Pus in boots

OK, it wasn't literally in boots, but that was as close to a clever post title as I could think of.

Last night I was leaving the Tropicana, undecided about whether to go home or head somewhere else to play, when AlaskaGal and her friend persuaded me to head to Bill's with them for some $0.50/1 NLHE fun. I ended up making $100, so it was a worthwhile diversion. But before the session was done, I had seen one of the strangest and grossest things at a poker table EVAR.

The player in question appears to be a Pacific Islander--Tongan or Samoan, maybe. I've not only played with him several times before, I've written about him once before. That was when we were at the Venetian and he disgusted me by eating two oranges at the table with visibly filthy hands, getting sticky orange juice all over everything, then licking his filthy fingers.

So I already knew the guy was a pig with zero standards of personal hygiene. But as it turns out, I really had no idea of the depths to which he could sink.

Last night he had the mid-portion of his arm wrapped in an Ace bandage. While he was playing in the tournament at the next table, before busting out and joining out cash game, I had noticed him unwrapping and rewrapping his arm. I figured he had a sprained elbow or something. No big deal. It's hard to get such bandages to be tight enough to be supportive without being uncomfortable, so I didn't think much of it.

Once he got to our table, however, I saw that there was much more to it. The Ace bandage was stained with bodily fluids. What was much, much worse, however, was that he unwrapped his arm and pulled off a gauze bandage that was underneath the elastic. Doing so revealed an ugly open wound. He had a boil or an abscess just above the elbow that was actively draining pus, and he reached in and squeezed some more out of it, then replaced the gauze.

Other players were reacting as you might expect: turning away, telling him how disgusting he was, making various noises to indicate their nausea and revulsion.

The dealer, bless his heart, told him, "Joe, you're going to have to go wash your hands before you get back into the game." He did--or at least he left for a while and came back carrying some paper towels. Whether he actually washed or not is anybody's guess.

Just when you think you've seen everything that can happen at a poker table, somebody comes up with new levels of astonishingly appalling behavior.

Dealers baffle me sometimes

Last night at Bill's there was a dealer that I don't recall having seen there before.

In the first of two puzzling things I saw him do in one down, I moved all-in on the turn, holding the second nuts (second-best possible straight) with a flush redraw. My one opponent called. Our hands were shown. He had just top pair. The best he could do on the river was improve that pair to trips; he could not make a straight or flush. He was drawing dead.

The dealer looked at our hands for a few seconds, then proceeded to make the pot right. That's what was strange, because I had the other guy covered--not just by a little bit, but by over $100. Not even close.

So this dealer, assuming that he knows how to read poker hands, sees that I am absolutely going to win this pot no matter what card comes next, sees that I have way more chips than the other guy, but still he paused the action long enough to count down the other guy's chips, cut out an equal number from my stacks, and return the balance to me. As he did the last of these steps, he said, "This probably isn't necessary."

LDO.

But, OK, whatever.

[Edit: On re-reading, I see that those last two paragraphs are fine examples of my scintillating, refined, highly literate writing style that people everywhere are raving about.]

A few hands later, he wrinkled my forehead again. I wasn't in this hand, but at showdown we had K-8 versus K-4, with a board of AKJK5. Because of straight and flush possibilties, the river went check-check, so the pot was already right, with no last bets to be taken back.

This dealer never announced that it was a split pot. He didn't push up the kings and ace and jack on the board to indicate the tied winning hands. To make matters worse, he picked up both players' cards, turned them face down, and stuffed them into the muck. Then, and only then, did he start dividing the pot into two equal parts. Neither player had said anything to this point indicating that they understood it was a chopped pot.

The problem here is that it's a situation in which one or both players will commonly misread the board and think that the K-8 hand is the winner. In fact, I thought perhaps the dealer was going to make that mistake, since he gave no indication of his read.

Fortunately, it appears that both players understood what was happening, as each took his half of the pot without comment or fuss.

It is really bad practice to kill the winning hand(s) before awarding the pot. Sooner or later, there is going to be a controversy. A player will misread the hands and protest that the pot is going to the wrong person. Or, worse, the dealer himself will misread it and award the pot incorrectly, or will forget which player had which hand and push the pot to the wrong seat. With the hands mixed into the muck, there will be no way to verify the right answer, and it will come down to either other players speaking up about what they remember the cards being, or checking security video. Either way, it's a mess that causes ill feelings and stops the game dead in its tracks for unbearably long. And it can be avoided (mostly) by the simple expedient of keeping the winning hand(s) face up on the table until after the pot has been pushed. This is standard procedure everywhere, and I have no idea why this dealer had developed the bad habit of doing things out of order. There is nothing to gain by his alternate method, and lots to lose.

Because I was sitting in seat one, I thought I might quietly give the dealer a helpful hint to this effect. But I didn't know him at all, and he didn't know me from Adam, so I was aware that he had no reason to trust me to know whereof I spoke, and I didn't want to come across as a know-it-all. Therefore, I started by casually mentioning that I hadn't seen him here before and asking if he was new to poker dealing. He said, "No, not really." I thought there was a clear edge of defensiveness in his tone and a kind of half-scowl on his face. I aborted my plans, as I got the distinct impression that he wasn't going to be receptive to suggestions on how to run his game.

It's not like I was going to follow that up with, "Really? Cuz you sure deal like it's your first friggin' day on the job, you mouth-breathing half-wit!" I may have thought that, but I wouldn't ever say it.

Oh well. If he won't learn the easy way, he will one day learn the hard way.

A stop at Bill's--plus, cicada sweat

I heard via Twitter that about a week ago Bill's moved its poker room, so this evening I put in a short session there to see what I might think about it.

What I think is this: They killed the three distractions that I most liked about the old room.

First, the old room had the best people-watching vantage point of any poker tables in the city, bar none. Particularly in the summer when they would leave the exterior doors wide open, it was almost like sitting on the sidewalk to play, but with air conditioning. Watching the freaks and tourists was the best part of playing at Bill's. Well, besides making money, that is.

Second, if you were there at the three showtimes a day, you could listen in on Big Elvis performing maybe 40 yards away. I doubt that you'll be able to hear him in the new location. I like Big Elvis. In fact, Big Elvis got married tonight, at Bill's. I was there and snapped the photo above. (That wasn't pure coincidence. I had read about the nuptials in the Las Vegas Sun, and picked today for my visit partly because of the chance to peek in on it.) The wedding took place in the same spot that he performs every day, though they dressed it up so differently you wouldn't be able to tell from the pictures. That guy is one hunka hunka burnin' love. (There is, however, a lot less of him than there used to be.)

Third, when Big Elvis wasn't performing, they had pop oldies playing in the casino--it's music I grew up listening to and gives me a pleasant rush of nostalgia. As far as I can tell, it doesn't play in the new location, probably because people in the immediately adjacent race/sports book want to be able to hear the game or race being called. (Pure speculation on my part there.)

So now playing there is just the poker. Less fun. I know, I know--I'm not supposed to be there for the people-watching or for Big Elvis or for the soundtrack of my youth. But one can't pay attention to the game all the time, and I enjoy having something else going on as a respite from studying for tells and calculating pot odds. They took those things away, and I don't like it.

The new location is also right next to a bar, and when I arrived the entire region was stinking to high heaven from some nasty dude's big fat cigar. The old room was pretty smoky, too, but they didn't improve the situation any, it appears to me.

Bill's poker room caters to beginning players, with the lowest stakes and buy-in of any NLHE game in town. (The MGM "beginners' game" may be an exception; I don't know its parameters offhand.) Many, many times I have seen people wandering by and deciding to play because of those factors--people who started their day with no intention of playing poker, and who had never played poker in a casino before. I think that the walk-by player factor will be meaningfully decreased in the new location, as it's a bit off the beaten path of the slots and table games. It's sort of hidden behind and roped off from the player's card service area and the $1 hot dog stand.

I'm not exactly a frequent flier at Bill's these days, but I'm afraid that my visits will become even fewer and farther between than they have been. I'm giving the room change a big thumbs down.


Random fact learned at the poker table tonight: Cicadas are the only insects that can sweat to cool down when it's hot. This came up because a young woman seated next to me had a cicada tattooed on her arm. Why? I have no idea. But she did. And seeing it prompted another player to volunteer to be Cliff Claven (he brought up that name himself) and tell us about cicada sweat. I didn't think he was pulling our legs, but I had no idea whether the information was reliable. When I got home, however, and Googled it, I became convinced. I found this paragraph here:

In perhaps its most novel defense, the desert cicada has developed an
extraordinary ability to remain active throughout mid-day, when most would-be
predators have to seek shelter from the desert heat. Notably, the cicada,
unlike any other known insect, can sweat, which helps it dissipate heat.
“When threatened with overheating,” said University of Arizona entomologist
Robert L. Smith in an article called “Keepin’ Cool and Dodgin’ Spines,” “desert
cicadas extract water from their blood and transport it through large ducts to
the surface of the thorax, where it evaporates. The cooling that results
permits a few desert cicada species to be active when temperatures are so high
that their enemies are incapacitated by the heat. No other insects have
been shown to have the ducts required for sweating."

So there ya go. Now I ask you--what other poker blog could you have read today that would have educated you about cicada sweat? NONE, I tell you!

Freerolls

Cardgrrl and I have been on a mildly amusing food freeroll for the past few days.

