The Poker Project (playing and writing about poker in the U.S.)

November Recap

It was only a matter of time...

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New deck of cards

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ge...]

Is it a Fish? Is it a Reptile? Scientific Marvel! One of a Kind!

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Improving my game

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Obligatory sunset pic from the Beau

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Operation (re)Deny marknfw [396/500]

Over hundred hours to go with less than a month in the year. This feels familiar...

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Nice balance trick with the two quarters and a nickel. And the dog in the casino -do they have to have a service dog label to be there? I've seen some streams where a player had a dog sitting with him (Texas as I recall)

Depends on the casino, I think. At Harrahdise I'm pretty sure you need a service dog label or there's a size limit. The guy who brought the pup above said the service dog vest was bullshit but it usually works.

How are the games at Casino del LOL treating you? Sorry I won't be able to join you over the holidays...

Lol @ dog at poker table. So long as she's playing her own hand and no one is giving her advice, I'm cool with it. ODTAH. 😀

Lol @ fluffball with dinosaur. 😀

Aren't you a TayTay fan? She's ending her tour here this weekend; wife and stepdaughters all managed to get awesome floor tickets and all are super pumped. But I'll have a nice night at home with the puppy. 😀

Gi'vecometotalkwithyouagainG

yes indeed. she was just in Nola around Halloween and the city transformed into Swiftyville. Despite being a fan, I had little interest in attending the show. Like you, I prefer nights at home with the pup 😀

I remember you talking about the gem show. Hope the action picks up again at some point. I went to Harrahdise yesterday around five and there were only two tables running--on a Monday, but still. The games here are good but there are fewer tables and a lot of the big money has gone underground/migrated to Texas.

Adventures with Gui

I arrive at 2:30 on Saturday afternoon, just as a new $1/$3’s getting started. I follow Floorman Roy to Table 11, right in the middle of the room. Waiting alone in Seat 3, wearing a gray ski jacket and a tan hat, is one of my favorite Harrahdise regs, a legend of the room and a frequent candidate for the Who Loves it More Award. The moment Gui sees me, his eyes crinkle in delight and we warmly greet each other, lightly grasping each other’s arms as I take the 4 Seat.

“Where you been?” I ask him. “I haven’t seen you.”

Gui gestures first at the room and then vaguely at the rest of the casino, as if to say: I’ve been here, there, and everywhere. I know that he likes baccarat.

A young Black guy in a Tennessee jacket takes the 9 Seat, a fifties white guy in a camo hunting jacket and polished black boots takes the 5, an out-of-towner with spiky silver hair and a silver bead necklace takes the 1, a serious-looking youngster in an Aria hat takes the 8. Roy swipes us in and takes our cash, counting out hundos and twenties and sliding us stacks of red. A few minutes pass in silence as we idly check our phones, scan the TVs. The Georgia-Texas game is on the sportsbook’s biggest screen. “Where’s Vu?” Roy asks. He looks at his watch.

From the back of the room, Vu flashes a grin and pretends to hide in the employee closet, then scurries over. “I was about to hide in the closet,” he jokes. Roy says nothing. He’s been going through the same motions for a decade or three, and his actions are unhurried, world-wearied. He signs a printed-out slip of paper having to do with finances, keeping track of the chips or whatever, and gets up. Vu sits down, signs the slip, and hands it to Roy, who returns to his post at the podium. Vu shuffles the cards, fans them out, washes them, pitches us cards.

Gui’s thin, wrinkled left hand is pressed lightly against the baize, waiting for a hand. He checks his cards and flicks them away.

I don’t play a hand for the first orbit, then take out my phone. The last few sessions have gone badly for me, and I’ve decided to set some new rules. Rule number 1: No phone unless I’m UTG+1 or UTG. Rule number 2: Write notes. The notes don’t have to be strategic—in fact they probably won’t be—but it’s more an exercise in mindfulness, in paying attention to small details that would otherwise elude me and be lost forever, as they eventually will be anyway.

I post my big blind and scan the room. In the back right corner is the $500 Gladiator tournament that runs the second Saturday of every month. I spot Wild Bill and Bread Truck 2.0’s younger brother and a dozen or so other donkament regs that I know by sight, if not by name. Behind me, four other $1/$3s are going. I lock eyes with ******* Mark and, on cue, we give each other our usual acknowledgement: theatrical squint and pursed lips and head nod, as if to say, yeah, we in here.

