Player's Stories

Having trouble with poker terminology? Open a new window and follow along with our poker glossary.

48 Hours - A Las Vegas Trip Report (Part 4)
By Terrance Chan

Saturday, January 6

California Love - Terrence does LA

For the first time, I have internet access, but only a few brief moments on it, to alert people to the fact I'll be at the Commerce to check out this semi-legendary 3-6.

After having lunch with family friends, I was taken to the Commerce. No RGPers paged me, unfortunately, and the 3-6 wasn't as crazy as I thought. Sure, a lot of players played any two suited even the occasional random two cards, but we have those in Vancouver too. I was really hoping for 7-way capped every hand. In other words, the fish weren't any fishier, there were just more of them, proportionately. Usually, I'm happy with two fish at the table. With six in this table, this was the most beatable game I'd seen on my trip so far.

One observation is that poker players are much more friendly in LA than in Vegas. It seems like half the players know one another. This also leads to another interesting phenomenon, potting. I'd seen potting before, but never so widespread. Two of the players, on my immediate right and two to my left, gave each other $5 every time they'd win a pot.

Now, I really don't care about this practice, but guys like Irish Mike would probably have freaked on this game. Actually, if it lowers the big losses of the fish, I think it's probably a good thing. People also toke way more in LA, and this was true at every place I played at.

My final observation was that I'm in love with the girl in Seat 1. Call me. I'm the guy from Vancouver who rivered you with the KTs gutshot straight (I had pot odds, I swear!). The Commerce was a $53 loss for me, in a brief session where I picked up all kinds of great starting hands but couldn't get them to hold up. I easily could have lost more or needed help carrying racks out of the building.

As I was being driven around by friends, I couldn't very well spend all night at the Commerce to get what was rightfully mine, and was picked up for dinner, not to play until tomorrow.

Sunday, January 7

You Won That Fair and Square. And I Won THIS Fair and Square, Too!

My friend works the afternoon shift from 2pm-10pm, and he happens to work in Long Beach and was able to drop me off at the Bicycle for those eight hours.

As I signed up for the 6-12, I was unfortunately informed that Marc Gilutin wasn't working today. So instead of meeting an RGPer, I had to settle for winning a lousy three racks. I also had my first experience of being softplayed.

The player on my right apparently took a liking to me. I limped early with QJs, and the board came J-8-x-A-y, no possible flush or a reasonable straight. Checked to me, I bet the flop, and was called twice. Checked to me, I bet the turn and was called by the player on my right. Checked, I bet the river and got called again. Before I could show my jack (which I was betting thin for value), I found myself looking at AA.

Whoa, hold up. I was just an unwilling participant in some kind of sketchy play. On top of that, the winner (I told you he liked me) gave me back three chips, to symbolize half of the last bet. I really didn't know what to do. I figured I should give him back his chips, but not until the next hand was in play, and he was in the hand, and I didn't want to offend him, as he was a nice guy and all.

I decided that the next time I beat him out of the pot I'd give him the same three chips. However, as he was a tight player I never really got that chance, so I just gave him back the chips then, and said "That's for last time. No more! Next time, you check-raise me!" He smiled like a father who had let his son beat him at 21 (the basketball game, not blackjack) and said, "okay". A few hands later, he made quads against my full house (no jackpot) and extracted the maximum from me.

"I call. You have quads?"

"Sure enough," rolling the nuts.

"Nice hand," I said, surrendering my worthless boat.

"You shouldn't have called the last one," he said, as he threw six $2 chips at me. He was right; it was pretty unlikely he was bluffing at that pot. Still, it made me feel uncomfortable.

I looked at him, and tossed the chips back on his stack. "You won those fair and square." And thankfully, this time he understood.

Nice guy and all, but I take my poker pretty seriously. From what I saw of him (which was about 6 hours, so I have a pretty good read), he's probably killing this game, although he did go on tilt after taking some early beats. By 10:00, I was starting to suffer the first symptoms of what would become a full-blown head cold, and was picked up by my friend Bucky, who was now off work.

Monday, January 8

Hustler? Don't you need suckers for that?

I arrived at the house that hardcore pornography built around noonish. That morning I had checked RGP to find out that I missed an invitation to an RGP home game. :( Although I wanted to meet Beth, Gardena was a lot closer than Compton (and N.W.A. didn't rap about Gardena, to my knowledge), Bucky and I hit the Hustler.

The daytime game here was the tightest I'd seen in LA, possibly owing to the one-big-blind structure. The whole table seemed preoccupied with hitting the jackpot though, and any board showing the most remote possibility of a jackpot (like Jd-9d-9s-7d-2h) required half the table to mention the jackpot possibility.

Although tighter, the players were still horrible (gotta love the low variance of that), and the game got looser as the night went on. Oh, did I mention about tokes in LA? One player decided that fives were hot (they had been) and proceeded to play any 5-X. When the board came 5-J-8-3-5, the player showed 52o and toked the dealer _half the pot_ for putting his river card out there.

The player (Chinese, late 20s) would routinely tip 4 or 5 chips on any pot. (Before I leave this short Hustler report, I'd like to remark on the exceptional skill and professionalism of "Ray" at the Hustler, who I felt was an excellent dealer.) I won $106 at the 6-12 before heading to my final stop, Hollywood Park.

A Lesson Learned

By the time I arrived at HPC, I was dog-sick and in no condition to play. After the second Bellagio session I wasn't about to play in another game for significant stakes feeling 60-70%. I was disappointed as I wanted to get in this 10-20 game Barbara G is always talking about. Instead, I just ate my wonton noodle soup and sweat Table 41 for a while. I looked to see if Barbara was there, but the only woman there appeared to be in her mid-40s and I remembered that she said she was 66 on the "How old are you, RGPer?" thread. Also, no one else at the table looked like a Steve, much less a BIA, and so I stopped watching this mostly uninteresting game. I went over to the concierge on the off-chance Mike Caro was in the building. He wasn't.

Settling for this denouement from what was a very interesting trip, it was time to head to LAX for my 9:00pm flight back to boring old Vancouver. Five dollar cough drops were bought, and I consumed more honey-lemon tea than a group of teenagers on a Saturday night in Hong Kong.

Final thoughts:
-LA is great
-Vegas is great
-I'm doing this again in three months. This time with a car.
-This trip report didn't cover nearly as much as I would have liked, but 6,300 words is my absolute limit.

-Terrence Chan