I play at Binion's with fair regularity, and build up food comps faster than I can use them. This is especially true since they closed the coffee shop a few months ago. I wrote about that at the time, and a reader suggested taking Cardgrrl to the steakhouse. I had considered that, but initially rejected the idea because she is a vegetarian. However, the next time I was at Binion's, I checked the menu, and they had a couple of nice seafood dishes listed, which are on the Cardgrrl-approved list. That settled how I would splurge my freebies.

So Friday night we hit the famous Binion's Ranch Steakhouse, racking up a $98 tab. Maybe some of you eat in places where that doesn't seem like much, but I'm a cheapskate, and it's more than double what I usually pay for dinner for two, so it felt like a feast of kings to me. Had an excellent 16 oz. New York strip steak (well, half of it anyway); Cardgrrl had broiled salmon.

The photos above show the view of the city from our table at the steakhouse, which is on the 24th floor of Binion's.

Stepping off of the elevator on our way out, a guy asked whether we had just eaten at the steakhouse. Yes. "Was it good?" Yes again. With that, he and his family got on the elevator and headed up. Obviously, my culinary opinion carries great weight.

It was only after the moment had passed that Cardgrrl and I started thinking of the better responses: "It was worth what we paid for it." Or, "It's great, considering that all the food is free."

The next day, we met up with Shamus and his wife Vera Valmore for brunch at Hash House a Go Go out on Sahara Avenue (skipping, for various unimportant reasons, the newer incarnation of the same establishment at Imperial Palace). Though we weren't expecting this, the two of them were generous enough to treat us to the meal, and the freeroll was well underway.

Back in February, when Cardgrrl was last here, she shared a starting table at the http://www.allvegaspoker.com/ tournament with Adam Altweis, the poker room manager at Aria. (See interviews with him about this new job and the Aria poker room here and here.) He kindly handed out to his tablemates comp tickets good for dinner and drinks for four at any of several Aria food establishments. Cardgrrl invited F-Train, Jen, and me to share in her gift. Saturday night we met at Lemongrass, a Thai restaurant, and, well, basically ate everything in sight. They had some Teamsters come and roll us back out to our cars about three hours later. Thank you, Adam!

Yesterday we ate at the Victorian Room at Bill's. It's not exactly haute cuisine there, but Bill's is another place where I have somehow accumulated over $100 of food comps, so it seemed fitting to let the free stuff keep on rollin'.

Today I extended it further by having for my lunch the other half of the steak I couldn't finish Friday night. Just as good the second time.

One of these days, I might have to start actually paying for food again, and that's gonna hurt, after this weekend.

I suppose one could say that my poker has been freerolling, too; I haven't played much in the last week or so, but I did join Cardgrrl in the Aria afternoon $175 tournament, which is about as nicely structured as you're likely to find in a daily event. Didn't do too well there (busted out by a reader, even, when my AK ran into his aces--hi, Tyler!), but Cardgrrl lasted a lot longer, and I made enough in a cash game while waiting for her to more than make up for the buy-in. A cash game at the Pavilion Room at Rio went well for both of us Saturday, too.

The freeroll picks up in a different way tomorrow. Through my membership in House Seats Las Vegas, I scored free tickets for Cardgrrl and me to see Cheap Trick doing their wildly popular "Sergeant Pepper" tribute show at the Paris hotel/casino Tuesday night. Shamus saw it with Vera (but not Chuck or Dave; a little Beatles humor there!) Saturday night; see his review here. I saw this show at the Hilton last September, and enjoyed it immensely. I will be delighted to share it now with my favorite visitor from the East Coast.

Speaking of whom, she is in a HORSE tournament right now at the Golden Nugget, part of their summer "The Grand" series. I have finished what I needed to do here at the ol' homestead, so it's time to amble down Fremont Street to where she is playing, and see just how badly she is crushing the game. Sadly, she will be leaving town on Wednesday, and soon thereafter things will return to what passes for a normal schedule in my life.

Seen at Bill's, plus some other ramblings

Saturday night after my successful hit-and-run at Hooters, I wanted to put in another short session someplace else, and I was in a mood to try to get somewhere I haven't been in a while. I have wanted to get out to Club Fortune. They've opened a new poker room since the last (only) time I was there, and I hear it's quite nice. But I've called a bunch of times, and they never have a no-limit game going. Last night the woman on the phone told me that it's very rare that they have one, so I might have to bite the bullet and just drive out there anyway, knowing that it will likely be a $2/4 LHE I'll be in. But I'll do it for my readers. That's just the kind of guy I am.

Anyway, then I tried the Tuscany. It's a place that sits at the very top of my records in terms of average dollars won per session, but I call and call and call, and just cannot catch them having a no-limit game there anymore. It used to reliably run one at least weekend evenings, but that has not been happening lately. They are apparently desperate; they have twice lied to me, telling me that they were just starting a game, but when I get there, nothing. So last night when the guy told me at about 8:30 that they would "for sure" have a NLHE game up by 9:30 and that it would run all night, I had my doubts. But I stopped by anyway at around 11:30. Nope.

I was then pretty close to Bill's, so finally decided to make that my evening capper. I had not played there since September, so it was due for a visit.

While I was waiting for a seat, I looked around a little. The first odd thing I noticed was this guy's hair:



Holy golden calf! I haven't seen that particular hair style since the last time I watched The Ten Commandments:



The next thing I noticed was that they were about to start up a tournament. I briefly thought about entering it rather than waiting for a cash game seat. But then I took a look at the poster of the tournament structure, and decided against it:




$30 entrance fee, of which only $20 goes into the prize pool, so 33% juice. Combine that with 15-minute levels, only 60 big blinds to start, and blinds doubling nearly every level, and I think we have us a strong contendor for the title of Worst Tournament Structure in the History of Poker. There were eight players being seated. If I joined, that would mean a prize pool of $180, or a profit of $150 for a couple of hours of work if you were to win (assuming that they made it winner-takes-all). Suppose that my skill edge is such that I have a one in three chance of winning, instead of the one in nine chance that it would be if all were equally likely to win. That would make my EV for entering the tournament about $50. I think I'll pass on that.

When a seat finally opened, the table conversation was about food bargains in Vegas. The dealer mentioned that next door at the Flamingo there's a $2 burger-and-fries special after midnight. I finished playing around 2:00 a.m., and thought I could use a late-night snack, so headed north one building to check it out. Here's the poster confirming what the dealer had told me:

I tried it, and it was perfectly decent. The Burger Joint is not exactly the most upscale place you could eat, but it will do in a pinch. It follows the modern trend of being way, way too loud (about which, see this interesting recent article). And while I'm at it, you kids get off of my lawn! It's also not the cleanest place I've ever eaten. But there were no hidden catches to the $2 special, and it was entirely acceptable, as such things go. I even splurged an extra 75 cents each for cheese and bacon on it, because my coronary arteries have been feeling just way too open lately.

Some night I might even go back and try the steak and eggs special.

Automated craps table

Today I played for a while at the Rio, because they have suspended their daily freeroll tournament during March Madness days, meaning that the games there should be good again temporarily (and they definitely were).

I then headed to the Flamingo for a second session. I've been kind of neglecting Harrah's properties so far this year, and would like to make at least some effort toward maintaining my platinum status, though it really does me little good. I have found that it's much easier, when going to the Flamingo poker room, to park at Bill's and walk to the Flamingo than to navigate the Flamingo parking garage, which is one of the worst in the city.

While walking through Bill's, I noticed this new computerized craps table. Maybe they exist elsewhere (in fact, almost surely so, since it's hard to believe that Bill's would be the site chosen for a first installation) but I've never known of them before. I was intrigued.

As you can see, players can sit instead of stand. They each have a private monitor. There is obviously some means of loading money/credit into them. (I'm guessing that you just hand cash to the dealer, who enters the credit on his central terminal, but I didn't witness this happening.) There is still a physical table with actual dice and a shooter, but no chips are used. Bets are made from the computer screen.

There are obvious advantages. This must surely speed up the process of placing bets. It reduces dealer errors in payouts, as well as the ancient Vegas tradition of dealers helping themselves to part of the payout, as recreational players often don't know how much they're supposed to be getting and therefore won't notice that they got shorted. It also should eliminate what I understand are the most common forms of player cheating, such as past posting (altering bets surreptitiously after the dice have landed).

I stood and watched for a few minutes. The computer system did not seem to reduce the players' fun at all. They were hooting and hollering the same as at other craps tables. The shooter was on one hell of a hot streak, and everybody was loving it. Or so it appeared. From the very little that I understand about craps, I gather that you can make yourself very unpopular by betting against the shooter. In a regular game, it is openly apparent that you have done so. But with the monitors, I assume that your bets are private (unless somebody is looking over your shoulder), so you can bet "don't pass" all you want, and nobody will know, unless you cheer when everybody else is dejected.

I wonder how the system affects dealer tips. I overheard enough to know that there are mechanisms built into the machine for tipping dealers from your credit and for posting bets for the dealers. But perhaps the social pressure to tip is reduced when nobody knows if you won or lost and the dealer isn't the one pushing you the winnings.

Another interesting feature is that the central monitors display information such as how many times in a row the shooter has won, and the highest number of times in a row a shooter has won since the table opened. If you're dumb enough to believe that certain numbers on the dice are "overdue," the screen helpfully tells you exactly how many throws it has been since various combinations hit.

I still have zero interest in playing craps, and have never put a single bet on the dice--a situation which is likely to continue for the foreseeable future. But I like seeing how technology changes gaming. If I were to decide to play, I think I'd seek out one of these tables. I think it would both speed up my learning curve about the multitude of betting options and enhance my enjoyment of the experience if I didn't have to be reaching down onto the table and figuring out which chips were mine, where to put them, when to pick them back up, and so forth. And secretly betting contrary to the rest of the table would satisfy some facet of my misanthropic tendencies.

