Vegas stories by Spike (ongoing TR)
07-11-2016
, 08:17 PM
07-11-2016
, 10:43 PM
07-12-2016
, 06:38 PM
07-15-2016
, 02:29 AM
Small confession time before I continue on with the stories: All names here are fake in some way. Obviously. For the sake of privacy I changed everything and kept a Notepad document open so I could say like "Erin = xxx" "Danielle = yyy" and kept track of everything. My computer crashed and I didn't bother to save the file, so I kinda forget who's who. I'll have to go back and re-do it. If there are any naming inconsistencies in the next couple of posts, I apologize.
I mentioned earlier that we had about 15 of us that moved here at the same time. It was actually a pretty good group and really fun. We tried to get together all the time for some form of hanging out - home games, bingo/bowling nights, Pai Gow (seems to be the favorite amongst the group), dinners out, whatever. People all had different schedules, but we always tried to make it work. While most events were well attended but not socially "mandatory", the home games were can't-miss for those of us who enjoy cards and gambling. This only excluded one or two people, and most of the time they'd come around anyway just to hang out.
Four of my buddies (Brad, Steve, and the two brothers from Penn State that Erin almost killed) were renting a house together in Rhodes Ranch (master planned community in the south west). They rent out the 5th bedroom to a young guy who was trying to make it as a poker pro:
My other friend Steve (**** these fake names are going to get confusing when real ones are mixed in) was working as a dealer at O'Shea's at the time. One night when they were switching out the felt from the craps tables, he managed to snag one. The guys set out and built their own gaming table, complete with O'Shea's craps felt, removable wall at the back, etc. We'd start rolling dice as we waited for more people to show up for poker, or if we needed a break from cards. That was where my buddy Martingaled himself from $9.95 down to zero, trying to make his stack an even $10.
The home poker games were always low-stakes: typically a $20 buy-in and we'd play with stacks of quarters and maybe a few dollar chips. I won a decent WPT poker set (table, chips, instructional DVDs I never watched, cards, etc) from a Massachusetts scratch ticket about two years before moving to Vegas. I only brought the chips with me:
(Dusty because it's been a while since we've been able to all get together)
We'd start mixing up games, too. While we were all card players, there were varying degrees of skill, willingness to PURE GAMBOL, cheapness, etc. So a full night of no limit wasn't all that appealing to some people. The pro taught us Chinese poker, but not open face/pineapple: 5 card high hand, 3 card high hand, 5 card 2-7 lowball hand. No fantasyland or anything like that. We added in limit, stud, blind Omaha flips, and sometimes things like Badugi. Once the booze started flowing, games like southern cross, low in your hole, fish out of water, and **** your neighbor came up. We'd basically say "Okay, it's hold em, BUT..." then try some random rule twist. Sometimes it worked, most of the time it didn't. But when it worked, it was pretty fun. The one that always pissed off the most people was "No limit, but after betting the turn, we'll roll a single die. Whatever number comes up, that's how many river cards will come out". You want to **** with people who are counting odds? That's the way to do it. It's not as detailed or varied as something like BARGE, but it kept us occupied.
Erin would always insist on coming down. She would then proceed to play about four hands, quit, and sleep the rest on the couch until it was time to go home. She really didn't understand poker. One night when it was time to leave, Joboo and Ari (Jewish friend - more on him in another post) are trying to get each other's money. They're both just putting all of their chips in blind. Neither of them can win two hands in a row and bust the other one out. This goes back and forth for about a dozen hands, and Erin gets pissed. "Can't you guys go any faster? God!" They're literally going as fast as humanly possible, and the only action is all-in. Couldn't have been going any faster if they tried. This is the same night Erin almost fought someone because she didn't understand how kickers worked. "Yes, you have two pair. But he has an ace, you have a king. He wins." Concepts like this were lost on her. The first night Joboo met Erin and I, he turned to Brad and said "Would it be rude to tell someone I just met to divorce his wife?" I wish you had saved me the trouble, Joboo.
