Buncha stories

Last night I did the MGM-Mirage trifecta: Played at Mandalay Bay, Luxor, and Excalibur (which I think are the only places in the city where you can hit three poker rooms without ever going outside in between), and scored a "W" at each one. Picked up a few stories along the way.


Hooray for sanitation

The first photo above shows a hand sanitizer dispenser at the cashier's desk at the Luxor. The second one shows a similar device in the poker room at the Excalibur. These have been there for a while, but it didn't occur to me until last night to make a point of them.

These things are an excellent idea and should, in my ever-humble opinion, be added to every poker room in the city. Hey, poker room managers--do you really want your place to be known as less interested in cleanliness than the Excalibur? If that isn't motivation enough, consider this: If you get your dealers to use them religiously, you will probably cut down on them calling in sick due to respiratory illnesses they pick up from customers.


It's good to be recognized sometimes

As I was heading to my seat at Mandalay Bay, I was greeted by a guy I had met at a get-together of denizens of allvegaspoker.com. Within a few minutes he was leaving, but came over to my table to pass on a hint: "Get yourself moved to table 7." He said there were some weak calling stations there and it was an easy spot to make money.

This was welcome news, because within the first three hands it had become apparent to me that I had drawn an unusually difficult table. One player had about $1000 in chips, one about $800, one about $600. The only way a table gets stacked like that in a $1-2 game is if they are gambling big-time, going all-in with low thresholds. And sure enough, there had already been big raises on every hand I had watched in my first couple of minutes. One can certainly make a lot of money in a game like that, but it's also high-risk, high-volatility, high-variance. I'm still in conservative mode, rebuilding the bankroll from the dreadful August, so if there are easier, lower-risk pickings to be had nearby, count me in.

I followed his advice and was glad I did. He was exactly right. Playing purely textbook, zero-imagination, value-betting poker, I made $240 in 90 minutes, with never a single difficult decision on my hands. Like taking candy from a baby, as the saying goes.


Which is worse--being stupid or being a liar?

Early in my time at that second Mandalay Bay table (they got me moved within just a few minutes), I watched this hand play out: Before the flop, Player A raises and B calls. Flop is 2-5-7. Player A bets $20. B raises to $70. A calls. Turn is a jack. A checks. B bets $100. A check-raises all-in for almost $300 more. B calls. A has K-K for an unimproved overpair with no redraw. B, predictably, had flopped a set with pocket deuces.

What made the story worth telling was that as soon as A saw B's cards, he said (repeating it three times for emphasis), "I knew that's what you had all the way."

I've heard this sort of thing many, many times, and I can never understand it. I mean, in one sense I get it--the guy is trying to save face by making a retrospective claim about what he knew. Apparently he thinks that this will cause others to think that he's a smarter player than he just showed himself to be. I don't know why people care so much what others think of them, but it seems to be an endemic characteristic of you humanoids.

But the actual effect--on me, anyway--is the opposite, because there are only two possibilities:(1) He really did know that the other guy had him crushed, and threw away $400 anyway, in which case he's a completely moron, or (2) he did not know it, and is lying to say that he did. In reality, it has to be (2), because it's always a lie to say that one "knew" what an opponent had, unless you have somehow seen his cards flash, or something along those lines. So all his little speech did was convince me that he's not only a bad player, but incapable of being honest with himself. That's a great combination to find in an opponent, not such a great one to find in oneself.


What's going on in that marriage?

At the Excalibur, I was surprised to see a massage therapist wandering around looking for customers. If they have been there before, I had never noticed. So now I can add Excalibur to the list of places that I know offer massages while you play poker.

One player at the table was from Boston, in town for some sort of convention. He was interested in getting himself a massage. But he did something I've never seen before: He first called his wife in Boston to ask permission.

That was strange enough. What was stranger was that she said no! He had to apologize to the massage therapist, who was standing by waiting for the go-ahead, and admit that his wife wouldn't let him get a massage.

This completely baffles me. In what kind of marriage does either partner feel obliged to seek permission from the other for a fully-clothed neck/shoulder massage from a licensed massage therapist, taking place in the middle of a public casino while sitting at a poker table? And in what kind of marriage, when that call is made, does the answer come back "no"? What is his wife thinking--that it's actually a secret cover for prostitution, and that "massage" is a euphemism for sexual favors? Or perhaps that he was actually at a strip club instead of a poker room, and what he had in mind was a lap dance? But if that were the case, would the guy be calling to ask permission?

Maybe it was him calling to ask that made her more suspicious than necessary--after all, why would he call and ask unless it were something to which she might reasonably object?

Whatever the explanation, there's something seriously peculiar going on in that relationship.