in the satellite, the winner would get the buy-in for the High Roller game.  If ten players played, the top two would get in.

As it happens, I showed up really early (with my $100), so I decided to play in the satellite.  There were nine of us; so the winner would get the High Roller buy-in, and second-place would get $80.

Unfortunately, I won the satellite, so basically I locked out somebody who, if they would have won instead, would have played in the tournament.

To make matters worse, I ended up winning the tournament, too.  So, my $20 buy-in yielded a $700 payday.  I think it’s the first tournament of any type that I actually won, so it was really exciting.

The other home game I tend to go to is Thom’s in Burien.  It’s usually a smaller group and always a cash game as opposed to a tournament.  The stakes are 25c/50c with a minimum buy-in of $40 and a max of whatever Thom feels like at the time (usually $100 but sometimes more).  The players there tend to be … well, I’ll be charitable and say that they are really loose.  But I’ll also be honest and say that I don’t believe I’ve ever gone away loser from Thom’s house.

One of the regulars there is Kim (also known as Satan).  He’s actually a really nice guy, although he doesn’t have earlobes.  He likes to see a lot of flops, and unfortunately he frequently carries inferior hands all the way to the river.

On a recent visit there, I was in middle position with a pocket pair of fives.  It was folded to me, and I raised it to $1.50 (three times the big blind).  It then folded to Kim on the button, who called.  I immediately put him on a range somewhere between deuce-three offsuit and pocket aces.  The blinds folded, and we took the flop heads-up.

The flop was garbage, and the betting went check-check.  Another rag on the turn, another check-check.  When the river also bricked, I checked again, thinking that my fives might actually win.

Kim then put out a river bet that was roughly pot-sized.  I figured he had two high cards but decided to ponder it just a little bit before calling.  Weak donkey that I am, I didn’t seriously consider a value-raise.

While I was in the process of deciding to go ahead and call, one of the other players at the table piped up and said, “He’s just bluffing!  Call him!”  Poor Kim, everybody likes to tease him.  But I realized that it was probably true – Kim had to bet to win.

So I said to the heckler, “Okay, give me five bucks and I’ll call him.”  My benefactor tossed over a five-dollar chip, and I turned over the winning pair.  While I was collecting the pot, I confessed, “You know, I was going to call anyhow, but I thought maybe I could get another five dollars out of it!” 

Why are younger players so much better than older ones?

Try this exercise:  How many world-class players in their 20’s can you think of?  I could probably sit down and name a hundred or so just off the top of my head.

Now, how many can you name who are in their 60’s (or older)?  Hmm … Doyle of course … Dan Harrington … T.J. Cloutier … who else?  “Miami John” Cernuto?  The list of AARP-eligible poker players is mighty thin.

So … this proves that players in their 20’s are better than the old timers, doesn’t it?  Have you ever wondered why?

I thought about this for a long time, before I realized what the answer was:

They’re not!

Believe me … I have spent hours at the table with scores of youngsters, many of whom are young enough to be my own kids (I’m 44).  And, by and large, they are atrocious.  Loose; easy to read, figure out, and manipulate; intensely self-assured of their own superiority.  They end up walking away from the table flat broke and unable to figure out why.

Which brings us back to our first question – why are so many of them in the winner’s circle?

It’s because there are so many of them, period!

Think about it:  When you’re 20-something, you’ve got nothing else to do.  You’re in college (or not); you’ve got plenty of free time; you’ve got no financial commitments to worry about – after all, Mumsie and Pops are paying the bills.  So, let’s hang out at the poker room!

Then, you get to your 30’s.  Now, you’re married.  You have kids. You have a career to manage.  A mortgage to pay.  Hmm, maybe even a sub-prime mortgage!  Consequently, you don’t have the time any more to fritter away at the casino.

As I consider this, I realize that the only professional players in their 30’s (and 40’s) are probably playing today only because they achieved success in their 20’s, and didn’t need to get themselves real jobs.  Ivey, Ferguson, Hellmuth, Cunningham, etc.

So, my theory is, “x” percent of any group of poker players  will be successful regardless of age.  The hundred or so twenty-somethings on my list represent “x” percent of all players in their 20’s.  Apply that same “x” to players in their 30’s, and you get Ivey, Cunningham, et al.  Same with the rest of the age groups..

Two more hands to chew on

These two hands both came at home games.

The first one was at something called “The Meridian World Series of Poker,” which was a fundraiser for a private Seattle school.  Last year, I won it.  This year I came in sixth, but I think I was the only player at both final tables.  Since the host is moving out of town, I doubt there will be another one.

Understand that at this game, many of the “players” hardly play poker at all; some don’t even know the hand rankings; a few I would bet haven’t ever seen playing cards before.  So the goal is just to play straightforward poker.  Don’t bother trying to bluff or try fancy plays.  Just wait until you have the nuts (or near-nuts) and value bet, value bet, value bet.