Gui points to the open seat on his right, which has been empty for thirty minutes despite four names on the waitlist. He gets up, walks over to the registration booth, and tugs lightly on Troy’s jacket at the cage. Yi points at the list and Troy nods.

“Long time, man.” He sits down and says again, shaking his head, chuckling to himself, “it’s a long time.”

Our table isn’t talkative. Just nine dudes silently playing cards.

Second orbit, and I finally play a hand. A bunch of limps and I have AJdd and I’m ready to bump it up, but then Gui makes it $7 and I just call, everyone else calls, the flops comes King-high, and Gui wins with AK. I feel smart and stupid at the same time. After stacking his chips and folding a few hands in a row, Gui sits impatiently in his seat, one leg splayed outward so that he can more easily observe the room, and he says, “No service.” He’s dressed in a much more elaborate outfit than I’d realized: beneath his ski jacket is a second one, a bluish one-piece ski suit unzipped to his belly button, and a black Calvin Klein t-shirt. Coiled around his neck is a gray-black scarf that I’ve sometimes seen him use as a face covering. Ratty black sandals, and thick gray socks.

He’s right. I haven’t seen a server since I stepped foot in the room. I shrug sympathetically and Gui says, “No cocktail, man, ****.” He laughs and his eyes twinkle. “Long time,” he says.

A few minutes later Server Terry zooms straight up to Gui and hands him two waters, profusely apologizing for some snafu going on in the back. I tell him not to apologize and ask for a coffee. He confirms cream only, and I nod. He knows my order well.

“I’ll take a French 75,” the young guy in the 2 Seat says.

“You want it on the rocks? Light ice?”

“Light ice.”

“Light ice,” Terry says agreeably. “Yeah, it’s better that way.” Then he diligently scurries to the other tables, his tray expertly balanced by his dependable right hand, saying over and over in a chipper polite voice, “Beverages, water, drinks, beer, cocktails.” His black hair is cut in a tight fade that’s almost a mohawk and he wears two hoop earrings, black Nike sneaks, black Harrahdise employtee shirt and pants.

A few minutes later, Terry drops off my coffee and the 2 Seat’s French 75 and Gui’s drink—coffee with Sweet’n Low. “No sugar,” Gui tells me. “Sugar will kill me.”

I’m writing notes when I look up and see Gui in a pot with the Tennessee jacket guy in the 1 seat. Tennessee has just jammed his last $140 or so into what looks like $100 on an Ace hi board. Gui tank calls.

“You’re good, my friend,” Tennessee announces. “I have nothing.”

Gui chuckles softly and mutters something and shows Ace-Three off. As the kid walks away Gui turns to me and explains, “he bet too much.”

“You knew,” I say.

He nods soberly and says again, “Bet too much.”

Fourth or fifth orbit, I finally play a few hands. Ace-Jack, Ace-Ten, King-Nine. Win some, lose some. From the big blind I chop with Gui, he tosses his dollar small blind to Dealer Mike.

A few limps, the button makes it $15, the small blind makes it $45 and action folds back around. Gui shows me A8cc, which he’d limped. “Good call,” I tell him, as usual: I love pretending to goad him into playing more hands, which he loves to do.

He folds and tells me about a hand he played a few weeks earlier, in which he called one-fiddy preflop with those very cards, the Ace-Eight of clubs. “Four player call, I call. I flop flush.”

“Big pot?” I ask, and he nods.

Right after I type up the details of the Ace-Eight hand, Gui points at my phone and asks if I’m talking to someone. I shake my head. “I write,” I tell him. “I write about different things. You never know what you’ll see, or the stories you’ll hear.”

Once, years earlier, I had tried to talk to Gui about poker—to really talk to him. I remember that we were standing outside the glass partition that separated the old cardroom from the rest of the casino. We were both waiting for seats, and we stood for a few minutes in silence, watching the players fiddle with their chips and stare at their cards. I turned to him and asked him why: why did he play poker? He frowned at me and shook his head and turned back to the action, staring stoically into the room. Maybe it was the language barrier, but I think that Gui understood what I was trying to get at perfectly well. I think he understood, as I didn’t, that sometimes explaining kills the magic.

Now, sitting beside me, Gui nods and points at his own phone, its blank screen with a few apps. I look at the lettering beneath a few apps and ask him what language that is.

“Chinese.”

