Shankings and Shenanigans: Casino Stories (1 Viewer)

jbutler

Royal Flush
Joined
Oct 28, 2014
Messages
10,669
Reaction score
10,756
There was a version of this thread on Big Blue and some folks posted some classic stuff, so I figured I'd start its analog over here. Now that the Taj is closing in less than a month, there's not much time to get a final shanking story, but I'll do what I can and I'm sure there will be plenty of shenanigans to report wherever we all play.

I was inspired to start this up again by a ridiculous meltdown at a table at the Borgata this past weekend. I had been there for 4 or 5 hours when a big commotion erupted at a $1/2 NL table near the front of the room. Nothing unusual, but it started with the loudest, most vocal-cord-shredding version of "WHAAAAAAAAT???" I've ever heard.

I looked over and saw one guy throw his chair (well, the chairs are on casters, so let's just say he wheeled it quite aggressively) back into the line of folks waiting at the cage while a couple of other guys stormed away from the table. The guy who threw his chair was starting to walk away too and another guy stood up and said he better get back there because he's gonna get his ass kicked. Of course the half a dozen tables around them started to get up to try to figure out what happened.

I generally just avoid these kinds of things, but for some reason I walked over and saw that the board had been fully dealt and there were two hands tabled: quad sixes and a straight flush. Sweet - they hit the small ($50k) bad beat jackpot. Um, nope. Turns out the guy who had the straight flush thought he just had a baby flush and made a big show of laying it down to the guy with quads after Mr. Quads raised the river. Talking to the dealer a bit later, evidently the guy actually said emphatically, "I fold" as he threw the stone cold nuts into the muck.

The guy who threw his chair was evidently the guy who mucked the straight flush and he did come back to the table only to have the floor come over to tell everyone at the table to stop threatening the guy. He literally said, "This isn't the fucking Taj!"
 
Two things: What's the ruling here? "cards speak"? or "Verbal is binding"

And what's the shanking story? I once had a coworker who frequently stated "People would be nicer to other people if there were more shankings."
 
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.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


#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.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


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.
 
Two things: What's the ruling here? "cards speak"? or "Verbal is binding"

verbal is binding, hand is mucked, no BBJ :(

sadly, i think that's the correct ruling, but you can bet your ass they conferred with three floors and then called upstairs before they shuffled that deck back up and went on with the game.

And what's the shanking story? I once had a coworker who frequently stated "People would be nicer to other people if there were more shankings."

there are at least two shanking stories i know from Taj (i would bet there are five times as many, but i don't know them).

1) at one point a decade or so ago when Taj was still really hopping, the BBJ got huge and there were lists hours long to get on any game at all. one guy allegedly jumped in front of another on the $2/4 LHE list and got a knife in his gut for his troubles. he was fine, though. nothing can kill those old degenerates. he just bled a gallon of coffee or so and returned the next day.

2) there is a bathroom next to the poker room that was (it has since been closed) known to be a hotspot for drug deals, muggings, and other extra-legal transactions and a guy took a blade to the gut in the foyer outside of that bathroom as well. i don't know much else apart from the fact that they evidently vacuumed up the blood (lolTajaments) and let traffic continue over the scene of the crime.
 
I once got up from a $1/$2 game with Allstate Brian and some old guy who was straddling $17 every hand to go sit and play raked $4/$8 limit Omaha with a bunch of (chip) nerds. Where I proceeded to dump almost $400. If that isn't sick, I don't know what is.

Oh wait, that was like, last week. Courage must have slipped me a roofie in my Wick's somehow. :p
 
Holy shit you guys have some fucking fantastic stories, and Bergs the way you write yours are genius, Y U NO BLOG?

I'm not gonna even bother with my story about two regs cheating in a 10/20 7-stud game @ Foxwoods, it's like 10% as good as what you guys are selling.
 
Holy shit you guys have some fucking fantastic stories, and Bergs the way you write yours are genius, Y U NO BLOG?

I'm not gonna even bother with my story about two regs cheating in a 10/20 7-stud game @ Foxwoods, it's like 10% as good as what you guys are selling.

Hey, this is the shenanigan thread, and I've long wanted to make the 10/20 7-Stud game by regular game. OK, that's a lie, but I'm interested nevertheless.
 
This is years ago, probably 5-8 years. It's 10/20 7-card stud at Foxwoods. There's two OMC regs in the hand, sitting roughly across one another on the table. And one Jamaican looking fellow with dreadlocks inbetween them.

7th street has been dealt, and the OMC to my right has looked at his hole cards. He then picks them up off the table and proceeds to shuffle them in his hands above the table, but facing downward.

OMC # 2 across the table makes no effort to disguise his actions as he holds onto the rail, leans forward and down and tries to get a glimpse of what his buddy OMC #1 has in the hole.

Another player two to my left perks up and exclaims "sir, put your hand back on the table, he (motioning to OMC #2) can see your cards"

OMC #1 remarks "so? you aren't in the hand, mind your business"

I then pipe in as well and me and the guy to my left make a little stink about it.