Anyhow, the following hand came up early in the tournament.  The table, as you might expect, was astonishingly loose, with everybody calling everything and then turning their cards up at the river and trying to figure out who had the best hand.  Frankly, it was a bit frustrating, and quite a demand on my patience.  (If I hadn’t been really sick that night, I’m sure I would have finished higher than sixth.)

I was in the small blind.  The player first to act had a micro-stack.  He called the big blind, which left him with three chips ($75).  Three more players called.  I looked down to see a Ten of Diamonds and Three of Diamonds, true garbage, but the pot odds were begging for a call.  So I completed the blind.  The big blind checked, and the six of us saw the flop.

The flop came out Queen of Hearts, Three of Clubs, Eight of Diamonds.  So I had snagged bottom pair and a backdoor flush draw.  I looked at that trashy rainbow flop, looked at all that dead money in the middle of the table, looked at the player with three measly chips left, and then said, “I’m all in”.

Most good players would have seen how tight I was playing and been a little bit afraid I think.  But even at this amateur level, I wasn’t dealing with suicidals.  The big blind mucked immediately.  The micro-stack fingered his three remaining chips gingerly, and then put them in for an all-in.  (Really, what else could he have done at that point?)

The next player was actually pretty decent – he’d finished second to me last year.  He pondered for awhile, and then said, “Well, it’s obvious that you have the Queen, I’m just wondering how big your kicker is.”  I could have leaned across the table and kissed him for saying that!  Eventually, he mucked, and the remaining two players also folded, so I had achieved my goal by getting heads-up against the microstack.

I turned over my Ten-Three, and you could literally hear the gasps at the table.  My opponent turned over a Ten of clubs/Four of clubs.  I said, “Oh, my ten has a better kicker.”  The rest of the board bricked out, and I had felted a player and taken a nice-sized pot.

I also earned the respect of the table.  Well, maybe respect is the wrong word.  Contempt might be more accurate.  One guy in particular couldn’t stop complaining about it.  (He’d laid down a Queen-Ten.)  But actually, I think I played the hand perfectly.  Plus I gave myself an image so contrary to reality that it propelled me all the way to the final table.

The second hand was at another home game.  John in Kent hosts a home game from time to time, which is almost always structured as a tournament.  (I call him Poker John, and tell my friends that he lives in the Poker House.)  He attracts a sizeable group of players, sometimes as many as 30 or more.  A few of the players are pretty dreadful, but most of them are quite good.  It’s terrific competition, and whenever I manage to cash I feel as though I have really accomplished something.

It was still rather early in the tournament.  I was in the big blind.  The player under-the-gun called the blind.  Another player called.  The button called too (the button was Jan, a good and very aggressive player who ended up winning it all much to my non-surprise).  The small blind folded.  I looked down and saw Eight of Diamonds, Six of Clubs, and checked my option.

The flop was Ace of Spades, Eight of Hearts, Six of Diamonds.  Yee-haw!  A flopped two-pair!  As first to act, I decided to check and find out where the aces were.  The UTG player immediately mucked.  Then the next player put out a half-pot-sized bet.  Okay, one Ace located.  I began to calculate how big of a re-raise I should put in.

The action went to Jan … who put in a HUGE re-raise!

This froze me for a minute.  Change of plan.  With just about anyone else, I would have thought there was a flopped set involved.  However, I finally realized that this would be exactly how Jan would play an Ace.  (I had played with him many times before, and I know he likes to bet big whenever he catches any piece of the board.)  So, that’s what I tentatively put him on.  I decided to call and see what came on the next street.  (Natch, my plans for my own re-raise went right out the window.  What a tight donkey I am!)

The turn brought another Ace, the Ace of Clubs.  My interest in the hand went straight to zero.  I couldn’t fold fast enough.  I checked to the first Ace, who put out a nice bet.  Jan re-raised all-in.  I threw my cards away before he even finished his sentence.  The first Ace called, and Jan’s superior kicker sent his opponent to the rail.

I’m glad the case Ace popped out on the turn, because as aggressively as these two were playing their aces, I would have had some very challenging decisions to make.  I don’t know whether I would have folded the best hand or had the courage to take it to the river – I probably would have folded.

As it was, I made it to the final table and finished in third place for a decent payday.