I go to the only bathroom in the casino that has a water fountain, fill up my bottle, and take a quick dump. I’m out of the cardroom for less than ten minutes. When I get back Table 11 is completely empty; the only remaining trace is my maroon hoodie, hanging from the back of seat 4. Yi calls to me from table 6 and gestures at the last open seat, the 8. At the cage Chip Runner Monica hands me my rack with a small slip wedged between the chips.

UNCLAIMED FUNDS
Table 711, Seat 4

Type of game: 1-3 holdem no limit
Amount: $717

I sit in Table 6 next to Gerald, another candidate for the Who Loves it More Award, and a young gun I’ve never seen before with four bracelets on his left wrist, one of which reads NO ONE CARES, WORK HARDER.

I rack up around 7, nodding buh-bye to Gui on my way out, and hustle out of the Poydras exit into the muggy evening air. As I’m making my way up the parking garage stairwell I bump into Bread Truck on his way down. “Good session?” he asks.

I tell him that it was uneventful. “But Gui was at my table,” I add, “and we were laughing a bit.”

Operation (re)Deny marknfw [411/500]

Amazing read Ben God I am looking forward to when that book of yours will be released... ETA on it??? And are you going to be in Vegas during the WSOP this summer?

As one who has been sitting in a live 1/3 NL game week-in week-out without fail for 15 years, I find the minutiae and goings on of the characters in your stories very relatable / enjoyable. 😀

Ghadtolookuptheword"baize"thoG

good writing

preciate the popin Dubn and glad you enjoyed! More verbal spew incoming over the next month or two.

Highly unlikely I'll be in Vegas next summer, as I've been migrated to the northeast to spend time with family in June-July...I'll be following your progress for sure, and hopefully we can find time to grab that beer

Thanks for the kind words GG 😀

#allwordsmatter

not at the level of your homoerotic vlogger fan fiction, but I appreciate the compliment, esp coming from you!

Grateful to Be Alive

In at 315 on Wednesday afternoon, three games going. I immediately break my phone rule when the guy on my right in Seat 6 starts telling a story about running it up at Boomtown. “I sat in the game for thirty minutes, and I had all the chips in play,” he tells me. “And i wasn’t even having to bet. They were putting me all in.”

“How long ago was this?” I ask. “I can’t remember the last time they had no-limit at Boomtown."

“This would have probably been in 2007 or 8."

"Before I lived here," I say.

We keep talking, and he points at the table next to us. "Everyone sitting over there was sitting here."

I look over, and it's the day crew: Casey, Dale, Hugo, Anthony (who just racked up from our table to join them), the contractor who always complains about tables not being enough action, Steve the Cop, all the usual suspects. "The only guy who wasn't at this table that I can remember is the guy in the 3 seat."

"That's Darren. That's her husband," Dealer Jackie says, nodding at the blond-haired woman in the 5.

"Yeah. And he did not sit at this table," she says. "He normally sits and play with me, but since my son's playing"—she glances to her right—"it's too hard to have three of us."

A few minutes later, Floorman Binh calls out to me and gestures at the very table we were just talking about, as if to usher me over. I lock eyes with him, confused; I hadn't asked for a table change. "I'm good here," I say.

"They want you," Seat 5 says with a smile.

"If they want me that bad, they can come to me," I say. That gets a chuckle from half the table.

Always the same song and dance—coming or going, staying put or switching it up. About thirty minutes into my session Dumpstaphunk Ivan changes tables to my direct left, bringing with him two stacks of red, a baby bottled water, and a shiny gold-black card protector with a skull in the middle and the words, in gold lettering, GRATEFUL I'M NOT DEAD. Not a cardroom legend—a Nola legend. He's dressed in black: hoodie, flat-brimmed 504 hat, jeans, sneaks. Cool brownish shades. White wireless earbud in his right ear. We don’t know each other. He’s quiet, on his phone. Pleasant and chill but not, it seems, in the mood for chitchat. He scrolls social media and pulls up a crossword. He plays passively and predictably: exactly how you’d expect a rec in his position in life to play. He wins a tiny pot and tosses a white to Dealer Mike, who thanks him. Brief pause, and Ivan tosses another white.

“Thank you,” Mike says again.

The guy to Ivan’s right is a young Asian punter wearing a comfy looking lavender fleece and a pink man purse slung snugly around his chest. A few weeks ago, at the Beau, someone wondered why so many young male cardroom regs are wearing manbags. It struck me as a good question. I'm seeing way more fanny packs and purses than backpacks these days.