Incidentally, while I was watching, one of the players' girlfriends rejoined him after having been off doing something else. He told her, "You should play this. You would win right away. Girls are always lucky at craps." I got the impression that he genuinely believed this, rather than that he was trying to butter her up in some way. Sigh. My campaign to make the world think rationally is a massive failure. Some people are just bound and determined to believe moronic things, and can't be educated out of it.

A night at Bill's

Last night at Bill's Gamblin' Hall and Saloon turned out to be one of my few unprofitable sessions there. *sigh* It happens.

But there were some noteworthy things, which I collect below.


1.

Not long ago I reported that Bill's had changed its no-limit hold'em game from a single $1 blind to a more standard $1-$2 structure. That experiment did not last long. A little birdie tells me that the people who want to buy in for the minimum $20 (and there are a lot of them) were going broke too fast, and they couldn't keep the game going as consistently. So they have revised it yet again, and now run it as $0.50-$1. That seems reasonable to me. It means two people have money in the pot before the cards are dealt (unlike the original structure), and there's a little more there. It also means a lot more handling of 50-cent pieces, which is mildly annoying, but oh well.


2.

Bill's has joined other Harrah's properties in now allowing a button straddle. As elsewhere, this means that the blinds have to act first, which totally sucks. There should be, like, a constitutional amendment to end this abomination.


3.

Every time I think I've seen everything that can get screwed up in the conduct of a poker hand, somebody finds a new way.

Two players got it all in before the flop. The dealer put out the flop (Jh-8s-Jc), turn (Jd), and river (7h). The players involved showed A-Q (I didn't note the suits, but it didn't matter) and 9h-9d. It looked like a straightforward win for the pocket nines with a full house.

But when the dealer pushed up the two jacks on the flop, he uncovered an extra card. As you can see from the photo below, there had been an unseen fourth card on the flop: the 10d was hiding under the Jh.




I have many times seen dealers accidentally put out four cards on the flop. It is usually pretty straightforward how to handle this. The dealer and floor reconstruct how the cards were taken off of the deck, and thereby determine which card doesn't belong. It becomes the burn card for the turn, as it was supposed to have been. If they cannot confidently reconstruct how the cards came off of the deck, the procedure would be to reshuffle the deck and start the flop over again, though I don't think I've ever seen this resorted to.

Two things made this situation different. First, the players were both all-in before the flop, so there were no further decisions to make. Second, the error was not discovered until after the hand was apparently completed. I have never seen either of these conditions present when there has been an accidental four-card flop, let alone having both of them together.

Significantly, it made no difference which of the four cards on the flop were the "right" ones; any combination still yielded a win for the 9-9 over the A-Q.

Because of that fact, had I been the floor person, I think I would have ruled that the nines win the pot. Had the error been discovered immediately and the proper flop reconstructed before putting out the turn and river, that would have been the result. It doesn't make sense to me to change that just because of the delay in discovering the problem, as long as the outcome couldn't possibly change. However, if different combinations of the flop cards yield different winners of the hands, and the correct flop cannot be reconstructed with virtually 100% confidence, I would split the pot between the two players. Alternately, I suppose one could argue for reshuffling the deck as it was before the flop (i.e., including the board cards and burn cards, but not including the discards from players who folded), then dealing out an entirely new board.

Here, the floor called it a "fouled flop" (a term I have not heard before; a Google search finds it only on one web page, here) and chopped the pot. For the reasons stated above, I don't think this was the best decision for these specific circumstances, but this being a situation I've never encountered or even contemplated before, perhaps it's the correct one by the book.

As always, comments by experienced dealers and floor staff are welcome.

Caveat: There is a possibility that the turn card was actually the Kd rather than the Jd, in which case the content of the flop does matter, because the 10 would then give the A-Q a Broadway straight. I distinctly recall that my first impression was that of a full house, but my memory might be adversely influenced by the subsequent rush of trying to figure out what the right thing to do in this situation was. I also commented to the guy next to me that the outcome wouldn't change no matter what the flop was, and he concurred. Finally, when I blow my photo up and fiddle with the brightness and contrast a bit, there seems to be a "J" in the corner of the turn card.

But two things give me pause. First, you can see that the dealer pushed up the two jacks in the flop, but not the turn card; if he were seeing a full house, I would expect him to push forward all three jacks. If the turn card was a king, it would be easier for him to overlook pushing that forward, even though he technically should.

The second thing is that right after snapping the picture, I whipped out my pen and paper to record notes about the hand, and I wrote: "(10) J 8 J 7 K." I was doing that immediately after the cards had been swept away following the floor decision, so it was from short-term memory rather than copying what I was seeing. I think now that I just mistakenly wrote a "K" there. I also clearly inverted the order of the turn and river, which adds to the likelihood that my "K" was a mistake of memory. But now I can't be 100% sure. I did not watch the hand play out, because I had stepped away from the table to snap the next two photos you'll see. I only came back as the dealer was declaring the winner and the error was uncovered, so the whole thing caught me kind of off-guard.


4.

New toy at Bill's:





I did not inquire as to how one plays, what stakes it can be set up for, or exactly how one goes about winning entry to the WSOP using it (as the signage implies one can do). Call Bill's and ask them, if you're interested. See here for more about the machines.


5.

One of the annoyances of playing at Bill's is the frequent overhead announcement of names from the restaurant's waiting list.

Last night, though, I (and probably only I) got a kick out of one of them, when the loudspeaker called for, "Nietzsche, party of four. Nietzsche, party of four."

I would have been amused no end to see a guy in a Superman costume stand up and say, "Hey, I think that's for me!"

(A little philosophy humor there. If you don't get it, see here. It won't make you laugh, but at least you'll understand.)

Ah, well. An identical announcement has probably been made an infinite number of times before.

(Yes, that's yet more lame philosophy humor. See here.)


6.

Here's an observation I've had in mind to blog about for a long time now, but never previously got around to it.

What is the most useless casino employee? The restroom attendant. I don't need somebody to turn on the water faucet for me and hand me a paper towel. It does not make my life any easier or more pleasant. In fact, I find it instrusive and obnoxious. No tip EVAR!

One of the best skits in the whole history of "Saturday Night Live" had Kevin Nealon as "The Bathroom Attendant," paying just a little bit too much attention to customer Harvey Keitel. Nealon, in fact, says here that that was his favorite SNL role. (For the curious, the show aired January 16, 1993; Episode 18-11 (#337).) Sadly, the clip does not appear to be posted anywhere on the web, despite there being many people saying that they wish they could watch it again. There are any number of YouTube videos that mimic the same idea, but I doubt that any of them skewer the point as perfectly as Nealon and Keitel.

Anyway, these attendants seem to be cropping up in ever more casinos. I think Hard Rock was the first place I saw them. I was surprised when I later found one at Bally's. But last night, for the first time, there was one at Bill's. Bill's! This is not exactly top-dollar territory we're talking about.

Spare me.


7.

Interesting observation from an unknown player at our table:

"You cannot be the drunkest, most effed-up person in Vegas. I know. I've tried."


Addendum

I forgot one more story. Reader Minton was there with me for part of the session. At one point I had 2h-4h and flopped a flush. When I won at the showdown, Minton said, "That made me all tingly."

Two new $1-$2 NLHE games in town

While playing at Imperial Palace last week, one of the dealers, who also works at Bill's, mentioned that the latter has changed its standard game to $1-$2 no-limit hold'em. Previously it had had the peculiar single $1 blind. As you can see from the game plaque above, however, the buy-in has remained at the citywide low of a mere $20. It's very strange to have a no-limit game with a min buy-in of only 10 big blinds, but, hey, that's their claim to fame: the lowest buy-in no-limit game in town. It definitely does encourage people to sit down who have never played poker before, who were not planning to play, who have no idea how to play, who didn't even know there was a poker room at Bill's, and who would be intimidated if they had to put more money at risk. I welcome these people with open arms, even if it is for only $20 at a time.

So I had to check it out. I couldn't tell that it changed the game in any significant way, nor did I think that it would. Maybe there's a little less limping than before, but raise amounts haven't changed much, nor have average pot sizes, from what I can tell after a single session.

The game remains one of the softest you'll find anywhere. Example: Last night I joined a bunch of limpers from the big blind with the two red 9s. Flop 9-5-4, with two clubs. I bet small, about half the pot, hoping to keep many customers (which occurred) and/or look weak so that somebody would be tempted to raise me (which did not occur).

The turn was an offsuit 5. I had the second nuts, losing only if somebody happened to have pocket 5s for quads. I bet small again, same motivations.

Donkey #1 on my left shoves all-in. Donkey #2 across the table does likewise. All others fold. I think long and hard (not!) and call. Sadly, I have them both covered. D #1 has a naked flush draw. D #2 has top pair, bad kicker. They are both drawing stone-cold dead when the money goes in.

There is definitely a more consistent mix of a few predator species at the table than was the case when Bill's first opened its poker room last year, but you will still find a steady supply of clueless fish like these.

Last night's win rate: $165/hour.





The legendary Bellagio finally started spreading a $1-$2 NLHE game late last year, apparently the first week of December, as far as I can tell. (Previously the lowest game was $2-$5.) However, I somehow missed hearing about it until last week. So today I went to check it out.

As you can see from the photo, I went fully prepared to do battle in Bobby's Room, but Doyle, Phil, Daniel, Jennifer, Eli, Sammy, and the rest of the gang didn't show. They stood me up! The nerve! Well, can't really blame them for being afraid, when surely there are easier pickings if they wait for a day when I'm not around.

