Player's Stories

A Funny Story...
By Billy Brown

For the last few months I've read as many poker books(7) and articles I can get my hands on -including the PokerPages newsletter.

I always do well in home games but recently got bored with the low stakes. So I decided to get serious about it. I planned a trip to Vegas the week after Christmas and really wanted to do well there too.

I emailed Andy to find out where the best places to play where and he told me Bellagio and The Mirage. As I wanted to play in some tournaments, he directed me to PokerPages for the listings. It helped a lot.

The 1st tournament I played in was at Mandalay Bay. There were 30 players and I finished 4th($55). I was thrilled because it was my first tournament and I hadn't done badly at all. Later that night The Plaza had a tournament with 40 players. I finished 2nd and took somewhere around $400 including bounties. My confidence was soaring.

The 3rd and final day I was determined that I was going to take a shot at the big boys. I got into a tournament that morning at Luxor and finished 4th out of 30 players for $45. I also won $125 the first night at Excalibur playing for about 2hrs so I was up about $500 and was beginning to think this game is too good to be true.

Well, two hours at the Mirage playing $6-$12 cured that thought. I dropped $400. I wasn't playing bad either. I counted 7 times that I got beat on the river. I took a break to eat and then tried Bellagio. This is where the funny part comes in.

I promised myself I would quit at 1:30 am. I had been playing for about 2hrs and I was up about $100 playing $4-$8. When it got to be time to leave, this really drunk, obknoxious guy sat down at the end of the table with about 5 racks of chips. I thought to myself this is one of those situations you always read about. A drunk guy throwing away his money.

Well, he proved me right the 1st couple of hands by raising every time. While throwing his chips in, I swear he wasn't even looking at his cards. I had to stay. Well, 2hrs later and about -$200 later I wished I had left when I had promised myself. I was depressed now, all the money I had won was gone plus I was down about a $100.

I admitted to the guy the only reason I was still there was because he sat down. He had been cracking jokes the whole time and was really funny so I didn't mind telling him that. He almost fell out of his chair laughing, and called everyone he knew in the place over to tell them what I had said. They all had a big laugh. It turns out that he was some big time pro. I didn't stick around to get his name.

Billy Brown