Sunny Day in Seattle

Well, I got my wish for clear skies today.

I woke up at 7 a.m. which is really unusual for me and rushed in to Muckleshoot Casino to see if the game I left last night at 1 a.m. was still playing. It had been a juicy game for me. It wasn’t. It had stopped at about 4 a.m.

I was invited to sit down and play 4/8 limit, the only game going in the poker room. I enjoyed the conversation with the young man to my left who was well spoken, gracious and intelligent. However, the old crude, ignorant, outspoken old codger across from us kept jumping in whenever he heard a word he could relate to. It didn’t make a bit of difference to him that it had nothing to do with what we were discussing or that it made little sense. He had an opinion and he was going to “damn well give it” (it was laced with expletives and terms like, communists, U.N., nuke them all, stop giving them money, etc, etc, every chance he had. Both the young man and I would stop talking for a few minutes, let the air clear, and try to pick up where we had left off. This went on for about 20 minutes before it became apparent that he wasn’t going to stop and they we were both to gracious to say “Will you shut the F**# up! So we both just played our cards without comment. The old women too my right kept swearing under her breath in both English and Chinese Two young men at the other end of the table were talking about how to treat a women and none of their suggestions to each other were within a mile of political correctness let alone without potential jail time if some of the suggestions were followed.

Not only was the ambiance characterized by “crude, dumb and dumber”, this was the worst play I had ever seen, and I managed to lose $140 at it. On a Kill pot that was raised, I got my buy-in of $80 in on pocket Kings in good position. The flop came 3,A,9,. Three players saw the turn and all checked to me, so I wasn’t worried about an Ace in one of their hands, as I continued to lead the betting all the way when checked to. We lost one at the flop. The turn was a 5 card and I felt pretty sure this older fellow wouldn’t be betting this much on a 2,4 hand. He checked and I bet. He called. The river came with a 4 and he bet out. With a sick feeling in my stomach I called and he turned over his two cards an suited 2 & 3. He had played, and bet big money for this level, in a game that is ruled by high cards, the two lowest cards in the deck. I looked at this with genuine amazedment and said “Wow, nice hand!!!! with all the feigned sincerity, laced with sarcasm I could get out. He had a fair sized chip stack. What gives here? The young man next to me said the old guy has started to make some of his money back but he was stuck over $1500 from that kind of play.

I bought back in for $60 more and had another similar experience that I won’t go into. I rarely give in to the “voices in my head” but finally gave in to the nagging voice in my head that was repeating over and over….. “It is a beautiful day out… what are you doing… sitting in here… and participating in this lunacy”??? What could I say to that? Beside the young man to my left it was the only voice of sense and reason at this table. I said goodbye to the young man and said “I think I have had enough”. (I guess I am not a true degenerate gambler. Here was an opportunity to play with possibly the world’s worst players and I knew I wouldn’t enjoy this experience at all. I passed it up for a little more quality of life.)

It did take too long bouncing down the road in the RV with pokey and a hot cup of coffee to shake off that experience. It truly was a beautiful, sunny day, and Seattle beckoned ahead,.