The punter commits $350 on the turn drawing dead against the only grinder at the table, a youngish southern bro. “I’ll be right back,” the punter says.

“Sorry to see him go,” the guy on my right says.

“He said he’ll be back,” I say. Which is never a sure thing, to be sure, but the punter does indeed return with a fresh $400, two stacks of red and two of green.

Action folds to me in the small, and I put out my left hand in the form of a questioning karate chop.

“Let’s play,” Ivan says, and I know he must have a jackpot hand. I tell him I don’t have one, showing him K6o, and toss him my small. He shows me pocket Sevens, and I mention that they just hit a big one at the L’Aberge. He launches into a story about the one time he got a piece. “$189K,” he tells me. “Two people were walking, the table share was $7700.”

“Two people were walking? Did y’all give ‘em anything?”

“One of ‘em was a reg. You know Joe—hoarse Joe? I gave him a few hundred bucks. Other people that weren’t from here, they didn’t give him ****."

I tell him about the one time that I hit the jackpot—also a good table share—and then I ask if he remembers the hand.

“Yeah. It was quad Tens and a straight flush. It was late at night. I was at Jazzfest. I was playing some late-night show and I had played an earlier show, and I had like 2.5 hours to kill. And I came and sat in here at ****in midnight or some ****. I only had like 160 bucks in front of me. I was sittin here ****in around. Wasn’t a bad little come-up.”

No Neville's on the iPod but cool story. 😀

I didn't think I'd ever be a manbag guy. But due to a ~temporary injury this year I couldn't really operate my wallet (my one and only wallet I've had since high school days). So I did some manbag shopping (my wife was so jelly) and eventually settled on a quite small one, with a few holders for credit cards / id / etc. and just enough room for some cash plus one stack of backup red chips. And so now I'm a manbag guy. I absolutely look like an old guy who's trying way too hard, but **** it, it is quite practical and works for situation.

GcluelessmanbagguyG

Not a manbag sort of guy, but I definitely built up a hat collection over the past couple of years, which strays from youngster baseball caps, to fedoras, to cowboy hats, to European hats, so good to work the table image, you know 😉😃

I recall sitting next to Ivan many years ago in Harradise. I'm a longtime admirer of The Meters (none better, in fact) and got a genuine thrill seeing their original bass player, George Porter Jnr, with his band on Frenchman St; unfortunately Zigaboo Modeliste wasn't on drums, who's playing always brings me back to life (like many drummers I spent hour upon hour trying to play like him---many would regard him as the GOAT of New Orleans if not for Earl Palmer).

I need to level up my nonexistent manbag game. I have a baby backpack that I'll occasionally use, but usually my hoodie's pockets are enough to carry what I need.

Hope you're still on the mend, and glad you're back in action.

I suspect you'd be quite the fun—and tough—player to tangle with a the cardtable

not surprised to hear that you crossed paths with Ivan, Dr.. Not sure if I mentioned this itt, but I've been co-hosting a poker podcast, and one of the episodes is with

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/19-eric-vogel/id1674014548?i=1000648362718

Apple Podcasts

#19: Eric Vogel

Hope your own grind is going well! Still waiting on a new PGC

you know if you see anyone with a fanny pack at the sportsbook they are a big baller

confirmed

Fake Action and Ice Cream

In Thursday at 4:25, five holdem games, one $15/30 Omaha hi, one $4/12 half n half.

Lajuana sends me to Table 1 in the corner, tells me some people don’t like playing over there. “I’m easy,” I tell her. “One table change, max.”

I take the 3 seat and scan the game—it looks like a fake action table. The punter from yesterday is here, his pink manpurse slung snugly across a black hoodie. Tiny’s here, wearing a Puma hat and hoodie. A guy who looks exactly like Rockets center Clint Capela is on my left, 2k deep. . His huge watch is glittering. He casually rifles through his left sweatpants pocket and plucks out a few stray black chips and a mini-brick of hundos. He's some sort of baller, fake or real I dunno. A colossally nitty fishreg is in the 9 with $2K. In the 8, captaining our table of fake action grinders, is a white guy in glasses, a Pels hat, and a green hoodie that reads, on the breast pocket, "It's Hard to be *Humble* When You’re As Great As I am. It's hard not to appreciate a sweatshirt like that.

Mr Humble button straddles. “Blind raise, one time?” he asks the nit. “Cmon. You haven't played a hand since you've been here.” The kid grins and shakes his head.