Poker Room Roll Call

I’ve been trying to remember all of the poker rooms I’ve been to.  Here’s what I’ve come up with, in no particular order:

• Just about all of them in Las Vegas and Lake Tahoe
• Just about all of them in Reno, except the Grand Sierra (the old Hilton)
• Just about all of them in Atlantic City, except the Borgata
• Foxwoods in Connecticut
• Bay 101 in San Jose, CA
• Commerce, Hollywood Park, Hustler, Hawaiian Gardens, and Bicycle Casino in Los Angeles
• Agua Caliente in Rancho Mirage, CA
• Spa Casino in Palm Springs, CA
• Harrah’s Rincon in San Diego, CA
• “Artichoke Joe’s” casino in San Bruno, CA
• “Lucky Buck” casino in Livermore, CA
• Casino Club in Redding, CA
• Chumash Casino in Santa Barbara, CA
• The Horseshoe riverboat in Council Bluffs, IA
• The Canterbury Club in suburban Minneapolis
• “Chips” casino in La Center, WA
• Northern Quest in Spokane, WA
• “Diamond Lil’s” casino in Renton, WA (I think this is the very first cardroom outside of Vegas that I ever went to)
• Treasure Casino in Renton
• Club Hollywood casino in Shoreline, WA
• Parker’s Club in Shoreline
• Skyway Bowl in Skyway, WA
• Tulalip Casino, north of Seattle
• Muckleshoot Casino in Auburn, WA (only one time, even though it’s the closest room with higher limits)
• Roxy’s Casino in White Center, WA (this one is the closest one to my house)

I’m sure that I’m forgetting some.  If I remember them later, I’ll edit this list and put it on there.  If I go to any new ones, I’ll discuss them later.

(Mind you, I’ve been to FAR more casinos than these … just haven’t played any poker there.  Specifically, just about every one of them in Michigan and Missouri; Windsor, Ontario; Niagara Falls; Paradise Island, Bahamas; a couple of cruise ships, and even more.)

From the list above, here are a few that are dear to my heart for one reason or another:

• The Excalibur in Las Vegas; the first place I ever played poker.
• The Mirage, the first place I was ever dealt a Royal Flush.
• The Stardust, simply because it’s the Stardust.  A moment of silence, please.  Rest in peace.  (By the way, that was where I was when I heard that the kitty tried to eat Siegfried and Roy.)
• Binion’s in downtown Vegas, where I once made an immense amount of money playing incredibly bad limit poker.  Still gives me shudders.
• Caesar’s Palace in Vegas, where I play the most because it’s such a big room and always has action going on.
• The Bellagio, which is hands down the toughest room.  I think I’ve only left there winner one time.
• Harrah’s Rincon, but only because I happened to pop by during a WSOP circuit event.  Wow, did I see the celebrities!  “Jesus” Ferguson, Barry Greenstein, Joe Sebok, Steve Deano, Erick Lindgren, and a few others.  That was pretty cool.
• Agua Caliente in Rancho Mirage.  I think this is my very favorite room.  It’s populated by really old, really wealthy retired guys who come to pass time rather than win money.  There’s a lot to be won there if you just play decent, ABC poker.   (I once saw Phil Hellmuth Jr. there, too.  That’s when I realized that it had to be loose!)

There are a couple of notable home games I frequent too, which I’ll write about sometime.  Well, “frequent” is the wrong word, because they actually tend to occur infrequently, but I usually get an invite when there’s something going on.

Two hands -- one bad, one good

I've decided to use my first post to describe two hands I was in, both of which still give me nightmares.  One had a bad result (a hand played at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas), and one had a good result (a hand at the Bicycle Club in Los Angeles).

A word about Caesar's first:  Their poker room is one of the newest, and largest, in Las Vegas.  Tucked behind the Sports Book and at the end of a long hallway, it consists of two big rooms.  The front room is the main poker room; the back room (off to the left as you walk in) is used mostly for big tournaments I think.  In the main room there is a short mezzanine up front where the big games are played.  You walk up a couple of steps to this railed-off part of the room, and there are four or five tables there.  The first time I ever went to Caesar's poker room, there was a game up there that had Todd Brunson, Mike Matusow, Shawn Sheikhan, "Eskimo" Clark, and some others.  I don't know what they were playing but probably high-limit HORSE or something.  Anyhow, I remember thinking, "Wow, I wonder if I would ever be able to play at a game so big that it would be on that mezzanine?"  (Unfortunately, the answer would be yes!)

The most recent time I went to Caesar's -- this was last winter -- they sat me at one of those tables!!  I think it was $2/$5 no limit, and the buy-in was $300 minimum and no maximum.  I bought in for $500 and spent the next six or so hours card dead, watching my stack evaporate oh-so-slowly.

Eventually, some big loud tourist came into the game and sat down with these huge stacks of $100 bills.  (They let you play $100 bills at this table if you wanted to, in addition to the chips.)  He must have had $5000 there, and perhaps twice that.  He was loud, loose, and frankly not a very good player.  But he was very pleasant and a lot of fun.  A bunch of folks were becoming the beneficiaries of his donations, and I was patiently waiting for my turn to be the same.

Finally, I was dealt King-Jack offsuit in the big blind.  The preflop raise was small enough to entice me to jump in, and four of us saw the flop (including Mr. BigBills).