Another night, I managed to sneak out of the house by myself and left Erin at home. She called during the game, so I put it on speaker and said "You're on speaker". She says nothing of importance for about a minute. Then there's a moment of silence. And then, she audibly takes a puff of her cigarette and tries her best to be seductive. "I want to **** you when you get home." Cue my buddies laughing their balls off. I remind her that she's on speaker phone. She starts cursing me and my friends, screaming that she didn't know she was on speaker.
As an aside: I had lost all interest in sexual relations with Erin even before we married and I found out about the prostituting. We didn't have a lot of sexual chemistry. She was in to role playing. I wasn't. She wanted to be choked. I typically don't like to do things to make a prosecutor's job easier. I remember one night I came home and I heard her masturbating; that Hitatchi magic wand never stood a chance. I turned right around and left. Actually I may have gone to Larry's Villa. Because that's what all self-loathing husbands do when they need a night off - go to Larry's Villa.
If you want to know the truth of it, 90% of the reason I married Erin was to get her on my health insurance. I knew she was bi-polar and she had a handful of scripts to try and help control it. Unfortunately, since she couldn't hold a job, health insurance wasn't in the cards. And those bi-polar meds are expensive out-of-pocket. However, she was an unbearable **** without them. So I would suck it up and spend the $990/month to keep her in supply. I was lucky if she took them half the time. When it came time for the annulment, we had to add the bit about her mental health issues since that's really what drove us to get married in the first place.
I'm sort of all over the place here. The main point of this post was to talk about a couple of the games we created that were more successful than most:
Low in the hole - We could never say the name of this one without throwing in "Low in your mom's hole". It's pretty straight-forward. It plays exactly like Stud, but the lowest down-facing card is wild. So if you have 64 in the hole and a 4 face up, you're starting with a set of 6's. The tricky part came at the river - since the last card is face-down, it could screw up your wild. So there's a player option: Take the last card face-down for free, or pay 2x the bet for face-up. You can pretty much fold anything lower than a flush, and even boats are really vulnerable in a game like this.
Southern cross - I was never a big fan of this one. It plays out like hold 'em but with significantly more community cards. The entire board is dealt out face-down as so:
Two cards to each player, face down. There's a round of betting pre-"flop". The "flop" is comprised of the four horizontal cards. Round of betting. The "turn" is comprised of the four vertical cards. Round of betting. The "river" is the middle card. Round of betting. We've always used the middle card as a wild, but it would work without. People pick one complete board (horizontal or vertical) at showdown and the best hand wins. You could always mix it up (split pot based on best horizontal and best vertical), whatever works.
Fish out of water - This is basically hold 'em with two community boards. After all betting is complete, a die is rolled twice. Each roll of 1-5 corresponds to a number in that board. For example, if you roll a 4, then a 2, you'll at the top board's turn card with the bottom board's middle flop card. Those cards then switch places - the turn from the top board becomes part of the flop on the bottom board, and vice versa; in the example below, the 6 of spades would trade spots with the 3 of clubs. Hands are revealed and a winner is declared. If a 6 is rolled either time, no cards move.
**** your neighbor - Probably the most popular of our weird games. There's a single card and a three-card version of this.
Both versions: Every player puts three chips out in front of them. They do not go into a community pot; they stay in front of the player for the time being. Cards are dealt out to each player. Starting to the dealer's left, the players must decide if they want to either keep their hand or pass. If they pass, they trade hands with their neighbor to the left. That neighbor MUST trade his/her hand unless they have a blocker (in single card, a King is the blocker; in three card, a pair of aces or better is the blocker). If a blocker hand is announced, it must be exposed to the player who requested that hand. Once action comes back to the dealer, the dealer can decide to either stay or trade with the top card(s) off the deck. Action is now complete. All hands are revealed. The player with the lowest hand must throw one chip into the pot. If more than one player has tied for the lowest hand, all players with that hand will throw one chip into the pot. A new hand is dealt, and this continues until only one player is left. Last man standing takes the pot.
Single card version: The big difference between the two versions is that the deck is not re-shuffled between rounds, unless there are not enough cards to complete the hand. This allows really sober players who are paying attention to exploit the drunks who aren't paying attention.