I immediately play a few hands, win one lose one.

“Does anyone tell you you look like Dirk?” the 7 Seat says. He's a burly guy with a strong southern accent and finger tats.

“About every other time I come here,” I say.

“Damn!” The guy wearing a fluffy winter jacket exclaims, looking me up and down. “Got Dirk’s eyes, too.”

Someone leaves Seat 6, and Mr. Happy sits down with one bill. He’s one of the few survivors of the old $4/8 Lolimit pool, hair white now, frumpy black flannel slung atop a wrinkled blue buttondown, black headphones in as usual, a look of profound misery on his face. Dealer Hank arrives right after him, and they argue about whether he needs to post the big blind or if he can wait till the button passes and play for free. Hank tells Happy he's supposed to post, but he lets him play for free. Most things, in Hank's eyes, aren't worth arguing over, which is another reason why I like him.

I’m up early, then I bluff off a few hundred. For thirty minutes our table is a whirlwind of seathoppers and table changers, players arriving only to leave minutes later. For a moment I think our game will break, but by 5:50 we’re full. Young arrives in a caramel sweatsuit and Jordans, gives me a fist bump, and yaps at Lajuana for a table change. One hand and then he’s gone too.

The rec I failed to bluff overlimps and back raise jams against the fluffy sweater guy on my right and shows QQ. I feel worse about my bluff.

A guy with a white ponytail and an impressive Fu Manchu leaves seat 9 for another game, and the Ice Cream Man takes his place. He’s a Latino guy in his sixties with a mustache and an expressive, weathered face. The story of his name is a sad one. A few years back, according to the Harrahdise rumor mill, he drove an ice cream truck from neighborhood to neighborhood and supplied countless children with scrumptious treats. Then one day he got drunk, crashed his truck into a house, and killed a kid. He did some jail time and now he’s where he belongs, with us.

I bluff again—this time, successfully—against a kid in nerd glasses and a blazingly bright orange hat. By 6:30, our game has quieted down. All of the antsy action-hunters are gone, and we’re left with a mix of recs and weak regs. I don’t give much of a **** either way, which, from an EV perspective, is one of my many leaks. There’s something to enjoy from an action game or a snoozefest, as long as you come prepared. I reach into my maroon hoodie’s pocket and take out one of my student’s final projects—they’ve spent the last month compiling books of delights. “Working on delights,” one of them writes in their introduction, “has made me realize that I need to focus on the good things in life and not spend all my energy focusing on the negative. I learned more about myself and I explored different writing styles while talking about things I enjoy.”

Music. Procrastination. The election. Questions. A crazy cat lady. It turns out that delights are everywhere you look. “Writing about delight,” another one writes, “is a delight of its own.”

Great writeups, as always!!

How do you personally distinguish between 'fake' and 'real' on and off the poker table? It's of course an important skillset in the gambling world.

usually when the rack is fake you can spot a small scar on the armpit so if she's wearing a spaghetti top, just wait for her to reach her arms up and stretch

Good question. Experience is probably important, as is picking the brains of people you trust.

Beat the Greet

The first thing I see, when I walk up to the registration booth, is Floorman Tim’s olive-green suit and red Santa hat. He's busy getting chips for a new player. As quietly as possible I slink around the corner, collect myself, and pounce.

“HELLO, WELCOME!”

We’ve been playing our little game for a few months now. Caesars has an employee policy called “Beat the Greet”: the idea is for employees to always be the first to welcome the customer. Our game is simple: whenever we're both in the cardroom, the first person to greet the other scores one point. A second point can be scored if we're at the same table. Tim sighs and says, dejectedly, “Hello, Welcome,” conceding the loss. Then he slips back into his usual chipper self and sends me to Table 6.

It’s 3pm on Friday. Keith, a friendly guy with glasses and the same Save the Children sweatshirt he wore the last two days, is on my left in Seat 3. As I arrive he’s collecting stray chip racks from beneath our seats. “We’ll tag team it,” I say, taking the racks and putting them with a dozen others on an empty table. We shake hands and properly introduce ourselves. “So are you in here every day?” he asks me once I get settled. I tell him he’ll be seeing me a lot this month because of a bet.

“What’s the bet?”

I sketch out the general details: I need to log 250 hours by the end of year, or else I have to pay an Internet stranger a gee. I tell him that I'm behind, as usual, but at least the semester is almost over. “I’m also a teacher,” he says, “although I’m not working. Middle school math.” I tell him that my dad was a middle school science teacher.

