I know you're wondering... I never got anything to eat. I'm sure you never saw that coming! That means my first full day in Vegas was being sustained by a tiny turkey sandwich... and a Twix... a mini-Twix.
So, on an empty stomach, I made the brilliant decision to get up from the highly profitable $4/$8 table in favor of a blogger table. I picked up my chips (up $350!!!) in search of an empty seat at the H.O.R.S.E. table. I found one, beside Maudie. Who wouldn't want to sit there???
So I sat down, ready to lose money. Because, as we all know, blogger tables are ____ (fill in the blank).
-EV.
And speaking of -EV, Kevin himself was at the table. In fact, let me try to remember who filled table...
1s: World Reknowned Professional Poker Player Chris Halverson
2s: Drizztdj
3s: AlCantHang (Replaced by Bobby Bracelet)
4s: -EV (Replaced by Boy Genius)
5s: Austin Matt (reader)
6s: Maudie
7s: Me
8s: Chad
9s: Vince (poor soul who thought the H.O.R.S.E. game was a good idea)
10s: I can't remember... someone tell me!!!!
This experience was pretty much a blur. It was Hold 'Em when I sat down. The next dealer requested O/8. Then we convinced a dealer to deal us Pineapple. And finally, we started another round of Hold 'Em, but the game collapsed under it's own weight. I think it was like a black hole that was getting infinitely bigger by eating all of our chips.
I can hardly remember specific hands, but I do remember AlCantHang getting drilled by a couple of blind flushes, including one involving the JackHammer courtesy of Chris.
I also remember plenty of live straddles, especially with "The Rock" in play. It was four dollar chips tied up with a rubber band. I'm not sure there was a whole lot of good poker being played here, but I can assure you, it was a blast.
Except for one thing... if you didn't notice Austin Matt was a little drunk. I'm sure he didn't mean to get that hammered, but there were plenty of bad influences. He was slowing down the game quite a bit, and many of these H.O.R.S.E. games are slow enough. I felt bad for the dealers because it's hard enough to get tips without someone dragging the game to a halt. We even called the clock on Matt a few times and the floorman played along. Did I tell you how great the MGM was to us? (By the way, Matt was much cooler by day three when he sobered up!)
As I mentioned above, at one point we convinced a dealer to deal us Pineapple. If you don't know, Pineapple is a lot like Hold 'Em. Except you're dealt three cards instead of two, and must discard one before the flop. It's supposed to increase the overall value of the starting hands, but for some reason, it had little effect on our table. Go figure.
When the floorman stopped by, he asked the dealer a very reasonable question, "Do you know how to spell? I don't remember there being a "P" in horse."
Bloggers to the rescue! We reminded the floorman how common it was to have a silent "p" in words like psychology, raspberry and jopke.
Somehow, I managed to lose just $31. The only hand of my own I can remember is when Drizztjd allowed me to Catch the Antichrist on the river. It was limit Hold 'Em and I hammered my pocket 6's early enough that we got to see the river for free.
When the blogger table broke up, I wandered upon a raging $2/$4 featuring April, Chilly, Marty, Otis and G-Rob. When Otis got up to presumably rest for the WSOP (or some other nonesense), I took his seat. Unfortunately, G-Rob had already tilted away, so I didn't get to play with him either.
I quickly learned what tilted G-Rob was the luckiest fish in the room. He was Mizzou grad who enjoyed playing every hand (a Mizzou grad, go figure). At one point, this guy (dubbed Brown Shirt for obvious reasons) cracked Marty's hammer with A3s. Marty had flopped two pair. April and I nearly cried.
It was at that moment that I vowed I would not leave this table until Brown Shirt was broke. At about 5:30am, I left the table. I think I walked away up about $15... but it was a blast. We laughed constantly. It was definitely worth losing all that sleep.
Coming up...
"Stargazing at the Rio... and I mean OTIS!!"