Three card version: We've gone back and forth on this for a while - whether the dealer MUST draw all three cards from the deck or if they can choose to draw one, two, or three cards (depending on if they want to hold a single ace or draw). I prefer allowing the dealer to draw any amount, to make the dealer slightly stronger. My friends want it to be all-or-nothing.
We tried a version of Chinese poker with two jokers in the deck. A single joker is wild, but if you get both jokers, they have to be used as deuces. That one worked out okay.
Monday/Tuesday, July 11+12
After I get home from work on Monday, my wife says she wants to do more work on her sewing and I should plan on going out. Well, you don't have to tell me twice. Off to the Linq! Not sure why I picked the Linq of all places in town. I always seem to cash out >+$100 there, and the games are fun, but the action is so tight and there's barely $1000 on the table some nights.
I went up and down a bit before I got in to my absolute, stone-cold nut favorite spot: I'm UTG +1 with KK. I make it $10 to go (the standard raise all night had been $12). MP and BTN call, everyone else folds. And then, it's the beautiful, wonderful, flop:
AK6r
Pocket KK with an AK flop is so sweet. You can lead out and get callers. You can check-raise and get callers. You know at least one of your callers has an A or spiked that bottom set. It's just delicious. I decide to lead the flop and bet $15. Call call. I check the 8 on the turn, trying to make it look like my C-bet didn't get through and I was slowing down. It checks through. River is a 3. I bet $30. MP insta-calls, and the BTN folds. MP shows A3. ****... c'mon raise me there man. I wonder if I check the river if he tries to jam. Maybe I missed a chance to make money, but I was doing alright:
Finished +$130 and went to bed.
On Tuesday, my wife informs me that she can get us free tickets to the show at the Smith Center that night. I ask what's playing. She doesn't know. I ask if it's any good. Again, she doesn't know. So I ask why her bosses aren't taking the tickets. "Oh, Tim is flying to Switzerland today and Mike is at the All-Star Game." Must be nice. We grab the tickets and make our plans.
I've always liked this building, kind of away from the craziness of downtown:
Tried Flippin' Good Burgers:
They weren't bad. Nothing worth giving up In N Out, or Five Guys, or (insert successful burger chain here). It's right next door to the Smashed Pig, which I highly recommend. We just didn't have the time.
Smith Center!
The musical itself was okay. A lot of fourth-wall breaking and meta-jokes, along with some racial insensitivity (which I love), but it never quite came together and fell a little flat. The first act was much stronger than the second act. If you can get free tickets like us, it's worth it. Otherwise, meh.
Directly outside the Smith Center as we're leaving downtown:
What better way to end an overdue post than with a shot of a porno store. I love this country.
I mentioned earlier that we had about 15 of us that moved here at the same time. It was actually a pretty good group and really fun. We tried to get together all the time for some form of hanging out - home games, bingo/bowling nights, Pai Gow (seems to be the favorite amongst the group), dinners out, whatever. People all had different schedules, but we always tried to make it work. While most events were well attended but not socially "mandatory", the home games were can't-miss for those of us who enjoy cards and gambling. This only excluded one or two people, and most of the time they'd come around anyway just to hang out.
Four of my buddies (Brad, Steve, and the two brothers from Penn State that Erin almost killed) were renting a house together in Rhodes Ranch (master planned community in the south west). They rent out the 5th bedroom to a young guy who was trying to make it as a poker pro:
Spoiler:
The home poker games were always low-stakes: typically a $20 buy-in and we'd play with stacks of quarters and maybe a few dollar chips. I won a decent WPT poker set (table, chips, instructional DVDs I never watched, cards, etc) from a Massachusetts scratch ticket about two years before moving to Vegas. I only brought the chips with me:
(Dusty because it's been a while since we've been able to all get together)
We'd start mixing up games, too. While we were all card players, there were varying degrees of skill, willingness to PURE GAMBOL, cheapness, etc. So a full night of no limit wasn't all that appealing to some people. The pro taught us Chinese poker, but not open face/pineapple: 5 card high hand, 3 card high hand, 5 card 2-7 lowball hand. No fantasyland or anything like that. We added in limit, stud, blind Omaha flips, and sometimes things like Badugi. Once the booze started flowing, games like southern cross, low in your hole, fish out of water, and **** your neighbor came up. We'd basically say "Okay, it's hold em, BUT..." then try some random rule twist. Sometimes it worked, most of the time it didn't. But when it worked, it was pretty fun. The one that always pissed off the most people was "No limit, but after betting the turn, we'll roll a single die. Whatever number comes up, that's how many river cards will come out". You want to **** with people who are counting odds? That's the way to do it. It's not as detailed or varied as something like BARGE, but it kept us occupied.
