"The Pen:" Live NLHE Chat Thread

@ langdon welcome to the thread mang!

@davo - grats on the reel job dood. Pokerz part time is the way to be

@rickroll - spc is doing some vegas riding april 12,13,14 with a couple of dudes that are in the great murican weel race...u r officially invited if u want in.

Spring has been going off out here. Mountain is quiet with minimal tourists. Get to the hill bright and early. Hot lap the park - we got spc hitting the 15' tables with some style. Then it onto the corn harvest - not as epic as the big pow but v good times. Looking like we are getting somewhere between 2-3.5 feet over the next 12 days or so. So the year gunna end with a bang!. Always happy to ski/recreate with the penners so any yall out this way hit us up.

@skwidz, I will be in vegas 3rd-8th if you guys get into town early.

I dealt for 2 hours this morning then decided to get cut to play. got placed at the same table In had been dealing for the last hour, that feels like an advantage.

70 entries, 42 left. not bad for a Friday morning in the middle of nowhere in bad weather.

there's this super old guy with a big goiter who can't tell the different color chips, he knocked out like 4 guys in an orbit and is a big chip leader

Got it AIPF heads up QQ v AK, th guy next to says "that's [AK] what I had too! That made me feel good and queens held for the knockout.
next hand won a nice hand with nut flush over one of the old guys. I got 100k at 1k/2k with about 35 left

I doubled up 4 players in a row on straight flips, busted in 13th with two pair vs trips, just a couple off the bubble. 85yo goiter guy, 90yo former bull rider, 85 yo lady all outlasted me.

oh well, got my money's worth.

Make a note that the guy who folded AK in a loldonkament is a hyper nit

he's actually an elite good tourney player.
he final tables again

BigO game, 5/5.
this old scruffy South Dakota rancher has like $12k

meanwhile, I'm dealing in another tourney. had a sizeable hand go to showdown, both guys tabled, one player had Broadway, I showed the straight, paused and then pushed the pot.

2 hands later, the losing player said "hey, I had a full house! I flopped two pair and filled up on the river! that pot is mine!"

I didn't see it, nothing I could do now, but if that was the case don't you think he or someone at the table would have said something, at least closer to the time?

I didn't get punched in the face, we'll call that a win

Yeah, as a veteran of the rulings threads in C&CP, I think it's way too late now. Must be before the next deal starts, IIRC.

of course

so a tournament was winding down on the final table.

[mod: removed details of the story for this one time]

Yeah, that sounds like a bad idea. The appearance of impropriety is a dangerous thing. If the bad beat had gone the other way around, the conspiracy theories could get ugly, even if the dealer hadn't made any mistakes at all.

Maybe I'm naive here, but unless your dealer friend is a mechanic and a very good one at that, what power do they actually have that could sway things in an intended direction? Beyond that, I'd imagine if they were good enough to flex those skills in a casino environment, they wouldn't be dealing in podunk South Dakota. That's a lot of squeeze for very little juice. It's not like we're talking about a 7-figure payout.

This seems wildly different than a referee betting on the games they officiate.

Yeah, I'm not arguing that it is an actual big deal, just that it could be perceived badly.

It's an "appearance of impropriety" thing more than an ethical issue, imo.

there's a bad winter storm happening so I decided to head home late last night in front of it so I didn't get stranded down there. the weather (or threat thereof) put a real damper on the weekend as the field was much smaller than expected and it wasn't as profitable a weekend as hoped. but still, it was surprising to see the huge numbers of poker players in north-central South Dakota where there is no city of population 5,000 within two hours. live poker is live and well.

Langdon,

Since this was at some casino (i.e., not a bar-poker sorta thing), were you required to be licensed?

Hope your travel home went well.

as a "volunteer dealer" I am not licensed or required to be. I would need to be licensed to deal in Montana but not N or S Dakota. The event is considered a private event not on the casino floor. in N Dakota the tourneys have to be "run" by a charity, but ones at the Indian places are fair game even with raked cash games.

the operator is becoming a pretty significant and well-respected organization. my pay is from tips which is usually between $20-$32 per hour so it's a nice side hustle for the weekends and I'm treated well.

big storm in maine, couldn't even make it to house since the final road was unplowed and couldn't make it up final hill, needed to turn around and go to parent's house and find the hide a key by digging through the snow looking for the right place where it is hidden

get in the house and find acorns stowed in the bed i'm sleeping in so the place has gotten mice infested over winter

wake up to no power and bring laptop into local chinese restaurant to setup a home office in nearby town that usually gets their power back first

overhearing the table behind me

"you gotta come up and visit, just bring a sleeping bag, you'll like this guy, he's a patriot and votes republican"

they are now doing a prayer before eating

first time I've ever seen a prayer before eating a $9.95 lunch special at lucky fortune

Langdon, while you are certainly welcome to tell any stories here, the one above is not one I as your manager would be happy for you to be sharing. If I was your manager, I would ask you to tell me first, even if I was not inclined to do anything about it. The optics are terrible. A dealer doesn't have to be a mechanic to tilt the game one way or another by rulings. You'd be surprised how many people still read 2+2 and I'm sure a least a couple of them have figured out who it was and will be telling others about it.

As Venice says, there are 100 little rulings that would be influenced. It doesn't sound like this game is properly regulated by a gaming commission. Seems like the casino would simply end the event as the sanction and ruin it for everyone.

I would eat there.

yeah and I've talked to the manager. there was no funny business, our friend actually took a couple bad beats. I just didn't like the optics, which were not even real visible. and I was curious others opinions. I'll probably delete the story

langdon, i like you man, but if you really want to capture the attention of the pen, you got to post about finding an obscure rash on your balls and they'll all perk right up to attention