So I played out in the main room instead. I didn't recognize any opponents, but two of them (both Asian women, by coincidence) struck me as having all the markings of local grinders. The rest of the table consisted of quite a mix--couple of weak calling stations, couple of hyperaggo LAGgers, couple of typical tourists. Play unquestionably involved a higher level of thought than Bill's, but I could not tell that overall it was significantly different than a typical table at Venetian or Caesars or Treasure Island or Mirage.

Early on, I slow-played pocket aces from the big blind when I was up against a player in the small blind that I was sure would be pushing too hard with what I thought was only a medium-strength hand. I was right; I got him pot-committed before shoving, and more than doubled up. That's a move I would virtually never try at Bill's, where there is usually so much passive calling that it's more profitable to bet, bet, bet your strong hands, and you can't count on somebody else doing the betting for you.

Maybe 15 minutes later I had pocket kings and did the opposite--overbetting the pot on every street, counting on the players having taken note of how I played the aces, so that this action would look desperate. Sure enough, I got called down. (Had to check the river, though, because by then I was looking at a four-straight and a three-flush, so the payoff wasn't as full.) Again, playing at Bill's I would never count on the opposition observing play style and making inferences when it changes in a way that I can exploit. It's strictly A-B-C there.

Win rate: $132/hour. (Both rates are anomalously high for me, so the difference between them is almost surely meaningless, especially on a sample as absurdly small as one session apiece.)

Everybody and their brother has done a room review of Bellagio, and I usually do the full panoply of observations only when there's a new room opening, or a place I haven't been before. (I had played at the Bellagio once before, in October, 2006--the $2-$5 game, hit and run, because I was scared money back then.) I'll just say this: The most common complaints that you read about the Bellagio poker room at, e.g., allvegaspoker.com (see here) all seem to be true. These include wearing out chairs, overcrowding, employees that are unfamiliar with the concept of customer service to the point of bordering on actual contempt for the patrons, mostly excellent dealers, average drink service, long waiting times, hopelessly primitive list management, etc. I'll also add that I find it difficult to get into the place (seems one always has to wait through about five red lights just to turn right into the driveway), and it's too long a walk from the parking garage to the poker room. Boo hoo.

Nevertheless, now that I know that my preferred game is to be found there on a consistent basis, I will definitely be making the Bellagio a more regular stop than it has been before.

The Grump makes a funny

Well, at least I thought it was funny.

Here's the situation. I was at Bill's last night, not involved in the hand. Player A has 9-7. Player B has A-9. Flop is 9-9-8. They get all the money in, but with the 7 kicker, Player A catches a very lucky runner-runner straight.

Player B goes off on the dealer, who is obviously the main culprit in this grave injustice. He complains that this dealer has been delivering him bad beats all day long, blah, blah, blah. The dealer appropriately just lets it bounce off of him, while continuing with the next hand, but the tirade continues.

Finally Player B storms off to calm down for a while. I take the opportunity to ask the dealer, "Are you married?"

He looks at me completely puzzled. "Am I married?"

"Yeah, are you married?"

"No. Why?"

I tell him, "Oh, I was just wondering if you get blamed for things that aren't your fault at work and at home, or just here."

Sign spotted at Bill's Gamblin' Hall and Saloon

With two apostrophes in the casino's name, you'd think that the signmakers at Bill's would have a little better sense of where the little buggers are supposed to go. It would be amusing to interview the person who made this sign and ask him what he thought that second apostrophe was accomplishing where it was placed.

Dude, you is NASTY!

So I was playing at Bill's last night when a young man joins the table in the seat to my left. He is already drunk when he sits down, then proceeds to consume three Jagerbombs in less than an hour on top of that. He reeks, both literally and in his play.

At one point, he is facing a difficult decision as to whether to call a large bet. He absent-mindedly lifts his cards up toward his face and slips the corner of the cards between his lips. I'm confident there was zero thought associated with this move. Between being bombed and trying to concentrate on his decision, his hands were just seeking something to do mindlessly.

I have to mention that these cards were gross--worse than average casino poker decks. They had three or four times the average amount of globs of gunk adhering to them, the largest nuggets of which I had been trying to scrape off with my fingernail as the night progressed. The last thing that either they or those of us handling them needed was additional bodily fluids thrown into the mix.

So, upon seeing where he was holding them, I said to him, "Please don't put the cards in your mouth."

He removed them, then slowly turned to me with an insulted, if-looks-could-kill glare. "I did NOT put them in my mouth!"

Oh, sure, right. I was just hallucinating there. Yeah, that's it. I didn't see what I thought I saw. Idiot.

Ewwwwwwwwwwwww!

Confession

Last night at Bill's I had been playing for a couple of hours with my stack moving up and down, up and down, but hovering right around where it had started, with no clear net forward progress. I was getting frustrated. I was also annoyed at a woman who had chased a gutshot straight draw and got there.

So I returned the favor. I twice called with nothing but an inside straight draw, and made it both times. I finished the session up $105, and it was virtually all due to the pots I won on those two hands. I could say that I was doing it to randomize my play, because I knew that nobody could put me on the hands that I had, etc. But the ugly truth is what I said above. It was terrible play, reflecting a horribly unprofessional attitude. I should have just gotten up and left.

I'd like to apologize to the woman who I victimized through my donkey play. I'd like to apologize to my tablemates, who must have wondered what idiot pill I had swallowed. I'd like to apologize to my more clear-thinking, day-after self for being a moron and getting ridiculously lucky. I'd like to apologize to my readers, who expect better of me.

There. I feel better now.

Why I might be good for your game

The other day I was playing at Bill's. I moved from one table to the other because I wasn't making any progress where I was. But not too long after moving, a bunch of people left and we all got moved back to the first table. A guy that had been across from me at the second table ended up on my right after the consolidation.

I was puzzled when he told me that he had been glad to have me join his table. I was even more puzzled when he said, "In fact, I wish you'd follow me around everywhere I play poker." I didn't understand this comment--I wondered if he was trying to tell me that I was a fish from whom he'd easily be able to make money.

Nope. He cleared it up for me with the next sentence: "Having you around keeps me from making stupid moves, because I don't want to have to read about it the next day."


Incidentally, I think I finally convinced him of the amazing power of the mighty 4-2. He saw me take a decent pot with it by backing into a flush, then followed my example and won an even larger pot himself, bluffing at an ace-high flop, then hitting a 3 on the turn and a 5 on the river to back into the nuts with my favorite junk hand.

I'd better stop telling these stories. Don't want everybody to know about the secret power!

Maybe not the best call ever

Bill's last night. Final board is 10-8-8-10-3 with no flush possible. There were two players in the hand (not I). No action on the flop or turn.

On the river, Player A checks. Player B bets. Player A calls. Player B sheepishly says, "You got me. I just have a 5." He shows his pocket 5s. His hand is, therefore, two pairs (10s and 8s) with a 5.

Player A re-checks his cards, then pushes them towards the dealer face down, surrendering.

Eyes are bugging out around the table.

Player B is astonished to have the pot coming his way. He asks A, "You really couldn't beat that?" Player A's cards have not yet been brought into the muck, so he reaches out and turns them over: 3-4. His hand is, therefore, two pairs (10s and 8s) with a 4.

Double-paired boards can be confusing, so let me make it explicit for you: The only hands that Player A could beat were 3-2 and 2-2--and yet he called. He had the second-worst hand possible*--and yet he called. His opponent only needed any one card bigger than a 4 to take the pot--and yet he called.

But believe it or not, that's not the strange part.

The strange part was what he said, in complete seriousness, by way of explanation for his call:

"I thought you had an ace."



Do you see why I play at Bill's? Do you see why I advocate value betting rather than bluffing there?


*One might quibble as to whether he has the second-worst hand possible or third-worst hand possible. I think it's probably a bit more accurate to say he had the second-worst hand possible, because both the 3-2 and 2-2 hands would be playing the board. In other words, the worst hand possible was the board: 10-10-8-8-3. The second-worst hand would therefore be 10-10-8-8-4, which is what Player A had. However, one could argue that Player A could beat opponents holding both the 3-2 and the 2-2, so he had the third-worst hand possible. If somebody were adamantly of the opinion that that way of saying it were more accurate, I wouldn't waste much breath trying to argue my side of it. It's six of one, half-dozen of another.

Encounter with the movie monster

Warning: Long post here--almost 4000 words. Budget your time accordingly.


I just got home from another Saturday evening at Bill's Gamblin' Hall and Saloon. I had repeated tangles with one opponent--not at all the typical Bill's player--that are probably worth chronicling here.

After I had been playing for maybe three hours, I was a little tired and hungry, so I took a break. I walked up the street to O'Shea's, where I knew there was a small ice cream shop, and got a chocolate shake. When I got back to my seat, maybe 20 minutes after leaving, there was a new player in. As usual, I was in my favorite seat, #9, next to the dealer, and this guy was in #7, two to my right.

Almost at a glance I knew he was going to present a challenge. He was absolutely comfortable and at ease in his surroundings and shuffling his chips like a pro. He exuded confidence. He had bought in for the maximum amount allowed, which is distinctly unusual at Bill's; it signals that this is a guy who wants to be sure he doesn't miss a chance to stack an opponent because he has bought in for too few chips. He's wearing a "Bally's Race and Sportsbook" shirt, and I think he may work there.

Sure enough, he was a player. He raised essentially every time he was in last three positions, and quite often other times, too. He always raised the same amount, so no information given off there. He virtually always made continuation bets.