Erin would always insist on coming down. She would then proceed to play about four hands, quit, and sleep the rest on the couch until it was time to go home. She really didn't understand poker. One night when it was time to leave, Joboo and Ari (Jewish friend - more on him in another post) are trying to get each other's money. They're both just putting all of their chips in blind. Neither of them can win two hands in a row and bust the other one out. This goes back and forth for about a dozen hands, and Erin gets pissed. "Can't you guys go any faster? God!" They're literally going as fast as humanly possible, and the only action is all-in. Couldn't have been going any faster if they tried. This is the same night Erin almost fought someone because she didn't understand how kickers worked. "Yes, you have two pair. But he has an ace, you have a king. He wins." Concepts like this were lost on her. The first night Joboo met Erin and I, he turned to Brad and said "Would it be rude to tell someone I just met to divorce his wife?" I wish you had saved me the trouble, Joboo.
Another night, I managed to sneak out of the house by myself and left Erin at home. She called during the game, so I put it on speaker and said "You're on speaker". She says nothing of importance for about a minute. Then there's a moment of silence. And then, she audibly takes a puff of her cigarette and tries her best to be seductive. "I want to **** you when you get home." Cue my buddies laughing their balls off. I remind her that she's on speaker phone. She starts cursing me and my friends, screaming that she didn't know she was on speaker.
As an aside: I had lost all interest in sexual relations with Erin even before we married and I found out about the prostituting. We didn't have a lot of sexual chemistry. She was in to role playing. I wasn't. She wanted to be choked. I typically don't like to do things to make a prosecutor's job easier. I remember one night I came home and I heard her masturbating; that Hitatchi magic wand never stood a chance. I turned right around and left. Actually I may have gone to Larry's Villa. Because that's what all self-loathing husbands do when they need a night off - go to Larry's Villa.
If you want to know the truth of it, 90% of the reason I married Erin was to get her on my health insurance. I knew she was bi-polar and she had a handful of scripts to try and help control it. Unfortunately, since she couldn't hold a job, health insurance wasn't in the cards. And those bi-polar meds are expensive out-of-pocket. However, she was an unbearable **** without them. So I would suck it up and spend the $990/month to keep her in supply. I was lucky if she took them half the time. When it came time for the annulment, we had to add the bit about her mental health issues since that's really what drove us to get married in the first place.
I'm sort of all over the place here. The main point of this post was to talk about a couple of the games we created that were more successful than most:
Low in the hole - We could never say the name of this one without throwing in "Low in your mom's hole". It's pretty straight-forward. It plays exactly like Stud, but the lowest down-facing card is wild. So if you have 64 in the hole and a 4 face up, you're starting with a set of 6's. The tricky part came at the river - since the last card is face-down, it could screw up your wild. So there's a player option: Take the last card face-down for free, or pay 2x the bet for face-up. You can pretty much fold anything lower than a flush, and even boats are really vulnerable in a game like this.
Southern cross - I was never a big fan of this one. It plays out like hold 'em but with significantly more community cards. The entire board is dealt out face-down as so:
Two cards to each player, face down. There's a round of betting pre-"flop". The "flop" is comprised of the four horizontal cards. Round of betting. The "turn" is comprised of the four vertical cards. Round of betting. The "river" is the middle card. Round of betting. We've always used the middle card as a wild, but it would work without. People pick one complete board (horizontal or vertical) at showdown and the best hand wins. You could always mix it up (split pot based on best horizontal and best vertical), whatever works.
