This incident happened some time ago, but I was inspired to tell the story when I read a trip report on this site detailing some wild/strange behavior at the Orleans Poker Room.
I was on a long weekend trip with two other players, staying at the Palms. All of us are 2/5 NL players and make trips fairly often to Sin City. It was our last day of the trip and we decided to give The Orleans a try, deviating from our usual haunts of Caesars, Bellagio, The Mirage, TI and the Palms (The Palms room is tiny but has provided good action).
About 25 minutes after sitting down, I am dealt AA in MP and raise to $30. An older gentleman on the button repops to $80 and a young guy with “Inexperienced Internet Player” tattooed on his forehead cold calls from the BB. With $160 of their money in the pot I am more than happy to end things here, and so I reraise to $300 thinking that I am courteously letting them know what I am holding. Both of them call, the kid being all in as he only bought in for $300. The flop brings a K and two rags, and although I figure the button has just made trip kings the only thing I can do is push my last $200 into the $900 pot. He insta-calls of course and I brace myself. “You have the Kings?” I ask. He shakes his head and turns over JJ. I show my aces and turn to see what the kid is wielding. He turns over K-6. Suited of course. Everyone knows $250 is the limit you can call pre-flop if your K-6 isn’t suited. The river is a blank and I am off to a good start.
I continued to do well at this table, winning most of the pots I got involved with seriously, and then the hand happened that prompted this post. I was in the small blind and looked down to see QQ. As a few people limp in I decided not to raise in the hopes of catching an unsuspected monster. After I complete my blind the BB raises it up to $20. One of the limpers calls - he has been very aggressive, showing a lot of bluffs on the river after making people fold. He is second in chips to me. So as it comes around I decide to take control of the situation and pop it up to $75. The BB doesn’t look happy as he thinks it over, knowing that I’ve been turning over real hands. He reluctantly calls however and Mr. Aggressive follows suit. The flop comes 8c-6s-2s. I bet out $175 into the $235 pot and the BB folds. Mr. A calls however, not taking much time to think about it either. The turn is a scary 8s and gives me pause. Did he call with top pair and turn trips? Was he on the flush draw & hit? Fear disguising itself as prudence tells me to check and see how he behaves. He immediately moves all in for about $550. I rarely take much time to act but I went into the tank on this one. Against a good or even just predictable player I don’t have much of a problem folding in this situation, but this guy had been a bit wild and as I mentioned, showing a lot of bluffs. Granted, he could have been setting this up. As I think further, I have to acknowledge that if he had a hand like JJ or 10-10, he would probably play this the same way, especially if he put me on AK. I count my money and discover that if I lose this hand I will still be up a few hundred. Finally I decide to go against my typical style and make the call, based on his previous play.
Sure enough he turns over the A-4 of spades for the flush. Crap. I flip my ladies and we turn to watch as the dealer flips the river up. Queen – of spades no less. He comes out of his chair cursing, his cheeks and arms suffusing with blood. This was actually impressive as he was about 6’2” and built as if he spent his time away from the tables bench pressing Voltzwagons. I quietly stacked the chips while he ranted and then he moved away towards the cashier. A few minutes later he was back and standing behind his chair glowering at me, the table, the dealer and everything else. We played on for the next several minutes and throughout that time he was standing there muttering angrily. I continuously caught the words “bad beat” and “bad call.” After a while it became clear the dealer wasn’t going to address the situation and frankly I was getting sick of it. So I looked up and said to him, “Bad beat? A-4 beating pocket queens is a bad beat, not the other way around.” He said, “Maybe, but it was still a bad call.” Taking my life into my hands I replied, “That may be true. In fact, I rank all of my bad calls, and that one was about the same as calling $75 preflop with A-4.” He started to go off again but right then the floor managers came up and explained to him that he needed to either sit back down and play or leave the room. He did sit down and played fairly tight from that point considering he had been steaming badly. When I got up to leave (Up $2900 WhooHoo) he actually stuck his hand out and apologized for going off on me. We shook and I commiserated with him about the unlikely hit he took.
On the whole I found the room to be full of a very good mix of players. A lot of them had no compunction about putting money in from behind or the ability to lay down a hand they wanted to play.
I was fortunate that the one time I deviated from my usually cautious play I got lucky. Luck isn’t seen too often in my neighborhood. It was nice of her to stop by.