However, he had made a serious miscalculation. The first two biggish pots I watched him play he was trying to bully and bluff his way to a win, and he was trying it against two different calling stations--who did what calling stations do! He had no better than ace-high each time and lost both pots.

This kind of player seriously complicates my Bill's strategy. If he were tight-aggressive, OK, no problem, I can just stay out of his way when he suddenly comes to life in a hand. But loose-aggressive players, contesting so many pots, really gum up my strategy of picking on the weak players when I'm unusually strong. I have to figure out whether he has it this time or not, and his contending for the pot often causes the fishies to fold where they might otherwise have been inclined to call me.

Nevertheless, I'm confident that I can make money from him. It's going to be riskier than tangling with others, but he's not as good as he thinks he is. The fact that he could make such a monumental misjudgment as to try to bluff calling stations--twice in a row, no less!--is evidence aplenty of this. He has only one gear: foot mashed down on the accelerator. Sooner or later, he's going to overplay a hand when I've got the goods. My usual strategy against players like this is to open up my game quite a bit. Since his raising range is so broad, I can open up my calling range, especially since I have position on him nearly every hand. The dilemma is that this is directly contrary to my strategy for taking chips from most of the other players at the table, which is wait, fold, wait, fold, wait, fold, BIG HAND--take their money!

He had another weakness: He played without much respect to position. The first time I saw his hand at showdown after he had put in a preflop raise, in fact, was 3-5 offsuit, with which he had raised from second position! This makes him really difficult to put on a hand, but also is an Achilles heel of vulnerability that I might be able to exploit.

This guy annoyed me, not only because of his style, but because he's one of those jerks who never want to show their cards if they can possibly avoid it. He would take advantage of the fact that most of the other players were less experienced, and even when they called his bet on the river, he would just sit there, not exposing his hole cards, until enough uncomfortable time had passed that the inexperienced player would show first. This kind of guy really irritates me. He's violating both rules and etiquette, as well as wasting everybody's time. It's a mild form of angle-shooting, but it's still angle-shooting, and I dislike it immensely. The first time it happened I was willing to cut him some slack--he was embarrassed to be caught bluffing. But it quickly became apparent that this was a longstanding habit of his. I called him out on it: "Dude, he called you--show your hand already." It's not like he didn't know the protocol, but I wanted him to know that I knew what he was doing.

That wasn't the end of his obnoxious habits, though. He criticized weaker players for making bad calls, whether against him or against somebody else. This is horribly inappropriate. I go to Bill's precisely because I know it's the Bad Call Center of the Universe. I crave bad calls at Bill's. That's the key to making money there. The last thing I need is some jackass know-it-all taunting and embarrassing these fishy players and making them rethink their play, and start folding where they should.

And then he pushed my last button when he tried to give me a poker lesson. The situation was that I had A-K on a flop of K-Q-x. A fairly weak player, a middle-aged woman from Texas, was at the other end of the table. She bet $10, I raised to $30, and she called. The turn was a blank. She was not radiating great strength. I thought she probably had a king with a worse kicker. But she only had $42 left, so when she checked the turn, that's what I bet. I wanted a call, because I thought I was probably ahead. She did call, though reluctantly. As it turned out, she had K-Q for top two pair. OK--I misread her. It happens in a game of incomplete information. No big deal. I tell her "Nice hand," and move on with life. I was surprised, because she had the appearance of one who thought she was probably beat. In short, this was a player sufficiently inexperienced that she didn't grasp how strong top two pairs was likely to be. She didn't give off an aura of strength, because she erroneously undervalued her holding.

But Mr. Bally's launches into a taunting lecture. He informs me that "old ladies" (she was about 50!) always have it. He apparently thinks that I was trying to push her out of the pot, which wasn't the case at all. Given the stack sizes, I think the way I played it was a no-brainer. I might have been able to get away from it if she had roared over the top of me on the flop (but maybe not, because she could only charge me $42 more for what would then have been a roughly $110 pot, giving me better than 2:1), which would have been a better play on her part, but her timidity worked out for her, because it misled me. He asked me, "You didn't think she had at least top pair?" The guy must be out of his mind, or maybe didn't notice what I had. Yeah, I thought she had top pair but was still behind me. But I don't say that. I want him to stop with the lectures, not only because it's annoying, but because none of us needs the weak players at the table to smarten up. So I give him my standard smart-ass "shut up" line: "Are the lessons free, or do we have to pay extra for them?" It worked.

So by now there is definite tension between us. I have been taking stabs at pots that he raises, and doing so with speculative holdings. The first time a possible chance comes up I have 4-5 offsuit, and the flop is something like 9-4-2. I only have middle pair with a bad kicker, but I could easily be in front here. He bets $20. I call. One could argue for a raise here, but I really have no idea where I am, and I want the big pots between us to be when I'm on firmer footing than this. The turn is an ace. Ick. He has put in several raises with ace-rag. He bets again. He could well be bluffing, but I don't want to be reduced to guessing in a big pot, so I let it go.

He laughs tauntingly, points to me, and says, "This guy wants to bust me so bad he can taste it!" Well, yeah, I do, but only in small part for the reasons he thinks. My impulse is to say, "Emotionally, I don't really care where my chips come from. It's just that I recognize that some chips are easier to get than others, and yours looks like the easiest pickings." But I think better of it. I think I'm a much cooler head than he is, and I don't want to lose that edge and escalate the tension for the sake of a clever jab at him. Instead, I think of the advantages: (1) I have just convinced him that he can defeat me by continuing to bet at pots, and (2) he thinks I'm gunning specially for him, which means that he'll tend to mistakenly assume that I'm bluffing or coming at him weak, when I'm not. File that observation away and use it, I tell myself. It will feel plenty good when you take his chips--you don't need to feel good now by delivering a verbal put-down.

Our next encounter comes when he has raised from early position (which, again, means nothing for him), and I have called with 9-10 offsuit. The flop is a beaut: 9-9-6, rainbow. He bets $20. I call. Turn is a king. He checks, unexpectedly. The problem with my overall approach to him has been that if I don't bluff back at him sometimes, but only wait for strong hands, if he's smart he can just run away when that happens. That would leave him collecting the majority of the pots we contest, but without me getting the occasional big one to make up for having abandoned a lot of smaller ones. Fortunately, I think the observation above--about how he is now persuaded that I'm targeting him more specifically than I should--should counter this.

I'm torn between checking behind him here and letting him bluff again on the river, versus betting, in the hope that he'll think I'm trying to buy it. I settle on the latter approach. To my delight, he apparently thinks just that, and calls my $30. I don't think he has a king, or he surely would have bet the turn, but maybe he has a 6, or some medium pair. The river is a deuce, as I recall, and he checks again. He has convinced me that he has something, and that he thinks I'm bluffing and he will want to pick off that bluff. I push out a stack of $50, and try to look just a little nervous, without being all Hollywoody about it. He thinks for about 30 seconds, then finally calls. I must have come close to that magic number--the most that he would have been willing to put in without folding. Score one for me!

He looks pretty disgusted at my 9-10. Predictably, the comments start up again. This time he directs them, well, at nobody in particular, but sort of at the table as a whole. "This guy folds folds folds for round after round, and when he finally goes for it, it's with 9-10 offsuit!" He laughs, as if I'm the biggest idiot he's ever played against. I just smile. If he can't see that I'm deploying a reasonably smart strategy against his style of play, so much the better for me. And if he helps convince less perceptive players at the table that I don't know a good hand from a bad one, hey, maybe that will enhance their temptation to call me down light, too, further fattening my stack. So jabber away, Bally's Boy--I've got more of your chips than you have of mine now, and I sense more coming my way.

And then the inevitable final confrontation occurred. It was only a matter of time.

As usual, he raised from middle position to his standard $12. I had A-K suited (hearts), which is huge against his raising range. But I don't want to tip him off. I haven't reraised him even once preflop, so if I do so now, it will set off alarms in his head. I don't want to flip a coin for our stacks. I want to see a flop, and either get away from the hand cheaply if I whiff, or let his overaggressive tendency hang him if I hit.

But, OOPS, a wrinkle develops in the plan. A short-stacked player in the big blind has moved all in for $25. This re-opens the betting to Mr. Bally's. He surprises me by pushing out most of his chips in one big stack, about $200. I'm sitting on about $310 at the time.

I have to tell you about my mental state at this moment. I had been playing for about five hours, which is pushing the limit of how long I can stay attentive and sharp. I'm up by a little over $200, which is a decent day's wages for me. I had been planning to have this orbit be my last, and go home, having resigned myself to not getting the perfect opportunity to felt Mr. Bally's. I was in my "I will not get myself into a big pot" mode. At this point, ready to head for home, I did not want to be put to a decision for my whole day's earnings. If I lost, I would have to either eat the loss and record an "L" in my books for the day, or hunker down and start over again, when I wasn't fresh. Those were both unpleasant prospects.

But, geez--this may be too juicy to pass up. I do not habitually overplay A-K in deep-stacked cash games. I'm smarter than that. But given the huge range that Mr. Bally's raises with, I'm way ahead of about 90% of what he could have. The fact that he put in this enormous reraise is actually kind of encouraging. If he had the only two hands that I'm really scared of--A-A and K-K--he's smart enough that he would try to suck me in, not push me out. This bet is absolutely screaming, "Go away and leave me alone with the short stack." I had just called his initial raise, rather than reraising, largely so that my strength was disguised, in order that he would assume I was calling with junk and hoping to get lucky, just as he had previously seen me do with the 9-10. I had thought to spring my surprise on him later in the hand, but it looked like I would have to do it now instead.