Fish out of water - This is basically hold 'em with two community boards. After all betting is complete, a die is rolled twice. Each roll of 1-5 corresponds to a number in that board. For example, if you roll a 4, then a 2, you'll at the top board's turn card with the bottom board's middle flop card. Those cards then switch places - the turn from the top board becomes part of the flop on the bottom board, and vice versa; in the example below, the 6 of spades would trade spots with the 3 of clubs. Hands are revealed and a winner is declared. If a 6 is rolled either time, no cards move.
**** your neighbor - Probably the most popular of our weird games. There's a single card and a three-card version of this.
Both versions: Every player puts three chips out in front of them. They do not go into a community pot; they stay in front of the player for the time being. Cards are dealt out to each player. Starting to the dealer's left, the players must decide if they want to either keep their hand or pass. If they pass, they trade hands with their neighbor to the left. That neighbor MUST trade his/her hand unless they have a blocker (in single card, a King is the blocker; in three card, a pair of aces or better is the blocker). If a blocker hand is announced, it must be exposed to the player who requested that hand. Once action comes back to the dealer, the dealer can decide to either stay or trade with the top card(s) off the deck. Action is now complete. All hands are revealed. The player with the lowest hand must throw one chip into the pot. If more than one player has tied for the lowest hand, all players with that hand will throw one chip into the pot. A new hand is dealt, and this continues until only one player is left. Last man standing takes the pot.
Single card version: The big difference between the two versions is that the deck is not re-shuffled between rounds, unless there are not enough cards to complete the hand. This allows really sober players who are paying attention to exploit the drunks who aren't paying attention.
Three card version: We've gone back and forth on this for a while - whether the dealer MUST draw all three cards from the deck or if they can choose to draw one, two, or three cards (depending on if they want to hold a single ace or draw). I prefer allowing the dealer to draw any amount, to make the dealer slightly stronger. My friends want it to be all-or-nothing.
We tried a version of Chinese poker with two jokers in the deck. A single joker is wild, but if you get both jokers, they have to be used as deuces. That one worked out okay.
Monday/Tuesday, July 11+12
After I get home from work on Monday, my wife says she wants to do more work on her sewing and I should plan on going out. Well, you don't have to tell me twice. Off to the Linq! Not sure why I picked the Linq of all places in town. I always seem to cash out >+$100 there, and the games are fun, but the action is so tight and there's barely $1000 on the table some nights.
I went up and down a bit before I got in to my absolute, stone-cold nut favorite spot: I'm UTG +1 with KK. I make it $10 to go (the standard raise all night had been $12). MP and BTN call, everyone else folds. And then, it's the beautiful, wonderful, flop:
AK6r
Pocket KK with an AK flop is so sweet. You can lead out and get callers. You can check-raise and get callers. You know at least one of your callers has an A or spiked that bottom set. It's just delicious. I decide to lead the flop and bet $15. Call call. I check the 8 on the turn, trying to make it look like my C-bet didn't get through and I was slowing down. It checks through. River is a 3. I bet $30. MP insta-calls, and the BTN folds. MP shows A3. ****... c'mon raise me there man. I wonder if I check the river if he tries to jam. Maybe I missed a chance to make money, but I was doing alright:
Finished +$130 and went to bed.
On Tuesday, my wife informs me that she can get us free tickets to the show at the Smith Center that night. I ask what's playing. She doesn't know. I ask if it's any good. Again, she doesn't know. So I ask why her bosses aren't taking the tickets. "Oh, Tim is flying to Switzerland today and Mike is at the All-Star Game." Must be nice. We grab the tickets and make our plans.
I've always liked this building, kind of away from the craziness of downtown:
Tried Flippin' Good Burgers:
They weren't bad. Nothing worth giving up In N Out, or Five Guys, or (insert successful burger chain here). It's right next door to the Smashed Pig, which I highly recommend. We just didn't have the time.
Smith Center!
The musical itself was okay. A lot of fourth-wall breaking and meta-jokes, along with some racial insensitivity (which I love), but it never quite came together and fell a little flat. The first act was much stronger than the second act. If you can get free tickets like us, it's worth it. Otherwise, meh.
Directly outside the Smith Center as we're leaving downtown:
What better way to end an overdue post than with a shot of a porno store. I love this country.
07-15-2016
, 08:01 PM
