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48 Hours - A Las Vegas Trip Report (Part 3)
By Terrance Chan

Friday, January 5

Bloodbath at Bellagio

The wake-up call came much too early. 11:00am felt more like an hour after I hit the sack. Groggily I packed all my belongings, asked the bellhop to hold them for me while I headed for Bally's buffet and then back to the Bellagio.

Bad move. (The poker, not the buffet, which was fine.) All synapses were definitely worn down, and the daily game filled with locals wasn't nearly as good as the one last night. On my first hand, I put my opponent on a better hand than he truly had, and mucked in a pot that should have been mine.

Not only that, but I made a pretty weak play preflop, calling a raise with 87 more or less because I had posted in the cutoff. Despite the presence of the Italian from last night (who assured me that he had just sat down), this was a game with a likely expectation of only a big bet an hour or so. And as Steve Jacobs would say, expectation isn't everything, and I had dropped a ridiculous $639 (40 bets) in 3.5 hours.

But then, I made a move. One of the best moves I've ever made as a poker player, to be perfectly honest. Are you paying attention? The move I made was putting myself on the 4-8 list. After demoting myself, I felt much better, much more relaxed, and subsequently played much better cards despite the lack of sleep. I won exactly one pot (flopped quads, got a little action because of the slowplay) in two hours for a $62 loss. Then at 5:45, RGPer Dave Roemer arrived, as per our prearranged plans.

RGP - home of the one-liner

"Terrence Chan to the front desk please, Terrence Chan"

As I left for the front table, the hostess pointed out a man in a brown leather jacket who was walking over to where I was playing 8-16 a few hours earlier. Dave and I had hardly exchanged pleasantries, when a man in a beard and glasses approached me from the side.

"Hey, are you Terrence Chan?"

"Yeah..."

"From RGP?," asked David Sklansky.

"Yeah," I replied with a smile.

"We're in the mafia together!"

In my sleep-inebriated state, I had trouble putting 2+2 together (pun fully intended), much less figuring out what the world's preeminent poker theorist was talking about. Had I been more sharp, I'm sure I'd have retorted with something witty, but that didn't happen. It's kind of like when you get checked to on the river, and you check it down even though after the fact you realised you probably were gonna get called by a worse hand.

Oh well, I'd been missing bets all day anyway. Sklansky disappeared somewhere into the race book. Dave took me over to a table sitting just underneath the high-limit section, where a bunch of rocky-looking guys were playing 30-60. There I found the famed Sgt. Rock, and found him to be an exceedingly nice guy, although you wouldn't want his company at the table. Then we had one-liner of the night #2.

"So, uh, you're a real Sergeant, right?," I asked as the Rock was in between hands.

"Yeah, and he's a real Rock, too!"

I think it's practice from the nature of Usenet.

Someguy@aol.com wrote:
>>blah blah blah

user@local.provider.com wrote:
>gag, joke, pun

others write:
LOL!
LMAO!

See? We require validation for our good jokes, and with our experience we know what works and what doesn't.

Dave and I sweat the 30-60 for a while, and the following hand came about. Sgt. Rock raised UTG (with what I knew to be JJ, but Dave didn't see it), and was three-bet by a player in late position. The blinds folded, and the Sarge called. The flop came Jd-4s-5s. Sgt. Rock checked, the late player (a youngish guy) bet, and in a manner most un-rock-like, Mark threw in a check-raise. The LP player called, and called again on the turn, which was an offsuit nine.

When Mark bet at an offsuit ten on the river, the young player deliberated for 20 seconds or so, throwing in a call, and mucking to the Sarge's set. Dave put the player on AA or KK, but I like AsKs better than that, since he would have to have quite a line on Sarge to be able to play an overpair so passively on that flop.

Shortly after, Dave pointed out Linda Johnson sitting in the high-limit room. I knew Linda was there because I had heard her get paged for a phone call when I was playing 8-16. Linda heard Dave call her name, and I was semi-surprised to learn Linda knew Dave.

I was thrilled when Dave introduced me to her, and even more surprised when Linda told me she knew who I was, from RGP. Surprising me even more than that was when she invited us to dinner at the Bellagio buffet, after she played to her blind (I think she was in something like 75-150 Omaha). She did so, then cashed out, got a comp from the host, and I was on my way to dinner with a poker celebrity.

Linda and Dave were great dinner company, and of course you can't beat all you can eat at the Bellagio. We discussed everything from playing poker professionally, to RGP, to some of the famous players, to tournaments to some big news Linda can't tell us but will be making an announcement about shortly which will be very good for poker (oops!).

At some point (call it 7:20), Linda asked me what time my flight was. I checked my planner, and 8:15 stared back at me. Oops. Time to run. We thanked Linda for dinner, and faster than Sandy's boyfriend could drop a Bentley on a blackjack table, Dave and I motored to the Barbary Coast to get my bags, and to the airport. We arrived at the airport at 7:45. The flight would cease boarding at 8:15. I made it there at 8:12. The most hectic twenty-four hours and two minutes I'd ever experienced was over, and I was $317 the poorer, but a lot of memories richer, for it. But no time to dwell on the past, LA awaits!

Part Two | Players' Pages | Part 4
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