Dealer does nothing about the obvious collusion with the player these two have caught inbetween them, natch. OMC #1 has made a straight.

After that the blatant collusion ceases (or they just get craftier and have other less obvious methods)
 
This is years ago, probably 5-8 years. It's 10/20 7-card stud at Foxwoods. There's two OMC regs in the hand, sitting roughly across one another on the table. And one Jamaican looking fellow with dreadlocks inbetween them.

7th street has been dealt, and the OMC to my right has looked at his hole cards. He then picks them up off the table and proceeds to shuffle them in his hands above the table, but facing downward.

OMC # 2 across the table makes no effort to disguise his actions as he holds onto the rail, leans forward and down and tries to get a glimpse of what his buddy OMC #1 has in the hole.

Another player two to my left perks up and exclaims "sir, put your hand back on the table, he (motioning to OMC #2) can see your cards"

OMC #1 remarks "so? you aren't in the hand, mind your business"

I then pipe in as well and me and the guy to my left make a little stink about it.

Dealer does nothing about the obvious collusion with the player these two have caught inbetween them, natch. OMC #1 has made a straight.

After that the blatant collusion ceases (or they just get craftier and have other less obvious methods)

i mean, obv this is collusion, but this goes on literally constantly at essentially every $10/20 LHE, OE, or O8 game i've ever played. i don't play straight stud, but i completely expect this sort of behavior in those games.
 
i mean, obv this is collusion, but this goes on literally constantly at essentially every $10/20 LHE, OE, or O8 game i've ever played. i don't play straight stud, but i completely expect this sort of behavior in those games.

It was just so terribly obvious I found it hilarious.
 
It was just so terribly obvious I found it hilarious.

those guys are truly shameless. there was a group that moved their $75/150 stud game from Taj to Borg a few years ago and they lasted a few months before enough of them got banned that the game moved back to the Taj. i think they're back now, incidentally, but the $75/150 game has gotten a much bigger player pool so it's not as easy for them to run their angles.
 
those guys are truly shameless. there was a group that moved their $75/150 stud game from Taj to Borg a few years ago and they lasted a few months before enough of them got banned that the game moved back to the Taj. i think they're back now, incidentally, but the $75/150 game has gotten a much bigger player pool so it's not as easy for them to run their angles.

I heard the 75/150 O.E. game at Foxwoods was full of colluding regs, but I only played it once to take a shot (walked away +$1,350). It was like playing poker on another planet though, the grumpiest sons of bitches I've ever played with. The entire time all they did was swear at each other and the dealer, not one of them tipped, not even a dollar, when they were dragging in four-figure pots. It was pretty sickening.
 
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!"

I can confirm that 'Oi Oi' is the mating call of mainly southern English usually from the county of Essex.
 
Last edited:
I heard the 75/150 O.E. game at Foxwoods was full of colluding regs, but I only played it once to take a shot (walked away +$1,350). It was like playing poker on another planet though, the grumpiest sons of bitches I've ever played with. The entire time all they did was swear at each other and the dealer, not one of them tipped, not even a dollar, when they were dragging in four-figure pots. It was pretty sickening.

i don't think that game has gone in a long time now, but that's pretty much what i would expect. again, it's collusion, but it's not even seen that way in these games. it's essentially a home game among regs. go to any OE game up through $20/40 anywhere in the country and you'll see identical behavior. you just have to learn how to exploit it. it's not difficult.
 
Technically, I wasn't kicked out. I was escorted out and left willingly because, frankly, I had a lot of better things to do. Like watch my wife watch television.

That's back when I was a tilt monkey. I don't really tilt anymore and if I do I just go upstairs and beat Kimi at putt-putt golf competitions for $10.

LOL: Someone changed my moniker at Chiptalk to "The Don Rickles of Chiptalk". Friggin' JM.
 
Technically, I wasn't kicked out. I was escorted out and left willingly because, frankly, I had a lot of better things to do. Like watch my wife watch television.

That's back when I was a tilt monkey. I don't really tilt anymore and if I do I just go upstairs and beat Kimi at putt-putt golf competitions for $10.

LOL: Someone changed my moniker at Chiptalk to "The Don Rickles of Chiptalk". Friggin' JM.

it's never a good sign when someone has to clarify how they exited a casino by saying, "technically, i wasn't kicked out..."

also, what's chiptalk?
 
Bumping old thread for this pic taken at the Borg a while ago when @bergs and the Hot Dog King made a Philly/AC trip. Note that the food is wholly untouched. Even the drink is unpierced by straw. Would be a pretty great feeling to wake up after degen napping to find a huge plate of Panda Express.

I just love thinking of the events leading to this picture: "Okay, got my fried rice, got my eggroll, now just find a seat and dig in......ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ."

uU1zvKd.png
 

Create an account or login to comment

You must be a member in order to leave a comment

Create account

Create an account and join our community. It's easy!

Log in

Already have an account? Log in here.

Back
Top Bottom