Vegas Tid Bits

Just got back from Vegas. Did all my poker playing at mostly the Golden Nugget and Binions. There are a couple of noteworthy stories.

First story. I am sitting at a 1/2 game at the Nugget. I am in the eight seat. The guy in the ten seat is a regular and has a nice amount of chips. We play for a while and he starts to nod off. He had been drinking quite a bit. I have to nudge him to act. No one was sitting in the nine seat. He always came to a little confused. Looks at his cards, folds and goes back to sleep. Pretty soon the dealer waives me off and we let him sleep. Don't do that in a sports book, but poker tables are okay. I have never seen anything like it. He slept through ten rounds of blinds. He had the missed blind button in front of him. He did not have the absent button though. Never seen that either. He was present. Just in body only. Anyway, he finally wakes up and gets a little snippy with the dealer. "Why did I miss my blind?" I told him he had missed 10 blinds. He gave a sheepish grin and apologized to the dealer. The table just laughed at him. He ordered another beer and when I decided I had enough poker, he was falling asleep again.

Second Story. At the Golden Nugget again. I get there in the morning and all they had available was a must move 1/2 game. It was only four handed. I decided to sit down and see what was what. As I sat down I looked at the stacks to see what I was up against. The one seat had about $700. The four seat had $60. The six seat had $400 and the nine seat had about $1500. They had been playing for ten minutes. My $200 seemed a little paltry. I sat down and it soon became apparent what was going on. The nine seat was a maniac. The first hand I saw had the one seat re pop the nine seat opening raise. Nine calls and the flop comes 787 with two hearts. The one seat c bet and the nine seat moved all in. One thinks for a moment and then fold KK face up. Nine says he had a huge draw and he folded. We played for a while and he bluffed and bluffed and bluffed. Showing nothing and taking pots. He would blind raise $50 under the gun. He would call with the razor slim draws. I just had to wait and get a hand. He was drunk. He was a nurse who was moving to Denver on Thursday. His phone kept ringing. Turns out he was on call. He did not go to work when called. His wife called multiple times. He did not talk to her. He was on his last Vegas blow out. It was fun to watch. He was fun. Me and two other players just sat at the table waiting for our chance. Tourists would show up with $100 or less and go broke in short order. They could not handle the heat. He would get in horrible and just draw out on them for their tiny stacks. His K2 ran down KJ on a KKT32 board. His AK running down JJ on an KQJT3 board. He rivered sets with 22 multiple times. He was a fun drunk and a big opportunity for those of us with the poker knowledge and the stack to get it. The floor kept trying to make us move, but we all refused. He finally gave up.

My chance came early. I held 9d7d in the big blind. He blind raised under the gun and was called in two spots so I called too. The board was 6d5d3c. I like my hand and check. He bets $25 and we get heads up. The turn is the 9c. I move all in and he calls. the river pairs the board and I show my hand. He nods and mucks. I have $400 now. Two orbits later I get QQ utg. I limp. He bets out $30. It folds around to me and I push $400 or so in. He calls. My queens hold up. I have $800. He won't mess with me anymore. I wish I could say I got more but he lost 2K and left.
I was getting up leave two hours later and guess who came waltzing back in? Denver nurse had to go home to shower and "set the wife straight". I had to go. Too bad.

One other story. Denver Nurse gets into a hand with the ten seat later in the session. Denver was leading the action on a AK4 board. The turn was another ace. Denver bet and the ten seat moved in. Denver folded. After Denver left the ten seat told us he had AA there. I asked one, why did he push, and two, why did he not show the high hand? He said Denver told him there was no high hand. There was and it was for $268. On top of that, the Nugget doubles it between 2 a.m. and 2 p.m. It cost him $536. Ouch.