« The Wrong Turn And The $50 Bathtub | Home | Field Journal 2: Just Suck, No Out »
07.05.06
Field Journal One: Same As It Ever Was (Almost)
posted by Absinthe | 2:27 AM
Good news: the limit games at the MGM are fishier than ever!
Bad news. The limit games at the MGM are fishier than ever.
They’ve done away with the 1/2 kill 4/8 game in favor of a standalone 6/12, which wasn’t running when I got in. I needed to play a few hours of some kind of poker to justify my discount, so I settled in at 4/8, because I have been kicked in the face way too rarely of late.
When you’re losing to a guy who flopped bottom pair and caught runner-runner boat, you know you’re in either a good game or a crooked one. I suspect that the MGM is employing an impeccably fair (if unimaginably cruel) autoshuffler.
Highlights for children:
I have Jd Jh on a board of T33, two hearts. My flop bet is called by, among other unshown hands, Kc8c. Turn 8. River 8. Kc8c guy, despite having a greater knowledge of the rudiments of the game than my other tablemates, does not bet the river. So there’s that. Later he cracks my AK TPTK on a turned five-outer and neither raises the turn nor bets the river. I think sheer embarrassment on his part saved me a few bets. Still later I repay him by going four bets preflop with the Hammer, flopping a deuce, raising the flop, betting the turn, and finally checking the T82AA board at the river, and hearing him say “You win, I didn’t make a pair.”
The pick of the litter is a large, boisterous fellow who sits down in the 8 seat and proceeds to make mincemeat of all extant statistical models. Runner-runner boats, rivered gutshots for which he paid an exorbitant price, and opponents too cowed by his luckboxing to raise their strong hands on the river when he’s obviously (and I mean visibly as in from orbit) betting bottom pair or air. He loves to slowroll, so much so that I find myself saying aloud, “There’s no need to slowroll a full house there, man, just show your cards and take the pot.” He apologizes but clearly doesn’t mean it. I made mental plans to track him down and sic CJ on him if he’s still here in August, by which time he may actually be living in a fort constructed entirely out of blue $1 chips (with redbird window accents).
These aren’t bad-beat stories, kids. They’re warnings. Just a public service that I’m happy to provide in exchange for a few lousy hits a day. If anything, you should be paying me. But I guess that’s what this weekend is for, isn’t it? I’ve got a twenty-donkey head start on the lot of you. Good luck chasing me.
Popularity: 9% [?]
Topics: Poker | 5 Comments »
July 6, 2006 at 6:27 PM
July 5, 2006 at 8:21 AM
“You win, I didn’t make a pair.”
God help me if I was drunk and heard that at a table. The laughing wouldn’t cease until the guy’s boot was firmly lodged in my throat.
July 5, 2006 at 11:08 AM
It’s been too long. Vegas here I come.
July 5, 2006 at 11:27 PM
Looking forward to meeting you. Run g00t!
July 10, 2006 at 12:29 AM
Great, great games.