My job is to figure out what opponents want me to do, then do the opposite. He obviously wants me to fold, which means that I have to not fold. I hesitate for longer than usual, because of (1) my general aversion to putting a ton of money on A-K before the flop, and (2) my dread of losing in one fell swoop what I've carefully built up over the last several hours. But I know that the mathematically right thing to do here is to be willing to risk it all. He can't fold, no matter what cards he has; he has 2/3 or 3/4 of his chips in already. Our stacks are so close in size that I can't tell who has whom covered, so this is basically for stacks here.

I hate it, but I push. He calls, of course.

He has the two red jacks (for once, he showed as soon as the bets were all in), near the very tippy-top of the range with which he would play as he just has. Ouch. Mr. Short Stack has the two black queens. Yowza! I am in deep doo-doo here! But the good news is that all of the aces and kings should be live, because I am in desperate need of finding one of them. Also, I'm guaranteed to see all five community cards, so I have maximized my chance for catching what I need. I don't care much about losing the main pot, which is only about $75. It's the side pot between Mr. Bally's and me that matters, since it is worth $600 or $650.

The flop is a bad one: 10-5-2, one heart. Ugh. My chances for the side pot just dropped from about 45% to about 30%.

The turn was the queen of diamonds. Mr. Short Stack jumped up, clapped his hands, and shouted "Yes!" My heart sunk a little lower. No flush will be heading my way on this hand, and there is only one card left to come with which to catch my ace or king.

The river was a jack. Mr. Bally's lets out a triumphant whoop. Damn. No ace or king for me, and both of my opponents hit sets on me! I guess it's home with nothing to show for my day's work, and actually down by my initial $100 buy-in. I turn my attention to the stack sizes to see if I have anything left. But just then I hear the dealer say, "Straight. Ace-king is gonna take it all."

I swear I had not even noticed this possible way of winning the hand when the queen came on the turn. To my slightly-overwrought brain, the queen had written off the side pot to the short stack's set, as well as killing my backdoor flush draw, and I was looking for only an ace or king to save the main pot for me. A straight never even entered my mind, in the couple of seconds I had for processing the situation. But there it was: My A and K, a 10 on the flop, and Q-J on the turn and river. With no three of any suit out there, I not only had the winner, I had the stone-cold nuts!

As it turned out, I had Mr. Bally's covered by a small amount. He lost the hand in arguably the most painful way possible: His incessant raising and pressuring with mediocre hands had gotten me to put it all in against what had to be one of his strongest hands of the day. He was ahead at every point, and, to apparently put the lock on it, had hit his three-of-a-kind on the river. Both he and I overlooked the straight at first. (I'm completely confident that I would have spotted it a few seconds after the dealer's announcement, by the way. I wouldn't relinquish my entire stack without giving the whole situation one last looking over.)

Mr. Bally's must have felt sick when the runner-runner miracle was pointed out to him.
It's quite a pleasant sensation to go, in an instant, from thinking that you just lost $300 to realizing that you just made $300. But riding that little emotional rollercoaster in reverse would surely induce motion sickness.

For A-K to beat two different big pairs, both of which have hit sets, without itself making a pair or a flush is really quite rare and remarkable. Not only did I have to make the straight with exactly a queen, jack, and ten coming--with two queens and two jacks already out--but I had to do so without any pairs to those three cards hitting the board, because if two of any of those cards came, it would make full houses and/or quads for my opponents.

Mr. Bally's slinked away without another word to anybody. Good riddance. I kind of wish I had gotten a chance to rub it in a little because, frankly, he's the rare asshole that I would say deserves such treatment. But on the other hand, if I had done so, I would now be feeling worse about myself, because it would be a violation of the standards of decorum that I both want and try to hold myself to. Kicking a guy when he's down might feel perversely satisfying at the moment, but I'd be ashamed of it after the fact.

I played for another hour or so, because there were still several soft spots at the table, and nobody with anywhere near enough chips to cause me to leave loser for the day, no matter what happened. After the big hand, I changed my mind about leaving because it had infused me with new mental energy, and because I thought I might be able to use my new-found aura of invincibility (combined with a comparatively enormous chip stack) to intimidate some pots away from opponents. But it was up and down, without much net forward progress. So I packed it in and left with my biggest Bill's win yet: up $520 in 5.8 hours, for about $90/hour. Excellent day's results. (My previous Bill's record was $416 profit on the poker room's opening day, May 13, 2008. My record there is now 9 wins and 2 losses, with a net $2326 profit, or about $211 per session.)

Saturday night at Bill's might become a habit for me. Both of the last two of them have been profitable (uptick $323 last Saturday) and generally enjoyable. Most of the table was delightful tonight. That fact kind of got obscured in telling the story of the one jerk.


So what's with the Godzilla picture and the "movie monster" reference in the title to this post? Well, in Hollywood monster pictures, there are classically three encounters with the monster. There's the first skirmish, in which the villagers (or Earthlings, if it's an sci-fi flick) become aware of the monster and take a licking, because they're not prepared. Then they assemble their weapons so that they're better prepared, and we get the second battle. But the monster is stronger than thought, and the weapons are useless. The villagers then have one last, desperate attempt to kill the monster, with all the odds against them. Just when it looks like all hope is lost, something finally works, and the tide turns their way. The monster is killed or run off, and all is well with the world again. Any number of movies follow this basic blueprint: "Godzilla" and "Independence Day," for two prominent examples.

Anyway, tonight's script deviated a bit from the norm, in that I won the second skirmish. Besides, there was the verbal jousting along the way, and a bunch of small pots that I abandoned early when I missed the flop, none of which are recounted in detail here.

Still, in its general outline, it felt a lot like I had taken on a movie monster. I had lost the first battle, plus some small ones along the way, and had basically given up on defeating the beast. Then out of the blue, we were suddenly deeply engaged in an all-out life-and-death struggle. And just when it looked like the monster was going to win this one, the screenplay dictated a runner-runner miracle straight to save the day for your hero at the last second, and the monster limped away, fatally wounded. It was as if I had used my lowly Macintosh to deliver a computer virus to the mother ship, or found a way to implant the command "sleep" in all of the members of the Borg.

Yeah, it was pretty damn lucky, but it was definitely not dumb luck. I had played him intelligently, and hadn't let my dislike for his style of play and his appalling lack of etiquette throw me off of my game. I was willing to put all my chips on the line when it mattered and when the sum total of the circumstances strongly suggested that it was the right move to make. In short, I did what is always said of poker tournament winners: I put myself in a position to get lucky, then did.

In the poker world, the monsters do sometimes win--unlike in Hollywood. But not here, not today.

Entertainment while you play

Played at Bill's again this evening. One of the sidelights of playing there is that if you time your visit right, you get to hear Big Elvis, who sings in the lounge maybe 30 or 40 yards from the poker room, so it's not hard to listen in. (They have the good sense to shut off the canned overhead music while he is performing.) According to Big Elvis's web site, he's there Monday through Friday at 3:00, 5:00, and 6:30 p.m.






When the game broke up unusually early at Bill's, I walked next door to the Flamingo. They had something going on I'd never seen before: Performers from the Flamingo's "X Burlesque" show (see review here) were dancing to loud music just inside the door. (Sorry for the blurry photos. They wouldn't hold still.) Maybe this has been going on for a long time, but never while I've been there. It appears that other girls from the show--or at least ones dressed as if they might be in the show--do some blackjack dealing in this area near the wide-open front door of the casino. As at Bill's, the poker room is close enough that you can listen in on the music, but you can't see the dancers from the tables. Probably a good thing--might be a bit too distracting. I liked Big Elvis's music better anyway.

Sorry, no interesting poker stories from tonight. I came home with more money than I left with, which is always plenty interesting to me, but not especially to anybody else.

Oh, but wait--I do have a story, though not much to do with poker. Bill's takes the rake in half-dollar increments, so you sometimes get 50-cent pieces back as part of the pot. You can also play two of them as if they were a $1 chip. Somebody did that, and I noticed that the sheen of one of them looked quite different from the other. I'm fairly sensitized to the appearance of real silver, because of having my one-ounce silver coin always in use as my card protector, and I thought this half-dollar looked much more like silver than most. And when the dealer picked them up and put them in the tray, replacing them with a $1 chip, the "clink" was definitely different from the usual cheap, tinny sound that American coins have been making since they stopped using silver and copper, and instead went to crappy metals like nickel and zinc. I could even see in the dealer's tray that the second one down looked different on its edge. So I asked the dealer to sell me two half dollars from her tray (she probably thought I wanted to use them to tip the cocktail waitress or some such thing). Sure enough, the second one was a 1968, when the alloy used was still 40% silver (see here for coinage history). It's about one-eighth of an ounce of silver, so, I dunno, something like $2 worth, that I purchased for 50 cents.

When Shamus was in town for the World Series of Poker and we played a little poker together at the Palms, he mentioned in his blog the next day about how observant I seemed to be at the table. Nobody had ever said this of me before, though I do try hard to pay attention to what's going on. I suppose it's true, given my irritating (to the dealers, anyway) tendency to be able to identify cards from tiny rub marks or creases I notice on their backs, pick up and later blog about snippets of other players' conversations, get grossed out by untidy dealers' ear and nose hair, notice illegally small raises, spot all sorts of nervous tells in opponents, etc. Now I have to add to the list that I notice the peculiar look and sound of coins in play! There are undoubtedly more important things to be noticing, but one really can't help what things catch one's attention.