We play. Part of me finds it hard to believe how bad a numbers guy can be at a numbers game. Then again, there are so many other ways to spend your time. Keith gets stacked and spreads to hundos across the baize. Tim scurries over and quietly says, “Better luck,” collecting the hundos and expertly unracking two stacks of red before politely scurrying away.

A bunch of middle aged dudes shuffle over to a new $1/3, a sixth, near the sportsbook. Everywhere you look, from the $1/3s to $1/2 PLO in the back, dudes are trying to outdude each other. The only female player in the room, Sindy, sits across from me in Seat 8. Sindy's here. She’s aged a bit in the last few years, her hair white instead of brown, but there’s still those kind eyes and that sassy DeRidder accent.

She gets up from her seat, leans beside me, whispers in my ear: “Those guys look like a bunch of stooges!”

“You moving?” I ask as we share a laugh.

“No, I just saw you looking,” she says.

On my left, Keith is losing. He scans his stack, cleans his glasses, checks his phone. “Might be leaving soon,” he tells me.

“It’s early,” I say.

“Yeah, but I stick to my limit.” He points at his stack, winnowed away to $120 from the two that he rebought with. “I lose this, I’m done.” He tells me about his recent five-sesh winning streak; I tell him about my recent eight-sesh losing streak. “I’ve done better when my greed level goes down,” he says. “It’s better if I don't tell myself to get $500. I’ve been more content to win less.”

He limps AJo, calls a raise, flops an Ace, and doubles up.

Tim comes over and tells the 4 seat, a balding southerner with a silver stud earring, that a second PLO game will be opening. “I’ve already gotten screwed over there I don’t know how many times,” the guy mutters.

“It’s up to you, my friend,” Tim says. “Just letting you know.”

Despite his gripes, the guy leaves for the new game a few minutes later. Replacing him is Donna and Darren, the husband and wife duo from a few days ago. I don’t see their son.

The guy on my right, an old man with thinning gold hair that matches his Luxor Las Vegas jacket, swivels in his seat, eyeballing the new game. "How's it look?" I ask.

"Not sure if there's any soft spots," he says. He leaves his seat to take a closer look.

Keith’s back on a nub. He writhes in his seat, looks behind him. “Oh, my God. I have no business making bad decisions. Am I going to violate my own rule?” He hesitates, chuckles sadly, and says, “This is what I do. All right.” Three fresh hundos spread across the felt.

Instantly he wins a small pot. “There you go,” I say.

He laughs and puts one of his three hundos back in his wallet.

Dealer Hank sits down, wearing a striped red green elf hat, complete with furry elf ears. Sindy racks up, and we hug goodbye.

"Problem is I keep getting hands,” Keith says, counting and recounting his stack. "And then someone makes a flush. Maybe I play too many hands.” Action folds to the guy on my right who makes it fifteen. I fold Q6o. Keith pauses, looks like he’s going to call, and folds. Small moral victory. I tell him about the trash I've been folding. Easy decisions. "But 68 suited," he says, and I nod. A bit more tempting. A nice hand to sneak in and see a cheap flop.

Extreme rec table. I’m making a few hands and getting paid.

“Sup, champ,” Dealer Darrell says. We fist bump as he ambles past.

“Oh no!” Dealer Gina says. Somehow the 9 seat, a quiet Asian guy in a bowler hat, turned off the card shuffler. The 7 seat, a reg with snazzy scarf, kneels down and fiddles with the switch.

“There you go,” someone says as the green light by the shuffler turns on.

“Ay yai yai,” Richard says. He stretches his arms over his head.

A younghead in a Tulane cap guy sits on my right, buys in for a gee, and starts talking about a massive $1/3 game that was going yesterday. Apparently there was $45K on the table, and the game was built around one drunk birthday boy who was shuffling a stack of purples and opening to $100 every hand. “I cashed out for $9K," he tells Dealer John. “They asked for my ID at the cage."

Nice table, good vibe. Time pleasantly passing.

Keith’s chipped up to about $550, hanging tough. “I might get even,” he says hopefully.

“Always nice to get unstuck,” I say.

Lol @ "HELLO, WELCOME!"

GimaginesitsaidinSeinfeld'sUncleLeovoiceG

Always prefer a brag to a bad-beat. Almost a "delight".