I have three stories - some of you heard these at DCS. Story #3 was cross-posted from the Blue Wall of Database Errors, and the other two I've told and retold over the last couple years.
1) It's 2:00am and we're playing $2/5 NL at Foxwoods. We're up against the curved wall that separates the poker room from the (now closed) Fifth Street Grill, and the Grill closed at 1:00am, so we're in a pretty secluded spot in the poker room. This will come into play in the 2nd story that happened the same night (#2 below). Anyway, guy walks in, big dishelved looking guy, prolly 6'5" and 300lbs. He plops down into a chair, posts his blinds, and starts to play like an absolute maniac. Anyone who's played with me will tell you that I'm "active" but this guy made me look like an OMC. Every pot, every street, he was raising, and he was hitting more often than not.
I end up getting into a hand with him with some long-forgotten premium pair and we flop 3 uncoordinated undercards. I bet, and he raises, with a menacing look on his face. I make some snide comment and re-raise, and he shoves via pushing his chips forward. As he pushes the chips, he flourishes a yellow piece of bureaucratic-looking, folded, beat up paper and places it gently on top of the chips in the middle of the table.
He tells me "Go ahead, pick it up". I don't know much about this guy, but I know this for sure. I'm not touching that fucking piece of paper with your hand, nevermind my own. I tell him "All set, thanks". Someone else picks it up and starts reading it whilst I contemplate a call. He spends about 45 seconds looking it over and exclaims to villain "Holy Shit, you jumped bail in Maine?!?". Villain leans back, smiles, and says "Hell yes, I'm a motherfuckin' fugitive lookin' to play one last round of poker before they come get my fat ass". Then he stares at me icily.
I fold.
He shows two garbage cards.
Moral of the story: It's difficult to call versus actual acknowledged villains. Not figurative villain. I mean a real-life, honest-to-god fugitive of the law.
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#2) Same table, but now it's like 4:00am. "Actual Villain" has left up a few hundred and the table is still buzzing about him. I'm getting ready to cash out as well when this very attractive woman catches my eye and pulls up a seat from the table behind us. She's accompanied by a guy that apparently is a reg and knows the other players and dealer (though not me and one other player that seems to be a stranger). He introduces the woman to each of the players at the table by name, and one of them pipes up and asks "Who's your friend?" He says "Oh, this is....." and starts to stammer. It's clear that he either forgot, or never knew, the name of his mistress of the night. She doesn't seem to mind, and he sits down next to me in the 9 seat up against the wall as she sits down behind him.
I'm getting ready to cash out when the blinds reach me, but I hit a couple of big hands and I decide to stay for another half hour or so. I'm in a hand with a villain in the 10 seat and I glance over at him as the action is down at the other end of the table to get a feel for what he'll do. Out of the corner of my eye, I see something unusual and glance at the 9 seat.
It's at this point that the action is on me, and I'm just coming to grips with the fact that I'm looking at the woman wrestling with the 9 seat's pecker, out in plain view (at least to me).
I must've been sitting there in shock for a bit because the dealer is reiterating that action is on me. The 9 seat finally looks at me, and I look him dead in the eyes and yell "IF YOU GET ANYTHING ON ME, EVEN ONE DROP, I'M GOING TO FUCKING PLANT YOU".
He starts apologizing and zips up while trying to rack up at the same time, the table is laughing because they just figured out what was happening, the woman looks semi-bored if anything, the dealer is pissed, and I'm wondering when Foxwoods turned into Arkham City.
The man and his woman friend leave, I turn back to playing poker, and proceed to donk off $600 in about 8 hands before heading home. Weirdest session of my life.
Moral of the story: Next time you play poker in a casino and the guy next to you is getting a hand job, just stand up, smile nicely, and hit him with a chair in the back of the head as hard as humanly possible. Sure, you'll be incarcerated for attempted murder, but you won't donk off six hundred bucks.
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3) I'm at the Mirage, and it's 1:00am. I end up at this incredibly fun and loose table where I sit to the right of this table bully. I call him a table bully, but let's be honest - he's from Nebraska, prolly 22 years old, 5'4", weighs 125 lbs at most, and is shortstacked with $80 behind. He's not really going to bully anyone or anything. But he's trying his best as he tries to limp every single hand and fold to raises on the flop.
Anyway, within 10 minutes of my sitting down, this kid has convinced the entire table that we all should straddle every hand. We're basically playing 1/4 NL now. Every player straddles. Every hand. For 4 hours. No idea why, really. It just seemed like a fantastic idea at the time.