The strange thing is that I'm completely obtuse and unobservant in life outside of the poker room. My friends will tell you that I can walk past some prominent object a thousand times before finally noticing it and asking them, "Has that always been there?"

Wow. This post really veered far from where it started. Sorry for rambling.

Crazy times at Bill's

Bill's Gamblin' Hall and Saloon is neither one of my favorite nor most frequent poker hangouts, but it's a reliable money-maker, so I try to hit it once or twice a month. This weekend I did something different and put in three sessions there, racking up $508 in 10.8 hours, for about $47/hour. Doing so produced a boatload of stories and observations, which I'll lump together here.


Ugly clothes

First I have to note the guy pictured above, who was standing there watching the pigs race. I don't know if you can see it well enough in the photo I snapped of him, but the sequins fastened onto the tail of his sports jacket spell out "Big Money." That's subtlety for you.


Pig props

Speaking of the pig races, I extended my perfect track record. Three of us at the table did a pig-race prop bet, and I won. Uptick $2. Thank you very much. I left shortly after that. Still at 100%, never having had to pay off a losing pig.


Fondling

Saturday evening there were two women at the table in seats 6 and 7, on vacation together from the midwest. I was in seat 9, next to the dealer. At seemingly random intervals, these two would grope/fondle/massage each other's breasts. One time, when one did this to the other, the gropee responded, "Hey, don't start what you can't finish!" It added a whole new dimension to the game. I seriously thought about breaking out my pre-planned line about bringing good luck, but didn't have the nerve.

They were openly flirting with two young men at the table. They pretty much ignored me. *Sigh*. I'm afraid that my age and looks are such that I can't even remember the last time that a stranger tried to flirt with me.


Wildness

That session was by far the most out-of-control I've ever witnessed at Bill's, and among the top five or so of my entire Vegas experience. The amount of drunkenness, inexperience, noise, conversation, and laughter at the table was such that the game slowed to a crawl. The dealers had to work to get nearly every player's attention nearly every time in order to get anybody to actually take a turn. We were down to about half the normal rate of hands per hour. This really tests the limits of my equanimity and patience. (And that of the dealers, too. They were perpetually on the verge of seriously losing it.) I hate that kind of crap, wasting time for no good reason, because my income is all about the hands per hour. But, as usual, the game was just unbelievably soft, so I tried to grin and bear it. I'm well aware, when setting out for Bill's, that it ain't the Venetian, that I will likely be the only one at the table who actually cares about making money, that for the rest it's all about the fun. So I do my what little it is within my nature to be able to do in order to contribute to a light, fun atmosphere.


There's a reason for the rule

Another thing I have to steel myself for in preparation for playing at Bill's is the looseness of rules enforcement. They are intentionally catering to first-time players, the ultra-casual players, people who have never tried real casino poker before. People buy in for $20 or $30 or $40, and get a taste of the NLHE game they've seen on TV, and it's a little thrill for them. They don't know the rules and etiquette. So I do my best to try to ignore a lot of it, put in a gentle word or two of education where I can, and not be too much of a nit.

After the gropers had left Saturday night, they were replaced by two young women who were part of a group that had lived together during college, and came out to Vegas every year for a kind of reunion. They had played poker in home games, but never in a casino, and were trying it for the first time. Another first-time guy was to their right.

They kept talking about the hand in progress, despite repeated admonitions from both me and the dealers not to. It was bad enough that at one point I even pointedly said to the guy, who was being pretty obnoxious about openly giving advice to players facing decisions, "You're kind of a slow learner, aren't you?" That seemed to finally stop his nasty little habit.

And then it finally mattered:

I was one of three people in a hand. I had 9-8 offsuit, and had called a small pre-flop raise. But everybody apparently missed the flop, turn, and river, so it just got checked down the whole way. The final board included four spades. I didn't have one, but the last card had been an 8, giving me a measly pair. I was in early position, so when the last player checked on the river, I was first to show. I was expecting one of the other players to show a higher pair or a flush, but both of them just pushed their cards forward, face down.

Before the dealer could gather them in, one of the college-reunion women said, "I can't believe none of you had a spade!" This prompted the guy on my right to pick up his cards again, at which point he got a startled look on his face, then turned over the ace of spades. He said, "I would have sworn that was the ace of clubs!"

He had not even noticed the spades on the board until the woman said that.

He got the pot that would otherwise have been mine.

I was seriously annoyed at this. I mean, sure, it was a small pot, and the person with the best hand took it, which is as it should be. But conversely, I firmly believe that players have the right to muck the best hand and thereby forfeit the pot if they are so inclined, and nobody else should interfere with them doing so.

At least this young woman had the good sense to be absolutely mortified at what she had done. She must have apologized a hundred times, and kept doing so long after I had both forgiven her and had stopped being annoyed about it having happened.

The good news is that seeing how one little stray comment can totally change the outcome of a hand (well, that, plus the floor guy coming over and giving a stern warning to everybody), the table finally seemed to catch on to the fact that you really must not say anything about the hand in progress. And, by the way, the hand is still in progress until the pot has been awarded and the next hand has begun with the beginning of the shuffle (or by the dealer removing the new deck from the shuffler).


Overheard

As I've mentioned before, Bill's attracts the most unbelievably novice players in the universe. I have overheard the following comments in the past few days there:

• Man plausibly claiming to have had 7-7 bets $6 from under the gun, folds to an opponent's bet on an ace-high flop, says, "I just wanted to take those blinds!" Remember that Bill's plays with a single $1 blind. In other words, he was claiming to have bet $6 not to start building a pot that he could later win, but simply in order to win the single $1 chip that was on the table when he made that raise. Good thinking, sir.
• Guy who limped in, then had to decide whether to call a pre-flop raise, looked long and hard at his hole cards, then at the raiser, and said, in all earnestness, "I think I might be drawing dead here," and folded. (Note to the non-poker-players among my readers, to whom this might not be obvious: There are no two cards that are drawing dead to any other two cards before the flop. Any starting hand can beat any other, given the right community cards. One cannot play the game for very long before realizing this, which is why the guy's words reveal that he has likely watched the game on TV and heard this kind of comment in a different context, but has never actually played.)
• On a paired flop, one player asked the dealer, "Do you have to use five cards to make a hand?"
• One player, who repeatedly warned us that he had never played before and had no idea what to do, was there with a friend who was trying to teach him the game. The more experienced friend took a restroom break. When he returned, the newbie excitedly told him, "While you were gone, if I had played one hand, I would have made five in a row, 6-7-8-9-10. That's something, isn't it?"
• Last night, a player with about $30 left was facing a $71 all-in bet. He asked the dealer, "Can I just play for, like, $5, or do I have to put it all in to play?"
• One player asked the dealer whether an ace could play as part of a low straight as well as a high straight.
• Last night, I saw this betting sequence on the flop: Player A checks. Player B bets $20. Player C calls. Player A decides to go all-in for $40. Player B also goes all-in, for less, a total of $36. Player C...FOLDS! There were three of us reasonably experienced players all clustered together at one end of the table, and all three of us had our eyes bug out at the fold. We quietly exchanged a few words, all of which were around this observation: There is no hand that C could have for which it makes sense to call $20 into a small pot, but then not call an additional $20 into what is now a much larger pot, on the same street. He was getting much better pot odds on the second $20 than he was on the first $20. He must (or at least should) have known when calling B's initial $20 bet that B was going to put his last $16 in on this hand, no matter what. In other words, C must (or, again, at least should) have either decided he was willing to put in $36 or not called the $20 to begin with. In fact, it would have been smarter, probably, to look at his two opponents' stack sizes, and just shoved there, trying to keep A from calling the $20 and getting pot-committed.

I hasten to add that I'm really not trying to make fun of these people for their ignorance. They're not stupid, just new. Everybody has to learn the basic rules and strategies of the game at some point, and there's no shame in not knowing something, or in asking a question in order to clear up what you don't know.

It's just that it's really rare to encounter this much absolutely bare-bones level of inexperience in no-limit casino poker. It's much more common that people learn these basics in home games, playing micro-limits online, or playing the cheapest limit hold'em in a casino. It's the incredibly low buy-in and blind structure at Bill's that prompts people to sit down and play a no-limit game, when they really would be better off in one of those other situations.


Oops, I broke up the game!

In two hands I busted four players last night. First one was with my top pair/top kicker against her top pair/medium kicker. On the very next hand I caught quad 7s (with a pair in the hand, which got me a $50 high-hand jackpot in addition to the pot) on a double-paired board, and busted three opponents at once. One had a full house, one had hit a flush on the river (I didn't pull the trigger until then, though I flopped a set and turned the quads), and one had an ace in the hole, and thought maybe two pairs with an ace was good enough to call off all of his chips with.

On the previous night (Saturday), when I arrived at about 5:00, as the floor guy was selling me chips, he said, only half-jokingly, "Don't bust the whole table too fast--I've got to keep the game going until 7:00, when my shift ends!" I guess he should have saved his warning for the next night!

(N.B.: This is a serious faux pas on his part, if you ask me. Yeah, it's nice that he has paid attention to my play, remembers my face, and recognizes that I'm probably going to be the shark in his little fish pool, but the last thing I need is for him to be saying such a thing three feet away from the table. It not only unnecessarily warns the more unsuspecting players, but it insults them, if they're alert enough to catch his meaning. Furthermore, does he seriously think I'm not going to try to maximize my profit, just so that his job is made easier? Please.)


