OK, so maybe "Stud Game From Hell" was a tad overstated. Call it poetic license; how else am I supposed to get you back to read the next part, anyway?
Once I'd returned with my $60 in chips and sat down at the $2-$6 7CS game, I scanned the table and tried to classify the players in hopes of coming out ahead with my mad Stud skillz.
"Mumbling Frowner" was in Seat #1. One of those guys who has obviously had a frown since birth, I'm not sure if he even realized that he was speaking out loud more or less continuously.
Seat 2 was empty, and Seat 3 was an older man with a bit of the Trembles - some of the Vegaspaloozers will remember the old guy who sat in on our Razz game at Binion's. This guy wasn't quite THAT bad.
Seat 4 was a very large woman in a print dress. She was quiet, but the way she sat at the table had me wondering if maybe they built the table AROUND her.
Studmaster Stoney McRock was in Seat 5. (That would be me.)
Seat 6 was an Indian-looking man ("India" Indian, not Native American Indian). He was one of those guys who is really good at being invisible until he suddenly pops up with a raise... so let's call him Claude Rains.
Seat 7 was Worn Hat. In answer to my prayers, the guy who earlier asked me whether Stud was dealt "all face up" was now sitting in range of my Uber Stud Skillz... (that's comic foreshadowing, for those who missed it.)
There was no one in Seat 8; in fact, there was no CHAIR at the 8 spot, and it didn't look like there ever was one.
So, all in all, it was pretty much the standard collection of folk you'll find sitting around a low-stakes Stud table in a second tier casino on a Friday evening.
And of course, there was our dealer, Elizabeth. I know it's going to come across as harsh, but the truth is the truth, and when I sat down, looked up, and first laid eyes on her, my first thought was, "I guess there was a special on Crack this week."
She was skinny, with vacant eyes, and her connection to the game (and this particular dimension) was tenuous at best.
As the cards came out, I scanned the way each player handled their cards and their chips, trying to establish a baseline against which I could compare later actions and detect changes implying what cards they held.
This was, of course, underly ridiculous and a complete waste of time.
Each of them did the same thing, every time; look at card #1 when it came (grimace if not Ace or Face,) look at card #2 when it came (same,) be sure NOT to catch card #3, and make sure NOT to arrange it anywhere near them (but grasp at it in desperation if at least one of the first two cards is not an Ace or Face card.)
Within a few hands, I began to sense that there was something I was missing. There WAS something of a "stir" among the players when I shockingly (and completely unexpectedly) voluntarily folded my cards the first couple of hands - but that wasn't what was starting to tickle in the back of my mind.
As we played four or five hands, what started as a small tickle in the back of my mind slowly, slowly grew and expanded as my finely-tuned Stud skills and my Adrian Monk-like talent for observation revealed the anomaly in the game.
I had somehow stumbled upon the Holy Grail of Stud poker - a low-limit game with no ante and no blind!
I was, to say the least, astounded by this revelation. This was a game that I could sit at all night long while I waited for rolled up Aces - for free!
What with The Universe being its nasty, ironic self, almost immediately after this astounding discovery Worn Hat won his first pot. You may suppose from the use of the word "first" that this was not the only pot he won. Such a surmise might be the biggest understatement since the dawn of time.
This mook won pot, after pot, after pot, after... well, pot. He won that first pot with split Queens. He won the next pot with buried Queens. He won the pot after that with buried Aces over... Queens. The fourth pot, he didn't have two Queens... until 6th street.
He won SIX straight pots (busting Mumbling Frowner along the way) with two OR MORE Queens featured in EVERY. SINGLE. HAND.
After the third one, we made the
Fortunately for moi, I did not get any cards to play during this stand-up comedy routine by the gods of statistics. It didn't take long before I began to fold my cards without even looking, frankly.
After a nice "flourish" at the end of the run (a full house; something really insulting like Threes full... of Queens) the table was pretty shell shocked, and everyone kind of sat back, stunned - even Worn Hat, now with a nice little stack of chips, most of which from Mumbler when he could not accept the inevitable Queen coming to beat his middling two pair to a bloody pulp.
Naturally, that is when I got the cards for the only hand I played at this table.
Finding a small pair buried (threes or fours, I think) and an Ace door card, I opened for $4. The victims of the bombardment were still aware enough to realize I hadn't been playing (or victimized) alongside them, and fold, fold, (holy crap, Worn Hat folded!) fold... until it got to the large woman, who called with a... Queen showing. {gulp}
4th street was a blank for me and a Ten for her. I bet $4 again (that having been established as the "I have a hand" bet when I surveyed the game earlier) and she called, again. Hmmmm... on the Broadway draw, obv.
5th comes an Ace for me giving me Aces up (and of course reducing her outs for a Broadway straight,) and a blank 6 of Puppy Toes for her. I crank it up to the max $6, and she has her call screaming into the pot before my chips get there.
6th is a blank for me, and a Jack for her. I bet my $6 and, of course, she raises me $6.
So, I reached over and slowly crushed her throat with my bare hands, chanting, "Die Chasing Monkey, Die Chasing Monkey..."
Or, I called. One of those.
7th was not an Ace nor a Three for me, and she didn't even look at her last card - and I watched her drag a noticeable piece of my stack toward her.
When I realized on 6th street that she had, indeed, chased against my obvious two pair, I'd decided that it was worth the $12 price to show the rest of the table that I would call down with a made hand.
I hoped to both avoid some of the bluff attempts that are inevitable in a Stud game, while also encouraging the chasers to run with me.
I do believe in odds, I do believe in odds, I do I do I do believe in odds...
Turned out she chased with an INSIDE STRAIGHT DRAW. As I always like to say, Confusious say "Man who chase inside straight is waiting for roast duck to fly into mouth."
Just at that moment - when I had intentionally put chips I knew to be lost into a pot, in hopes of setting up a long night of bleeding these chasers dry - Lloyd the Floorman yells out...
"Opening up a new No Limit table! Who wants a seat?"
End Part Three
i lol'd at the crackhead barbie
ReplyDeletepriceless