The flop was Jack Five Jack.  Yahtzee!!  Flopping trips with a decent kicker.  I was first to act, and checked.  The next player bet maybe half the pot.  Mr. BigBills smooth-called.  The button folded, and it was back to me.  This was what I had been waiting for . . . I popped up a pot-sized raise.

The next player, who obviously saw how tight I had been playing, folded quickly.  And then BigBills . . . re-raised.  All-In!  A huge, huge overbet.

I was absolutely baffled.  I didn't say or do anything for a long time.  Now, it is really unlike me to play so slow.  I also did something else very unusual -- started talking.  I said, "What do you have?"  (Not really expecting an answer.)  Really, the only thing I was worried about was Ace-Jack.  But why would he have just smooth-called the flop bet?  I was totally confused.

"I hope you have a good kicker," he said with a friendly smile.  Probably the worst thing he could have said.  I thought a bit longer, and then I said, "Do you have a good kicker?"  He nodded gravely, and said, "I have an excellent kicker."  Again, the worst thing he could have said, because I ended up not believing him.  I looked down at my diminished stack, around $250-$300 by now.  I thought, well, I either have him outkicked, or it's a split pot, or I can hope for an outdraw.  I called.  As I was turning over my cards, a player to my right said, "You must have King Jack."

BigBills turned over a pocket pair of fives for a flopped full house, which held up.  I said "Good hand" and left.

I have thought about this hand, even had nightmares about it, ever since.  Looking back, I realize that he was practically screaming that he had flopped the boat, I just wasn't listening.  Even writing about it now makes me sick to my stomach.

So now I will talk about the other hand, with a happier outcome.

Los Angeles has a bunch of card rooms, and by last March I had been to four of them (Commerce, Hollywood Park, Hustler, Hawaiian Gardens).  I decided to try the Bicycle Club for something new.

I had been thinking about poker lately, and wondering why it hadn't energized me as much as it had in the past.  I decided the answer was that I needed to move up to higher limits to get the excitement back again.  So that's what I did at the Bike.

I sat down at a $2/$5 no-limit table with a $500 buyin -- and promptly lost all $500.  So, I rebought for another $500 -- and lost all of that as well.  I rebought again for another $500, and lost all but around $100.

At this point, I'm down almost $1400 and trying to figure out why.  I could practically hear my own voice saying "It's okay, you're playing good poker, you have a good game, just keep playing your game."  I'd have QQ ... and lose to AA.  Or lose set over set.  That type of thing.  So, even though I had lost so much money, I hadn't lost my confidence at all and I just knew that if I kept playing my game and not loosen up or start getting crazy or tilty, it would come back.

So I kept at it, I kept playing my game.  And eventually, I won back to $500.  Then I won another $500.  Then I won another $500, and was back up to even.  And then . . . well, I won another $500.  And another $500.  And another, and another.  When I left, I was up $2000 on the session.  I even asked a security guard to walk me out to the car, since I had around $5000 in cash on me by that point.

And here is the big hand of the session, the one that -- like the last one -- still gives me nightmares.  And like the last hand, it features a big, loud, cheerful guy who played really loose and was seeing huge swings in his chipstack.

A rather tight player opened two off the blinds for a small raise.  Mr. Loose called.  Everybody else folded to me in the big blind.  I looked down and saw King and Queen of Spades, so I called.

The flop came Jack of Spades, Nine of Diamonds, Eight of Spades.  So, I had a gutshot straight draw and a second nut flush draw.  Pretty nice, especially against the loose player.  I decided to just check, counting on Mr. Loose to do my betting for me.

The player first to act had a short stack, and pushed it all in.  (I never did learn what hand he held; only that it didn't win.)  Mr. Loose was next to act, and he just called.  I decided to call too, and see a relatively cheap card.

The next card was the Three of Diamonds -- a brick.

At this point, Mr. Loose went all in!  I had him covered, but just barely.

So I ran the math in my head.  I figured that nine spades would give me a winning flush, and three tens would give me the winning straight.  Throw in the unlikely possibility that one of the remaining six King or Queens might also win it for me -- at least against Mr. Loose -- and I was getting roughly the correct pot odds.  Calling makes puts the total pot to around $2000.  Wow.

I called.

The river was the Ten of Diamonds, giving me the straight.  I thought, "Oh, that's nice . . . but I would have preferred a spade.  But it'll do."

At this point, Mr. Loose (who I had just felted) rolled over his Ace of Spades/Nine of Spades, for the nut flush draw.  I had been drawing to only nine outs!  And maybe less, depending on what the other players had.  My heart skipped a beat.  I said, "OMG, I will never complain about a bad beat ever again!"

Mr. Loose took it well, rebought and stayed in the game, but he was much more subdued at that point.  I only stayed another couple button orbits after that.

Anyhow, make of these hands what you will ... like I said, I still have nightmares about BOTH of them!