The Internet blog guy

When I sat down for a late-night session last night, one player at the table looked at me and said, "You're that Internet blog guy, right?" He had spent some time with me during the evening described here, so had heard others mention my blog.

Anyway, for any readers who happen to run into me across the green felt, I found this guy's question so amusing in its phrasing that it is now the preferred official way to introduce yourself to the Grump: "You're that Internet blog guy, right?"


One difficult decision

Last night I was in late position with the two black 7s, so I raised to $5, and got two callers. The flop was 7-8-9, with two diamonds. It was checked to me. I deliberately overbet the pot ($25, I think) in order not to give proper pot odds to an opponent with a flush draw or straight draw. Both of them called. Ugh.

The turn was an offsuit jack. The first guy quickly moved all-in for $71. This is the same hand I mentioned above, in which the second guy then asked whether he could just play for, say, $5 more, instead of the rest of his stack. When told it was all or nothing, he folded.

I was sitting on about $400 at the time, so it wasn't like a call here would break me. But I couldn't make sense of the first guy's move. I didn't think he had flopped a straight, because with two opponents who might be on a flush draw, surely he would have either bet out on the flop or check-raised me. But it also didn't really make sense for him to have had a 10 for a now-completed straight draw, because he shouldn't have been willing to call such a large bet on the flop. He would have had to think that if another diamond came he couldn't count on a straight being good, which means that he should have reasoned that he only had six outs rather than the usual eight. Therefore, calling a bet that is substantially larger than the pot doesn't make sense. If he had miraculously gotten me in a set-over-set situation, again, surely he would go for the check-raise on the flop, rather than slow-play on such a highly coordinated board.

I thought long and hard about this, and finally decided that it was most likely that he had either two pairs or one pair plus a flush draw. Even if I was wrong and he had hit his straight, I would have ten outs to a full house. So I called.

I had indeed been wrong. He had had 9-10, for top pair and a straight draw on the flop, but with no flush draw. Now, if I had been in his spot, I would have either folded or gone for the all-in check-raise on the flop with that holding. The second guy has so little left in front of him that he's not really a factor. The guy with 9-10 should have figured that a check-raise would drive me out if I were continuation-betting a hand like ace-king that completely whiffed on the flop, and that it would price me out if I were betting a flush draw or straight draw, and he would still have outs to win against almost anything I could have, in case I called with something like an overpair.

But I forgot where I was. Players at Bill's do not think about the game the same way that I do, so when I went through the hand as if I were in my opponent's seat, figuring out what cards I would have to have in order to play the way he had done, I was simply wrong. That entire approach, which is both sound and necessary when facing opponents of comparable skill and experience, falls flat when tried against considerably weaker players, because they simply don't think the same way I do.

What I should have asked myself was this: "Would a tight/weak/timid player just call that flop bet with top pair and a straight draw, hoping that he would simultaneously make his straight without the possible flush card hitting?" And the answer to that would have been a resounding "yes."

But the poker gods were merciful to me last night, and let me slide on my lapse in clear thinking. They sent an 8 on the river, pairing the board, and giving me the winning full house.

I don't usually rely on luck to win at Bill's (or anywhere else, for that matter), but it's nice to get it once in a while.


Never bluff at Bill's--well, almost never

As I have emphasized in a couple of previous posts about Bill's, it is not a place to bluff, because one is surrounded by calling stations. But there are exceptions. This weekend I ran into a few players smart enough to lay down a hand like top pair in the face of an opponent showing unusual strength.

An opportunity arose Saturday night. One of the good players put in a straddle, then, after he got called in several spots, raised to $15. I had the distinct impression that he was full of shit, that he was just trying to take the $10 or $12 on the table and be done with it. I had suited K-Q. I had limped in with it instead of raising because I was in middle position, and didn't feel like playing a big pot with what is, after all, still a pretty mediocre hand, with three or four players acting after me. But when everybody between the straddler and me folded to his raise, I was certainly willing to take him on, since I would have position on him, and I likely was starting with a better hand. Everybody folded behind me, too, so it was to be one on one. Excellent.

The flop was J-x-x. It gave me no pair and no draw. But I also knew that most of the time it will have missed him, too. Nevertheless, he did what a strong, aggressive player should usually do, and continuation-bet at it, $20. I thought that he was still full of it, so I thought a bit, then pushed out $65. He was a smart enough player to see a pre-flop limp-call, combined with a strong flop raise, as signaling danger, such as somebody with a small pocket pair having flopped a set. Sure enough, he thought for maybe 30 seconds, then folded while flashing me a jack, to show that he had hit top pair. But he simultaneously admitted, "The other one isn't too good."

So I had been right that he was just trying to buy it with junk before the flop. I had, in one sense, been wrong in guessing that the flop missed him. But in a more important sense I had been right. That is, my bet on the flop was not a bet that he had missed it completely, because obviously I couldn't know that. Rather, I was betting that he did not have a hand strong enough to call a scary-looking raise from a solid, tight player who had not shown down a single weak hand all night. On that mark, I was exactly correct.

When he folded, I gave him a wink and a smile, and exposed my K-Q. I rarely show bluffs, but here it was entirely purposeful. I had managed to get into a situation in which I could put in a bluff with a high probability of success against one of only two players at the table whom I judged capable of folding a superior hand. To get maximal value, I wanted to be sure that all of the calling stations at the table saw what I had done, in the hope that it would reinforce their already erroneous tendency to look me up too often with medium-strength hands when I had the goods.

So to the gentleman whom I used as my advertising, my apologies. I honestly wasn't trying to rub your nose in it. I was trying to help coax additional future calls from the weaker players, whom I would not normally try to bluff. Please take it as a compliment that I recognized you to be a good enough player to fold--it genuinely is one.


A mistake that worked out nicely

Early in the session, I had flopped top two pairs with a 9-7 in my hand, and picked up a full house on the turn. I showed it, despite my bet not being called. I won another hand a short time later when the same cards caught two pairs again. It then became a running joke and/or point of commentary at the table about how often that night the board was coming in such a form that holding 9-7 would be a great hand. With freakish frequency, if you could have played 9-7 every hand, you would have been hitting two pairs, trips, straights, and full houses all evening long. One guy complained that he hadn't been dealt the 9-7 all night. Kind of odd, when you usually hear that gripe leveled about not getting aces or kings!

Anyway, after this had been going on for a couple of hours, I found myself looking at the 9-7 of hearts. I raised. The flop was A-6-4, with two hearts. I almost never bluff at Bill's, but I do mix in some semi-bluffs. This is because many of the players there are not used to seeing betting on the come, so when a third card of a suit appears, they assume that the person who had bet at the flop must not have the flush. This is, I assume, because beginning players tend to check a flush draw, figuring it's not worth throwing money at it if you don't have to, when you can just wait to see if you make your hand first. So mixing in some semi-bluffs can pay off. I decided to do it here, and got two callers.

The turn was an offsuit 3. Dang. I thought about checking, but decided to bet again, hoping that they'd read me for having a big ace and fold. But, of course, this is Bill's, and nobody's folding.

The river was an offsuit 5. Rats! No flush and no pair! The first player checked to me, and, well, my old habits took over. I'm a third-bullet shooter. In this case, my instant self-justification was that maybe both of them had been on flush draws and would fold. If I had thought for about two more seconds, I would have realized how unlikely that was. Furthermore, I had shown the bluff described above specifically so that I would get more callers! What in the hell was I thinking, trying to pull off a three-shell bluff? I wasn't thinking--that was the problem. It was completely foolish.

I bet $25 on the river, praying to see two players throw their cards in the muck, even as the more rational part of my brain was saying, "Don't throw good money after bad." They both called. Yikes!

So, fully embarrassed, I turned over my hand and quietly said, "I guess I'll have to lose with the 9-7 for once tonight."

To my utter shock, the dealer announced, "Straight." I had been so focused on the flush that I had not even noticed that I had backed into a 3-4-5-6-7 straight. I can't remember the last time I so completely misread the board. (It might have been the third story related in this post.)

Both opponents mucked without showing their cards. Nobody said anything about what they must have thought was my weird comment about losing. I was too ashamed to admit that I had not seen the straight. I hoped that if anybody had heard what I said, they would take it as having been somehow ironic. I have no idea what they thought, if anything.

The poker gods were truly covering my backside for me that night.

Best I can figure is that they were there to bet on the pig races.



Addendum

I really wanted that pig-racing bit to be the punchline, and leave the post there. But upon re-reading it, I feel obligated to add a caveat here. I fear that the number of times in this post that I make reference to being so much better at poker than my opponents will sound far more arrogant than would be a true reflection of how I view myself as a player.

So I'd like to set that record straight. I've said this before, and probably will need to again at some point. I think I have a pretty brutally realistic assessment of my strengths and weaknesses as a player. I honestly believe that I am probably just about as low on the continuum of poker skill as one can possibly be and still have a shot at making a living at the game.

But it's a simple fact that even that extremely modest level of talent (modest, that is, in comparison to the world-class pros whose ability has me in awe) puts one ahead of at least 90% of the tourists that sit down in $1-2 no-limit hold'em games. At a place like Bill's, it does not require any haughtiness or self-worship to say that my knowledge and understanding of the game is far deeper than that of the great majority of the other players. It's a simple, objective, unmistakable fact, and anybody who sat and watched for a while would, I think, inevitably come to the same conclusion.

So please don't read into my stories and comments an inference that I fancy myself as one of the greats. I do not--not by a long shot. I realize and fully acknowledge that I'm simply choosing to swim in really small ponds, in which it is just not very hard to be at the top of the food chain.