The money follows the button and I forget about playing TAG or LAG after a while and just start to have fun. At about 5:00am, this local nit sits down. He has the look of a local about him - you can just tell. Older gentlemen. Very gruff demeanor. Not very friendly. Buys in for just $100. Sizes up every opponent carefully. Only bets when he has a hand. He doesn't post the straddle the first time around....or the second time either. Now, my newfound Nebraskan friend is a bit inebriated. He's had somewhere between 12 and 4.7 million cocktails. He hasn't noticed that our straddling party is no longer...um...straddling.
So I lean over and softly ask him "Hey, Nebraska, what's up with the nit who won't straddle?". He looks at me with one of his eyes (I believe the left one) while the right eye stares off into open space as he intelligently replies "Muaha?". At least, I think it was a question. In retrospect, perhaps he was merely making some sort of definitive statement. We'll never know for sure. I'll leave that up to the anthropologists.
While I'm digesting "Muaha?" and its deeper meaning, I decide to have some fun. I make a monumental decision.
I'm going to tilt someone.
I'm not quite sure who yet, but my night will not be complete until there is more tilting taking place at this table than at Excalibur's medieval jousting recreations.
"Hey, Nebraska....HE'S NOT STRADDLING, MAN! That's disrespectful. This is your table, your 'hood, your set, yo." The right eye catches up and he openly stares at me now. I realize that terms like "'hood" and "set" are probably as famliar to him as a wheat thresher or a grain silo are to me. I try again.
"Nebraska - this local guy isn't gonna straddle. He's going to burst your balloon. He's going to rain on your parade. He's going to piddle in your cornflakes. He's not even going to Grandma's with us on Christmas day to open those really bad presents - you know, the earmuffs she puts in our stockings every. single. christmas. C'mon man, don't let him get away with this shit, yo."
Well, I'm not sure if it was grandma's earmuffs or just my persistence - but Nebraska is now suddenly P-I-S-S-E-D!!! I can see it in his eye. At least, I can see it in the one that's following me.
Just then, as if it were preordained, it's Local Vegas Nit's turn to straddle. Here's what happens next:
- Nebraska (standing up and shaking, either in rage or in a sudden detox moment): "Sir, are you going, sir, to straddle, sir?" (Nebraska has become suddenly formal as he basically addresses the entire MGM poker room)
- Las Vegas Local Nit: "I don't straddle. Ever."
- Nebraska (still standing): "Sir, we all straddle here. We've been doing it all night, sir. Please, sir, straddle, sir."
- Las Vegas Local Nit: "No. It's a unprofitable play."
- Me (whispering urgently while I stare away): "He's not gonna straddle? No earmuffs from Grandma this year. You want cold ears?"
....it doesn't really matter what I say anymore. Nebraska's blood alcohol level is reaching levels that require scientific notation to compute. He just needed that little bit of egging on to come over the top and begin the tilting which I have so eagerly anticipated for the last 5 minutes.....
...and just when I'm ready to hear Nebraska blow up, he roars this, at about 170 decibels.
- Nebraska: "GO BACK TO YOUR F##KING ISLAND YOU STUPID F##KING IDIOT LIMEY F##K. STUPID DUMB F##ING LIMEY. BACK TO YOUR ISLAND!!!"
- Me: "HAHAHAHAHAHAA-----wait....wha?"
Time stops for about 4 heartbeats. Seriously - nobody moves. Nobody even breathes. The dealer is turned all the way around, staring at Nebraska in the two seat. He has an uncomprehending look on his face. My mind is reeling....this local nit is British? He looks just like a local Las Vegas guy. He didn't have an English accent. He even has a goddamn Las Vegas nitty looking t-shirt on.
Limey? Back to your island? I'm no Rand McNally, but I'm reasonably sure of three things:
1) Las Vegas is landlocked in the Western United States
2) The term limey usually refers to someone from the United Kingdom.
3) Therefore, Las Vegas and the United Kingdom are geographically dissimilar.
While I'm mulling all of this over and trying to understand what Nebraska said, I suddenly hear the sound of falling chairs and a general clamor erupting from the far end of the table.
Two otherwise completely quiet, large, English rugby players who had been happily straddling all night with us start literally coming over the table at Nebraska while yelling something that sounded curiously like "OY! OY! OYYYYY!"
The last words I heard as I quickly gathered my remaining chips and headed for the casino floor was Nebraska pleading......"...I thought limeys were nits! I thought limeys were nits!!! Noooooooo!!!!!!"
Mission accomplished! Tilting achieved, I go off to bed, $400 richer and already anticipating a big breakfast buffet in a few hours.
Moral of the story: Know the difference between limeys and nits. It could save you life some day.